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Go on, have a smoke. (Photo by CARL COURT / AFP) (Photo by CARL COURT/AFP via Getty Images)
I will be 84 next month — even though I have smoked since I was sixteen. I started with five Woodbines and now I smoke Davidoff magnums which I have to get from Germany.
I recently told my doctor I smoke twenty a day, then about ten in the evenings — and I try and keep it down to five during the night. I also told him that I have had three doctors in the last fifty years. Each of them recommended I give up. But each of them has now died; the last one only a year older than me. My new doctor laughed and said nothing. He has a good sense of humour.
My father was a very keen anti-smoker, but he died at 75 because he ate too many chocolate biscuits. He was a diabetic who would walk up the street to buy a packet of chocolate biscuits and then eat them all in the park. This caused him to go into comas, which he did once too often and died of a heart attack in the hospital. He knew that going into a coma damages your heart, but he was a lot more worried about the smokers.
I knew this was completely irrational, but I also knew that he wasn’t alone. One of the reasons I moved to Normandy was because there are many people in England like him who are now trying to ban smoking. All of them are humourless bossy boots.
They are now trying it in Oxfordshire, which wants to become England’s first “smoke-free” county. I have no plans to go there. I was once invited by the Oxford Union to a debate on smoking, but I had to decline because of my deafness — although I did also point out that there’s not a hotel in Oxford where you can smoke.
It is the relentlessness of these people that has demonised smoking in England and America. Why are they listened to? It wouldn’t happen in France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
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SubscribeAs much as I dislike smoking, I prefer smokers to the sanctimonious scolds who would ban it.
The issue has to be greater than sanctimony
That’s very deep, or at least ambiguous. At any rate, …what?
I have suffered from breathing problems like bronchitis all my life so don’t like people using their burning bit of paper as an offensive weapon (waving their arms about near people ) which also leaves my hair and clothes smelling of cigarette. Women and the young are the new growth market as they use cigarettes to suppress appetite. David Hockney comes from a time when films and plays used the dispensing of cigarettes ( and alcohol) as a civilised welcome with all the glamourous accoutrements such as cigarette boxes etc -rather like offering coffee and biscuits now .It is ironic that the authorities wish to stop smoking in public but don’t mind people smoking ‘weed’ which requires rizzlas and matches so is presumably still something others can breathe in.Perhaps Hockney should just buy his own pub & invite all his mates around to smoke?
While I sympathise with your not liking smoking for perfectly good personal reasons, you hit the nail on the head at the end.
Hockney can’t buy his own pub and smoke with his friends because smoking in all pubs has been banned for everyone. Why can’t people who want to smoke go to a pub where they can smoke? There has got to be a market for smoke-free pubs for people who’d rather not. People who don’t want to smoke go there, and everyone’s happy.
Reintroduce,Smoke Saloons like in 1960s,1970s ..
In Denmark, you’re allowed to smoke if the pub is less than 40 sqm, and doesn’t serve food. Funnily enough, there are a surprising number of pubs there sized 39.9 sqm. I’m not a smoker myself, but think that’s a great solution
China,Africa are the New Big Markets…
I don’t like how it smells either, but there are lots of smells I don’t like. There are lots of things one encounters in public that one doesn’t like. For example, I find dogs in airports and restaurants extremely annoying, and I’m a touch allergic. You’ll easily overhear me complaining to people about it, but you won’t find me lobbying for the government to step in and make people behave how I want them to. Is preventing you from a few seconds of coughing truly worth stepping all over the preferences of others?
I don’t smoke, and I don’t particularly like the smell of cigarette smoke either, but I am tired of the efforts of so many people to control others with the force of law. It’s mostly women and weak, opportunistic, men who feel the need to invoke the power of the state in this kind of horseshit.
“Perhaps Hockney should just buy his own pub & invite all his mates around to smoke?”
But that is the problem; you cannot smoke in a public house even if you own it. You have linked in your comment a number of other items which no doubt the scolds will come for eventually; alcohol, coffee and biscuits. You have also, correctly, identified that weed will in due course be made legal. That is the world we are in now; a world sedated by progressive control-freaks;
“Zen fascists will control you.
100 per cent natural.
You will jog for the master race,
And always wear the Happy Face”.
Seconded. I have never smoked, but the company of smokers, the mild associated health risk, and the smelly clothes the next day are all far preferable to that of the slab-faced nincompoops who never at any time pass the basic test of minding their own f*****g business.
I remember years ago reading a magazine interview with a non-smoking musician (though I don’t remember who it was). He always chose to sit in the smoking area on long-haul flights because the company was more interesting and entertaining.
I couldn’t agree more. I loathe smoking but if someone wants to do it, do so.
along with sanctimonious vegans because they irritate me beyond coming back!
Why is it that we can no longer be ‘anti’ something without wanting to ban it?
I’m anti many things: Smoking, Cycling, Grime music, Veganism, to name a few.
I’ll argue against them all day after a few beers, but at no point do I ever feel I have the moral authority to ban anyone else from doing them.
I think being ‘anti’ something is more or less being inherently opposed to it and therefore by extension wanting it to be banned or prohibited – being anti-abortion for instance implicitly means you don’t want abortions to be legal. Meanwhile, if you simply don’t have a preference for something or dislike it or don’t agree with it in practice but do not necessarily want it to be banned, I think the prefix ‘non’ works best. I’m a non-smoker but I’m not anti-smoking, I’m a non-vegan but I’m not anti-veganism etc.
good distinction though I think the ‘ban’ part comes into effect as soon as it seems the practice could feasibly be banned. You can’t really ban people from listening to grime music, so no one would infer a desire to ban the genre even if they may assume you wish it didn’t exist.
How on the hell can you be anti veganism or cycling? What exactly do you advocate for? The most efficient method of short duration mass transport and the most carbon and water efficient way of eating in modern agricultural society.
I think you are anti vegan, but not anti veganism. Vegans are preachy fuckers, but being vegan is something I completely understand.
What a delightfully clear comment. Thank you.
It’s a matter of being considerate to others. It’s so rare nowadays to hear someone ask, “do you mind if I smoke?”. Now it’s “I’ll smoke if I want to and you can f—off”, (to quote Hockney’s delightful sentiment.)
Maybe there is a reason for that? Suspect what you describe is not only because manners as a whole have deteriorated, but also a natural reaction to being lectured and having things that some people enjoy banned.
As a smoker for well over 45yrs – I never smoked in a restaurant if ANYONE else had food on their table and even if everyone had finished coffees etc I always asked – I’d go outside happily. At least in those days the ciggarette stubs would be contained in ashtrays rather than all over the street!
I love anti smokers! like vegans, sandaloid eco tree huggers and racist obsessives they are such fabulous p..ss taker fodder, and can provide hours of entertainment in dull moments!!
Splendidly put Sir!
I particularly enjoyed your sentence: “Their (Doctors)obsession with health is unhealthy. Longevity shouldn’t be an aim in life; that to me seems to be life-denying”.
What an apposite remark at a time like this when this once proud nation has descended into a state of unparalleled funk, produced by the slightly premature deaths of a few Legions of octogenarians.
This Tyranny of Doctors (TOD)will destroy Western Civilisation as knew it unless we are very careful.
However perhaps like Ancient Rome we are already just too decadent and self obsessed, hence the rise of the TOD and pseudo religious awe the semi divine NHS is held in.
Anyone for a f*g?
“Anyone for a f*g?”
Never smoked a cigarette in my life… but I’d take a Cuban cigar, if you were to offer me one!
Are you within range of the Reform Club?
Not literally at this moment, but quite often!
Ive idolised this man as an artist all my life since I first saw his portrait of his Father and the swimming pool series. Would he frame some of his cigarette stubs for me of I asked nicely do you think? I finally gave up smoking owing to my husbands asthma. I could just sit and gaze at his stubs and think of what could have been. Incidentally I saw a series of paintings he did in Salts Mill of the East coast of Yorkshire around 45 yrs ago. They were stunning but not on public display. Can they be seen somewhere? Id love to see them again. They were unforgettable..
