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KENSINGTON PALACE HAS released details of the “extreme lengths” paparazzi photographers are going to to get photographs of Britain’s Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
A spokesperson for The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge said in an open letter published today that a number of recent incidents demonstrate this “distressing activity”.
Jason Knauf, communications secretary for Kensington Palace, says that in one such incident last week, a photographer rented a car and parked in a quiet location outside a children’s play area:
Already concealed by darkened windows, he took the added step of hanging sheets inside the vehicle and created a hide stocked with food and drinks to get him through a full day of surveillance, waiting in hope to capture images of Prince George. Police discovered him lying down in the boot of the vehicle attempting to shoot photos with a long lens through a small gap in his hide.
Kensington Palace says that this type of activity is “not uncommon” adding that Prince George is seen as a paparazzo’s ”number one target”.
The letter detailed that in recent months other behaviour has been observed. This includes photographers using other children to draw Prince George into view around playgrounds.
The palace also claims that photographers have pursued cars leaving the family home and monitored the movements of Prince George and his nanny around London.
Kensington Palace / TwitterThey have been delighted to share photos of their children and will continue to do so in the months and years ahead.
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) August 14, 2015
Kensington Palace / TwitterYet undercover paparazzi continue to pursue their children, selling images of Prince George to international publications.
— The Prince and Princess of Wales (@KensingtonRoyal) August 14, 2015
The statement says that the royal couple have been “delighted to share official photographs” of their children but that they wanted to start a discussion about “the unauthorised photography of children”.
The couple say they are grateful to media in Britain and abroad who have refused to publish unauthorised photographs of their children.
They say the letter is partly aimed at media who pay for these unauthorised images.
“It is hoped that those who pay paparazzi photographers for their images of children will be able to better understand the distressing activity around a two-year old boy that their money is fuelling. “
There’s also a warning that it can be difficult to distinguish between someone taking photos and someone intending to do more immediate harm to the children.
There is also a message for people who read the publications who publish the photographs:
We are aware that many people who read and enjoy the publications that fuel the market for unauthorised photos of children do not know about the unacceptable circumstances behind what are often lovely images. The use of these photos is usually dressed up with fun, positive language about the ‘cute’, ‘adorable’ photos and happy write ups about the family. We feel readers deserve to understand the tactics deployed to obtain these pictures.
Although this is not the first such letter that royal officials have released pleading for privacy, the warning is the strongest and most detailed so far.
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To think that in 2004 you could smoke at work in ‘smoking areas’ in the canteen seems ludicrous now. Like something from a bygone age.
In this day and age why would anyone start smoking? Older generations were fooled into thinking it was acceptable/fashionable. But today there is so much info out there. I just don’t get it?
I smoked myself for 15 years,with many half ars€d failed attempts but when I finally did kick the habit I knew myself I really wanted quit and it was time.It’s the same with other smokers you either do wana quit or you don’t how can someone inhale that sh!te into them when they say they don’t want to be smoking
You have to want to quit or nothing will work.
Two out of three smokers want to quit. It is those that the should be helped and encouraged.
Two out of three smokers say they want to quit because people around them tell them they should want to quit. Its not necessarily the same as actually wanting to quit. I say that as an ex-smoker who knows loads of people who have admitted after failed attempts they didn’t really want to give it up. People tend to ignore the fact that people get genuine pleasure from smoking.
But, isn’t not wanting to give up just because you really like smoking…AKA Addiction?
It’s a free country, allegedly. It’s a filthy habit, no question, but if you’re not bothering anyone else then you shouldn’t be stigmatized for partaking. Effing nanny state. And for anyone who wants to start preaching about the amount it costs in healthcare, I have two words for you: Fat People.
Fat people are an excuse to permit smoking! Lol! A smoker’s excuse.
