Opinion: Past repainted

We’ve heard of history being re-written but we’ve never before heard of it being repainted.

For this breakthrough, thanks must go to the fusspots at Manly Council. Whether by accident or design, the council has ended up erasing cigarettes from a local artist’s self-portrait. Given that the late artist (Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo) was a smoker, it seems fair of him to depict himself with a cigarette. Manly Council didn’t think so, however, and retrospectively erased his smoking habit.

Dattilo-Rubbo must be the only smoker in history to have given up the habit 54 years after his death. Next they’ll have him eating watercress sandwiches and jogging.