Yes!! Madonna and Boy George, that’s it! I couldn’t remember which female singer
Wore a hat like that, but you’re right it was Madonna and, how could I have forgotten, Boy George. I am not aware of the hazy stuff in theatres in the UK - an interesting idea but sounds a bit odd to me….glad you liked the article and thanks for reading
There are definitely many countries where smoking is still acceptable - I wonder if it will eventually change there? In fact I often wonder if it will die out altogether and future generations will read about it and wonder about this strange practice much as we do about snuff-taking or makeup with lead in it
Wow, so many thoughts for this ex-smoker. Your picture calls back the saucy-yet-vulnerable Madonna/Boy George 80s look; university seminars where students and profs alike lit up in the classroom; cafeterias and restaurants where one hand held a fork and the other a smoke (today a mobile phone). And non-smokers and harassment victims alike put up in silence.
I agree about elegant women: my arthritic grandmother performing all the small gestures and ministrations of cigarette smoking with her stiffened, swollen-knuckled, tapered fingers with their perfectly filed garnet nails.
Like your mother, my mother-in-law had a smoke and a coffee at bedtime: we realized years later, maybe not like your mother she had adhd, and caffeine served her as a mild tranquilizer.
Back then I lived on cigarettes and coffee to study and write essays at night. I'm not sure when I slept.
What a sea change in society since then!
This summer for the first time in a long while, my 34 year old daughter and I had a holiday at Stratford Ontario, where we took in four marvelous plays, and toured backstage and the massive costume warehouse. One thing that perplexed me at first (it's been that long since I've attended professional live theatre) was the delicate haze, with its ozone-y smell, during performances in each of the theatres. I found the smell a bit oppressive at first, wondered what it was about and whether it might trigger asthma in sensitive folks, but thousands didn't seem to mind and in this era of warnings, haze didn't come up. Thus I learned of this common theatrical effect, to give the light something to pass through. Hmm....
Unfortunately it’s younger people who are most easily influenced by pictures of cool people smoking. It glamorises behaviour that has a one in two chance of shortening your life. There’s not much glamour in chronic pulmonary disease robbing you of your ability to exist away from an oxygen cylinder. But the tobacco industry would rather we didn’t think about that. It must be delighted with Mad Men and the consequent good publicity for their immensely damaging product.
Oh dear, I sound like my mother, but I think she looks grubby! It's a great photo, but I find it hard to separate the art from the ashtray associations. My parents smoked , my mother socially at dances, because it was elegant, my father because it was male culture. My mum stopped before I was born, and my dad only smoked in the office. Then one day he declared he was giving up and never smoked again. My mum did smoke a few cigarettes in the run-up to my wedding out of the sheer stress!
I remember the horror of flying and being at the back of the no smoking section. What a joke! I did do some work in Kosovo on an EU project, and everyone smokes there. When I got back my husband recoiled in horror from me at the airport, I was exuding smoke from every pore.
Yes!! Madonna and Boy George, that’s it! I couldn’t remember which female singer
Wore a hat like that, but you’re right it was Madonna and, how could I have forgotten, Boy George. I am not aware of the hazy stuff in theatres in the UK - an interesting idea but sounds a bit odd to me….glad you liked the article and thanks for reading
True about younger people, although many of them are vaping now of course, and we don’t yet know what detrimental effects that will have.
There are definitely many countries where smoking is still acceptable - I wonder if it will eventually change there? In fact I often wonder if it will die out altogether and future generations will read about it and wonder about this strange practice much as we do about snuff-taking or makeup with lead in it
Fair comment.
Wow, so many thoughts for this ex-smoker. Your picture calls back the saucy-yet-vulnerable Madonna/Boy George 80s look; university seminars where students and profs alike lit up in the classroom; cafeterias and restaurants where one hand held a fork and the other a smoke (today a mobile phone). And non-smokers and harassment victims alike put up in silence.
I agree about elegant women: my arthritic grandmother performing all the small gestures and ministrations of cigarette smoking with her stiffened, swollen-knuckled, tapered fingers with their perfectly filed garnet nails.
Like your mother, my mother-in-law had a smoke and a coffee at bedtime: we realized years later, maybe not like your mother she had adhd, and caffeine served her as a mild tranquilizer.
Back then I lived on cigarettes and coffee to study and write essays at night. I'm not sure when I slept.
What a sea change in society since then!
This summer for the first time in a long while, my 34 year old daughter and I had a holiday at Stratford Ontario, where we took in four marvelous plays, and toured backstage and the massive costume warehouse. One thing that perplexed me at first (it's been that long since I've attended professional live theatre) was the delicate haze, with its ozone-y smell, during performances in each of the theatres. I found the smell a bit oppressive at first, wondered what it was about and whether it might trigger asthma in sensitive folks, but thousands didn't seem to mind and in this era of warnings, haze didn't come up. Thus I learned of this common theatrical effect, to give the light something to pass through. Hmm....
Thanks for the article.
Unfortunately it’s younger people who are most easily influenced by pictures of cool people smoking. It glamorises behaviour that has a one in two chance of shortening your life. There’s not much glamour in chronic pulmonary disease robbing you of your ability to exist away from an oxygen cylinder. But the tobacco industry would rather we didn’t think about that. It must be delighted with Mad Men and the consequent good publicity for their immensely damaging product.
Oh dear, I sound like my mother, but I think she looks grubby! It's a great photo, but I find it hard to separate the art from the ashtray associations. My parents smoked , my mother socially at dances, because it was elegant, my father because it was male culture. My mum stopped before I was born, and my dad only smoked in the office. Then one day he declared he was giving up and never smoked again. My mum did smoke a few cigarettes in the run-up to my wedding out of the sheer stress!
I remember the horror of flying and being at the back of the no smoking section. What a joke! I did do some work in Kosovo on an EU project, and everyone smokes there. When I got back my husband recoiled in horror from me at the airport, I was exuding smoke from every pore.
I think of it as a cool image only.
The reality is that smoking is bad for you, I don’t think it’s that difficult to separate the image from reality!