Woke up this morning to hear the Today programme talking about David Hockney.
The great man has accused the Guardian of refusing to publish a letter in which he wrote at length, and in positive terms, about smoking.
To be fair to the paper it is long but that’s not the reason they haven’t published it.
According a spokesman, “We receive hundreds of letters a day and cannot publish them all. However, we are not aware of recently receiving a letter from David Hockney.”
Anyway, the Mail has done us all a favour by publishing an edited version and I’m sure you’d like to read it.
Here are some excerpts:
I will be 83 in two months. I walk a bit slower, rarely exercise and have never been to a gym in my life, but I am very active and have already made 85 iPad drawings depicting the arrival of spring in our large garden. Now we have Covid-19, and surprise, surprise, a lot of reports are coming out saying that smokers rarely get it. Could there be something in this?
Well, the only time I had the flu was 1969, the year I didn't smoke. I thought I was dying and I was in bed for a week in New York. I suspect the leader of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) may have something to say about all this. I do not know her but I expect she is a mean-spirited bossy-boots obsessed with death. There are lots of them in England and they seem to be running everything today ...
Now let's get back to the people who don't like smoking. Well, they have now triumphed, smoking cannot be tolerated. A large percentage of the people who smoked went to pubs for a smoke and a drink. I don't have to say that pubs aren't health clubs, do I? But why not have pubs that allow smokers? They do in Germany and Austria, but the mean-spirited bossy dreary people won't tolerate this here.
Britain used to be a tolerant place. To tolerate something is to put up with something you might not like. This is now gone for smokers. The British medical establishment believes it will be win, win, win. They also cannot understand that time is elastic. It is the intensity of life that counts, not longevity.
He also writes:
There is no such thing as a professional smoker but there are a few thousand professional anti-smokers all funded by the smokers themselves. It's a ridiculous situation that I resent.
To read the edited letter in full, click here and scroll down.
Below: David Hockney with Sir Greg Knight MP at a reception organised by Forest at the House of Commons in 2011