Where does this end? Cigarettes are a legal product , openly sold. In my mind, alcohol is a much bigger blight on the country where the damage done is as much to others as it is to the person drinking. I don’t remember any cases of innocent bystanders being killed because someone smoked too many cigarettes before driving home, or couldn’t come to work after a night out on the Benson’s, or beat their wife and kids because of one too many marlboros. Ye may laugh at the analogy, ye may call me ridiculous but ye should prepare. Because when this smoke free Ireland comes a new bug bear will be needed. A new drain on the public coffers to be eradicated. The nanny state is never happy.
There is no safe level of smoking. For most, moderate alcohol is safe.
Smoking is always addictive but alcohol is not always addictive.
Alcohol can facilitate conviviality. Smoking does not.
Even if alcohol is bad for you, even if it was worse for you than smoking, that is not and should not be treated as negativing the hugely harmful and damaging effects of smoking tobacco.,
If someone doesn’t want to stop smoking then your holier than thou preaching and your fake sympathy and pity isn’t going to change that. Learn that there are times when you should just let us be.
Smoking should be illegal. Why should others have to watch people slowly killing themselves?
trust me its not as bad as watching people be overly self pretentious an acting self righteous with society, that mind set will kill ya.
No, it’s a lot worse.
id be more worried over propaganda awareness of mental health issues involving alcohol an domestic abuse before slating peoples choice on weather they smoke or not personally. but thats just me….
An ex smoking friend of mine said “you should give up smoking that sh!t” He explained how he did it and he said its no problem. A few weeks later i bought the nrt patches and gave it a go. I assumed i wouldnt succeed as i put on the patch. As the hours passed i began to forget about the fags and then when the week was down i knew i could do it. The patches helped me break the addiction and the urge to smoke. My husband gave them up a few days later, Then my 55 yr old neighbour joined us. Life is 100 times better without the smokes. I can now enjoy a plane ride, a concert, a trip to the playground without wondering when i am going to get my next fix. The tobacco companies lead you to believe its a huge undertaking to quit. But its not.
A few years ago in the full knowledge that at some point I may well stop I asked a couple of friends to do me a little favour when the time came. I asked them to, if I should ever, after stopping, become one of these anti smoking “born again” zealots, give me a bit of a slap to knock me back in to touch.
They were only too happy to agree. In fact there were even a few volunteers.
Wouldn’t it have been great, Sinead, if you had thought to do the same.
Going back to my initial point …
If you want to give up smoking then you’re half way there. If you attend a seminar or buy a book or go to one of Donal’s sessions then fair play to you. Very happy for you. Just don’t feel the need to preach at me or others like me who are in a different mind set. It is not appreciated.
The problem that arises is, as we’ve already seen this morning, that any anti smoking article brings out people of that particularly preachy mind set:
“Smoking should be illegal”, when has suppression through criminalizing anything ever helped?
“I gave up smoking, and now you must. Because.” I’ll make that move when I’m ready to. People telling me I must do things “because” isn’t going to help. I’m a free thinking individual I’ll make my own decisions as my circumstances dictate myself.
Who among the anti smoking fraternity likes people telling them what to do and how to live their lives? No?
Well please, I’m asking not telling, don’t do it to others.
Claptrap. Smoking KILLS you…
When I find myself in need of relaxation
Marlboro filter comes to me
I will have a smoke now, let me be
And in my hour of darkness
I have lighter so I can see in front of me
And maybe light a ciggie, let me be
Let me be, let me be
Let me be, let me be
I’m going to have a smoke now, let me be
Ger> Smoking may kill you and increases your chances of certain illnesses but it isn’t definitive. My grandmother smoked all her life and died at 92 from a heart attack. Maybe the smoking contributed to her heart attack or the fact she was old had more to do with it
Damocles. Miaow!! I am not anti smoking. In fact i love the smell of them. For those who WANT to quit, i am telling them its not so difficult. Those are the people i am addressing. And if you are enjoying your smokes, then smoke away.
