'Spitting Image' may be funny, but image of spitting is disgusting

I"m afraid that You Can"t Be Serious will make for a disgusting piece of reading but if you can brace yourself and read on, I promise to make it up to you again. On the other hand if you are easily upset please look away now.Spitting in public is an absolutely disgusting habit which thankfully is not a massive problem in Ireland; but it is happening. When I was young (younger!) I remember the time when old men smoking pipes spat on pub floors or wherever they happened to be at the time. However I later discovered that these old codgers were only amateurs in comparison to the guys I met in Canada who chewed tobacco. An essential art of the tobacco-chewer was his ability to spit long and hard with amazing accuracy. I used often wish that a sharp gust of northern wind would turn and blow into his face at precisely the moment of dispatch. Now in Ireland most of our spitters are young lads and I"ll tell you why in a minute.If there is one anti-social habit I hate more than roadside dumping it is spitting on the street. I include off-loading of chewing-gum in this category of morons. Spitting was one of the principal causes of the spread of TB in Ireland until fifty years ago - but like I said, we are not too bad now. Women can, at this stage be cleared of most blame because spitting is mainly a man thing - apart from spitting out the chewing-gum, where there is no gender difference. I came across a few serious female spitters in Beijing last summer. I had heard stories of spitting in Beijing, but I could never have believed how bad the problem is until I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. As you walked you could hear the man behind you gathering it for two minutes before letting rip. I wore sandals in the heat most days and for a man who grew up picking his way around bog-holes in the bog, cow-dung in the yard and dog-shite in the kennels - I still failed to keep a clean pair of heels in China. The Chinese authorities had, even before the Olympics, instigated measures to curtail spitting in public. They have had some success - but still a long way to go. For most Beijing men (and those few women) phlegm is regarded as an unavoidable by-product of heavy smoking and acute pollution. It is taken for granted that it must go somewhere.I remember as a child an old neighbour coming into our house one night after a few drinks. He was smoking his pipe away and apparently spitting on my mother"s kitchen floor. I was old enough to know she was in one of her tempers, but of course mammy wouldn"t dream of saying anything to the neighbour, but she had the kettle boiling and as soon as he left she threw the full kettle of scalding water on the floor with a vengeance! I knew then that spitting was a cardinal sin.In one of my other lives when we owned Mullingar Squash Club, out of a thousand members we might have the very odd spitter on the squash court. A few members complained when I put up a notice in the men"s changing room stating that 'anyone found spitting on court would be banned from the club', because they felt it was giving a bad image to visitors. But what they didn"t know was that the sign only went up when a 'suspect' booked a court and in ten years only two had to be expelled. The final question I left them with was 'How would they like it if I went into their house and spat on the carpet and kitchen wall?'Spitting was regarded as acceptable behaviour in olden times. In the Middle Ages, spitting at meals was permitted, 'provided it was under the table and not on or across it.' In 1530, the famous Dutch philosopher, Erasmus, commented that it was 'unmannerly to suck back saliva, as equally as are those whom we see spitting at every third word not from necessity but from habit'. One 18th century ruling admonished spitters to 'refrain from expectorating on waxed or parquet floors or in church, the houses of the great or in all places where cleanliness reigns.' In America at that time spitting was widespread (pun!) but at least 'spittoons' were standard equipment in public places. But by the 1880s spitting was targeted in the fight against disease, gradually became unacceptable and in some city ordinances, prohibited by law. I don"t know, but is it an offence to spit on the footpath in any Irish city?I started off by relating that I remember old men spitting when I was a kid - but now it is the kids who are doing the spitting, simply because they see their heroes do it and they believe it is the macho thing to do. This incredibly bad example is set by those vastly over-rated and even vastlier (so I"ve made up a word!) overpaid Premiership soccer players who strut across their TV screens, spitting every time they have to exert their over-protected precious frames. Spit after spit. I"m surprised that down at the bottom of the screen, where 'shots on target', 'corners', 'possession', and such roll by, it isn"t followed by 'attempted spits' and 'spits in target'. What is the point of a player having to go off if he has a trace of blood showing, lest it infect another player, when the pitch is covered with … well I don"t know how many tons of spit in a season?Anyway, spitting in public is ugly, anti-social and unhygienic and I have now got it off my chest … if you get my drift like.Don"t forgetIf we all said to people"s faces what we say behind their backs, society would be impossible.