Well... As far as dating a smoker, I am some twenty something years married, but to bring this back to music, my parents both smoked, and it ruined my health, ending a promicing track carreer, as my lung problems are - without a doupt, caused by second hand smoke. I grew up in a music family, and Irish music is a part of my life that I have little choice about, I am complelled to play and it is painful not to, however, the cost to my health from other peoples smoke inculdes an opperation to my throat, which could have taken my voice, which for someone with a long ballad tradition, would not be very nice, and did take away my ability to play the highland pipes, which for an Uilleann piper is not the greatest loss in the world, though it is one I feel, non the less. Law and rights are a profoundly missunderstood concept. A New York judge, in the 1930s, with the great name Learned Hand, once said that your rights end where mine begin, though you have the right to swing your hand, that right ends at my face - to paraphrase slightly. in my middle thirties I decided to go to law school, and had to get an undergad degree, so I spent some 10 years away from the music and the smoke filled pubs, and was surprised at my sudden good health. Now that I have left the legal community and returned to music, the constant smoke has again brought on wretched health. As much as I endorce the right, and it is a right, of smokers to kill themselves, do we not have a right to experience out traditional culture without being murdered by their cigarettes. As to you happy smokers, I spent the better part of a year with my father as he ended several decades of struggle against emhasima. He was a powerful man, who among other things, dug coal at the age of thirteen or so. As a result, his battle against the loss of his lungs was epic. In the end, he did not have the strenght to sit up in bed, and as gravity would pull him down, I had to take him, under the shoulderblades and raise him up on his pillows again, so he could breath. I had to do this, as if the nurces did, he would his skin would come appart where they touched him as they were not so gentle. He was as proud as he was once powerful, and having me have to help him in this little way caused him deep embarassment. We singers are good at remembering history, so let us remember that tobaco, even more than cotten was the industry of slavery, and the sons of sons of bitchs that chained women men and children to plows, now chain men women and children to this weed that is ruining so many lives. As far as sleeping with Ferrets, Little Dorritt, You have sorely damaged my mental immage of Yorksire. I thought sleeping with Ferrets a rather quaint Yorksire tradition! I did a fundraiser concert for the NUM back during the big mine strikes, was it in 86? and my most prised possestion was a NUM union badge from the Yorksire region locals. I lost it while doing a human rights survey among Innu in Quebec, who were trying to stop hydro dams from destroying their hunting lands (sorry Marrion - its too cold there to grow vegies) So, Little Dorret, If you know any NUM members, and they could see it in their hearts, I love to find a replacement for the lost union badge. I can be reached at InOBU@AOL.COM, Sorry for the long ponderous post, Larry Otway