"And then you do what with it, Walt?"

As a cigar smoker, who gave up cigarettes years ago, I respect those, like Harvey and Hilary from Artisan, who have a problem with smoky atmospheres. I can, and do, survive up to six hours without a weed, but, given the choice, I smoke.

I want something to get me before Alzheimers does, and I derive pleasure from my cigars. However, I am personally convinced that the additives in cigarettes and cheap cigars (I only smoke 100pc tobacco offerings) are the problem rather than the tobacco itself. Winston Churchill smoked up to 10 large Havana cigars a day all his life, and lived to 90-odd. He was hardly a sylph either. The comments of those who endured passive breathing of his exhaust gases are not recorded, to my knowledge, but those were different times.

Non-smokers who work in a large town or city probably absorb many times more carcinogens and other pollutants from diesel fumes and other sources than they do from passive smoking, but we smokers are an easier target for their opprobrium.

Wouldn't it be fun if it turned out that a major cause of asthma was the Hydrogen Sulphide emitted from every car fitted with a catalytic convertor?