Smoked Out
I am wearing my full-on rant pants (dark red, far too big for me, kinda look a bit samurai) so be warned. Especially if you are a smoker. And also – shut up and butt out. See, the thing is, come July 1st, all public buildings in the UK – yknow, the ones that people go into, the breathing kind of people – are going to be smoke-free. Well, hoo and bloody rah. Along with the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone, it’s the only good thing Tony Blair’s government has achieved. OK, and peace in Northern Ireland.
But the smoking ban was harder. Pretty much everyone could see that finding a peaceful resolution to the English occupation of a sovereign nation (hint) was a good thing. But smoking… oh no, that went through parliament and back and up and over, with ridiculous debates about how smoking is a civil liberty, about how it’s part of working class identity, about how it will destroy pub culture and bankrupt restaurant owners. Newsflash: the only people who are going to lose money are a) the tobacco companies and b) the government, because – dramatic drum roll please – when smoking bans come into effect, people stop smoking.
And I, for one, can’t fucking WAIT. I speak as an ex-smoker who always envisioned herself ashing away at the keyboard. Inspiration curled from the mouth in a puff of smoke, I thought. Beryl Bainbridge made the same argument in the Guardian last week. Fine, Beryl B., smoke at your desk. But are you really looking for dinner conversation inspiration? Will your masterpiece truly arrive while you’re waiting for the W3 bus in the rain so it’s not like I can stand outside the shelter you’re polluting.
Gack. What are you, three? Don’t you know that the “if you light a cigarette, the bus will arrive” thing is as bullshit, as the “if I smoke two packs a day, I’ll lose weight” that we all bought when we were at school. Not so much: it makes you spotty (chemicals in cigarettes stop your body processing Vitamin C) and as you’re going out to smoke anyway, you might as well by a packet of crisps. I decided to keep the crisp habit and ditch the smokes.
Yet as I write this (not ashing on my keyboard), all I can smell is cigarette smoke. My previously-clean hair stinks of it. The red pants had to come out because my jeans stink of it. My friends and I had to leave this amazing gig early because two of us could no longer breathe without choking. Even the singer’s voice cracked a couple of times. I know I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling hungover due to lack of friendly oxygen, even though I drank nothing but water all night, and the pillow will stink of it. And no, it doesn’t make me wish I still smoked. It makes me wish I could projectile vomit like a Gatling gun and take out the whole bloody pub full of roll-yer-own Capstan strength fake folkies. You’re middle class! If you can afford to buy drinks in an Islington pub, you can afford to buy cigarettes.
Beside the point. Insert anecdote to get back on track: I used to read at an open mike night in Toronto that shall remain nameless, because I have since made peace with the person who organised it. As you can guess from the previous sentence, we had a falling out after one of my readings. The stuff of the falling out is irrelevant, but what made me really mad was this: readers and audience members were warned that this was a scent-free event due to the allergies of some participants, and asked to avoid perfumes, deodorants, hairsprays and suchlike.
Fine. I’d done this drill with the crazy thesis-binder lady who was so allergic that even if you promised to wear nothing but sackcloth and sweat, you still had to leave your precious project on her doorstep and hope that she beat the elves to it. I respect that uncompromising self-care. Go, crazy thesis lady. What I don’t get, as I’m going up to read in this – wait – smoky bar, is why all of these tree-hugging, tofu-munching, goddess-worshipping, leftier-than-thou, scent-free women are smoking. Apparently severe asthma is less of a health threat than environmental sensitivities (I’m sure StatsCan have some, well, stats on the number of hospitalisations per annum from each).
As I stood on the tiny stage, looking out through a haze of smoke, my eyes started tearing up and I realised I couldn’t breathe. Not stage fright, just common or garden asthma. So I asked politely if the front row would mind not smoking while I read. Well, if flicked cigarette cherries could kill, I would be dead of a thousand tiny burn marks. Frankly, I think the whole argument that ensued later was just a cover for the fact that I’d dared insult the sacred civil liberty of the cigarette. Because supporting some of the most environmentally destructive, non-unionised, globalised, 5c an hour companies in the world, that’s a civil right worth defending.
Don’t get me started on the anti-war marchers from my union who wanted to meet at Starbuck’s and all smoked. Yes, the image of the leftist is all hammer, sickle, rollie – but no-one thinks Communism is that cool anymore, and we know a lot more about the tobacco companies now. Do you see Philip Morris producing fair trade, organic cigarettes? That would be pretty funny, and would demonstrate just how much the Fair Trade label is worth as a teeny posing pouch to cover the fat-cat asses of big business. But I still wouldn’t smoke, and I would still make childish choking noises every time I was near someone who did. At least for the next month.
Then there are going to be big signs everywhere that have laser beams that can fire on non-compliant smokers, and Smoking Police, and exploding cigarettes and CCTV cameras that tell you off… Actually, that last bit is true, but it’s about street crime rather than smoking, and I’m not really in favour of the nanny state. I just want the cigarette companies to go bust, so that tobacco can return to its status as a sacred plant, rather than the social prop of every maladjust unconsciously mimicking Hollywood glamour (or Marxist propaganda films).
Because that’s the final, sweet irony: all those smokers who think they’re making such an individual choice, one they’ll defend to the death (theirs or that of their neighbour/family/barmaid, whoever has inhaled the most smoke): there’s nothing individual about smoking, you’re just another sap who bought the package the cigarette companies sell. Smoking will make you sexy, smoking will make you rich, smoking will make you successful… No, all it’s going to make you is dead. And before that, from July 1st, it’s going to make you unpopular and – if the weather keeps up like this and you have to stand outside – very, very wet. Sweet revenge…
he