‘I am 35,000 feet above Beirut, and I am smoking a fag’: Spectator writers recall their favourite cigarettes

The next generation will never be allowed to buy cigarettes. So we asked some of our writers for their favourite moment with a fag.

Rory Sutherland

One of the last ever cigarettes I had on a plane, I think. Looking back, it was kind of insane that you could ever smoke on aircraft (I think this was on Emirates, around 1997 – at a time when smoking had been banned on western airlines for quite a few years; the middle-eastern airlines, like the Japanese, were slow to the ban). This was the first time I had ever experienced a working telephone on an aircraft, too. And it also coincided with Kathy Burke playing a role in a series of Harry Enfield sketches on TV as Waynetta Slob. I seem to remember calling back to the office very briefly – the calls cost a fortune – and at some point in the conversation, apropos of nothing at all, saying ‘I am 35,000 feet above Beirut, and I am smoking a fag’.