Taking the Park & Ride out of Norwich last week I mused how once upon a time such stifling heat on the upper deck would have been exacerbated by fag smoke. Difficult to imagine it now somehow; although our favourite folk club meets in a pub which locks its doors at 11.30 and the smokers in the bar are free to light up. First thing we do when get in is put our clothes in the washing machine!

Breaks my heart to see old heroes forced to smoke in the cold outside the Ex-Servicemen's club though, although the smokers clustering around other doorways can be a bit of a pain. As an ex-smoker I might sympathise, but once I met a chap on a National Express coach from London to Durham who took me as a kindred spirit on account of the packet of Drum in my top pocket. Back then you could only get Drum off the boat as it were, so this was a badge of a serious smoker. However, whilst 7 or so hours without a fag were no bother to a lightweight such as myself, to my friend it was a purgatory he was unwilling to endure. So, seeking to by-pass the smoke alarms in the coach toilets he would inhale whilst kneeling over the toilet - and exhale with his head in the bowl as he flushed. He was very proud of this discovery, but it made me realise that I couldn't really be that much of a smoker if I wasn't prepared to endure the stench of a National Express chemical toilet awash with a day's worth of exrement just so I might savour my precious snout.

I gave up a few months later in August 2000 and, some ten years on, have not once faltered in my resolve, although I do eat rather a lot by way of compensation - all good stuff mark you, just rather too much of it - thus I am, as a consequence, somewhat overweight, though I am working on it...

I miss smoking as part of our culture; I miss smoking as personal ritual - the Job papers, the Swan Vestas, the Drum or GV. I miss smoking whilst working, I miss smoking whilst drinking - indeed, when I gave up I went for 5 whole years without darkening the doors of a pub (or folk club) so strong were the associations.