I just realised today is a ‘Significant Anniversary’. On the 29th December, 1997, I was just getting over a heavy cold, and preparing to go to the shop for some cigars, when I thought:

‘Hey, I haven’t had a smoke for three days; I don’t need one now!’

And, I haven’t smoked since! Another encouragement was the ‘infamous White House Cigar Affair’; I wrote a little poem about it at the time. (You can, if you wish, sing it to the tune of ‘Abdul the Bul-bul Emir’)

‘I’m done with tobacco; I’ve given it up/ And I have to thank Kenneth Starr./Don’t need patches or pills/I just think of old Bill/Smoking Lewinski’s cigar.’