As a practising asthmatic (I'm still polishing my skills), I avoid tobacco at all times and have never smoked an entire cigarette in my life. In my dizzy youth, when smoking was fashionable and I didn't realize why exercise made me wheeze and cringe with pain, I tried the odd butt, but I just didn't like it and never got hooked. Now, when I see the state of other people in the respirologist's waiting room, some of them years younger than I, I thank God and count my blessings.

My first husband was a fully addicted smoker in the European "what's your problem?" style. When he took himself and his attitudes off and out of my life, the smell of tobacco gradually vanished from the house. One of the clearest memories I have of that period is the feeling of relieved delight that came over me one day when realized, on entering the house, that it smelled only of soup, fresh ironing and just a hint of cat pee.

My sister-in-law, whom I love dearly, is a martyr to the weed; she has tried to quit at least yearly ever since I first met her more than 20 years ago. In fact, I love her so much I would even let her smoke in the house, but she conscientiously goes outside even in the dead of winter. Now, that's consideration.

They say that young teenage girls are the largest cohort of new smokers now, a statistic that bodes ill for initiatives against the various cancers that kill off women too young. All the pink ribbons in the world will achieve the square root of sweet fanny adams until somebody manages to make smoking unfashionalbe to young folks.