Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 10:52 Currently in Cork. (Arrived last night.)
Looking forward to a brainstorming session with my Forest Eireann colleague John Mallon followed, this evening, by a convivial dinner with friends and supporters of Forest.
Posting may be light to non-existent over the next 24 hours ...
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 9:25 I'll keep this brief.
TV chef (and Forest patron) Antony Worrall Thompson has been cautioned by police for shoplifting.
The story has attracted a lot of comment, some of it on Forest's Facebook page.
I would prefer not to add fuel to the fire but Antony's connection with Forest has been mentioned in several reports and one or two things have been written online that invite a response. So I'll just say this:
At a time when very few public figures have been willing to defend smokers, Antony has been a courageous spokesman for tolerance and common sense.
For ten years he has been a very good friend to Forest and everyone who believes in freedom of choice.
He has supported our efforts when it would have been easier to keep his head down and not get involved.
Obviously we don't condone theft of any kind but everyone makes mistakes and we will stand by our friend as he has stood by us.
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 13:15 I don't mind admitting that I felt a little tearful at several points during The Iron Lady, which I watched yesterday at Cineworld in Huntingdon.
I took my children, aged 14 and 17, and they were by far the youngest people there. I looked around and most of the audience were women (or couples) 'of a certain age'.
A lot has been said and written about the film and this week even the Prime Minister chipped in. As it happens, I agree with David Cameron's view that it might have been better to wait until after Lady Thatcher's death before making a film that presents such a personal portrait of its subject in old age.
Hollywood, however, waits for no man (or woman) to die and overall I thoroughly enjoyed it. For an unreconstructed Thatcherite like me there were some spine tingling moments, both real and dramatised. These included newsreel of Britain's warships returning from the Falklands and the magnificent way she confronted and despatched the unlamented 'wets' in her first Cabinet. Her touching romance and marriage to Denis was also nicely handled.
For me (spoiler alert) the only scene that jarred was very near the end when the 'ghost' of DT left (for the last time) with what seemed to be a barbed comment about his wife being (I paraphrase) "alright on your own because you're used to it". (It followed a scene in which Mrs T was perceived to, unwittingly, put politics ahead of family matters - in this case her daughter Carol's driving test.)
My son however interpreted Denis's words differently. He thought it was an affectionate attempt to encourage his wife to survive her twilight years on her own because she had overcome similar isolation throughout her career.
So you can read individual scenes in different ways, but that's what makes good art - the audience decides. What is clear is that this is no hatchet job. Dramatic licence has created some poignant, occasionally uncomfortable moments dramatising Lady Thatcher's increasing dimentia dementia but at no point do they undermine or detract from her stunning political career or her many achievements.
Meryl Streep is undoubtedly magnificent in the role and there is a strong supporting cast. I'm sure there will be lots of arguments about what was left out. For example, one moment that is missing that should have been included (in my opinion) is Mrs T's heroic performance in the House of Commons following her resignation. That day even her opponents were forced to admit that we will never see her like again - well, not in our lifetimes.
This is a minor quibble however. The Iron Lady is a 90-minute Hollywood film not a 26-part Britain at War style documentary.
Friends of Lady Thatcher (who understandably wish to protect both her reputation and her privacy) may not agree, but The Iron Lady is a minor triumph from almost every perspective.
In fact, the only people who may have cause to denounce it are domestic opponents and international enemies of Britain's greatest living prime minister.
Yes, The Iron Lady is that good. Rejoice!
Friday, January 6, 2012 at 13:46 Karl McCartney is the latest MP to be criticised for accepting hospitality from a tobacco company.
The Lincolnshire Echo reports that "The Tory MP accepted hospitality totalling more than £1,300 from Japan Tobacco International (JTI), which produces Benson and Hedges and Silk Cut".
His 'crime' was to attend the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show last May. Although there was no attempt to hide it – details of the tickets were declared by McCartney in the Register of Members' Interests – tobacco control activists have been quick to condemn him and other MPs who have accepted hospitality from tobacco companies.
According to the Echo, "the chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Smoking and Health, Stephen Williams, has renewed calls on the Government to tighten up the regulation of lobbying".
In case Stephen Williams has forgotten, the APPG of which he is chairman is effectively run by ASH, a self-styled health charity but in reality a lobby group that relies to a significant extent on public money and should therefore be subject to far greater scrutiny than it actually is.
When Karl McCartney asked for details of how ASH is funded plus details about the number of people associated with ASH who have placements with the Department of Health and other areas of Government, he was simply doing his job on behalf of millions of taxpayers and those who believe in open government. He should be applauded, not demonised.
Meanwhile the APPG on Smoking and Health gives ASH and other tobacco control bodies the sort of access to MPs that other stakeholders can only dream about. So it's one rule for them and another for those who take a different view on how to tackle an issue such as smoking.
This week's condemnation of Karl McCartney is merely the latest in a series of attacks on MPs who have been "treated" to "gifts" from Big Tobacco. In December Wales Online reported that:
Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan was treated to two tickets to the Chelsea Flower Show and lunch by Japan Tobacco International, the Wales Office has revealed.
