I forgot about the smoking ban when I came back to England.
Since 1st July 2007, it's been illegal to smoke in Englands pubs and nightclubs. It hit me particularly hard during the first few gigs of our small English tour, not because I had to go and huddle outside in the cold with all the newly-stigmatised smokers, but because of the smell. Walking down the back stairs into the Camden Underworld we were stunned by how much the place smells like a toilet. I spent many evenings there during my formative years without realising that the smokers were, technically speaking, doing me a favour by making it smell halfway sanitary.
It's also pretty strange today, now that the tour is over, throwing all of my clothes in the washing machine without being greeted by that familiar, sour post-gig smell of sweat and beer mixed with stale cigarette smoke. The law was changed, says Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, in order to "protect everyone from the harm of second hand smoke". However, a forced change in the lifestyle of a nation will inevitably produce knock-on effects. Hewitt points to Ireland and the increase in business facilitated by the ban there. But there are also stories from Ireland of old people who, not willing or able to loiter in the cold whilst smoking outside their local pub, simply stay home and withdraw from that aspect of community life. With the good comes the bad.
As well as the areas of health, business and community, it occurred to me today as I was sorting through my smoke-free clothes that there is another part of our lives which is going to be irreparably altered by the change in the law: Art. If, assuming the planned ban comes into place in Germany soon as well, anyone in Berlin wants to make a reference to cigarettes in a song, book, film or painting, it will have to be done in the next few months or else be set in the pre-ban past. Artists, writers and even musicians in England, Ireland, Scotland and New York must already be coming to terms with this change. It may sound pretty irrelevant, but consider the extent of art which contains, as its focus or on the periphery, the act of smoking. Any cafe scene painted will now have to be ashtray free. Any description of a pub, which traditionally contains smoke so thick you can cut it with a knife, will be radically different. Characters in novels can no longer nervously light a cigarette in the middle of awkward conversations. Mafia bosses in movies will have to stand outside the New York restaurant if they want to threaten people in style. Couples in romantic films may even have to think twice about lighting up for the traditional post-sex smoke.
East Berlin was said to have had its own unique smell, a combination of cheap Russian cigarettes, environmentally disastrous Trabant exhaust fumes and coal ovens. Today they have been replaced by American cigarettes, Western cars and central heating. Those of us who never breathed the air in that lost world can never really understand what it was like over there at that time. What we are experiencing now is not just a change in health regulations, but a significant shift which will dramatically alter the way our environment smells and feels.
People, said Isherwood, adapt to changes in our environment because we have to. Like animals changing their coats for the winter, we alter our behaviour and get on with things. And any artist wanting to capture the fading memory of smoky bars or even write the banal but staple line, "I lit a cigarette", had better get on with it fast.
Since 1st July 2007, it's been illegal to smoke in Englands pubs and nightclubs. It hit me particularly hard during the first few gigs of our small English tour, not because I had to go and huddle outside in the cold with all the newly-stigmatised smokers, but because of the smell. Walking down the back stairs into the Camden Underworld we were stunned by how much the place smells like a toilet. I spent many evenings there during my formative years without realising that the smokers were, technically speaking, doing me a favour by making it smell halfway sanitary.
It's also pretty strange today, now that the tour is over, throwing all of my clothes in the washing machine without being greeted by that familiar, sour post-gig smell of sweat and beer mixed with stale cigarette smoke. The law was changed, says Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, in order to "protect everyone from the harm of second hand smoke". However, a forced change in the lifestyle of a nation will inevitably produce knock-on effects. Hewitt points to Ireland and the increase in business facilitated by the ban there. But there are also stories from Ireland of old people who, not willing or able to loiter in the cold whilst smoking outside their local pub, simply stay home and withdraw from that aspect of community life. With the good comes the bad.
As well as the areas of health, business and community, it occurred to me today as I was sorting through my smoke-free clothes that there is another part of our lives which is going to be irreparably altered by the change in the law: Art. If, assuming the planned ban comes into place in Germany soon as well, anyone in Berlin wants to make a reference to cigarettes in a song, book, film or painting, it will have to be done in the next few months or else be set in the pre-ban past. Artists, writers and even musicians in England, Ireland, Scotland and New York must already be coming to terms with this change. It may sound pretty irrelevant, but consider the extent of art which contains, as its focus or on the periphery, the act of smoking. Any cafe scene painted will now have to be ashtray free. Any description of a pub, which traditionally contains smoke so thick you can cut it with a knife, will be radically different. Characters in novels can no longer nervously light a cigarette in the middle of awkward conversations. Mafia bosses in movies will have to stand outside the New York restaurant if they want to threaten people in style. Couples in romantic films may even have to think twice about lighting up for the traditional post-sex smoke.
East Berlin was said to have had its own unique smell, a combination of cheap Russian cigarettes, environmentally disastrous Trabant exhaust fumes and coal ovens. Today they have been replaced by American cigarettes, Western cars and central heating. Those of us who never breathed the air in that lost world can never really understand what it was like over there at that time. What we are experiencing now is not just a change in health regulations, but a significant shift which will dramatically alter the way our environment smells and feels.
People, said Isherwood, adapt to changes in our environment because we have to. Like animals changing their coats for the winter, we alter our behaviour and get on with things. And any artist wanting to capture the fading memory of smoky bars or even write the banal but staple line, "I lit a cigarette", had better get on with it fast.
2 comments:
There are so many clichés that different cultures consider romantic at least at some point in the history, and luckily many of then are in the past, such as that a man is has to say more then a woman or a duty of taking revenge against your enemies, which seems to us somewhat outdated to us now. For example in Soviet Union when I was growing up it was considered inappropriate for women to smoke but it was ok for men. Definitely some people still think: "Those were the days..." Well, now smoking vegetarians, who are pretty much concerned about chickens, don't give a shit about fellow people using the romanticism of smoking as an excuse for damaging someone's health. I guess one can feel nostalgic about clichés as about anything else what was part of your life at some point.
I had been smoking for 8 years and had fun with it but, to be honest, I don't miss pictures of me holding a cigarette.
And besides I hate the smell of my hair in the morning.
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