"SMOKING KILLS" the packets all say, in massive letters, leaving barely enough space for the Lucky Strike logo to be printed onto the packet (with it's bizarre "It's Toasted" slogan. What the fuck?). But these warnings are mostly useless. I'll take you through some of them :-
Smoking seriously harms you and others around you - This is not a great burben on me really, as I'm a depressive with little interest in my own survival, and I'm also a misanthrope, so harming others around me would actually cheer me up.
Protect children: Don't make them breathe your smoke - This one is also useless as I don't have children, nor do I have children visit my flat and I certainly don't take kids down to the pub, or to university. In fact I spend vast amounts of the day avoiding children. Mostly because schoolkids always ask me to go into a newsagent and buy them a bottle of White Lightning/Vodka/Buckfast at 11:30 in the morning. Jesus. Plus, they're fucking terrifying. Have you ever seen a group of teenagers standing around, they look like they're waiting for someone to murder, which in Glasgow they probably are. That's why you can't go into pubs until you're 18, because we need somewhere to escape these creepy children of the night, especially the ones in track suits.
Smoking may reduce the blood flow and causes impotence - This one's a bit wishy-washy. It may reduce blood flow? Well, there's nothing to worry about then. I may die in a car crash, doesn't mean I don't drive anywhere. As for the causing impotence, as much as I wish otherwise this wouldn't be a drastic change in my lifestyle.
Smokers die younger - Younger than what? Tramps? I bet the homeless die even younger than smokers. Chinese people? The Chinese are apparently a long lived race of people, so that's not impossible. If they mean the average common or garden idiot who populates planet Earth, then this surely can be no bad thing.
Smoking causes ageing of the skin - So does the following list of things :- the sun, water, fats, lack of exercise, dust, bed mites, steriods, drugs, alcohol, UV lights, sweat and age itself. Singling out smoking for this is a tad harsh, somehow implying that after a cigarette you look like a zombie, shuffling about and dying of cancer.
Now, from this I'm not actually against the warnings on smoking packets, but come on, they need more force behind them. The worst example is the warning with the list of chemicals a cigarette contains, and not being interested in chemistry at all, all I can say is "Is that bad?" How about "SMOKE AND YOU WILL DIE", which isn't actually a lie, as everyone eventually dies. Or do what the Canadians do and put pictures of diseased lungs on the packets. That would put me right off, as I really don't like seeing bits of healthy bodies, let alone one black with tar and cyanide.
It's all a bit useless though, as I've smoked two cigarettes writing this, and I know that my next attempt to quit will invariably be a couple of days of boredom and then a march down to the shops to buy a pack of ten. It all seems a bit pointless in the end.
Back... back you go