Afternoon:
10°c
As a sometime 20-a-day smoker, I know I'm always liable to relapse. And the trigger that unfailingly brings the dreadful, delicious, long-suppressed craving on again is not alcohol or coffee or the company of other smokers — though they all help — but the summer sunshine.
And I am not alone. Almost a quarter of the 877 smokers polled by Ipsos Mori this summer said they had put off giving up. I've been keeping tabs on my fellow ex-smokers and have watched many go back on the tobacco as temperatures and hemlines rise.
TS Eliot got it wrong. April isn't the cruellest month. For nicotine-resisters, it's a dead heat between June, July, August and September.
The upturn in the British climate makes one yearn to be outside, there to be confronted by happy, hungry puffers. Tendrils of smoke seem to write messages in the warm air. Give in. Rejoin us. Enjoy.
Those who might have fought off the demon weed in rainy May or bitter January succumb in the sun. Stuffy pubs are empty, but their gardens are full of languidly sprawling smokers.
Scattered packets and lighters give a continental air to the suddenly sittable outdoor tables of London restaurants. Fags and festivals go together like cider and regret.
There are chemical and psychological reasons for the surge in summer smoking. Cigarette smoke, acrid and foul in the bars and offices from which it's now rightly barred, smells sweet and aromatic when borne on a balmy breeze.
An indulgent, al fresco fag — like the first sneaky, outdoor, weekday-lunchtime booze-up — feels like a holiday from the drabness and denial of our largely vitamin D-free working lives.
The recession hasn't helped. At a time when we are cutting back on overseas vacations and any major expenditure, a packet of 10 looks like a cheap, if guilty, pleasure.
The smokers who told Ipsos Mori they couldn't give up cited anxiety over the recession as the cause. Nearly three-quarters of the 877 also said smoking helped relieve stress.
Where does this leave those of us who are trying to go straight, rather than straight to the newsagents, this summer? In a difficult position, that's where. I felt my first pang of 2009 leaving my office one June day to find two colleagues basking on a wall, sharing a roll-up.
Recently, a friend who is about to become a father for the second time darted away from the dinner table to suck down carcinogens in the day's last dying rays. On holiday in Majorca, me and my wife (who gave up smoking long before me and has never indulged since) both found ourselves reaching for phantom cartons by the pool.
I finally succumbed, alas and woe, after that Balearic holiday, over a rosé-fuelled lunch in a friend's garden in Acton. We'd just handed her 200 Dunhill (as a gift, in case any Customs officers are reading) and as I watched her spark greedily up, I gave in. Two cigarettes. Smoked in dappled shade. Blissfully enjoyable. But the comedown was awful. As we made our way home on a glorious evening, I realised I was grumpy, ash-mouthed, stale-smelling and racked with self-loathing. Which is never a good look for summer.
Reader views (9)
All moaning, as usual. Democracy and choice are being obliterated by this government at an alarming rate. there are people reaching 100 years old who have smoked/drank all their lives, ate breakfast fry-ups, and their nearest and dearests still survive too. The most damaging killer in this island is this poisonous government who have killed democracy and free speech and betrayed England, causing stress, which is in itself a killer. You wont die if someone smokes near you. Alcohol is a serious killer, so all you moaning minnies who congregate in pubs, stinking snd smelling of alcohol, also with your bad breaths, are taking the(imagined)risks as being around smokers. Drink up you bunch of idiots who believe everything this scaremongering government warns you of. Remember, we were all going to die of bird flue a couple of years ago. ha ha! You have all been indoctrinated. Mind the kerb!! Watch out there's a tree about, a leaf may fall on your head. Get real!
- Lin, London England, 22/07/2009 10:03
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Ayylyn .. "eat veggies" problem with this is they dont produce enough fat when spit roasted compared to meat eaters!!
Remember ONLY those who smoke have a choice while the rest have to endure their stink and dont forget secondary smoking kills!!!
If they want to smoke wear wear the same outfit as Buss Aldrin wore to walk on the moon.
- Melvyn, Canvey Island, Essex, 21/07/2009 17:35
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It's a filthy, disgusting. loathsome addication, smellier than foul drains and more dangerous than heroin. Like Chris from Bromley, after years of only drinking outside pubs, I now enter unsullied, but I can never now stand outside to imbibe as,of course, the dirty lepers have shifted to fill the exterior space instead - the law of unintended consequences prevailing. They should just ban it and machine gun anyone not complying in a spirit of maximum intolerance.
- Barry1858, Welwyn, 21/07/2009 16:36
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Well the one of the few business that NuLabour will continue to support as the rest go under, will be the care homes. Stop smoking, live longer, pay £1,000 a week to be warehoused while you wait to die.
- Frank, Dorchester Dorset, 21/07/2009 16:22
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Have always found the sight of poisonous gas billowing out of someone's mouth pretty repellent; not to mention the stench of their breath. Not a pleasant habit: but as a good liberal am content for the individual to make his/her own choice as long as I don't have to breathe the smoke, or pay for the health care.
- Alan, London, 21/07/2009 16:20
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nice to drink in a pub now and not have to suffer smoke in your face or have your clothes stink of smoke i see no smoking in turkish bars has now been brought in good
- Chris, bromley, 21/07/2009 12:13
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Gary you are not wrong. The Puritans in the UK want us all to live in caves and eat veggies. Not for them of course as they are probably failed MP's and Council Jobsworths who will feel free to dream up more restrictions on the plebs, thats you and me.
As you will notice I live in Spain and our own Socialist Comissar Christina Narbonne tried the same trick exceoept she left a couple of loopholes. One being if your premises were under 100sq m you could decide if it was smoking or non-smoking. According to Christina the Spanish were very naughty and went for the latter, but then she was sacked. Hope springs eternal.
Inidentally I do not smoke but I like my freedom of choice.
- Ayylyn, Orihuela Costa, 20/07/2009 16:17
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better make the most of the time limited pleasures of a quick smoke and a beer!! Within 2 or 3 years, the elf n safety gestapo will have closed every single loophole for enjoying anything - insurance will be required for allowing smoking 'in public places' - the street/parks etc, and drinking will be taxed to the hilt with dire penalties for having the nerve to order more than 2 drinks in the day under threat of arrest for 'public order offenses...!!
- Gary, amersham, 20/07/2009 12:54
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better make the most of the time limited pleasures of a quick smoke and a beer!! Within 2 or 3 years, the elf n safety gestapo will have closed every single loophole for enjoying anything - insurance will be required for allowing smoking 'in public places' - the street/parks etc, and drinking will be taxed to the hilt with dire penalties for having the nerve to order more than 2 drinks in the day under threat of arrest for 'public order offenses...!!
- Gary, amersham, 20/07/2009 12:54
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