Look on line. All his paintings have been photographed and catalogued. I don’t have a link to hand. Like you, I also fell in love with his swimming pool series. And i was amazed when i went through all his series of paintings on how huge a scope his styles and interests covered.
I remember visiting his small studio in Chelsea back when i was young and lived nearby (I was taken by an artist boyfriend) but then he moved away. Sadly, I remember going there but not the paintings.
Might this help?
https://www.thequirkytraveller.com/hockney-salts-mill-saltaire-yorkshire/
Thanks Susan. I’ll take a look.
With you there. Is the TOD also fuelling the abject fear of the Big Bogey Coronavirus or, as I call it, the BBC?
Undoubtedly.
You’ll be Lucky to see Your GP ,soon, they worry, They Could catch SARS2?…no hypocratic Oath nowadays?..
On £100K + pa why would they take the risk?
After all today it’s all about ME,ME,ME!
Great article. The dialectic left think they can perfect society. Mr Hockney lives outside that odious illusion , greedily enjoy ing two narcotics, tobacco and art. If more people found ways of living a fulfilling life, rather than a long one, they could die happy.
Smoking has its worst effects on poorer people.
He used to Live in San Jose California?..
I have never smoked – never felt the desire but nor do I want it banned. In fact I organised a petition at work when they took the smoking room away pointing out that heroin addicts get more sympathy & money spent on them than smokers. Smokers pay taxes on their addiction of choice – drug abusers don’t. Banning things because they are “bad for you” is the thin end of the wedge. Sick of living in a nanny state.
I took a friend to A&E recently – not one of the staff was underweight and yet they have the cheek to say Loose weight – save the NHS!!!
Good for you David Hockney.
I grew up in a smoker’s world, my home, pubs, the teacher’s common room at my high school used to belch out smoke if the door was opened. I smoked from 16 till 23, I gave up by smoking mild weed instead – you can’t maintain that for long, well I could’nt, it got me off the tobacco. I missed it for years though.
My grandfather smoked and died at 90 and so did my mother.
Unfortunately I find the smell quite unpleasant now but surely we are technologically savvy enough now to find a way to let people smoke without offending people who don’t smoke.
A friend of mine was approached on a huge, empty Californian beach by a woman who claimed that his smoking was “bothering my children”. So he told her to f-off.
The perfect response.
Judging by Hockney’s remark it seems to be the default response of smokers to a reasonable request.
Your friend was selfish and rude. Not something to promote
It would have been better if he had not sworn at the woman, I don’t understand why he did that. Surely the thing to do in response to her, on a huge empty beach, would have been to get up, move further away and then light up in peace. She’d look pretty stupid walking a considerable distance to complain again.
Huzzah!
People have a right to feel ‘offended’. Enjoy that right whilst you can.
Have never smoked. Have never defended banning smoking. Apart from anything else, it’s the thin end of the wedge.
If you accept the principle that a state suthority can override you in managing your health, absolute tyranny will ensue, because you will never be able to draw a line. There will always be a good reason to go further.
As we have painfully discovered these last 16 months.
Yes, when the smoking ban was imposed on the West, I knew that it would be the beginning of growing state interference in the form of health and safety paternalism. Unfortunately, many people seem to enjoy being told what to do and think.
In particular the Irish: They just love it!
First the evil Saxons*, then the Catholic Church, now the
Kerrygold Republic.
It’s hard to imagine a more supine people.
(* The dreaded English/British!)
People cannot be stopped from smoking per se. Most smokers are courteous, like David Hockney no doubt. In other people’s homes the common courtesy guidance was to ask if anyone minds if you ‘light up’. Or, just go outside. Of course in pubs you never had to ask.
In 2007 I thought they could have put in place a system of smoking/non-smoking pubs. There could have been a small quota of smoking pubs for each locality. Maybe anti-social and controlling in itself but at least that source pleasure for so many – a drink with a smoke, in public, indoors – would have remained available.
(I quit finally 25 years ago. Being mildly asthmatic it was a wise thing to do.)
The demise of pubs surly must be a bother. Smokers always seemed a fellowship that when banned, their custom and desires seemed to end.
A friend and colleague of mine, who was in her early 60s at the time and quite a heavy smoker, said the same thing about the cameraderie that exists among smokers, especially in a place – like California, where she lived for a long time – where there are few of them and there are no indoor places where they are allowed to indulge. When she found herself at the back of a building or parking lot having a puff with an odd assortment of misfits from all walks of life she could always get into an interesting conversation, and people were always friendly and polite to each other.
Sadly, she died of what was probably a smoking-related cancer before she reached 70.
Oxfordshire explained its wish to ban smoking on the well-worn grounds that it is dangerous to smoker and non-smoker alike and that it might help to reduce the cost of treating those suffering from its effects. Neither Oxfordshire nor any of those groups who oppose smoking feels the same way about drinking. And that’s odd given that the link between passive smoking and its health consequences has never been proven, unlike the impact of passive drinking which is well recorded. For example, no one ever went home and beat up his partner or children as a result of having one too many Benson and Hedges down at the pub. At weekends the A&E departments of our hospitals are not overrun by abusive, vomiting smokers and as far as I know there have been vanishingly few road accidents where smoking has been factor. If health (rather a virtue signalling) was really a factor in any of this then Oxfordshire might first have considered a ban on soft drinks and fatty foods, rather than trying to introduce the proscription of fags, because the cost to the National Health of obesity already dwarfs that of smoking and is set to continue to rise, given that only 19% of the UK population now smokes whereas already 40% of it categorised as obese. However in a world where the fat shout that they are being shamed whenever the subject comes up and where drunks hide behind the claim that they have a disease, smokers are apparently to be afforded no similar avenue of relief.
Precisely, the fat should be excoriated from our society. They are by far, the most obvious sign of decadence.
As for the drunks, at least they can no longer drive or fly*.
As the NHS is obviously incapable, we need to initiate a campaign against the fatties…..starting with the PM.
(* legally.)
Probably better to campaign against the ‘food’ manufacturers that peddle their addictively delicious mix of fat and sugar. Not many know that the ‘bliss point’ in many cases uses MRI technology to see when the brain ‘lights up’ at this point, then they know the recipe is it’s at it’s pinnacle of moreishness. Just compare old 40’s and 50’s films to see how slim people where then compared to now.
They were thin because they all smoked.
I suppose all the skinny kids smoked too, then?
Occasionally the grauniad shows photo caches from the Olden Daze – pre1980 – and it is rare to see anyone chubby, let alone obese.
And none were children.
Because of obesity most hospitals have to “update their morgues,trolleys, lifts, operating tables etc” to cope with the extra weight/bulk required, but you never hear about that on the news!
Great piece.
Not to dismiss this great man’s opinion and speaking as an ex-smoker myself, having started on Marlboros and my nana’s occasionally purloined Piccadillys and No 6s when I was 8, he doesn’t mention the less pleasant effects the habit has on those who chose not to smoke and once upon a time couldn’t avoid, not least on public transport.
Smoking areas on open planes and buses. What was that all about really?
Still, not much dafter than blanket banning smoking in entirely open spaces nowadays.
Personally, I think it’s a shame that some venues like pubs and clubs weren’t given the option to remain ‘cigarette friendly’, advertise and make a virtue of the fact as this decision would, ultimately, have been driven by economics, but even then I’m sure the HSE and regulations would have eventually priced most of them out the market anyway.
Very well put. I find it funny that many on the left argue for the legalisation of drugs but essential support banning smoking. Whereas many on the right champion the rights of smokers but want to continue the prohibition of other drugs.
That’s because more pot smokers vote Democrat. And rural areas that grow tobacco are Republican.
