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I smoked my first cigarette at the tender age of 13. A blunt Woodbine, stolen from my grandfather’s pack. I felt dizzy and sick, but I was determined to persevere.
The next one didn’t have such harmful effects and I was hooked.
I imagined myself as the elegant Bette Davies, always photographed with a cigarette in her hand.
With a cigarette, Jenni imagined herself as fiery big screen icon Bette Davis (above)
In the early sixties, it meant becoming one of the cool crowd at school; hiding behind bike sheds with cigarettes stolen from the packs of the adults we wanted to emulate.
At 16 we were old enough to buy them ourselves. We took turns spending our pocket money on a ten-pack to share with the group. We all had perfume and packets of mints to mask the smell of the parents when we got home.
And so began a 60-year addiction that, at its worst, caused me to smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day.
Feeling more and more like an outcast with a disgusting habit, I have tried to quit on numerous occasions. But any moment of sadness or anxiety would take me to the tobacco counter. The addiction seemed too difficult to overcome.
So I couldn’t be more supportive of Rishi Sunak and his efforts to ban smoking. This week he relied on Labor votes to defeat his opponents on their own benches, winning a significant victory for his new tobacco and e-cigarettes bill by 383 votes to 67.
There are further stages, including a vote in the House of Lords, but if the bill is passed it will be an offense to sell nicotine products to anyone born after January 1, 2009 – that is, anyone who has 15 years or less this year.
The legal age to purchase them would increase year after year, creating a new generation that should never smoke. Rishi can do them no greater favor than to ensure that they remain free from the pernicious addiction of nicotine. Take it from who he knows.
I was in college when I finally worked up the courage to offer my father one of my cigarettes. He was surprised; my mother horrified.
News was beginning to spread about the possible health hazard. My parents said they never wanted me to smoke. Weren’t you afraid of how much it would cost and if it was true that it could cause lung cancer?
I pushed his concerns aside and said, no, I enjoyed it, just like Dad had always said. What was never addressed was that he and I were addicted to nicotine and that cigarettes would probably never let us go even if we wanted to get rid of them.
My father never resigned. When he was 50 years old, he tried to do it to please my mother. I became suspicious of his frequent visits to his friends around the corner, both smokers. It also seemed a little strange that his dog got more walks in the park than any Yorkshire Terrier could ever need.
When I found a package in his coat pocket while looking for something else, I became the equivalent of the horrified father. It was clear that he had never given up. He died, at age 80, of lung cancer, and during the brief stay at the hospice he asked me if he had a cigarette on him. I denied my father his last cigarette.
As for me, I gave up twice during two pregnancies. Luckily for my children, the smell of cigarettes and alcohol made me very sick: my body seemed to protect them from any poison while I held them. As soon as they were born, I couldn’t wait to start again. And any further attempts to quit smoking proved futile.
That was until November of last year. I fell and broke a vertebra. I was in hospital. I had no mobility, so there was no way to get out for a quick shower. The nurses studiously ignored suggestions to wheel me out.
I was taken to a nursing home for a few weeks for respite care and physical therapy. Well, I decided. This time, at 73 years old, you will be able to give up.
So, for almost six months, I have struggled with addiction. I have used a nicotine patch. I still do it. I have packs of nicotine gum. I’m chewing on a piece right now.
This is the future Rishi Sunak wants to protect the next generation from. The longing for a cigarette and the nicotine it contains is a painful hunger. I’ve watched other smokers take a break from their jobs, walk down a trail to a cabin designed to accommodate them, and I’ve longed to be with them, lighting up and feeling the kick. It occupies your mind day after day even when you know it will most likely kill you.
Smoking kills about 80,000 people every year. In England alone, someone with a smoking-related illness is admitted to hospital almost every minute.
Four out of five smokers start like me before the age of 20. Most remain addicted for the rest of their lives despite numerous attempts to quit. It costs the NHS and the economy around £17bn a year, far more than the £10bn in revenue from tobacco taxes.
There is simply no argument against the proposals in this bill. Choice is not an element here because the powerful addiction of nicotine eliminates the element of choice. I remember a doctor I saw years ago who specialized in addictions told me that nicotine was as powerful as heroin and just as difficult to quit. We are not afraid to ban heroin. Why should nicotine be any different?
I can only say that I would like to see young people protected from what I have endured, and I really wish I hadn’t been foolish enough to smoke that first Woodbine six decades ago.
A Miss World with AI? Come on guys!
I can’t say I’m surprised that the male-dominated tech industry has come up with AI models (no doubt designed to fuel their own fantasies) and this week announced the inaugural AI Miss World.
The AI model Aitana López, one of the judges of the first Miss World AI, announced it this week
The computer-generated women are all big breasts, empty eyes, and pursed lips.
It will never end?
We hate the real Miss World for the cattle market that she is.
Doing it digitally is no more acceptable than the real version and makes me suspect that all those guys, no doubt delighted with their mastery of artificial intelligence, lack real intelligence.
Hot Priest’s fascinating performance as Ripley
I was reluctant to watch the new Netflix series, Ripley.
I had seen the movie The Talented Mr. Ripley and had read Patricia Highsmith’s novel, so what was the point of knowing the story?
Andrew Scott, as the dead-eyed New York criminal RIpley, is chilling (and gripping) and is easily the best actor of his generation.
When it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, I was reading the paper, finishing the book and there wasn’t much else on TV, I decided to give it a try.
Oh wow, I was stuck. Andrew Scott, better known as Fleabag’s ‘Hot Priest’, plays Ripley, a dead-eyed New York thug who sees an opportunity to move up in the world when he’s hired to travel to Italy and persuade rebellious Dickie Greenleaf to return home. with his family. .
Ripley sees riches, fine clothing, and a beautiful place to live for the taking and her way of achieving it is murder.
Scott is laid back in the role and kept me hooked for the entire series in one sitting. He is without a doubt the best actor of his generation.
The latest interior trend, apparently, is a bathroom full of smart technology.
Do I want a toilet that can test my urine or a bathroom scale that can take an ECG?
No. I can do it on my Apple watch, a gift from my children for Christmas.
Every time I test my heart rate I wonder where this information goes.
She is a brave woman who stands up to Sharon.
Sharon Osbourne is one of the toughest women Jenni has ever interviewed for Woman’s Hour
Amanda Holden is a brave girl for criticizing Sharon Osbourne’s rude comments about Simon Cowell.
I have interviewed both women. Amanda was a sweet little thing and Sharon was one of the toughest women I’ve ever met.
Don’t mess with the daughter of a powerful man in the music industry [promoter Don Arden] and wife of Ozzy.
Still, I suppose a fight between the women will be great publicity for Britain’s Got Talent. Back this weekend.
Meghan released her first item from her new company American Riviera Orchard.
It’s strawberry jam and it looks quite English to me with its little white cap and elegant handwriting.
He has sent 50 to his influencer friends. It is a limited edition.
Then everything was gone. Is it like that?