By James Leavey For those of you wondering why I haven’t been updating this column recently, the short answer is that I was rather busy, moving from north London to Cowes on the Isle of Wight, just off the southern coast of England. It, England, not the island, has for over six months become, for myself and my wife, ‘foreign parts’. If the worst comes to the worst, there's enough room on the island for all of Britain's 13 million adult smokers to join me, shoulder to shoulder, while the anti-smoking lot can stay on their side of the water that divides us. Oddly enough, I wasn’t driven from Britain’s capital by the anti-smokers. In the words of John Wayne, ‘That’ll be the day!’ No, I drove down here, all the way, all by myself, the car packed to the rafters with cigars, cigarettes and ashtrays. And have been enjoying it ever since. Indeed, I’ve just experienced my first residency during Cowes Week – the longest-running, largest and most prestigious annual sailing Regatta in the world. It first took place in 1828 and has been held in August every year since then, the only exception being during the two World Wars. Cowes Week is one of the most popular events in the British social calendar, which also includes Wimbledon, Henley and Ascot. Half the town seems to have rented out a room or two to visiting yachties, for there have never been enough hotels here to cope with the 8,000 sailors who arrive here every year to race over eight days in central, eastern and western Solent – the name of the water between Southampton and the island. It's been only a few days since early in the morning I was looking out of my office window - at the top of my small but tobacco-tolerant Victorian house, - at around 1,000 boats of various sizes, ranging from the latest high-tech racing machines to classic craft. Then there was the 200,000 or so spectators who flocked to Cowes to enjoy ‘the Week’, and who I had to step around and, occasionally, over, en route to the tobacconists. Last Friday night there was a spectacular fireworks display with over 10,000 fireworks, effects and live music. Around 170,000 people watched it in Cowes and from the mainland. The strangest thing about the island is that you rarely see people wandering the streets with a cigarette in their hand. Perhaps that’s because they can still sit in the pubs and most of the cafes and restaurants and enjoy an undisturbed smoke, though how long that will last is up to the local council and Britain’s Nanny state. Well, the way I look at it, if you can afford several million pounds on some of the yachts I’ve been gazing at, then you can also afford to set fire to the bloody things with the aid of a fine Havana. Not far away, an old friend of mine, known as ‘Shanghai Lil’ and former landlady of the Three Crowns pub, still runs what are known as the Sunday morning fishing parties. You go round her house on Sunday mornings with a fishing rod in your hand, pour yourself a drink, ignite whatever you prefer to smoke, and sit back for a few hours with like-minded, laid-back souls, shooting the breeze, which comes filtered through exhaled tobacco smoke. There’s also another club on the island, which has just invited me to speak on smoking to its members. The club has no rules, doesn’t raise money for charity, has no reason to exist – aside from the excuse to mingle, natter and smoke. And you don’t have to smoke, if you don’t want to. It’s rather like Matt Alan’s weekly radio show in California. ‘Lighten up’ – see www.lightenup.com - which attracts the great, the good and the gifted every Saturday afternoon. For it is the only place left – aside from a certain exclusive club in Beverley Hills, where Hollywood’s, or indeed anyone else’s, smokers can still enjoy themselves without being lorded over by the anti-smoking, born-again puritans. So Cowes, and Matt’s place in Encino, California, is where you will find me, and anybody like me who wants to share an ashtray, when this sad, politically correct world comes to an end. Meanwhile, in Cowes, we’re expecting the anti-smoking storm troopers any day now, kicking our doors in and dragging us off for public chastisement – whatever turns them on. Such are the kicks these sad little bastards cling to, and all because they haven’t realized that life is not a rehearsal. When they come for me, I’ll be blowing Havana fumes in their face and singing ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’. |