We vote neither Democrat nor Republican in the UK. There are readers other than Americans!
Its because drug use doesn’t inheriantly harm those around you. If your drug of choice is nicotine then get it through a patch, or an injection.
Debatable. Have you ever lived with a drugged person? I haven’t, but I heard plenty about it.
I said “inheriantly” – drugs effect mental state, so does alcohol. Living with people under the influence of mind altering drugs might not be fun – it might be downright dangerous, but it in itself doesn;t harm you.
Danger from second hand smoke is overblown.
I see what you did there.
Give your scientific evidence for that last claim, or stop spouting unjustifiable crap.
Onus is on those who claim that it is damaging.
“Its” meaning “it is” = it’s
“inheriantly” does not have a letter ‘i’ nor letter ‘a’ thus, correct spelling = inherently
“Its because drug use doesn’t inheriantly harm those around you.”
Don’t be absurd. Cannabis is a dangerous drug, both to the user and others. Cigarette smoke can be a mild annoyance. Even the potential of a link between cannabis and psychotic episodes (read studies by e.g. Sir Robin Murray and from Sweden) justifies a ban.
I have seen the mental damage smoking cannabis can do to people. I’ve never seen the same from smoking cigarettes. It’s also worth looking up the list of terrorists who smoke cannabis.
I understand the word ‘assassin’ comes from the Arabic ‘hashshashin’, meaning hashish users. No Shi-ite.
It does make sense! 🙂
The hashashin were in fact a Shia group – very violent lot too apparently. …
No it doesn’t there’s no clear evidence of causation but even if there was it only affects a small percentage of users. I should be able to make my own decisions.
“Its because drug use doesn’t inheriantly harm those around you.”
Tell that to the close family of addicts.
It’s called a topsy-turvy world my friend.
Great article and Hockney does have a point. I have never smoked (disgusts me) but have no wish to stop others who wish to partake. The drug that destroys most people’s health is sugar and it’s the most addictive. Alcohol is the most visibly destructive drug out there. Smoking, on paper, looks like the easiest pray for the righteous “authoritarian brigade”.
They would never ban sugar. They have statins to cure all diet ills that the major pharma companies can “provide” just like the cigarette companies provide cigarettes.
You’re absolutely right about statins, and there was once talk of them being generally prescribed to anyone over a certain age. The latest candidate is metformin (for diabetes), which I think will end up being used more widely. As you suggest, it’s a tacit admission that most people will binge, even those who are apparently healthy (ie thin!), and will therefore need something to take the edge off those glucose spikes!
Bullseye!
Quite right about alcohol. In Ireland the official HSE ‘safe’ amount is zero; but it brings in lots of revenue, so I guess they don’t want to push that too hard.
Go to the WHO or any health authority you trust, and look up info about who dies from lung cancer. Hint: the majority of them are NOT cigarette smokers!
Indeed so. I had a dose of lung cancer a few years ago (found early fortunately). I said to my surgeon, ” I haven’t smoked for years”.
He replied that less than 30% of people with lung cancer were smokers.
I have lost 4 friends to lung cancer, 3 were never smokers nor were their husbands. All diagnosed late as brainwashed Drs. Think if you never smoked it can’t be lung cancer. I tell friends to say they used to smoke then they might get checked.
The other thing you may like to consider is an ECG.
The Civil Aviation Authority insists that pilots over 50 have an ECG every SIX months!
It’s your best chance of detecting Atherosclerosis at an early stage and thus preventing Heart Block*.
(* speaking from personal experience.)
Fascinating, thank you!
I am also a lung cancer survivor. Hadn’t smoked in over 15 years. Check out the Roy Castle foundation to see so many young never smokers. Probably diagnosed too late for that very reason. Also Dr. Sarah Halberg devoting so much of her career to help diabetics understand how the carbs in their diets are affecting their condition has now been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer although she is a young never smoker. Sugar would never be banned.
David, you old sweetheart! True Brit. Don’t tread on him. Life free and die how you choose.
If you don’t drink and you don’t smoke, you may not live longer, but it’ll sure feel you are…
That aside, in these days of additional deaths etc. those 8 million wouldn’t have died of something else? I’m guessing many of them were getting to that age where you do.
My Grandad smoked a similar quantity per day as the author for his 80-odd years. As a child I distinctly recall the disgusting smell of their house and the yellowing paint on the walls. A decade or so later my commute into central London required a tube ride and on occasion the only one I could squeeze into was the solitary smokers carriage. Looking at the ceiling, the rivulets of yellow snaking down, and the awful stench, reminded me so much of my visits to my grandparents.
In a purportedly free society, if folk want to burn their cash that way, fine, but it’s the effect on non-smokers that I have issues with.
Actually most people’s houses smell ‘disgusting’, whether they smoke or not. It’s just that they are used to it, and fail to register it consciously. Anyone visiting anyone else’s house notices it right away, but it would be impolite to comment.
As for the old days, most people smoked then. Yes, the situation has now rightfully changed, but too far in the opposite direction.
True, other peoples homes smell different but not disgusting (usually). My parents smoke and their house smells of stale smoke that gets into your clothes. The ceiling paint goes yellow a few months after painting. The door frames look like there was a fire.
A lot of people noticed that when the smoking ban came in the predominant smell in many pubs was of urine
And until they were deemed ‘unhygienic’ the peanuts on the bar top contained urine too, although I never heard anyone dying (apart from choking) from eating them. We are too clean today.
Literally ‘pee nuts’!
Euw! I guess that’s why in Canada, when bars offer free peanuts they have to be still in the shell.
In some of my favourite pubs in my impoverished student days, you could easily get your daily protein requirement in one of those places, for the price of a single draft beer. The floors were always littered with shells; it was part of their charm. In one place the server would sweep them off your table with his hand and a stern reminder, if you left them there instead of throwing them on the floor.
Smoker’s homes smell uniquely disgusting, no matter how clean they are, and the smell is carried out by anyone who’s been in them for more than an hour, settling into the clothes and hair.
Back when recreational tobacco use started, it was not done all over the house but confined to a single room; I think people, ironically, must have understood back then how much it stank up everything and how offensive it could be to those who didn’t indulge, even if they knew nothing about the health hazards.
One of several ‘bad habits’ acquired at university and, like most others, long discarded. After presenting to my rather avuncular former GP with what turned out to be a common bacterial complaint (one frequently mistaken for more serious conditions), which was exacerbated by lazy and gluttonous habits, the good natured dressing down he gave me hit home: “Can you eat some vegetables, do some exercise, moderate your alcohol intake and stop smoking?” I nodded, sheepishly. “Good, you should live to a grand old age then!” I returned to the sporting activities that I had ignored since entering the workplace and found they gave me a great kick again.
But what of others? The above all took place around the time of the UK smoking ban. While I had no desire to return to puffing away (although I did miss smoking a briar pipe, which I had turned to to cut down on cigarettes and look stylish), I saw the demise in what George Melly referred to as ‘smoky dives’; and socialising would be changed forever. I guess now I wouldn’t want to sit in a smoke filled bar, but can’t help mourning that which was was lost. I still enjoy a pint of good English bitter or a glass or two of red wine with my dinner. If I approve of ordering others not to smoke, will they come for my Beaujolais and claret? They will need to prize it from my cold, dead fingers!
I greatly enjoyed this article and applaud Unherd for publishing it. I stopped smoking 35 years ago ( after 20 years and aged 36) when dragging myself and my drip back to my hospital ward from the smoking room ( they really did have such in NHS hospitals in those days). It was the realisation of the depth of my physical addiction that really troubled me. I never regretted giving up. Six years ago I did the same with alcohol. I was not addicted but feared becoming so in my retirement. Giving up alcohol was much more difficult from a social perspective. It was a real problem for many around me, some of whom were abusive( e.g. suggesting alcoholism) whilst many said surely I could not be serious. Alcohol has infiltrated much of life and all celebrations, so not drinking the stuff can make you seem to be an unfriendly kill joy. The truth for me has been to greatly increase and enhance my enjoyment of life. I will never smoke or drink alcohol again – but I don’t wish to ban adults from imbibing in either substance. Good on you David Hockney and Unherd for this article. Vive la difference! – and let’s certainly try to ban the State from ever making our minds up for us on this( or anything else!)
