Friday 29 June 2007

Bill's First Big Up

Old Wally Green used to say 'Give a wide berth to any journalist who doesn't offer round their Players'. He little knew it, but his sage advice was to stand me in good stead in my subsequent career.

In those days, everybody smoked, of course. We hadn't quite reached the stage of countries like France and Spain, where it seemed to be almost compulsory, but we did our best. Helped along by seductive advertising, we may have been low in the league of European smoking addicts, but we held our own. As plucky British smokers, we always felt our brands were more distinctively superior to those of our neighbours over the Channel. Our Park Lane, our Mayfair and our Embassy led us to believe we wandered the exclusive parts of London every time we lit up.

Wally's wise words meant that it became easy to spot the tight-wad, the colleague who slyly pulled out a cigarette without giving a thought to handing them around. They, inevitably, were the ones who held onto their stories for dear life, never sharing a word of them for fear of losing a scoop.

Well, times have changed. I like to think that we've all become a little more generous now. With just two days left before the UK government implements its ban on smoking in public places, I was struck by a posting made by Sugar Queen, whose blog I stumbled on thanks to Fuel My Blog, which can always be relied upon to uncover a hidden gem.

It's a powerful piece, written from the heart, and I urge you to read it and share it with others.
It's inspired me to join my pal Tommy Hamburger, who has already publicly avowed that he intends to quit the evil weed.

And, it's earned Sugar Queen's Dream Bill Blunt's 1st Big Up! Should she wish to display the widget on her site, all she has to do is contact me, and I'll send her the necessary, courtesy of my son, Jasper, who knows a thing or two about that kind of thing.

4 comments:

Sugarqueensdream said...

Bill , I am sitting here in shock..... I am so honored by your post about ...me . I was told that Important people would be looking at my blog and I see it's true.
Thank You from the bottom of my heart for the Bill's First Big Up ....
Judy

Anonymous said...

Judy - a well-deserved Big Up, and you should be proud to be the first! I won't be giving them out lightly, I can tell you.

Anonymous said...

I've always considered smoking to be a good thing - never did me any harm - yet!.
I remember that the shop outside my school used to sell cigarettes singly. No6's and the even smaller No10 when feeling very poor - fantastic.

Bill Blunt said...

Yes, daddy papersurfer - you are a tribute to the survivors!

I know many people who have smoked until very late in life (and one couple, paradoxically, who didn't start until they were 65, on the grounds that 'Hey, what harm can it do to us now?')

But the tragedy is all the people I don't know, who I never got a chance to meet, because their lives were cut short by lung cancer.