Comments on: smoke

By: ravi

ravi — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:21:05 +0000

i thaught parisians lived life and did not fear death what the fuck

By: Chi

Chi — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 18:42:43 +0000

In the Canadian province I live in smoking has been banned in public spaces for some time.
I’m not a smoker, so the ban in beneficial to me but I’ve often I wondered how it would go over in the UK and France. The population of smokers is still much higher there, is it not?

The provincial government is also talking about passing a law prohibiting smoking in any vehicle with children inside. Huge fines will result.

By: happyforyou

happyforyou — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:23:39 +0000

#55
comments like #55 should probably best be completely ignored, but I feel compelled to warn the writer about the hazards posed by such high levels of vitriol…
Can’t be healthy, can it?

By: Alethea

Alethea — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 07:49:26 +0000

#59: “Personally, I cannot stomach the specious morality of the anti-smoking Taliban…” Hear, hear! Just because I’m a non-smoker myself, and lung cancer from smoking killed my mother at age 61 after at least twenty years of bronchitis, and I did manage to find a non-smoker to marry and with whom to reproduce, doesn’t mean that everyone has to do the same. It’s just pure hubris to pretend otherwise.

No one needs these guilt trips, including Petite, and it’s your own choice what to do in the privacy of your home (and in my opinion, that applies to marijuana and alcohol as well). However, out in public where other people not under your personal responsability are endangered – well, I’m not against these anti-smoking or seatbelt laws per se, even if it seems a bit double standard. When going out for a drink gets self-limited, too, we’ll be having a lot more house parties, eh?

By: andrew

andrew — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 19:59:58 +0000

I lived with a smoker (my ex-wife) who recently gave it up, for eighteen years; my present partner gave up smoking only last Autumn. But as a life-long non-smoker I left it to them to make up their own minds (the science of passive smoking illness, like global warming, is filled with sounds of grinding axes).

Personally, I cannot stomach the specious morality of the anti-smoking Taliban and avoid members of that vacuuous cult like an infectious rash.

By: Annina

Annina — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 07:51:09 +0000

This is probably a stereotype, but I’ve often heard (from people who probably know no better than I) that France is a country comprised almost entirely of chain-smokers. (Having never been there, sadly, I cannot say whether this is largely or even somewhat true.) Still, with a quick Googling of “Smoking in France” under my belt, it doesn’t surprise me that finding an eligible non-smoker would be difficult. The Boy sounds wonderful, and I agree that it’s a bit unfair and impractical to base a decision to be or not to be with someone based upon whether they smoke or not, unless that’s a paramount personal issue.

I also Googled chilblains. Not too pleasant.

Anyways, lovely entry, as per usual.

By: Wanderlusting

Wanderlusting — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:03:44 +0000

Just found your blog awhile ago and I must say…Tres Jealous! A Parisian AND with a book deal…as a struggling, procrastinating scribe and shameless hussy, those are my dreams come true (although I have more than several dreams). But seriously, congrats, you deserve it and I look forward to reading your book!

By: gonzales

gonzales — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:45:48 +0000

Correction! For’herd’ read ‘flock’.

By: gonzales

gonzales — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 22:41:51 +0000

#52 We’d expect you to “walk away”? Good heavens, no! Of course not! We’d just expect you to join the rest of the sheep & you & your little lamb to follow the herd into the depths of the nearest swamp or over the nearest precipitous cliff.

#44 Jen, do you have a picture in your mind of the average Paris apartment? They are not quite like an English house where smokers can be banished to the doorstep or the backgarden, especially when the ability to light up a Lucky (?!) Strike is considered, by some mugs, to be an essential symbol of male virility.

And what a queer way to argue on the basis of statistics! If you want to lok at them, why not look up the life expectancy & mortality rates for passive and active smokers and compare them with non-smokers?

Better still, why not use some of your recently found freedom to visit the cancer wards of a Paris hospital? Perhaps gift a few copies of your book to the terminally ill? It could cheer them up no end to realise that the life they are escaping can be so banal.

Or, you could, of course, suggest to the adolescent that if he really does love you & have respect for the well-being of yourself and your little one, not to mention his own health, then, yes, he really should quit smoking the evil weed.

And if not? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time you lost out in love,would it, and it would certainly help to keep the pot simmering? Remember that game of snakes and ladders you played when you were even younger than you are now? Just as you think you are home & dry, winner taking all, you land on the longest snake of them all & it takes you right back to square 1 to start all over again! (Very Freudian, too!)

So you will then have the chance of a fresh start. Great! Late it may be, but it’s never too late to renounce the self-absorbed, self-centred life you have defined for yourself. If you won’t do it for you, do it for Tadpole!

By: Steve...

Steve... — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:57:46 +0000

Smoking Kills. But then again so do many other things on this crazy planet.

The Boy smokes, he knows the risks, you compromise, he has qualities you find agreeable, therefore you accommodate the smoking. But be warned and prepare for the future, when all the smoking related ailments begin to take their toll on The Boy and maybe you.

Lung cancer is a horrible disease that slowly steals the breath out of the people you love, and you have to sit and watch it happen. Yes we only live once and should enjoy a few vices, but if he valued your future, he would quit.