But not today, not on World No Tobacco Day, not on a day full of sanctimonious people giving all us nicotine-crazed wretches at least 10 incontestable reasons to abandon the weed. It makes you feel like a cigarette to calm your nerves. Like many people, I'd find giving up really easy if I could smoke while I was doing it. As it is, being a smoker today is an exercise in constant weasly adaptation. Most public buildings are smoke-free zones.
Many restaurants are also smoke-free zones.
It's a bit difficult to argue against this development, at least on health grounds, but it does prevent smokers from practising one of the few socially useful aspects of their habit. It also confuses the waiters. Because, of course, it is a well-known fact that meals will only arrive at the precise moment someone fires up a fag. It is part of the arcane laws of cause and effect that smoking produces - laws that scientists had better hurry up and study before the weed is finally wiped out. If inside, every ashtray in the coffee shop mysteriously disappears.