Desperate for a fag

First of all an obvious word of explanation to our american friends...

A fag in the English(English) language as opposed to the English(American) language, is a cigarette and not a homosexual offering favours, you are therefore advised to bear this in mind when reading the following (after all, we invented the language) ...



On the other hand the English(American) version would fit too, read it how you like...


Just how desperate for a fag would you have to be to stand outside on a busy main city street in your stripey pyjamas ?

Would you stand there in your stripey jimmy-jams while hooked up to a saline drip ?

Would you have left your surgical ward and walked downstairs dragging the drip on a wheeled stand to stand outside on the roadside on a busy city centre thoroughfare


Well I've just seen someone do just that today as I drove through Leeds city centre.

Its actually a common sight to see patients dressed in their pyjamas or dressing gowns stood right outside the main hospital entrance sucking on a fag (hilarious this isn't it if you're reading the English(American)version). The Leeds General Infirmary is right in the centre of the city with its main door right on the pavement of a busy through road and I often see them stood there in the rain having a final puff before going back to their sick beds, to be more sick.

Its now common practice to withhold certain treatments from smokers until they can demonstrate that they are at least attempting to give up their habit, some of this is sensible, for instance where smoke-and-mucus-addled lungs would struggle to maintain oxygen levels under anaesthetic , or where the actual act of smoking has caused the problem in the first place, in the UK all such treatments are free on the National Health Service so there is the argument that the taxpayer needs to get full value from every operation and treatment and if a smoker is going to continue to abuse his/her body then where is the value ?

I've never smoked so cannot comprehend the level of addiction that drives smokers to blindly ignore all the health advice available, I have some sympathy for such addicts but there are a lot of free treatments available on the NHS to kick the habit and it still suprises me to see addicts puffing and coughing away outside the entrance to the LGI even while they are receiving treatments for other ailments.

Maybe one day the NHS will address the real issue - my chocolate addiction.