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Ads that I like #75


Madame Curie and her radiation, Newton and his apples, Einstein and his zany hair, Hawking and that voice thing, Fermi and his particles, Maxwell and his electric fields, Salk and his vaccines, on and on it goes.

What is the one thing that they had in common?

A fondness for the gaspers, that’s what!

Do people really believe that the confluence of the scientific revolution and the arrival of tobacco in Europe is a mere coincidence?

Nothing says science than late nights, pizza, loud music and a smoke filled room. Look at this dude here in today’s ad, he’s like Bill Wyman strumming away on his bass with a ciggie in hand. Just like Bill wouldn't be able to strum out that funky and sleazy opening salvo of Miss You (let alone his sleazy come-ons to underage girls) without a handy Peter Stuyvesant, the Chesterfield that you see above is perfectly weighted to maximise the fiddling of the dial on the microscope you see. That’s where they went wrong in ye olden days (that and their atrocious spelling).

People always complaining about cancer this cancer that, well I contend that the reason that we don’t have a cure for cancer is that we’ve banned smoking in the labs. Marie Curie would be spinning in her grave! Centrifugal force? Reactive centrifugal force? Centripetal force?

I don’t know!

Because I have never smoked, and the hard sciences require tobacco smoke to work. I pretty sure that this is what today’s advertisement is trying to say. My nicotine-starved brain can’t compute the logic, but as it says, a “well-known research organization” [sic] has proven it!

I’m pretty sure that this “well-known research organization” [sic] has also proven that myocardial infarctions, cardiovascular disease, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, asthma, emphysema, and cancer do not equate to an “unpleasant after taste”.

Science. It’s a beautiful thing...
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Comments

USelaine said…
President Obama is a smoker as well. Makes you wonder.
3 February 2009 at 18:37
MurciaDailyPhoto said…
When they made the announcement, I guess they did not think about that cigarette smoke surely get in the eyes of the scientist and not let him see through the microscope.
I stopped smoking 2 times. The last time a year and half ago and I have no intention of returning to smoking.
3 February 2009 at 21:24
Anonymous said…
You had to live the experience. There was nothing cooler than being seen with a bumper hanging out of your mouth. No thoughts of cancer, let alone all of the insidious diseases about to rear their ugly heads over the next 10,20,30 years.
Weren't we so lucky in our ignorance.
3 February 2009 at 21:48
Debbie Courson Smith said…
Well, seeing today's ads for cigarettes shows they're just about as silly. And we don't even have to wait 30 years to laugh at them. I saw one brand on a billboard - the sell line was "spoil yourself."
4 February 2009 at 02:58
Kris McCracken said…
Elaine, smoking lizard people are taking over?
4 February 2009 at 09:10
Kris McCracken said…
MDP, it usually takes a few goes to give up (the average is eight or nine), so to do it in two is a big win! Congratulations, your lungs and your wallet will be far better off.
4 February 2009 at 09:12
Kris McCracken said…
Roddy, it is filthy and stinks. It always has. That's why I don't understand why people ever associated it with ‘cool’. Maybe people were filthier and stinkier in ye olden dayes as a rule.
4 February 2009 at 09:14
Kris McCracken said…
Ff Diva, the idea of billboards is odd to me these days, we haven’t allowed cigarette advertising here in Australia since 1992 (TV and radio ads were banned in 1963, and cinema and billboards ads were banned in 1973), so the days of even print ads are rapidly disappearing into the ether!
4 February 2009 at 09:17
Tash said…
I've never smoked either, unless you count the February in the 3rd year of college where I walked around campus in skinny black jeans and with a cig in my hand. I WAS VERY COOL. Yup, it stinks, it's filthy, but I WAS COOL for a month.
the BIG corp I work for went completely smoke free this year - so now we have employees congregating outside. I'm just afraid that eating on premises will be banned next.
4 February 2009 at 15:31
Kris McCracken said…
Tash, they'll ban junk food next. Other food will last a bit longer.

I have may grievances with a former employer who allowed smokers an hour hanging about each day while I had to attend to a needle exchange. It was almost enough to force my hand to start smoking to get outside and some fresh air!
4 February 2009 at 19:32
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