I have been, on and off, a lifelong smoker; but I gave up in January 2009 on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration as President of the United States. It was out of feelings of solidarity with the poor man, who I assumed (incorrectly, as it turned out) would have to quit too when he took office; for Hillary Clinton, as First Lady, had ruled that there should never be any smoking in the White House. I myself remained primly smoke-free for five and a half years, but took up cigarettes again in June when I became editor of The Oldie.
Before that I had edited four other magazines, including this one, and had always had a cigarette on the go for most of the time. I think I couldn’t imagine editing anything without one. But, given the poor condition of my lungs, as well as the illegality of smoking in an office, I thought I had better try to give up again, even though Auberon Waugh used to say that smokers were generally nicer people than non-smokers. I felt that this couldn’t possibly be true any more, since so many very nice people had stopped smoking in the meantime, and it also seemed a good moment to quit because researchers were proclaiming that September was the least stressful month of the year. So it’s now been a few days since I had a puff on a cigarette.
To help me keep my new resolution, I have been furnished with several packets of e-cigarettes, those clever imitations, invented by the Chinese, that contain no tobacco and exude vapour rather than smoke, but provide you with just enough nicotine to satisfy an addict’s needs. E-cigarettes come in various shapes and forms — it is a very competitive industry — but the ones I have look and feel like real cigarettes, come in boxes that resemble real cigarette boxes, and issue satisfying clouds of smoke-like vapour.
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