by Gethin Russell-Jones
Early spring is the most wonderful time of the year. Sure there's plentiful rain, but it's warmer than its wet winter counterpart. And when the sun blesses us; it's like walking in a parade of grace. People seem happier, lighter, less burdened by the need to survive and cope. Take where I am now, sitting in the garden of my local independent coffee house.
Surrounded by smokers, but they're happy puffing on their death sticks. Their body language isn't of the hunched and collapsed variety, seen so frequently outside offices in cruel January. Today they're open, laughing, and happily alive.
Not only they, but everyone around me is relaxed, carefree. It's a workday, deadlines and chores to meet, but for this brief period it's holiday time. And I'm thinking about cigarettes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not the exception to this corporate love-in. I feel as benign and well disposed as the rest. But a cigarette would be nice. Sitting here in the sun, drinking in the warm aromas of ground coffee and nicotine, I'm taken back to my student days. Coffee was less impressive then, but I was footloose and never far away from a packet of Gallois or Camel.
Those pungent fags were the aromatic soundtrack of my early twenties. Where are they now? Probably banned, forbidden, and piled high on some European tar mountain. Yes, yes, they're bad for you, terminally awful and a short-cut to cancer. But there's something about that first drag of exotic smoke into your lungs that is without equal. Scientists say that your receptors, neurotransmitters and synapses get a nicotine high within milliseconds of your first puff.
That's why drinking espresso coffee in tandem with inhaling a French fag is so deliciously pleasurable. Unfortunately, the smell lingers on your clothes, breath, and hair for hours even days afterwards. It can of course lead to addiction and to the unwitting support of some of the world's most corrupt and globally ruthless companies. But still, these sweet memories will not be airbrushed away by common sense.
Saint Paul argued that the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and who am I to argue? But why is it that pleasure and faith are often unhappy, nay miserable playmates. You either have the cake or you eat it. You can't have both. So it's a matter of human choice. I stand alone on the great ledge of personal responsibility, staring to the heavens for help and guidance.
Actually I don't, for I find the government is also occupying that space with me. And rather like an annoying great aunt, she is constantly nagging and manipulating in a cheerless manner. I agree, there are many issues of public policy and legislation involved in the decision I take. Sometimes we need protecting from ourselves and from others. However some of the time, we simply need the space to be adults.
I don't smoke; I don't like smoking but neither am I enamoured by the inflated pompous ‘nannery' of this island. Another espresso please waiter.
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