29 July 1999 Edition
Television: Huff-Puff!!
BY GILBERT O LUGHNASA
Tobacco Wars (BBC 1)
Just who the hell does Alex Higgins think he is?
Forty years of bad living and cigarettes and he doesn't expect to get caught - and when he does, he tells us he never knew smoking was bad for him and blames it on the people who were keeping him in nicotine, highlighted on BBC's Tobacco Wars on Tuesday last.
Where would we be without the weed? John Wayne wouldn't have been half the man he was and Robert Mitchum wouldn't have been half as cool if he wasn't allowed to light his match on the sole of his shoe.
What `divilmint' would the nation's eight-year-olds be able to get up to without robbing a few Players from their mammies' handbags?
What excuse would teenagers have to hang around bicycle sheds or shop doorways and look sullen?
What would students do at four in the morning if they couldn't combine the gatherings of a few butts to get them through until the morning?
What would nuns on the bus have to give out about if there were no scrawnies puffing `down the back'?
And if the fascist ex-smokers weren't able to expend their energies banning us from restaurants, cinemas, toilets and just about everywhere bar the back garden, they would probably be putting their extremist energies into running police states.
Alex also warned all young people to stop smoking which is about as useful as a bicycle is to a fish.
As an intermittent puffer, I would advise all those sporty types to refrain from the ciggies, but if you like to relax after the Sunday dinner with a Cappucino or prefer ten Regal to porridge at seven in the morning then Nick O Tean's yer only man!
Higgins rightly pointed the finger at the cigarette companies for their conniving and deception and use of the snooker table (Embassy sponsor the World Snooker Championships and Benson and Hedges are heavy backers) as a magnet for potential young smokers, but if the silly clauster wasn't aware that they're all evil multinational capitalists and that smoking is bad for you he's no one else to blame.
In fairness to Higgins, he has undergone 44 radiotherapy treatments and spoke of how throat cancer has destroyed his stamina and energy, the most vital ingredients in anyone's life entering middle age.
Smoking advertising and sponsorship has gradually been eroded, (who remembers the Carrolls GAA All-Stars and Carrolls Irish Open?) but efforts by British Minister For Sport David Treacy in the 1980s to tighten regulations were met with fierce opposition by the tobacco companies, whose spokesperson was Dennis Thatcher, husband of old Iron Knickers herself, and Treacy was promptly demoted.
American Secretary for Health Joseph Calefano suffered a similar fate in the 1970s after his strong anti-smoking campaign was rebuffed by the tobacco lobby, forcing Jimmy Carter to choose between morals and electoral gain.
We heard of other evil doings of the tobacco suits testing ciggies on rabbits and mice, suppressing research results, sacking and threatening scientists and the like.
Michael Bourke concluded this grim documentary with a tour of his own lungs and reminding us of the 120,000 smoking-related deaths yearly in Britain.
Time to drop the ash - tomorrow!
Recommended television for the Bank Holiday weekend must be the Ulster and Leinster Football Finals and the replay of the classic Clare vs Galway hurling quarterfinal, which are a welcome respite from the Premiership's grey homogeneity, and the equally classic `Withnail And I' on Channel 4 on Saturday, where we can all watch the slob in us. Burp!
Tobacco Wars (BBC 1)
Just who the hell does Alex Higgins think he is?
Forty years of bad living and cigarettes and he doesn't expect to get caught - and when he does, he tells us he never knew smoking was bad for him and blames it on the people who were keeping him in nicotine, highlighted on BBC's Tobacco Wars on Tuesday last.
Where would we be without the weed? John Wayne wouldn't have been half the man he was and Robert Mitchum wouldn't have been half as cool if he wasn't allowed to light his match on the sole of his shoe.
What `divilmint' would the nation's eight-year-olds be able to get up to without robbing a few Players from their mammies' handbags?
What excuse would teenagers have to hang around bicycle sheds or shop doorways and look sullen?
What would students do at four in the morning if they couldn't combine the gatherings of a few butts to get them through until the morning?
What would nuns on the bus have to give out about if there were no scrawnies puffing `down the back'?
And if the fascist ex-smokers weren't able to expend their energies banning us from restaurants, cinemas, toilets and just about everywhere bar the back garden, they would probably be putting their extremist energies into running police states.
Alex also warned all young people to stop smoking which is about as useful as a bicycle is to a fish.
As an intermittent puffer, I would advise all those sporty types to refrain from the ciggies, but if you like to relax after the Sunday dinner with a Cappucino or prefer ten Regal to porridge at seven in the morning then Nick O Tean's yer only man!
Higgins rightly pointed the finger at the cigarette companies for their conniving and deception and use of the snooker table (Embassy sponsor the World Snooker Championships and Benson and Hedges are heavy backers) as a magnet for potential young smokers, but if the silly clauster wasn't aware that they're all evil multinational capitalists and that smoking is bad for you he's no one else to blame.
In fairness to Higgins, he has undergone 44 radiotherapy treatments and spoke of how throat cancer has destroyed his stamina and energy, the most vital ingredients in anyone's life entering middle age.
Smoking advertising and sponsorship has gradually been eroded, (who remembers the Carrolls GAA All-Stars and Carrolls Irish Open?) but efforts by British Minister For Sport David Treacy in the 1980s to tighten regulations were met with fierce opposition by the tobacco companies, whose spokesperson was Dennis Thatcher, husband of old Iron Knickers herself, and Treacy was promptly demoted.
American Secretary for Health Joseph Calefano suffered a similar fate in the 1970s after his strong anti-smoking campaign was rebuffed by the tobacco lobby, forcing Jimmy Carter to choose between morals and electoral gain.
We heard of other evil doings of the tobacco suits testing ciggies on rabbits and mice, suppressing research results, sacking and threatening scientists and the like.
Michael Bourke concluded this grim documentary with a tour of his own lungs and reminding us of the 120,000 smoking-related deaths yearly in Britain.
Time to drop the ash - tomorrow!
Recommended television for the Bank Holiday weekend must be the Ulster and Leinster Football Finals and the replay of the classic Clare vs Galway hurling quarterfinal, which are a welcome respite from the Premiership's grey homogeneity, and the equally classic `Withnail And I' on Channel 4 on Saturday, where we can all watch the slob in us. Burp!