If those are the people you are addressing you probably shouldn’t have done so in response to a comment decrying anti smoking.
Actually the article is about smokers who need help to stop smoking. Which is why I gave my 2 cents. D’ah.. Actually when my husband and I go out (2 or 3 times a year) he buys 20 fags for himself. He gets no lecture, dirty digs or comments from me. Or if my sister calls, he will have a smoke with her.
See I think that’s the issue and the wrong reason people don’t want others to smoke. I don’t care what it does to you as it is your choice; however, if it is affecting others (smoking at a bus stop, just outside a shop or business where people try to get in, etc.), than stop. I look at it the same way as something like listening to loud music, as long as it’s only you who can hear it, I don’t care, if you end up with damanged hearing there is noone else to blame. Same goes for being overweight, I dont care how much you eat or how bad is, but if we were on a plane and you spilt over into my seat or personal space than I’d be really unhappy as it is not my choice but yours and only you should be suffering the consequences. And the same goes for every other vice.
Siomon> I can see the point about smoking outside but there is so much people do that affects others. Perfume is an absolute hate of mine for a good reason. I get migraines from many of them so when somebody even walks by me I can be left suffering for well over an hour. I have had to ask people in work not to wear perfume. Some don’t stop
Oh, does it? That’s odd, because I’ve been smoking for more than fifty years, and I’m fitter and healthier than most men ten years younger than me. In fact I can’t remember the last time I had to go to the doctor for a non-physical complaint. In short, it very demonstrably has NOT killed me.
Did you know that the Greeks have the highest per capita consumption of cigarettes in the world? They get through four times as many cigs as the UK. Odd then, what with ‘SMOKING KILLS’ and all that, that they are also almost the top of the league in the world when it comes to life expectancy, about the same as the UK, despite having an inferior health service. That doesn’t really endorse your belief that smoking KILLS you, does it? Or are the Greeks different to everyone else?
What you don’t understand is that you have been indoctrinated with a belief that actually has no basis in fact. As Goebbels once said, if you tell a lie big enough, and keep repeating it, then the people will come to believe it. Over the past few decades, the anti-smoking lobby has spent untold billions of dollars on a relentless propaganda drive to ‘denormalise’ something which they neither like nor understand. Lies and deception are their modus operandi, and they care nothing for the collateral damage they cause. Their ethos is ‘the ends justify the means’, and if they have to lie and deceive to achieve those ends, then they are happy to do so. What started as a misguided desire to improve people’s health turned into a vicious pogrom where no quarter is given, where hate and bigotry are encouraged, even state sanctioned. And all because they don’t much care for the smell of tobacco smoke.
fed up with the pc world dictating how the world should be, there,s always gonna be smokers an yes they know its not healthy, but we live in a social democracy were people have the right to make there own decisions, just accept it for what it is, god knows some have to accept the vegans of the world, now im jus wating on the grammar stazi to criticize ……
You haven’t bothered with grammar so what’s to criticise?
it doesn’t negate my point, bottom line there,s more bigger issues in the world than passive pretentious non-smokers….. stop feelin like the society owes you something…
Get the Alan Carr book worked wonders for me.
Good if you like to read and you want to quit but if neither of those two are true of you then it’s a bad idea
They run an Alan Carr seminar in the Red Cow business park. I’d read half the book and was off smokes for 4 months on the back of it and work paid for me to attend the seminar. I went along and to be fair, if you do anything, i.e. smoking for a whole day in the miserable Red Cow business park, you’ll never want to do it again. I smoked my last smoke that day, 2 years ago next month. Haven’t had a passing notion to have a smoke in the last 12 months. My partner and I were both about 15 a day, we’ve saved 5k each year on the back of it now. (200 per month, 12 months, each). Can’t recommend the seminar highly enough.
So you smoked that day, after being off them for four months?
Do, or do not. There is no try.
