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Sunday
Jan082023

Smoking in church? Might boost the numbers

One of my favourite TV programmes in 2022 was Slow Horses on Apple TV.

It’s based on a series of books by Mick Herron that I had never heard of until I watched the first series, broadcast earlier last year.

It’s a very British spy thriller that doesn’t take itself seriously and each episode absolutely flies by.

The main character is an ageing, uncouth MI5 agent called Jackson Lamb, played brilliantly by Gary Oldman.

Lamb is a heavy smoker which led to this exchange in the sixth and final episode of series two that ‘dropped’ a week ago.

Entering a church, Lamb comments:

“These places haven’t been the same since they banned smoking.”

“Yeah,” mutters his young colleague River Cartwright (Jack Lowden). “You were never allowed to smoke in a church.”

“Well they should reconsider that,” shoots back Lamb. “Might boost the numbers.”

Another programme I’ve just finished watching is Strike: Troubled Blood (BBC One) which is based on the fifth novel in the Cormoran Strike series, written by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling).

Again, the leading male character is an habitual smoker. I mentioned this when I watched the first series in 2017, noting:

There was an amusing scene in the second episode of Strike: The Cuckoo's Calling, on BBC One last night.

Set in a central London pub, it featured Tom Burke, playing private investigator Cormoran Strike, and Holliday Grainger as Strike's "intelligent and resourceful new temp" Robin Ellacott.

Confessing he was a "wee bit pissed", Strike had a cigarette between his lips and was asking "Have you got a light?" when it was gently removed by his assistant who reminded him, in a non-hectoring way, "You can't smoke in here."

To which Strike groaned and replied: "They've ruined pubs. Pubs used to be bloody brilliant."

Interestingly (spoiler alert!!) the suspected killer in Troubled Blood was a cross-dresser but that was apparently too controversial for the BBC so the character in the TV series has been changed and doesn’t dress like a Cornish version of Norman Bates.

With that in mind let’s just be grateful that neither Strike nor Jackson Lamb have been forced to give up the fags. ASH must be fuming.

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