Former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain subsequently tabled a written question asking "whether any ministers ... have received hospitality from Japan Tobacco International since May 2010".
Hain is of course no stranger to controversy. In 2008 he admitted failing to declare more than £100,000 in donations to his campaign to be Labour deputy leader. In terms of openness, the likes of Karl McCartney have nothing to learn from the MP for Neath.
Nor is Hain a stranger to hospitality. Last year the Telegraph revealed that "Peter Hain, the former Labour Cabinet minister, had [accepted] two tickets for the British Grand Prix worth £782 from the Motor Sports Association".
In the past, courtesy of Sky Sports (part-owned by Rupert Murdoch), he has enjoyed freebies to see Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. Oh, and he has also attended the Monaco Grand Prix, travel and ticket paid for by the Automobile Club de Monaco.
So Hain thinks it's OK for him to enjoy corporate hospitality but when an MP with a genuine interest in tobacco policy (and public health) accepts hospitality from a legitimate stakeholder that's unacceptable – or, as tobacco control likes to say, "disappointing".
Truth is, tobacco control doesn't want MPs to have anything to do with the tobacco companies or groups such as Forest. The thought of a level playing field, with opposing sides of the debate being given equal access to MPs and government ministers, fills them with alarm.
One has to question why. After all, if they were so sure of their case they would surely welcome a full and frank discussion. Instead they refuse to share a platform with us and, worse, resort to darker tactics including pathetic attempts to smear the names of politicians who are open and democratic enough to listen to all sides of the debate.
PS. For the sake of transparency I must plead guilty to accepting the following hospitality from JTI in 2011: Roxy Music at the O2 Arena and cricket at The Oval (England v India). I was also invited to ‘Building the Revolution - Soviet Art and Architecture’ at the Royal Academy of Arts but couldn't go.
Previous offences include tickets to see Girls Aloud, Suede and Strictly Come Dancing at the O2 Arena; cricket at Lords (England v South Africa); and 'Connecting with Colour', Royal Academy of Arts.
Oddly enough, none of these 'gifts' has ever encouraged me to start smoking any brand of cigarette, let alone Benson and Hedges or Silk Cut.
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 14:06 I was on the Stephen Nolan Show (BBC Radio Ulster) this morning.
We were discussing a recent report that 'Smokers who light up outside three hospitals in north Wales will trigger an alarm and loudspeaker message telling them to stop.'
Forget the Orwellian, Big Brother nature of this initiative (which is not the first of its kind), the most striking thing for me is the fact that smokers are going to be assailed by the same message in two languages!!
Anyway, I won't bore you with what I said (I think you can guess) but I was struck by something Nolan said. Speaking to Andrew Jones, executive director of public health for the health board, he asked whether similar warnings would be shouted at obese people caught eating a Mars Bar.
He may have been playing devil's advocate but the question wasn't entirely frivolous.
Returning to the matter in hand, Jones said that smoking is costing the NHS (in Wales, I assume) one million pounds a day, which is a remarkably neat round figure.
Smokers, I wanted to shout, not only pay far more than that in taxation, they help pay your effing salary. We need to remind public sector workers of this at every opportunity.
PS. Stephen Nolan is one of the great British broadcasters. He should be given the mid morning slot on Five Live on a permanent basis. Unfortunately someone at the BBC loves Victoria Derbyshire so that ain't going to happen any time soon.
Thursday, January 5, 2012 at 9:43 Last night's The Smoking Years on BBC4 was the proverbial game of two halves.
The first half was an interesting and occasionally unexpected slice of social history. I certainly didn't expect to hear a former president of the British Medical Association (filmed in 1999) say:
"Monty [Field Marshal Montgomery] went round handing out cigarettes to the soldiers. He encouraged everyone to smoke and certainly in the war we smoked and it really was when you were rather short of food, and food was rather boring, smoking was quite a help, I must say."
The academic from Birmingham University (I didn't catch his name) was measured and articulate. So too was Chris Snowdon (Velvet Glove Iron Fist) and when other familiar faces – cigar loving Simon Chase (Hunters & Frankau) and James Leavey (Forest Guide to Smoking in London) – appeared on screen I gave a silent cheer.
The second half was far less balanced. Pubs, for example, were portrayed (even by smokers such as Leavey) as so fuggy that you could barely see the bar. We've all been in pubs like that but even before the smoking ban they had become the exception rather than the norm.
Likewise, according to Stuart Maconie (another smoker), you had to feel your way around the top of a bus when people were smoking.
At times it felt like a different programme and the final third could best be described as the Cecilia Farren Show. We learned that Farren (the founder of GASP) is an ex-smoker who was converted to a life without tobacco when she met a man who was both "fit and fit!". He was a clean living guy, apparently, and snogging him was such a life changing experience Farren not only gave up smoking, she became an ardent anti-smoker.
Cue lots of still photos and videos of Farren as a young woman and campaigner. (I assume this was why she got a special credit at the end, under the heading "The BBC thanks". None of the other interviewees was honoured in this way.)