Twenty years ago, no one wore a helmet while skiing. Now everyone does even though the percent of injuries was always minuscule. It is a lot less enjoyable but that’s what we get for being sissies.
To be fair sixty years ago most skiing ‘accidents’ were caused by hitting trees, pylons etc.
Now it is hitting others skiers, many of whom, if I may lapse into the vernacular are “pissed”. It seems that this phenomena has prompted Insurance Companies to promote ‘helmets’.
However, (like you I suspect), I regard the wearing of a helmet to be the sign of a spastic, bed-wetter, and will never do so. Rather like Formula I, skiing has become safety obsessed and thus boring*in the extreme.
(* Avalanche excluded.)
As a non-smoker, I commend Mr Hockney and his attitude of ‘fuckoffery’ towards anti-smokers. It was one thing to ban smoking inside restaurants and pubs due to the limited ventilation, but extending this to the outside premises in these same venues is a step too far. Do we expect smokers to walk down the street just to have a fag? That is pure ostracisation and I sincerely hope it does not become widely accepted or legalised in the UK at large, but I’m not holding my breath.
I certainly would like to enjoy a smoke, myself, but COPD says no. Only a few years shy of the author, I fully understand. My 86 year old friend still partakes a few cigarettes a day and she has no problems walking a few blocks whilst I struggle along. The years have been kind to many, let not the tut, tut brigade interfere.
I share your pain. Nothing I like more than a Sunday afternoon slim panatella, but a recent COPD diagnosis has put paid to that. Another of life’s small pleasures snatched away by advancing years…
Unbelievable!
Apropos this splendid essay I finished my cynical comment with the question “Anyone for a f*g?”
At my advanced age I forget that the word f*g is today also a euphemism for ‘botty bandit’*, that has crossed the Atlantic from our Imperial Masters, the USA.
How very regrettable.
(* technical term: homosexual.)
But let’s not forget most ‘b.bandits’, women & men, are heterosexual, eh?
Does it matter?
With respect I think it does. I don’t want to spark an endless awkward debate but the insinuation that only homosexuals engage in ‘it’ – many do not, would never want to – needs refuting. It stands to reason given it is now more apparent in ‘straight’ circles – mentions in reality TV content and more racy cutting-edge comedy – more of the ‘acts’ are ‘done’ by heterosexuals. (AIDS was certainly never a solely gay ‘plague’.)
Very well, I apologise, I should have been more inclusive.
No doubt Thomas Cromwell would have agreed, when he made buggery a Capital Offence.
Quite the comment for an article by David Hockney
How very ‘old fashioned’ of you, if I may say so.
In an age and culture that has no generally accepted concept of sin, being anti-something is, all too often, a means whereby one proclaims one’s righteousness. In such circumstances, the opportunity offered by pointing out the sins of others, and — even better, the possibility of eliminating sin altogether — all these lead inexorably along the road that leads to the perfect society.
Drinking is the next object in these people’s sights. Be warned!
Already is By Nicola Karankie(First minister) of Scotland minimum pricing has just put Off licenses out of business
Bully for her!
At this rate, after the withdrawal of the ‘Barnet Formula’, she will be ‘eating her own dung’*
.
(* Isaiah 36:12.)
Tee hee ..No Sh*** I’ll miss the funny banter on Unherd…bye
Once she bans chip shops too that’s the entire Scottish economy down the plughole.
Very true. If they aren’t careful, they’ll end up with a massive heroin problem in Scotland.
Oh.
What No Deep fried Mars bars or is that Manchester..
& eating …..
I agree, that these people are imposing their views on the people of England. I disagree that they (imposers) are English. They are British and the quicker you learn the difference the better. The British are a bunch of illiberal elites, most of whom are foreigners and they are a minority in England (2011 and 2021 census). Take Back Control of England by removing British Citizenship (supra national state). Void the Act(s) of Union, go back to English Home Rule (English Parliament). Then follow the English Constitution and send these illiberal treasonous fools to the gallows, by due process of course!
For a proper ‘Hang Draw & Quartering’ with all the trimmings?
Banning and being just anti- are different. It is similar to the false argument that if you boo someone taking the knee it means that you are prejudiced against black people. I quit smoking decades ago but Hockney is welcome to his habit.
I quit in 2019. Dad still does at 80 and he is fitter than I am. He would approve.
To have a reasonable case for banning something, it should have to be inherently anti-social or have a direct and negative impact on the lives of others. Now that it is prohibited in enclosed public spaces, smoking does not fit in to that category, and therefore should not be banned.
Its the old issue of some sanctimonious wannabe modern moralists in the popularity contest. It is modern moralists mentality issue.
I think it was well described by Prof Jordan B Peterson who said some people adopt pseudo-moralistic stances on large scale social issues in order to look good to their friends and neighbours.
They are spurred on by the SJW’s who want to interfere in everyone else’s business. Everything is their business. And nothing makes them happier than telling people what to do. They have penchant or propensity to interfere and control.
I am an ex-smoker by choice and because of health issues. It is a choice issue.As long as you respect others rights and consider them when in public , there is no reason that you should not be entitled to an area where you can enjoy what you want.
This incessant desire to ban and ostracise a particular segment of the population because it has become a fashion statement to do so is driven by the personality of nutters who arrogantly claim the right to use the power of Big Government thinking that they can run our lives for us and spend our earnings for us and somehow live better than we can do so ourselves. They are very sick disgusting creeps simply put. Psychopaths.
The irony in a lot of the non-smoking nonsense is the same people telling us to not smoke cigarettes are pushing to legalize smoking marijuana. I’ve never heard of an auto accident where someone was charged with driving under the influence of nicotine. My mother-in-law smoked her whole life and died at 85 of a non-smoking illness. My mother died of lung cancer at 73 and never smoked a day in her life. There are no easy answers but if an informed adult wants to smoke, shut up and let them. They already have a mother and you aren’t her.
It may seem a bit of a paradox… but what wonderful breath of fresh air. It appears that people have persuaded themselves that if they give up smoking, give up drinking, take up bicycling and support vast amounts of money being poured into the health service… they will live forever. There’s also the added bonus that they can feel holier than all those “sinners” that are such suitable targets for their bossiness..
Perhaps that is the only upside to COVID. Suddenly we are being reminded that death is real, random and implacable. And the real sting in the tail is that it’s all thanks to supposed “experts”…
If I could have smoked one gasper a day, I would have. But one quickly becomes one packet, which becomes several packets during a night on the piss. At $60 per pack, that’s a lot of lolly down the gurgler. Plus, as I got older smokes tasted progressively worse. All in all it’s a rank habit.
Well said Mr Hockney!
presumably this is the same lobby who are looking to legalise cannabis
At what point will those voted in to help manage society piss off and stop telling people what they can/can’t/must do?
I do not like smoking. But if someone wants to smoke and it is demonstrably not harming me, why not?
I want my (and everyone else’s) f*****g liberty back.
David Hackney, WONDERFUL article!
Ironic that this came out today. The WaPo ran the Obituary of F. Lee Bailey, at *just* 87 years old, with a prominent picture of him smoking a cigarette near the top of their photos.
Oddly though, that prominent picture, which WAS just as large as all the others in the article, has now been miniaturized. Winston Smith seems to have made it back from a coffee break before I realized I should get a screen capture. I guess we should be grateful that at least they didn’t airbrush the offending item out (yet, at least).
