Smoke and fire

I don't smoke. I never have and I guess I never will, but I don't smoke in the same sort of way that I don't play backgammon.I never got around to learning and don't really fancy it.

I don't confuse tobacco with a moral issue, and I'm disinterestedly appalled by the self-righteous wrath visited on smokers these days.

All of which may go some way to explaining why I find it strangely reassuring that Barack Obama still sparks up occasionally.

Long may he continue to cadge the odd Woodbine and step out of the Oval Office for a crafty snout. It helps me to think of him as a human being rather than a dry and humourless, health-guideline-issuing scold.

So, along with the rest of the world, but in my own idiosyncratic way, I wish him well as the new era dawns.