The Irish Cancer Society continues to say what their Pharmaceutical contributors tell them to say. If they were truly interested in helping smokers to quit they would stop ignoring the positive research on e-cigarettes, which suggests that they are 95% safer than tobacco. Instead ICS, unlike their UK counterparts, keep generating negative publicity about e-cigarettes and insist on promoting pharmaceutical products. The ICS are without intellectual integrity.
I was 40 a day man until last January. Switched to vaping and love it. I feel much better and still enjoy the odd ciggie with a pint too.
Heart attack done it for me,but if someone wants to smoke,thats there choice, some people like a cigarette, not everyone wants to quit and I think everyone knows there not good for you
Have seen a few people I know die of Lung Cancer not a,pretty site – thank my lucky stars I dodged that vice ;-( – People have to see themselves on where they would be at in 20 years of putting the “coffin nails” in there mouths.
I don’t know why e-cigs aren’t promoted more by anti smoking agencies. A woman on Pat Kenny this morning mentioned champix, patches, pills and all sorts but no e cig. I was a 40 a day smoker before being diagnosed with COPD. I immediately started on the e cigs and found it was just like changing brands. 4 years on I don’t even think about fags. All the smokers in my family and many of my friends are also on them. I recently spoke to a consultant and he reckons that the guy who invented e cigs will eventually be awarded a Nobel prize for the millions of lives he will have saved.
Smoking rooms in pubs etc are surely illegal as staff have to work collecting glasses etc. Ivecrmailed dept of health on this. Hate walking down the street behind a smoker. Govt should just ban the sale of cigarettes. Smokers just needs to quit and take done responsibility for others.
James you should be a lot more worried about the trucks, buses and cars walking down the street than the smoker, by the sounds of your sanctimonious preaching you would probably cross to the other side of the street if you saw a smoker coming your way?
Tough shyte James you are just gonna have to put up with us, and I really really hope I pass you while I’m smoking today.
The more you lot procrastinate the more I enjoy annoying you and there is nothing you can do about it…..Ha Ha Ha……..now where is my lighter………..
Ps James the world is finally waking up to the fact that banning drugs is not a good idea, why dont you join us here in the 21st century it’s not a bad place……
Ha I wish you lot did just procrastinate I meant to say pontificate.
Off topic, but how do you form paragraphs on this?
There is far more support for drug addicts in this country and none of them have to want quit. Free methadone forever and sales of drugs soar in methadone day. I had two friends attend the local cessation clinic, they got a meeting which consisted of a soft lecture, then a follow up call 4 weeks later and that was it; both still smoke. For my part I think Get Comings stupid and unconstructive comments should be illegal.
It’s as simple as this. If you smoke and you are not attempting to quit or get in the right frame of mind to quit then you are an incredibly selfish person. You know the risks and the fact you are highly likely to put your loved ones through watching you die early through a horrible disease that is completely avoidable. That is completely your own decision, but to complain about those pointing out the errors of your ways is just adding to your already self loathing persona.
For years the anti-tobacco crusaders, from Drs. Koop and Kessler to President Clinton, have claimed that “cigarette smoking is the greatest cause of preventable or premature deaths, causing 400,000 deaths a year, a number greater than auto accidents, homicide, suicide, and various other causes of death combined.”
They have used this statement to brand tobacco public health enemy number 1, and to justify huge amounts of money, time, and attention to the war on smoking, while all but ignoring alcohol and drug abuse.
Incredibly, analysis of the ages of the 400K supposed deaths computed by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) SAMMEC (Smoking Attributable Mortality, Morbidity and Economic Costs) program shows that tobacco is not a major health threat at all – the supposed victims did not die early!
THE SMOKING “VICTIMS” LIVED LONGER THAN THE REST OF US, BY ABOUT 2 YEARS – 71.9 vs. 70.
OVER 70,000, or about 17%, DIED “PREMATURELY” AT AGES GREATER THAN 85.