Was anyone out there quicker on the draw than I was for the full-sized pic? It’d be nice to have a record of it.
“Those idiots want health. But what we need is more life.”
– Tattooed Marie, a Parisian barmaid, quoted Á propos smoking bans on Spiked.
The best conversations are to be had among the lepers outside the pub ..
No word of a lie, I once met a couple who manufactured cigarettes for the UK market. Back in the seventies the duty on fags one year was enough to cover the entire NHS budget.
I liked to trot out that fact when I smoked and came across some dweeb who insisted that smoking was costing the NHS millions.
Maybe it was, but in today’s money it was getting billions in advance payment.
As a child I loved the smell every time I arrived in the Netherlands. Nearly all the old men had those conical cigars drooping from their lips. The trouble is that cigarette smoke no longer has a fragrant aroma. Maybe it’s just my age with the companying loss of the sense of smell but now tobacco smoke has no evocative or aromatic qualities.
You know, if anyone else were to name drop Picasso, Matisse and Monet as fellow smokers, he would risk ridicule. It is a measure of your status and success as an artist that you totally get away with it.
Here’s hoping you get to smoke another doctor into the ground.
From a Canadian doctor. I love smokers! They keep me in business.
Personally, I think it’s a disgusting habit and would never do it. And I’m all for banning it in public indoor places. Beyond that, let people have fun and live their lives as they see fit. As long as it doesn’t hurt me, who am I to decide what makes their life the most worth living?
Bizarrely 100% of non-smokers… die
This is absolutely brilliant ….sharing it with my friends who smoke, even though I have never smoked in my life, and I am a health professional…..
Prove it.
Prove it.
This is absolutely brilliant ….sharing it with my friends who smoke, even though I have never smoked in my life, and I am a health professional…..
hear, hear, and anything that unites the upper and lower classes, such as smoking , swearing, long dogs and betting, and upsets the middles, especially the intra M25 ” take your shoes off at the door” types is to me a form of stellar magnificence: more sinister are the blatant Government lies about real revenues from smoking, the massive contraband market, and its effect on government revenue, and then claiming that due to the drop in legally sold tobacco, smoking rates are dropping….. Now where’s my zippo and ‘ oily rags?
hear, hear, and anything that unites the upper and lower classes, such as smoking , swearing, long dogs and betting, and upsets the middles, especially the intra M25 ” take your shoes off at the door” types is to me a form of stellar magnificence: more sinister are the blatant Government lies about real revenues from smoking, the massive contraband market, and its effect on government revenue, and then claiming that due to the drop in legally sold tobacco, smoking rates are dropping….. Now where’s my zippo and ‘ oily rags?
Processed & adulterated factory-wrapped, chuff-tobacco stinks dreadfully to others, and inhaling is appallingly addictive and unneccessary.
How did the 1920s factory poison consumer-nouveaux habit manage to prize away the word “smoking” from a Cigar and Pipe tradition which owned the term 400 years earlier? Is it impossible now to put the language straight?
Any apparent simarlity between the activies of Pipe smoking and Cigarette inhaling is entirely illusionary.
Between a Pipe and a Cigar, there is little difference in the experience just the gigantic difference in cost.
England will never recover its Edwardian splendour and civilisation until men rediscover how to SMOKE and engage in that most dangerous of activities that smoking enables: thought.
Processed & adulterated factory-wrapped, chuff-tobacco stinks dreadfully to others, and inhaling is appallingly addictive and unneccessary.
How did the 1920s factory poison consumer-nouveaux habit manage to prize away the word “smoking” from a Cigar and Pipe tradition which owned the term 400 years earlier? Is it impossible now to put the language straight?
Any apparent simarlity between the activies of Pipe smoking and Cigarette inhaling is entirely illusionary.
Between a Pipe and a Cigar, there is little difference in the experience just the gigantic difference in cost.
England will never recover its Edwardian splendour and civilisation until men rediscover how to SMOKE and engage in that most dangerous of activities that smoking enables: thought.
The Law does not exist to protect people from themselves – as Toby Young whined it should when moaning about wasting his youth smoking doubt – but others from them.
So, this drug prohibition thangy…
Fifty years since the 1971 Act when there were fewer than 10,000 junkies – on script so no crime – and around half a million dopers.
Today a minimum 250,000 junkies and who knows how many casual users who fund their addiction with crime and around 3M dopers who can only obtain their tipple from criminals.
Success!
Lung cancer is not the only illness linked with smoking. Perhaps there is an MRNA vaccine against lung cancer on the horizon. But then we will need one for COPD. And then there are other ills related to or worsened by smoking , including oral cancers, Atherosclerosis, asthma, dementia, etc. but there may be vaccines or gene therapies developed to treat those too.
Banning smoking will not eliminate lung cancer and related ills but it will make such a ban much more attractive for those who like to challenge the legal system, not to mention parents and any other authority. The problem is that nicotine has its own form of authority (addiction) that is much harder to challenge. And now that we know tobacco companies purposely designed cigarettes to be amped up “nicotine delivery systems” and rigged studies so as to hide smoking’s true physiological effects, we should be leery of calls to let individuals make the choice to smoke or not to smoke as individuals’ choices might be controlled by their corporately manufactured addictions.
I am very glad Mr Hockney has been able to enjoy his cigarettes and to continue producing his wonderful art. But not everyone who smokes remains immune to the effects of smoking. And then there are those who don’t smoke but are impacted by second hand smoke. I guess the issue comes down to who pays for treating the health issues we know are related to first or second hand smoke, at least from a governmental and/or healthcare perspective. And what about the consumption of alcohol, too much sugar, high fat foods….?
Would we be happier and healthier (perhaps wealthier) without all the things linked to being unhealthy? That’s the question that we must answer and then choose.
Smoking and not giving a da*n is the reason Hockney is a
great artist. Talent can be acquired, genius comes from within.
Filthy habit from a distant, primitive past, rightly discouraged. The clean, inoffensive use of electronic nicotine delivery systems has unfortunately fallen under the same prohibitions, for no rational reason, but merely to appease the authoritarianism of the joyless puritans.
Vaping in pubs should be encouraged as an obvious way to stimulate the abandoning of foul tobacco.
I totally agree with David Hockney. I was asked to move in a pub garden by a a woman as my smoke was annoying her toddler. I wanted to say that toddlers in pub gardens are annoying too and should be banned. I’ve since given up by switching to e-cigarettes but find these are banned too for no good reason. So the upshot is that not only do I not smoke any more, I no longer go to pubs as there’s no pleasure in it. The idea of some smoking pubs was floated once, but was abandoned by the new health minister with no referendum taken. It’s very sad that a British institution like pubs have been changed out of all recognition. By legislation enforced by people who probably never went into them anyway.
‘I wanted to say that toddlers in pub gardens are annoying too and should be banned’
I’m sad that you didn’t. Would have made a great anecdote.
I went into pubs and came straight out again if they were smoky. Foul atmosphere.
I agree with every word he said. I don’t smoke and really enjoy keeping fit.
Good on you David, for speaking up for the right to smoke. I am a non-smoker myself but would not wish smoking to be banned from any outside area, whether it be a park, outside an office, or outside seats in a cafe. I say this even though I have been annoyed from time to time by smokers’ smoke drifting over to where I’m sitting, because I understand that it gives many people pleasure and I think we should live and let live. My dad smoked a pipe for many years, usually aromatic tobacco, and even now if a man walks past smoking a pipe I want to follow in his footsteps for a while, sniffing the aroma, as it brings back memories of my dad! A long time ago (I am talking many, many decades!) I had a boyfriend who smoked Embassy cigarettes and although I was a non-smoker at that time, strangely enough I never minded the tobacco-y taste of his lips when we kissed! Also, my great grandma smoked until she was into her 90s.
