THE CIGARETTE BOOK
A Celebration & Companion
Chris Harrald & Fletcher Watkins

'… All smokers know that cigarettes are dangerous. Each one is a dance with death – and the defiant smoker will say that therein lies its charm. So each puff is an existential gesture, an assertion of choice and life in the face of death. They would mock the warning on the packet that Smoking Causes Fatal Diseases with the rejoinder that life causes fatal diseases...

One day the last cigarette on earth will be smoked. One final puff will be sent heaven-bound, leaving a lingering, evanescent smoke-ring. Then nothing but pure, clear space. And the wise of this world will rejoice. Because logic demands that mankind is rid of this pernicious poison.

And wasn’t that well-known logician Adolf Hitler the most virulent opponent of cigarette smoking in the last century? Logic tells us cigarettes are bad for our health: this accounts for the diseased visions of Pablo Picasso who smoked cigarettes until his death at the age of 92.’

From A for Aardvark – ‘We’re not allowed to tell you anything about Winston cigarettes, so here’s a stuffed aardvark’ (1983 UK advert to flout new advertising restrictions) to Z for Zippo, the iconic US lighter, The Cigarette Book is the ultimate souvenir and celebration of the dying art of smoking. Encyclopaedic in both lay-out and range, it is an ideal consolation gift for those who have stopped, an ideal aide de memoire for those who might and a defiant puff of libertarian brilliance for those who won’t.

Educated at Reigate Grammar School, and a scholar of Trinity College Oxford, Chris Harrald has enjoyed a varied smoking career. It concluded with many years of a solid 60-a-day intake of Silk Cut. In between cigarettes, he has worked in advertising, written screenplays and worked on several miniseries for American television. As an ex-smoker, he holds strong views. Inhale fully, saturating the lungs. Do not toy with cigarettes. Do not be indecisive: if in doubt, light up.

Fletcher Watkins is from South Wales. Educated at Caerphilly Grammar School and University College, Oxford where he read English, he worked in advertising as a copywriter for fifteen years at J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather. He is now an award-winning TV scriptwriter.

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