More on smoking.

A follow up to the blog on Duncan Banitall's article in the Groan. I just noticed a new comment on Dick Puddlecote's thoughts on it from someone living in France. Oh, I thought, this'll be good. There's no way the French will bend over. Wert iz zees? We may not ave a Gitane before, during and afterr making lurve all afternoon. No. Zis will not do! Vive la France. Etc etc.

Wrong.

In France they have brushe away the cigarette on the CoCo chanel poster for the film about her life

http://stylefrizz.com/200904/coco-avant-chanel-smokin-poster-banned-in-paris/

thought this be a very good idea People should not think smoking is normal so there we have the poster with the actress without a cigarette

Here is the original

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1840614144/tt1035736

CoCo Chanel was a chain smoker (40 - 60 cigarettes a day ) till she died age 82 I was angry that stylefrizz was happy with this Orwell behaviour and wrote a letter This is what I got back :

Dear Anna,

Firstly, let me thank you for visiting Stylefrizz.com! Secondly, allow me to draw your attention on the "one cigarette" issue: smoking has become so ordinary, it's a part of our daily life now. Passive or active smokers, we're all smokers of some kind. I was a smoker myself. But I grew over it, thankfully! Now I just want to see the world without smoke, without smoking and smokers. Everything around cigarettes has been so glamed up and I can't cope with that. It's wrong. Morally wrong. I won't even begin talking health issues, we're all aware of the dangers smoking can cause!

I believe another approach, a less fashionable one is called for cigarettes/smoking. This smoking - stylish attitude they're so keen on promoting through everything fashion is disgusting and wrong. No, hiding away one cigarette won't change the world, but at least I won't have to put up with the so called elegant fashion of smoking!


Best Regards
K Priss

Words fail me. You'll just have to wait while I do a couple of laps around the room.

Here are the images mentioned:

What? The? Fuck? The doctored one looks like she's just picked her nose and is about to flick Gordon Brown's lunch across the room. It's fucking awful. as is this surrender to the anti-smoking happiness fascists. I know we make jokes about the French being spineless and that the channel tunnel was made in case their government needed to do a runner again but really all that's undeserved. If anyone was going to yell va t'en coulez* and spark up in response to this I'd have expected it to have been the French, and good on 'em. Maybe something like...

Here, airbrush this out, fuckknuckles.

How disappointing.

*Apologies if I've mangled that. I haven't used any French in nearly 20 years and I'm ready to be corrected by someone whose French is better and fresher than mine, which must be a hell of a lot of people.