Matthew's Journal

I can't wait till smoking's banned in pubs, and public areas. And hopefully anywhere outdoors too, though that won't stop next door filling my house with smoke in summer when they are on their patio and it drifts up and in all my windows.

I have hayfever and am pretty sensitive to smoke. Cigars make me nauseous and bring on a migraine within just a couple of lungfulls of the smoke, even if it's outside. Cigarette smoke isn't quite as bad, but I still don't see why I should go out for an evening with friends, have watering eyes, cough constantly, and then come home with clothes, hair, me, all reeking of smoke, and have to then bathe to get rid of it from me, and wake up with stale smoke stink from the clothes and have to wash them too... jackets as well as everything else.

I wouldn't care if it stayed with the smoker and didn't end up in my lungs and hair and clothes, but it doesn't. Make it mandatory for smokers to don a hazmat suit and smoke inside that, I say.

Roll on July 7

Oh, here here.

Weird thing is that occasionally (like, once every two years or so) I will smoke a cigarette myself (well away from anyone it's likely to distress - never in pubs, for a start). Cadge one from a friend or something. And I own a pipe, though I've only used it once. Don't much care for cigarettes, but the pipe's nice. And, you know, I've been known to smoke a Certain Other Substance - again, not very often and only around those happy with it.

But that's the whole thing: being around people smoking is an entirely unpleasant sensation. And it doesn't help to know that yes, passive smoking *does* involve the more noxious chemicals too.

I vary in terms of how sensitive I am to the smoke (see above). At worst it can most definitely ruin my day/evening. Especially with the tendency towards chest infections.

But yes, roll on July 7th. The bar of the Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham will suddenly become habitable again... I'm really looking forward to that.

But most of all I'm looking forward to people not smoking on station platforms. For some reason that *always* gets me. :-/