I hate the anti-smoking brigade, even more than I despise those Sunday morning telemarketers, reality show contestants and Ryan Seacrest.
This awareness first came to me on a 6 am flight to Delhi recently, when I lit a Gold Flake in the open air outside the terminal – more to prep myself for the 18-hour work day that lay ahead than anything else. I smoked neatly; no spilling ash, extra careful to not blow my noxious fumes in anyone’s face by mistake. Then, a woman walked past me, her obnoxious 5-year old screaming and running circles in his Superman cape. Instead of controlling her spoilt sprog, and having the grace to look embarrassed, she raised her eyebrow at me in that way people do when they think they’re better than you. Because they don’t smoke, you see. Because you’re making the planet a messier, more selfish place. It’s another matter that her screeching brat ended up right across from me on the plane and left me with a migraine that lasted a week.
In oh-so politically correct 2010, smokers are treated almost like terrorists or pedophiles. But mothers like this one expect the world to not only accept but indulge their ill mannered offspring. How can you not smile at that cute little boy, at the innocence he represents? He is the future, after all. You’re just a toxic inhaler, damaging your health and that of others.
Ah, health. The one argument that’s supposed to bring you to your knees each time. Physical wellbeing – least of all mine – isn’t really a concern the world has (the fact that I need to be concerned about it is my own business, thank you). The point is that the global tobacco industry operates under very little control, and thereby makes quite a bit of revenue off the puffing public (the skull and bones warning sign about how Smoking Kills!!!!! doesn’t let it off the hook). And no, this is not about smokers being horribly self-centered either…they’re a meek, respectful group, for the most part. When was the last time someone lit up in a non-smoking home? They’d never get invited over again and they’d be treated to a moral lecture from hell. When was the last time somebody puffed away at the local pub? They’d be thrown out and fined a week’s wages, if not arrested. And yeah, inhaling 30 a day isn’t the greatest of character-building habits to have but there are world leaders who lie and people who make fun of disability and friends who don’t return phone calls because they owe you money – and none of this lot seem to feel any guilt whatsoever.
A shared activity – even if it involves a cancer-inducing puff or two - bonds people in so many ways. My lonely friend met her husband because she was the only one at that uptight soiree who could offer him a light for his Marlboro Red. And Nick Hornby talks of how he met Kurt Vonnegut - his literary idol and inspiration - at a boring old book reading. Vonnegut had run out of smokes, Hornby happened to have some unfiltered Pall Malls and that’s what led to them exchanging emails for months, discussing all the things that make life really worthwhile, like Arsenal and 60s pop (well, according to Hornby, that is).
I mean, who couldn’t do with more moments like these? This is what I loathe most about that smug anti-smoking brigade – they’re missing out on life, but that’s not enough. They have to deny us one too.
This awareness first came to me on a 6 am flight to Delhi recently, when I lit a Gold Flake in the open air outside the terminal – more to prep myself for the 18-hour work day that lay ahead than anything else. I smoked neatly; no spilling ash, extra careful to not blow my noxious fumes in anyone’s face by mistake. Then, a woman walked past me, her obnoxious 5-year old screaming and running circles in his Superman cape. Instead of controlling her spoilt sprog, and having the grace to look embarrassed, she raised her eyebrow at me in that way people do when they think they’re better than you. Because they don’t smoke, you see. Because you’re making the planet a messier, more selfish place. It’s another matter that her screeching brat ended up right across from me on the plane and left me with a migraine that lasted a week.
In oh-so politically correct 2010, smokers are treated almost like terrorists or pedophiles. But mothers like this one expect the world to not only accept but indulge their ill mannered offspring. How can you not smile at that cute little boy, at the innocence he represents? He is the future, after all. You’re just a toxic inhaler, damaging your health and that of others.
Ah, health. The one argument that’s supposed to bring you to your knees each time. Physical wellbeing – least of all mine – isn’t really a concern the world has (the fact that I need to be concerned about it is my own business, thank you). The point is that the global tobacco industry operates under very little control, and thereby makes quite a bit of revenue off the puffing public (the skull and bones warning sign about how Smoking Kills!!!!! doesn’t let it off the hook). And no, this is not about smokers being horribly self-centered either…they’re a meek, respectful group, for the most part. When was the last time someone lit up in a non-smoking home? They’d never get invited over again and they’d be treated to a moral lecture from hell. When was the last time somebody puffed away at the local pub? They’d be thrown out and fined a week’s wages, if not arrested. And yeah, inhaling 30 a day isn’t the greatest of character-building habits to have but there are world leaders who lie and people who make fun of disability and friends who don’t return phone calls because they owe you money – and none of this lot seem to feel any guilt whatsoever.
A shared activity – even if it involves a cancer-inducing puff or two - bonds people in so many ways. My lonely friend met her husband because she was the only one at that uptight soiree who could offer him a light for his Marlboro Red. And Nick Hornby talks of how he met Kurt Vonnegut - his literary idol and inspiration - at a boring old book reading. Vonnegut had run out of smokes, Hornby happened to have some unfiltered Pall Malls and that’s what led to them exchanging emails for months, discussing all the things that make life really worthwhile, like Arsenal and 60s pop (well, according to Hornby, that is).
I mean, who couldn’t do with more moments like these? This is what I loathe most about that smug anti-smoking brigade – they’re missing out on life, but that’s not enough. They have to deny us one too.
