In a puff of smoke

Q A lifelong smoker, I recently converted to ‘vaping’ as the consensus seems to be that it’s better for you (I suppose it can’t be worse). However, I am now a source of great hilarity for my adult children, who have taken to calling me Puff the Magic Dragon. Do I look ridiculous? A. H., Cheshire

Yes, you do, slurping noisily at what resembles a fountain pen. You also smell ridiculous. The scent of tobacco had integrity—a rush of contentment, triggered by Proustian chains of association: of jazz cellars and jokes traded over the Talisker, of espressos and fuggy chalets, of working men’s clubs, of sated limbs stretching across rumpled linen in a Parisian dawn. Vapes? Air freshener from Poundland.

Those whose minds are of any fascination, whose conversation offers the slightest sparkle, whose spirit to any degree tugs at the traces of adventure, have now to be sought in their defiant huddles, in the wet or the dark. A. A. Gill. David Bowie. Princess Margaret. Christopher Hitchens. Yes, I know, and I’m sorry— but vaping is no kind of alternative. Just stop.