Out and about

We are already more than halfway through January and I am still managing to stick heroically to my new year’s resolution. This is to keep smoking throughout 2012 — with a particularly large intake of nicotine and tar planned for the dreaded Olympic Games when everyone will be banging on about the glories of physical fitness.

There will be no end of temptations to quit, of course. I was at a wonderful dinner party over the festive period, held, romantically, in a candlelit, lovingly restored vintage railway carriage. When I announced I was going to nip outside for a fag, the hostess looked at me with a mixture of disbelief and horror, as if I had proposed shooting up heroin or molesting a young child.

Over the years, I have packed in smoking on several occasions, only to pile on the pounds as I got hooked on confectionery instead, most notably liquorice, Krispy Kreme doughnuts and clotted-cream fudge. Indeed just writing those words makes me want to rush out to the sweetshop. Happily I can have a fag instead and I cherish the moment at Glastonbury in 2009 when I was so elated by Bruce Springsteen’s brilliant performance that I knew I either had to have a fag or a drink or I’d explode.

I have been puffing away contentedly ever since, feeling calmer, happier and childishly delighted to be cocking a snook at the busybodies and the naysayers who delight in telling us how to live our lives. Being a smoker these days is a bit like being an outlaw and I get a childish, Just William-like kick out of it, just as I did when smoking in the woods with friends at Charterhouse.

My other new year’s resolution, apart from trying to be kinder and not to grumble so much, is to see more live music, both classical and pop.