Smoking is back, and it is everywhere

Who is smoking, and what is everyone puffing on, plus why is smoking still so cool?

Last night in old town Jeddah I was sitting at a cafe with a bunch of smokers, and it had me thinking about smoking….

Even on planes

I mean I did it, and did it for years.

I was a fag smoker. A secret primary school puffer of Gauloises and Gitanes in the late 90s. I was told by the older, more popular kids that between the World Wars it was patriotic to smoke Gauloises, associated with the “poilu” (slang for infantrymen in the trenches) and the resistance fighters. The slogan “Liberté toujours” was just right for a rebellious preteen like myself in suburban Pretoria and Johannesburg and that iconic blue packaging with an Asterix-style helmet with wings was perfect to accidentally fall out of my school bag. Camus smoked them, Sartre, Jim Morrison…and my mum was French so I even spoke the language. I was too cool for school. Right behind the tennis courts, so clandestine.