Good on you David, for speaking up for the right to smoke. I am a non-smoker myself but would not wish smoking to be banned from any outside area, whether it be a park, outside an office, or outside seats in a cafe. I say this even though I have been annoyed from time to time by smokers’ smoke drifting over to where I’m sitting, because I understand that it gives many people pleasure and I think we should live and let live. My dad smoked a pipe for many years, usually aromatic tobacco, and even now if a man walks past smoking a pipe I want to follow in his footsteps for a while, sniffing the aroma, as it brings back memories of my dad! A long time ago (I am talking many, many decades!) I had a boyfriend who smoked Embassy cigarettes and although I was a non-smoker at that time, strangely enough I never minded the tobacco-y taste of his lips when we kissed! Also, my great grandma smoked until she was into her 90s.
Brilliant! I don’t smoke, but I would defend anyone else’s right to choose. Those that would have us do only as they approve or indeed nothing at all, should indeed follow Mr Hockney’s advice about travelling far and quickly.
Brilliant! I don’t smoke, but I would defend anyone else’s right to choose. Those that would have us do only as they approve or indeed nothing at all, should indeed follow Mr Hockney’s advice about travelling far and quickly.
Thank you. I’ve never smoked but my parents did. Also my brother who died at 61. So I really enjoyed reading this article – we need to live our lives, not at the expense of others, but to the full, because what the hell is in store? Dementia, care homes, equity release, f**k all?
Thank you. I’ve never smoked but my parents did. Also my brother who died at 61. So I really enjoyed reading this article – we need to live our lives, not at the expense of others, but to the full, because what the hell is in store? Dementia, care homes, equity release, f**k all?
I agree that “obsession with health” is unhealthy. This was borne out in the reaction to the Covid pandemic by the media and the population at large. The fact that Covid mostly killed the old (I am ancient) and those with chronic illnesses was never analysed or discussed in the MSM and, as a result, everyone thought they were about to be struck down. Madness!..
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I agree that “obsession with health” is unhealthy. This was borne out in the reaction to the Covid pandemic by the media and the population at large. The fact that Covid mostly killed the old (I am ancient) and those with chronic illnesses was never analysed or discussed in the MSM and, as a result, everyone thought they were about to be struck down. Madness!..
.
Isn’t it just good manners not to cause unpleasantness? Smoke all you like while you paint at home, no one cares – why would they? But most people find it unpleasant to have cigarette smoke around them, so don’t inflict it on them. Now, if smokers in the U.K. took to smoking the clove cigarettes they smoke in Indonesia, things might be different – I don’t like cigarette smoke, but I love the smell of those clove cigarettes!
I doubt things would be different. We’re not talking about manners, we’re talking about banning. Full force of the law, etc.
Nobody’s tabled any plans to Ban All Cigarettes but Not Those Nice-Smelling Kreteks.
Oh well, when manners fail us, the big guns have to be brought in. If people must smoke – in the street, or in a park, at the beach etc. I wouldn’t ban that. But I would ban it in most enclosed public spaces – as happened with spitting – because otherwise the majority would be denied the enjoyment of those places.
Although I disgagreed with the smoking ban in pubs on principle (I am a non-smoker but I believe landlords should make their own decisions) pubs are altogether nicer places to visit without coming home reeking of stale cigarette smoke.
My friend was a pub landlord in a Welsh village. Before the ban she said “95% of my customers are smokers. When they go I’ll have to shut down.” Of course the bigots who said that they would go to the pub when the ban was applied were lying. They had no intention of going. They just liked getting things banned (for others). She did leave, and though the pub was taken over its patrons were a fraction of those previously (mostly teenage non-drinkers playing pool, and afterwards when I went the entire place stank of urine, which previously cigarette smoke had masked.
That’s been my experience too. After the smoking ban had been imposed upon my country, many pubs and bars stood empty. One of them even had a sign on the door asking where all the non-smokers were after the government said non-smokers were deterred from entering pubs because of all the cigarette smoke.
Do the British piss on the floor of pubs? Maybe the urine smell would be eradicated if pubs were fastidious about hygiene and cleaning? There are products!
Sadly, a once adult refuge is now inhabited by the sort of people who are attracted to smoke-free pubs. Restaurants with crèche facilities abound and the dingy old boozer sinks into obscurity. Oh well, you do have a point about not smelling like an ashtray. I don’t miss that.
I am Non-smoker (Apart from Sweet cigarettes)) I get annoyed at Censorious nature of the media ,certain individuals,political leaders etc..I have a healthy diet,Occassional Alcohol,If you give everything up, You Wont live longer , but It’ll seem that way..
Never seen a 84-year old looking as healthy as David Hockney. Great artist, too.
Never seen a 84-year old looking as healthy as David Hockney. Great artist, too.
Why don’t these people with an ‘authoritarian disposition’ focus on banning all potentially lethal drugs from being consumed outside? Especially the illegal ones. They add alcohol to the list too. If they are rational and serious that is …..
Don’t encourage them! Well, if they read this, which I doubt.
Don’t encourage them! Well, if they read this, which I doubt.
Why don’t these people with an ‘authoritarian disposition’ focus on banning all potentially lethal drugs from being consumed outside? Especially the illegal ones. They add alcohol to the list too. If they are rational and serious that is …..
The old CBS curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, famously declared: I’m against abortion, but, I like the people who are for it more than I like the people who are against it.
The old CBS curmudgeon, Andy Rooney, famously declared: I’m against abortion, but, I like the people who are for it more than I like the people who are against it.
David, enjoy your fags, and thanks for the paintings. Nil illegitimi carborundum. Cheers.
David, enjoy your fags, and thanks for the paintings. Nil illegitimi carborundum. Cheers.
Of course one could try to combine the best of both worlds and take up smoking as an interest to develop in old age. Pipes, cigars if you have the money. The judgment of three centuries of connoisseurs cannot be altogether gainsaid.
Smoking is a curse and statistically much more likely to shorten your life than not. Hockney is lucky and should admit it. As for limiting freedom to smoke, tricky. Nicotine is addictive and addicts are only free up to a point. I see people wanting to legalise cannabis on the basis that tobacco is legal. It would be good to have a widespread public consultation on what measures are reasonable and widely supported also by smokers. No smoker recommends smoking.
My dad had the lung capacity of an 85 year old at 55. He was a 40 a day smoker. If he hadn’t quit, he would be dead now, no kidding.
I personally used to cough and hack up what felt like litres of phlegm every time I went for a run. Surprising absolutely no one who knows what second hand smoking does to people, it stopped when my parents did.
I’ve never had breathing difficulties since then, despite having sleep apnea.
Britain needs far less cigarettes in its society.
And presumably far less alcohol and obese people and don’t forget Drug addicts or the cheesemakers they always get overlooked
It’s not just the risk of dying. Smoking also greatly increases your chances of developing macular degeneration which would be very sad for an artist.
It does indeed. He’s just been lucky.
But something is going to get you, isn’t it?
If it isn’t cancer it is heart disease, if it isn’t heart disease it is dementia, if not dementia than multiple sclerosis. Or pneumonia. Or a stroke. Or any one of any number of diseases which the onset of old age brings with it.
It is a matter of some regret to me that covid_19 will likely not be around when it comes my time. I dare say something rather more unpleasant will carry me off.
A very charming essay. Even a teensy weensy persuasive. Even if you are absolutely wrong!
A very charming essay. Even a teensy weensy persuasive. Even if you are absolutely wrong!
Smoked a nice Padron Detomaso last night. The author’s perspective is well taken.
Smoked a nice Padron Detomaso last night. The author’s perspective is well taken.
