Smoking

Take a deep breath. Hold it.

Your lungs feel full, right? Wrong. Your lungs are full of air, just like an empty gift is full of air. If you were smoking right now, your lungs would really be full, not hollow, and filled with a succulent woody essence which warmly coats your throat and embraces your soul. Juicy, wholesome lubricant would be coursing the labyrinth of your body, its velvet tendrils soothing the deepest brachiole and flavouring your pores. Smoking feels good - fact.

Let’s take an objective look at some more of the boons of tobacco so that we can achieve a balanced perspective;

• Fact : Smoking makes you look cool. Breathing out long contrails of rich smoke from nostrils and mouth always looks great. Squinting and looking through a acerbic cloud of your own creation gives you an air of mystery and a keen sexual allure.

• Fact : All the best people smoke. Everyone learns this at school. If you didn't smoke at school, I've probably bullied you. Thanks for the lunch money. Guess what I spent it on.

• Fact : Smoking is healthy. Smoking can ease anxiety and stress. A healthy addiction to tobacco warns you when you have not had a break for a while and often forces you outdoors. Whilst there, it affords you a highly technologically advanced filter to protect your from the filthy polluted air of the city.

• Fact : Smoking makes you five times more likely to die than the person next to you. No wonder it makes you look cool. Smokers  taunt death like a star toreador, we flaunt our skills and daring in short public shows many times a day. Women are driven wild, male bystanders feel jealous and inferior . Warning : not smoking causes impotency.

• Fact : Smoking makes you look older In a lunatic fit of honesty, the government recently launched an ad campaign to discourage teenage girls from smoking by quoting medical evidence that it can prematurely age you. Er, isn’t that the reason they started smoking in the first place? Jesus.

• Fact : Smoking helps you score. ‘Got a light, love?’ has gotten me more action than you’ve had fish suppers and its removal from the cocksman’s lexicon could stunt population growth in one deft stroke. Smoking helps you make that first move. It sorts out the pregnant and infirm from the suitable breeding material. It allows you to flaunt your right to create fire in a public place with a string of baroque and absurdly dangerous lighters.

• Fact : Smoking is your duty. As a full time smoker, you will contribute around £100,000 more in tax than your non-smoking ‘mate’. That money goes towards making Britain great. It keeps crime off the streets, helps little old ladies cross the road and buys incubators for tiny fragile babies. That's why smoking 'duty-free' cigarettes is exactly how it sounds, it shirks your duty and carries no honour … it is an evil almost as pure as not smoking at all. How many babies have to die before you non-smokers start to pull your own weight?

But let us consider more carefully the non-smoker. I’m sure you quickly realise the corollary of our re-stating of these scientific facts suggests a non-smoker profile, which represents an exact negative of the above boons of smokemanship.

As a non-smoker you are therefore, most likely, a selfish, dull, unattached inadequate who has difficulties forging new relationships and was bullied at school. You are an impotent psychopath, damaged and withdrawn from those around you, unable to empathise with their motivation or understand their actions. You are prone to violent outbursts, and, despite the group of sycophants you surround yourself with, alone. You belong to the same demographic as a paedophile (and, purely coincidentally, Jim Bowen). I hope you die soon. Preferably under the wheels of a Benson and Hedges truck on its way to bring supplies to the beautiful people.

You can breathe out now.