ONLY 1900, OR FEWER THAN O.5 % OF THE SMOKING “VICTIMS” DIED AT AGES LESS THAN 35, WHILE 143.000, OR 8% OF THE REST OF US DIED AT AGES LESS THAN 35
If so many of the smoking victims are old, and so few young, and if, on the average, they live longer than the rest of us, how are their deaths “premature”? According to the technical definition used by SAMMEC, any “smoking related” death is considered premature. There is no upper age limit to the computation.
I’m a smoker. Have been for 20 years. If I wanted to give up I would. I don’t want someone telling me I have to give up. If I wanted their opinion I’d ask then. Many of the other smokers I know don’t want to give up either and raising the price of a packets of smokes will just make a lot of people turn to the dealers on Moore street or my eaten European friends who are goin home to pick them up for me. Which in turn will lead to let and less taxes been given to the state!
I would never have guessed from that comment that you are an addict.
Poors smokers!! Oh diddums. Everyday they make a choice to fill their lungs full of smoke. Grow up and take responsibility, it’s a disgusting habit and the fact that grown adults smoke is simply astounding. Numpties.
Its as difficult to break an addiction as it is for you to ditch your ignorance whereisspace.
The worst type of ignoramus is the one who thinks he knows better than every else. In relation to the e-cigs, I went on them three years ago and absolutely swear by them too. I’m puffing away contentedly on one as we speak :-)
Utter tosh Benny. It is easy to quit smoking. It’s not as hard as some people make it out to be.
Exactly.
Ergo, smokers don’t smoke because they are addicts (they aren’t), but because they enjoy the benefits that smoking gives them.
Plus, of course, the mere act of smoking is a pleasure in itself, something that non-smokers will never understand.
Tis easy give up the fags but the weed is a different story. Can’t wait for a nice blunt after work
smoking weed reduces effects of tobacco
My dad was taken to hospital at the end of February which a chest infection, he was on life support for a week. While he was there they noticed an issue with his throat, sent him for a scan and it turns out he has throat cancer. He’d been smoking heavily for the guts of 50 years. He’s gone though radiotherapy in hospital – purely palliative, they don;t expect it to kill the cancer – and was released to respite care a few weeks ago after spending 12 weeks in hospital. They’ve been giving him patches while in care. He’ll finally be getting home this week but he throat is in bits, he can’t swallow properly and all of any food he eats is pureed like baby food. He gets most of his food and all of his medication through a tube into his stomach.
Given everything we know about the dangers of smoking I don’t understand how any young person can take it up these days, let alone how they can afford it.
Anyone who really wants to give up will do it easily. It took me several attempts until I managed successfully. Giving up to save money etc isn’t enough.
Smoking is the perfect vice; it never quite satisfies.
Smoking confers no positive pleasure or benefit. It merely alleviates the withdrawal symptoms of not smoking.
“The brain works better when it gets nicotine – almost like an optimized computer. Nicotine is a “work-drug” that enables its consumers to focus better and think faster. The brain also becomes more enduring, especially in smokers: Nicotine experiments show that smokers in prolonged working situations are able to maintain concentration for many hours longer than non-smokers.”
“Indoor air pollution behind COPD, not smoking: study”
http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/indoor-air-pollution-behind-copd-not-smoking-study/712430/1
If we wanted to make any product that would cause harm and made to be additive we would not be allowed and same should be with cigarettes. However if cigarettes can be made to be that in moderation like alcohol wont cause harm. These and drugs should be available for all adults, Because for centuries humans have engaged in all and they have only ever came illegal or legal to make profit. I
Rather than waffle pious words like you have above, why not do something more effective and humane like actively promoting the vaping of nicotine as a substitute for cigarettes like the Royal College of Physicians have done?
I suppose its just easier to be smug………..
Smoking causes significant cognitive distortion in a small minority of smokers who can then rationalise their unhealthy and damaging addiction. COPD is very distressing for the victims.
have your say