BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: JennyO
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 12:25 AM

I have an old record "Peter Paul and Mary in Concert", and in one of Paul's comedy introductions, he was talking about drag racing.

It was something like this(not guaranteed to be word for word):

"They hold up their two fingers...
You may remember Winston Churchill during the war years....
Which everyone assumed was a V for victory.
But you might also remember, Winston Churchill smoked a cigar....
He used to hold it in there.....
And every now and then, he would turn to his friends and say:
'Wanna drag?'"

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 07:31 PM

The story.

Not the first time this was done... See here.

The Rutles send-up: with cigarette,   airbrushed out.

Subject: Urban legend?
From: Matthias
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 04:26 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Peter T.
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 01:59 PM

" And curse Sir Walter Raleigh, he was such a stupid git!" (actually one of the great historians, poets, adventurers). yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: SharonA
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 08:55 AM

...and can you imagine George Burns without the cigar... or Milton Berle without the cigar... or Ernie Kovacs without the cigar... or Groucho Marx without the cigar... or Edward G. Robinson without the cigar...

I'm not a smoker, and I'm all for encouraging people not to smoke for the sake of their health (and mine!), but I think that allowances have to be made for the fact that we know more about the health risks of smoking now than we did in the past. Any attempt to erase (in this case, literally erase) the history of smoking as having once been popular and "cool" is futile and might even have the opposite effect to that which is intended.

I think that anti-smoking messages should concentrate on people's behavior in the present and the future. As far as the past is concerned, the messengers should take a hint from the Beatles themselves, and "let it be".

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Grab
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 08:52 AM

Jenny, maybe it was - that would explain the "V for victory", when he's actually waving a monster stogie in the air... ;-)

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: JennyO
Date: 23 Jan 03 - 03:56 AM

Can you imagine Winston Churchill without the cigar?

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:19 PM

A museum in Gloucester had a huge reproduction of the famous photo of Brunel on display, with the cigar carefully removed, in case it gave the wrong impression to children. I'm a bit worried about that sword Nelson is carrying on Nelson's column. could it be replaced by a lily or something?

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: RangerSteve
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:16 PM

In the re-release of "ET", the government agents' guns were changed by computer to radios. I guess if ET turned out to be dangerous, they could beat him to death with the radios.

And the dialog is changed: where Elliot's mother originally told him he couldn't go out on Halloween dressed as a terrorist, in the new version she says he can't go out dressed as a hippie. Speilburg apparently feels that we are so weak-kneed that just hearing the word "terrorist" will cause us to fall apart.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:09 PM

This is beyond stupid.


yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:18 AM

When shall we ever be free of pathological do gooders.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Wolfgang
Date: 22 Jan 03 - 09:13 AM

If photos can be edited so can sung lyrics (soon). Rewrites of history along the present (party) line has been popular all the time. Remember the famous Stalin photos with Trotzkij brushed away? Or the Chinese central committee with 'the band of four' missing when they fell out of favour?

A hilarious example is 'Casablanca'. In postwar Germany, that film was shown shortened to a smugglers' story with no mention of Nazis and German soldiers whatsoever. Since many years now they show the real 'Casablanca'. (Nearly) Nobody's feelings are hurt now in Germany by mentioning Nazi cruelties.

I hate falsifications even when done with the best of motives.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:57 PM

So I was reading about the Stones palying last night at Madison Square Gardens and, well, ya' ain't 'sposed to be smokin' in there and well, Mick and Keith up there with butts danglin' from their lips and now the New York mayor has his buns all twisted up over it and might even have Mick and Keith arrrested fir smokin'...

Man, what is the world comin' to, anyway. I reckon that Cheek and Chong might as well skip New York on their next tour... Jus funnin' about C&C...

Ahh, back to the Beetles. Ahhh, just how are the revisionist's goinna explain a lot of their late stuff. "Lucy in the sky with diamonds"... "I am the eggeman, I am the eggeman, I am the walrus". Yeah, sanitize that stuff, if you will...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Cluin
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:35 PM

In just about every picture of the Fabs in the old days, Pauly had a butt going... a fact played up by Eric Idle on the Rutles album cover years later.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: breezy
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 07:19 PM

So's my Folk Club

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Ed.
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:18 PM

There weren't any marijuana plants on the Sgt Pepper cover, ever.

It is a little sad re Abbey Road, but it's not the first time. Take a look at the cover of the CD single 'Real Love'

Rewriting history is never a good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: Callie
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:11 PM

Have they also photoshopped the marijuana plants from the Sgt Peppers album?

Subject: BS: Abbey Road is now non-smoking
From: John Routledge
Date: 21 Jan 03 - 06:09 PM

Heavy smokers The Beatles have been de-toxed.

The cigarette in Macca's hand on the cover of Abbey Road album has been electronically removed so as not to send out wrong messages!!

Nice to know that we are taking the real issues seriously :0)