Today I became nostalgic for a smell. You wake up on top of the covers in your underwear, and through the gloaming of your bedroom, through the smug pint of water, through the angst and exhaustion and joy and regret that comes from five hours in a nightclub and two hours on the wrong bus home, there is some bitter relief in the smell of smoke on your hair. That smell! Like barbecued teenagers and pepper and beer, almost lovely, pleasantly vile, a kind of lovebite memory, bruised on the throat in passion. That smell. It all seems quite mad now, the idea that people smoked, not just inside, but underground, in windowless rooms. Though I suppose so much seems mad to me about young fun still: come out, drink until you’re sick, it’ll be a laugh! Come out, get off with an ex you spent two years getting over! Come out, lose your phone! Come out, take two days to recover, tell everyone the wrong secrets! Come out, it will cost £100 and you’ll twist your ankle! Come out, it’ll be fun!
When I read the news that smoking was coming back, I thought: that smell. Then I thought: of course. The wellness era is truly at its end, celery water pooling under the door, hot yoga cooled down to a single tepid pilate. In a recent exchange with another artist, David Hockney wrote, “I too am BORED with WELLNESS. The concept seems ridiculous and too bossy for me, I’m still smoking, and ENJOYING it ENORMOUSLY.” His cigarette set off a fire alarm at the launch of his latest exhibition. These things go in cycles, don’t they, meaning the end of health signals the return of unhealth, and luxurious malaise, and celebrities like Lily-Rose Depp posing for paparazzi with a cigarette in her hand. Which was interesting because, as one photographer told the Guardian, for decades stars had asked him to delete any photos he took of them smoking – and today they’re deliberately lighting up.
