Smoke, mirrors and New Year resolutions

I smoked my last cigarette on 31st January 1985, having started smoking in Algiers at the age of 21. I was studying computing when computers were petrol-driven, and punch cards were the norm. 

My late brother worked for the national shipping company, and when he went away on his frequent foreign trips, he always brought me back a present. The time he came back from Lebanon the year before I came to the UK, he gave me a cartridge of 200 menthol cigarettes. I informed him that I did not smoke. He casually told me to share among my university friends.I got back to my room in campus intent on giving away the unwanted gift. However, I opened a packet and pulled a cigarette out. I stood in front of the wall mirror, lit up and nearly choked on the first mouthful of smoke. I was careful with the next one and gently blew the smoke out without inhaling it, letting it float up in slow motion like in the movies. Just picture Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca! 

I decided to give away half the cigarettes to my friends and keep the rest. By the time I smoked the last of the ones I’d kept, I was hooked on nicotine for the next eleven years.
That was a present I could’ve definitely done without. 

I tried to give up on a few occasions for various lengths of time, but for one reason or another, I’d revert to smoking again.
A few months before we opened Krimo’s, I forced myself to make a New Year resolution to give up for good, by the end of January 1985, giving myself one whole month to get used to the idea.

I was working at an Italian restaurant in Peterlee at the time and, among other liqueurs, we served Sambuca topped with three coffee beans and set alight for a coffee flavour.
I came up with the idea for a cigarette substitute and began to chew a coffee bean every time I felt the urge for a dose of nicotine.

On 31 January 1985 at around 11 pm, I finished work, gave the last of my cigarettes to the chef and went home. I continued the coffee bean routine for a few years until I was certain that I would never smoke again.

When smoking was still allowed in public places, no one blinked when someone lit up a cigarette, very often between courses. I had a phobia for ashtrays full of cigarette ends, and whenever I came out of the kitchen, one of my first concerns was to ask the waiting staff to empty bulging ashtrays. They were trained to carry out the operation with the grace of a magician! A clean ashtray was placed upside down on top of the dirty one; then both were swiftly picked up; one hand gently put the empty ashtray on the table, and the other took away the one full of butts. All this under the gaze of mesmerised diners. 

As soon as the smoking ban was introduced, this remarkable party piece became obsolete. The ban itself may be responsible for many pub closures, but at least, customers no longer leave restaurants or bars reeking of cigarette smoke.