My GP and I have a friendly relationship. Once, during a telephone appointment, he asked me if I was a smoker. “No,” I replied, playfully. “But maybe next year will be more eventful.” That’s because I am of the social smoking variety – that cheeky, sneaky (and possibly most annoying) breed. We are the beggars at the barbecue, eyeing up your rolling papers and asking for a small one. The scrounger at the Christmas party, suggesting a twos.
You will know us by our ancient packet of Greek cigarettes found in a kitchen drawer – so old they no longer light – or our giveaways as we exit a wedding: “Want the rest of these fags? Take them, I’m not going to smoke them.” I can – and have – gone years without smoking, only to periodically step back into the smoking area and exclaim: “Wow, it’s so much emptier!”