There was something rather hippyish about these images. Farren was portrayed as an ingenue fighting the dark forces of Big Tobacco on behalf of a grateful silent majority. No mention of the fact that GASP is now a highly successful commercial enterprise. Or the role of the pharmaceutical industry in the relentless drive towards an intolerant and illiberal 'smoke free' world.
In fact, there wasn't a single dissenting voice against the tobacco taliban. Instead The Smoking Years concluded with the narrator declaring:
The smoker, a breed for too long favoured and catered for by society, is now being hounded. Forbidden to display the traits for which it was celebrated, as the singular animal amongst the herd, the smoker today is a diminished, anguished, exhausted creature.
A culture once shockingly in love with the American leaf is fading away, its lost aroma too nostalgic for some, too acrid for most, profitable for the few.
The smoker is a truly endangered species yet it seems to be accepting its fate to live in a smoke free world.
This was truly bizarre because it bore little relation to the initial tone of the programme, which was far more neutral. It was as if two scripts had collided and been welded together.
The Smoking Years wasn't bad but it could and should have been so much better.
Verdict: a wasted opportunity. Oh, and I'd to know why the BBC felt the need to "thank" Cecilia Farren. She should be thanking the BBC for the exposure!!
Wednesday, January 4, 2012 at 15:59 Last April I received the following email:
Dear Simon,
I'm working on a BBC Four television documentary using lots of archive and interviews to tell a narrative of British culture and our relationship with smoking over the years. I very much want it to reflect on the past and to bring up to date the changes that have all had an impact on the smoking public and where it goes from here.
It's not an anti-smoking film but a balanced and nostalgic look on a Britain that embraced the cigarette as a patriotic necessity and found it cool to smoke. We want to explore the science, politics and cultural changes over the 20th century that has directly impacted smoking.
I'd very much like to talk to you about the programme.
Kind regards,
I rang back and we had a long chat. The programme, I was told, is part of a series called Timeshift. I raised the civil liberties aspect and the issue of passive smoking, explaining that this was the reason why smokers have been increasingly victimised and isolated.
I added that the media had shown little interest in questioning the 'facts' so I suggested that she should speak to Joe Jackson. (I think I sent her a copy of Joe's seminal essay, The Smoking Issue).
I suggested one or two other people they might interview. (David Hockney was one.) I also recommended that they film on the smoking terrace at Boisdale where they could speak to ordinary people who enjoy smoking, but heard nothing more.
Tonight Timeshift: The Smoking Years is broadcast on BBC4 at 9.00pm. According to the BBC website:
Timeshift reveals the story of the creature that is 'the smoker'. How did this species arrive on our shores? Why did it become so sexy - and so dominant in our lives? Was there really a time when everywhere people could be found shrouded in a thick blue cloud?
Enlisting the help of Barry Cryer, Stuart Maconie and others, The Smoking Years tells the unnatural history of a quite remarkable - and now threatened - creature.
Barry Cryer and Stuart Maconie?! Cryer is a smoker but don't expect a spirited defence of tobacco. He's far more likely to tell a self-deprecating joke. Maconie is a ubiquitous talking head who has made a career appearing on programmes that require no more than the briefest of shallow soundbites.
As for the "others", the alarm bells started ringing as soon as I read the Radio Times preview:
It’s odd to recall how, 30-odd years ago, smokers were free to puff away on buses, in offices, cinemas and restaurants. Here’s the story of the rise and fall of smoking in a lively, entertaining documentary full of surprising snippets. Most interesting [my emphasis] is campaigner Cecilia Farren, who tells how she first put smokers on the retreat, and heading for the designated area.
Would that, by any chance, be the Cecilia Farren who once accused the tobacco industry of a "terror campaign" and, on another occasion, attempted to 'name and shame' me at a tobacco control conference in Edinburgh?
Farren is also the founder of GASP, "your one-stop shop for stop smoking, smokefree and tobacco education resources".
Can't wait to hear what she has to say and who (if anyone) takes issue with her comments. This, however, is the BBC so I won't be holding my breath.
Monday, January 2, 2012 at 16:29 I originally added this as an update to yesterday's New Year message but I think it deserves greater prominence:
Congratulations to David Hockney.
Britain's greatest living artist – a member of Forest's Supporters Council – has been appointed a member of the Order of Merit by the Queen.
The order, the BBC reports, was created by King Edward VII in 1902 and is restricted to 24 members and "rare additional foreign recipients".
Curiously, an anti-smoking comment along the lines of 'Hockney is not worthy of the Order because he's a smoker' has been removed from the BBC website.
Update: The AFP news agency reports that:
British artist David Hockney has responded to his appointment to the Order of Merit with typical humour, saying he was glad his controversial campaign for smokers' rights had not worked against him.
"Hockney," AFP explains, "is a pro-tobacco campaigner who has regularly spoken out in favour of smokers' rights".
The Order of Merit, says the agency, is a "personal gift from the sovereign."
More than that, confides the Independent, it is a "hugely prestigious award bestowed by the Queen without ministerial advice" (my emphasis).
Below: David Hockney with Greg Knight MP at the Save Our Pubs & Clubs reception in June. See David Hockney lights up the House of Commons.
See also: Looking for David Hockney (video)