Having moved to Brighton from a small town in Berkshire, I am shocked that there is so much smoking here, not only by retired emigrants from the East End, or obvious nicotine addicts who stand against walls staring into space as they try to plug a bottomless hole, but young people who are not all exclusively ‘fashionable’. When I was similarly young, ignorant and faddish, the facts about harm caused by smoking and the industrial ‘Merchants of Doubt’ were just emerging into public consciousness, though they had been known to medical research for years. I had grown up with the image of smoking as a mark of adulthood, with parents who kept a silver cigarette box in plain view on a table for guests. Odd that so many long-haired revolutionaries enraged at ‘the system’ and exploitive big business had no qualms about consuming its products, but that’s addiction for you.
None of that applies today. Given the volume of information to hand, I wonder what planet the new smokers have been living on. Presumably their reliance on roll-your-own and the tubes of filters they scatter everywhere lets them avoid exposure to the delightful images of corruption and the health warnings on cigarette packets, whose meaning is obvious even if you can’t read Spanish or Russian.
Actually, I agree with His Colourful Perspectiveness that it’s nobody’s business what you do in your own home, especially if you are rich enough to pay for private medical treatment. I also agree that some people can get away with it. A great-aunt, who was fashionable in her time and smoked all her life, lived to 94. And maybe those prematurely deceased doctors spent too much time sedentary in their offices. Like COVID, whose ‘pandemic emergency’ death count is just 60% more than that related to tobacco year after year, it’s a lottery, as is whether a person gets mildly or hopelessly addicted. But the bottom line is that it’s surprisingly easy to live without tobacco once you are no longer hooked.
However, it’s not nice to have to make your way through clouds of acrid cigarette fumes or vape in the streets. Tobacco fumes seem to have the ability to remain concentrated up to ten metres from the source. Given the decades since revelations about and restrictions on tobacco consumption emerged, and the decline in smoking especially among educated people and public figures, movie characters etc, the question that nags me is not whether people should be free to choose to smoke, but WHERE DID THEY GET THE IDEA?
I can’t help wondering if encouraging people to enjoy unhealthy habits mightn’t be the least unethical way to reduce the planet’s population through the resulting reduction in life expectancy. Reducing the planet’s population (whilst maintainaing a near replacement birth rate) is a good thing: right?
I’ve met God? While not a smoker, my wife and I are funners. We’re now grandparents too. She’s an experienced teacher and I’m in law enforcement, and yet….. We’ve spent since the beginning of covid in an underground here in the NYC area, throwing house parties for the 40 to 70 crowd, where anything goes. In shape people swimming naked at 2 a.m. in a heated pool. No photos allowed. Plus any other Roman type pleasures, including cigs. We all died.
Three cheers for your bohemian spirit!
Sadly, there is no mention of SOCIAL ENGINEERING ie EUGENICS en ce moment.
I couldn’t care less about Hockney’s health risks from smoking, or those of all the other smokers who may get ill from their filthy habit. They may run as many health risks as they choose and it’s not really any of my business.
What I do care about is the utter selfishness which smokers displayed towards non smokers for almost all of my life, until the law started to clamp down on them. They got away with carelessly burning holes in my clothes, burning my skin, dropping smokers’ litter all over the place, fouling the air in pubs and restaurants until my eyes stung and my clothes stunk for days. Worst of all, their carelessness resulted in multiple innocent deaths in football stadia and London Tube.
We need the law to keep these arrogant self centred people under control. A plague on all their houses!
You know that it’s only a matter of time before experts discover that smoking is the only cure for the COVID Omega variant.
Fair enough. But I dislike the fact that most smokers drop their butts on the floor, where do they think they go?
Fair enough. But I dislike the fact that most smokers drop their butts on the floor, where do they think they go?
Right on Pops !
People should have the right to be as stupid as they want. The evidence that secondhand smoke in public is dangerous is tenuous at best.
I don’t smoke for religious reasons, but I don’t like the idea of telling other people what to do.
Good grief what Bullshit. Talk about Flat Earther’s. You’ve hardly lived in England Hockney and so it seems have no idea what constitutes england or Britain. Secondly my mother smoked since she was 16 I was told and lived to 89yoa. That doesn’t mean her health didn’t suffer or that the health of those around her didn’t. Thirdly, and as you put it Hockney, f**k off.
It’s provocation. A little provocation is necessary if you don’t want the legions of undead Nurse Ratcheds to micro-manage your every thought, word and deed (and they will if you let them).
It has been proved that smoking is bad for your health. To quote a few smokers as an exception who were lucky enough to live to old age doesn’t prove the whole point. The question should be have we the right to slowly kill ourselves. Personally I think they have the right to smoke but not next to me in the office. I had years of that trying to work with stinging eyes. I am very glad they bought in a few rules to hit back.
It has been proved that smoking is bad for your health. To quote a few smokers as an exception who were lucky enough to live to old age doesn’t prove the whole point. The question should be have we the right to slowly kill ourselves. Personally I think they have the right to smoke but not next to me in the office. I had years of that trying to work with stinging eyes. I am very glad they bought in a few rules to hit back.
The comments on here are odd. People seem to be disputing the science that Smoking Kills with personal anecdotal evidence. Smoking really isn;t good for you, and (more importantly) it also isnt good for people around you.
I have never smoked and am 100% glad i don’t have breath other peoples polutants when i go into public buildings now… I can remeber going out to pubs and coming home stinking of smoke, of smelling other peoples smoke on them in offices and public trasport.
Smoking is a disgusting habit, just stop already! Or at least only do it in your own home.
The science….hahahaha…there isn’t any science that will tell you that smoking is good for you, and neither is the author of the article saying that either.
I think you must have washed up here from the Guardian or something, I recognise the sanctimony,
I know there isn’t any science saying that smoking is good for you… I was pointing out that people seem to be using anecdotal evidence – I’m 84 and been smoking all my life – as a way of disputing, or at least discrediting the science.
Is it sanctimoneous to want public buildings and spaces free of air polutantants, then in that case I’m santimoneous.
People should be allowed all sorts of vices so long as they don’t harm other people. Smoking does harm other people.
“Smoking does harm other people.” – Debatable, Glantz created the evidence which is quite weak. Doesn’t matter now that the world has accepted the claims.
Red rag to a bull…..Glantz is an utter disgrace paid by huge grants funded indirectly by tobacco taxes. His professorship is in aeronautics, nothing to do with pulmonary’s. He is also anti tobacco harm reduction, ie snus, heat not burn and vaping all of which are alternative nicotine delivery systems. I smoke and vape BTW.
I have found some evidence for you of the benefits of nicotine and therefore smoking. Of course, this has to be weighed against the potential downsides of the other ingredients in a cigarette, but it’s not as clear cut as ‘smoking cigarettes is 100% bad for you’.
https://www.organicfacts.net/nicotine.html
I’m guessing that these facts are not widely known to most people, since the government don’t want any positive publicity around smoking or, for that matter, vaping.
Indeed, one of the buried benefits of smoking is in its ability to stimulate nicotinamide receptors in the brain. This seems to have a strong mitigating effect on nervous dementia. Of course, the issue then is you may develop vascular dementia through smoking.
As an ex-smoker I can only say so much. Of course smoking is bad for us. When I grew up in the 1970s, for millions of young teenagers ‘smoking behind the bike shed’ was ‘rebellion’ because it was so ‘dangerous’, becoming increasingly ‘anti-social’ and so ‘cool’… The stupidity of youth.
I agree with you about stale smoke smells. Even as a smoker I would avoid smoking carriages and the top decks of buses.
Luckily, I could drop it quite easily. But then I took it up again… and so on!
All the usual pejorative tropes – smoking kills (what on earth does that actually mean?), pollutants, stinking, smelling, disgusting …….. what about the pollutants of other people’s thinking?
It means that people who smoke die at a younger age, on average.
