AWT, DB ... and me
Monday, March 22, 2010 I'm filming an interview for The One Show this morning. The producer wants to film in Holland Park, west London, so we're meeting at the nearest tube station at 11.30. (It doesn't get much more glamorous than this.)
The producers also wanted to interview a celebrity who smokes and has children so I recommended Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson.
Given his views on the subject (see HERE), I also suggested they contact my old sparring partner Duncan Bannatyne.
They liked the idea so, to the best of my knowledge, The One Show is going to interview AWT, DB and me. The item will be shown tomorrow night following a press conference by the Royal College of Physicians which is publishing a new report about passive smoking and children's health.
PS. Given the number of times I have suggested his name to producers and researchers, I ought to become DB's agent. Ten per cent of what he earns and I'll be able to pay off my mortgage, get the kids through university and retire in, oh, five years.
Simon Clark
Bannatyne was on Desert Island Discs last week. The records he chose were:
Rod Stewart – Maggie May
The Human League – Don’t You Want Me
Tom Jones – Green, Green Grass of Home
Dawn – Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree
Michael Ball – Love Changes Everything
Beverley Knight – Shoulda Woulda Coulda
Chesney Hawkes – The One and Only
The Plastic Ono Band – Give Peace a Chance
What, no "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"? Duncan! What were you thinking? How could you have missed such a glorious opportunity to browbeat the nation with some smokefree propaganda? That would never have happened if I'd been your agent ...
Update: the Northern Echo explains why Bannatyne chose each song:
Chesney Hawkes – The One and Only
“I think this record was written for me.”
Plastic Ono Band – Give Peace a Chance
“All politicians, every Sunday, should be made to listen to this.”
Uggghhhh!!
Reader Comments (9)
Good god Simon, you don't half live life on the edge. Duncan Bannatyne? After all the free publicity you have given him over the years the least he could do is send you a wee present now and again...but knowing him he'd probably send you 200 Benson and Hedges knowing you are a non-smoker, that's just the kind of twisted thing he would do.
Anyway give em hell today. I will be on the lookout for your contribution on The One Show on Youtube for embedding.
I also heard DB say on Desert Island Discs that conditions of his childrens trust fund was that they don't drink drive,use drugs or smoke. Hyper-compensation? Good to see his children are allowed to drink, we assume DB has not given up drinking just yet, despite the fact that we are told it is a risk for stroke and cancers. For the sake of consistency, one would have thought alcohol would be a condition of the trust as well as tobacco.
The reason the smoking ban was brought in was the Scientific Committe On Tobacco and Health (SCOTH) which published its report in November 2004. I have obtained under a Freedom Of Information Request the minutes of their meetings. I am also writing a paper on passive smoking.
It seems that SCOTH Committee was split on passive smoking and admitted that the evidence was at best thin.
Page 3 bottom and page 4.
"Most of the studies were not felt to be sufficiently conclusive in their findings."
http://www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@en/documents/digitalasset/dh_4131879.pdf
That's his desert island discs! ... what a joke!
Dave, this is the time for all people like you with access at govt and media level with true statistics on smoking at your disposal and who know the workings of the 'protocal' of how to get your point accross for maximum attention and that have the experience in dealing with the shennanigans at govt level, to bombard them without letup, up to the elections.
Because its the last chance we have to let them know how serious and unrelentless we are about an indoor smoking area.
All these sudden meetings and soft talk on the unfairness on smokers coming from Lab and the Cons is only token jester bullshit talk to keep smokers on side in the fear that they might loose the smokers vote.
Now is the time to put them on the line and force them to give honest answers, or at least show them up for the dishonest junk science they spout and bring it to the attention of the unaware and brainwashed bewildered section of the smoking fraternity.
@Ann
Your faith is me is touching and I hope not misplaced. Like most things I can only influence, not control. The good news is that the vast majority of people do not believe the rubbish on second hand smoke, and the health lobby drilled another hole in their boat with the 50,000 deaths from air pollution, and the "far more than passive smoking" strap line just plays into the hands of a sceptical electorate.
So Deborah Arnotts' car causes more deaths than me smoking? At least with a pub being private property people have the choice of exposure, while pedestrians have to inhale a lungful of carcinogens whether they like it or not. Come on Debs think of the chiiiiiiiildren.
Dr Henry Featherstone's ASH apparatchik's monstering on ConservativeHome by the TPA and readership backs up my thesis. The smoking ban in the next few years will either wither on the vine or will be amended.
The review in July in my opinion will be a whitewash, but Labour out of power will reverse the trends.
"The producers also wanted to interview a celebrity who smokes and has children"
Hmmm ... I wonder what the angle of attack is going to be, eh?
@Dave A
As regards this ‘atmospheric pollution 50,000 deaths’ claim, are we not, once again, concerned with DOSE? I wonder how many people are misled, once again, by the sloppy terminology. I wonder how many people think that the words ‘atmospheric pollution’ relate the pollution of the WHOLE atmosphere as apposed to LOCAL atmospheric pollution. But is this not, once again, an illustration of the statistical inaccuracy of the ‘soft’ sciences? Erm…….what atmospheric pollution precisely, where, and in what concentrations, and are we talking about London or Beijing, or the North Pole? And, as regards these 50,000 deaths, are we talking about dying at age 85 years young as opposed to 86 years old? Again, we find unjustifiable use of pseudo statistics for political and commercial purposes. Patricia Hewitt (and probably Caroline Flint) must have a hand in it somewhere.
[I feel justified attacking Hewitt and Flint because they personally engineered our misery of smoking outside our pubs directly and I have every right to pursue them until they admit that they were wrong to promote the total ban. It is not acceptable that they can resign from Parliament and escape. No! They personally created our misery. They must suffer the consequences]
The 50,000 deaths from pollution are just as fictitious as the 3000 deaths from passive smoking, and therefore it is wrong to compare the two against each other. Both are wrong. Dave, we had exactly this sort of situation with Prof whatsit at the BMJ. We proposed perfectly reasonable arguments (you, by far most importantly scientific, I only by logical extension), but Prof whatsit resorted to the usual, “You are creatures of the tobacco industry” crack – and then disappeared.
It is a most amazing thing that a Health Secretary, Burnham, can go on record and say that he has the intention of reducing the smoking population from 20% to 10% by 2020 (?). Why is it amazing? BECAUSE IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS WISHES AND EVERYTHING TO DO WITH A FREE ENGLISHMAN’S DESIRE.
@Junican
I for one do not believe those figures, but it is just an exercise in playing one piece of junk science off against another. This is a Canadian study from Toronto.
"What we did not find was any evidence that increases in air pollution levels are associated with increased rates of hospital admissions."
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/21/mckitrick-toronto-smog-models-exaggerate-health-issues-where-are-the-bodies/