I’m struggling to understand why we need further restrictions on smoking (I come across it so rarely these days) based on “The Science that smoking kills”. We’re all going to die and all sorts of factors cause death to happen. Sometimes there may be one factor which overwhelmingly hastens our death and smoking can be one of those factors. Some other factors which inevitably hasten the death of humans are diet, industrial and domestic pollutants, the sun, exhaust fumes, alcohol, accidents, stress, mental illness, our genetics, medical negligence, medication, the flu and other viruses, bacteria, poison, other humans, extreme sports, background radiation, cold winters and heatwaves…
Should we legislate against people leaving their homes on a sunny day to prevent them from possibly dying of skin cancer? Should we legislate against the birth of children with genetics which cause illnesses (such as Alzheimer’s or Down’s syndrome).
There is a risk/benefit ratio to everything we do in life. I don’t think the percieved rewards of banning smoking to a greater extent than it already has been (never having to smell cigarette smoke again), outweighs the risks of allowing people to choose what particular poision to put in their body (especially if it brings them some relief or joy – oh! The horror!).
Please can everyone just get of their sanctimonious high horse and stop trying to control other people’s behaviour, based on their own personal dislikes. It makes me want to take up smoking, so that I don’t have to be near your self centred, self congratulatory smugness.
It’s not so long ago that smoking was allowed on passenger aircraft. It really didn’t make much difference if one sat in the no-smoking section as the smell was all-pervasive. For hours on end.
I’m sure those children who go hungry, cold, inadequately clothed, and otherwise deprived of life’s essentials as their parents cough up their lungs to contribute to big tobacco’s profits will take comfort from Mr Hockney’s advice.
Not like Mr Hockney is creating their misery, should it exist. Doubt that many such parents’ primary vice is smoking, either.
Exactly. If Mr Hockney, instead of writing an _article_, had started the Third Opium War in the smoking remains of the Grenfell Tower, comments about children going hungry and cold might not be absurd hyperbole.
Actually, if the UK is at all like the US, Big T’s profits pale in comparison to the government’s tax profits. You might want to do some research. Here’s a piece I wrote a while back to get you started:
TAXES, Social Cost, And the MSA
Note that that IS for the USA, and it was written almost 20 years ago, LONG before the *really* punitive taxes came in. The picture today would be even more lopsided. I once tried to work it out and I believe I found that less than 20 cents a pack went to “profits” after costs for Big T here. The Government however is making ten to twenty times that amount.
The big change started when the MSA kicked into full swing in 1999. On average, the US Antismokers (aka, more politely, the US “Tobacco Control Cartel”) have been pocketing roughly 500 million to 800 million dollars a year, EVERY year for the last twenty years, to eradicate smokers. I don’t know what similar figures might be for the UK, nor do I know if any of our MSA treasure chest migrates over there.
Give me $800,000,000.00 per year for 20 years and I could have everyone fleeing in blind, stumbling terror from BUTTERFLIES!
In the US, the various states have become addicted to the funds that the MSA brings in. Those funds were initially intended for tobacco cessation projects however only a small amount of those dollars did, most whent on other infrastructures such as roads etc. In reality, anything that threatens those funds, such as alternative nicotine delivery systems eg vaping, is vehemently attacked, also in the US the so called anti tobacco organisations are funded by tobacco taxes, MSA and one particular philanthropist named M Bloomberg. Of all the states California is the biggest benefactor and culprit, most of the junk science re smoking and vaping comes from there. Follow the money!
Good for you. We seem to be in a small minority; rather chilling !
Fine, David and good on you but just don’t impose your habit on others. I hate the smell of tobacco and have spent my entire life dodging the output of selfish smokers like yourself who are impervious to the feelings of those who don’t share your addiction.
I’m an unapologetic anti-smoking Karen; I detest it, find it disgusting, and can’t believe how many years I uncomplainingly put up with second hand smoke in bars, clubs, restaurants, cafes, and even my own workplaces. I believe it affected my health as I’ve gotten respiratory illnesses far less often since places started becoming smoke-free. It’s a nasty, inconsiderate, dirty habit. HOWEVER…it makes no sense for the government to ban tobacco products outright, while at the same time most western governments seem to be moving toward total legalisation of cannabis products, which probably, when smoked, do just as much damage to the lungs. Just confining their use to the outdoors is not adequate IMO, because if someone smoking either of these products is within six feet of me I still involuntarily consume it. Both products should be legal but heavily controlled and regulated, and their use confined to people’s private homes, as long as they’re not used in the presence of minors. And if you rent your home and the rental agreement forbids smoking on the property, too damn bad. If you’re really desperate you can sneak out for your fix in a dirty alleyway. The more socially unacceptable, inconvenient (and expensive) smoking becomes, the fewer people will take up the habit.
I’m an unapologetic anti-smoking Karen; I detest it, find it disgusting, and can’t believe how many years I uncomplainingly put up with second hand smoke in bars, clubs, restaurants, cafes, and even my own workplaces. I believe it affected my health as I’ve gotten respiratory illnesses far less often since places started becoming smoke-free. It’s a nasty, inconsiderate, dirty habit. HOWEVER…it makes no sense for the government to ban tobacco products outright, while at the same time most western governments seem to be moving toward total legalisation of cannabis products, which probably, when smoked, do just as much damage to the lungs. Just confining their use to the outdoors is not adequate IMO, because if someone smoking either of these products is within six feet of me I still involuntarily consume it. Both products should be legal but heavily controlled and regulated, and their use confined to people’s private homes, as long as they’re not used in the presence of minors. And if you rent your home and the rental agreement forbids smoking on the property, too damn bad. If you’re really desperate you can sneak out for your fix in a dirty alleyway. The more socially unacceptable, inconvenient (and expensive) smoking becomes, the fewer people will take up the habit.
He might be a good artist (debatable) but certainly does not have a whisper of a grasp of Population based risk,health and determinants etc. Work on a respiratory ward ,watch/nurse a person dying of lung cancer Mr Hockey… also its not just about deaths but morbidity. For me,his daft piece confirms he`s just a silly-billy really. California the apt place for him to Puff out his final days!
We know for certain that a) tobacco is extremely unhealthy b) it is incredibly addictive; more so, I believe, than heroin.
Hockney’s egotistical, immature, stance, masquerading as freedom-loving, overlooks two further points: a) societies have a duty to protect their most vulnerable citizens – especially children – from harm b) DH always bangs on about mortality rates, and the old chestnut about smokers living for ever. He NEVER refers to the dozen agonising diseases from which smokers might suffer lingering and painful illness prior to death.
DH abuses his status as artist to pontificate foolishly and cruelly about something of which he is ignorant. He demeans himself thereby.
really? really? hackneyed article and dangerous too. you should see what smoking does to ya insides. pure horror
What’s “dangerous ” about the article? Free Speech too much of a leap for you?
Nothing wrong with free speech. Nicotine and tobacco are the problems. Life-wreckers, esp if you’re poor
All due respect that is your opinion not a fact. Would you not say the same about Alcohol, or do you “enjoy” that?
It is just his “opinion” that nicotine is dangerous? Yeah, just like saying the world isn’t flat.
Whether nicotine is dangerous or not seems to depend on who you are. So, not all that like saying the world isn’t flat.
https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/heart-matters-magazine/news/e-cigarettes
Nicotine, while highly addictive, is not a significant health hazard for people without heart conditions. It does not cause acute cardiac events or coronary heart disease, and is not carcinogenic. But nicotine is a problem for people with heart disease. It raises the heart rate, contradicting the goal of most treatments. Tell your GP if you have heart disease and are using nicotine replacement.
dangerous because he’s using false statistics and any encouragement for this filthy and addictive habit puts off the day when it disappears.
His argument isn’t even that sophisticated. It is not statistics: just anecdotes.
So, it’s not dangerous then?
Not really an argument, let alone a dangerous one.
It’s certainly a HOCKNEYed article, but why is it dangerous? Do you think that Unherd readers (who seem to skew to the older age cohorts) will take up smoking as a result of reading it? If you read it (which I doubt) imagine what eating chocolate biscuits did to Hockney senior’s heart.