We had our neighbour over for dinner again tonight. She had another very well aged bottle of red wine to share. It was a good evening, as always. The cork crumbled but nothing that a tea strainer couldn’t fix.
American Tobacco South Africa and Japan Tobacco International are now joining forces and going to court to challenge the ban on tobacco products. And high time too. I cannot understand why they did not do that in the first place, when Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association appealed. According to them their efforts to constructively engage with government had failed. Let’s watch this space…
The cigarette saga reminded me of the time when Eugene was in high school. I had suspected for a long time that he was smoking but somehow there was always a ‘reason’ for smelling of smoke when he was asked about it. Until one day when I picked up his coat that was casually thrown across the bed. There was a pack of cigarettes in the pocket. As expected, this too had an explanation:
“Marius smokes and doesn’t want his mother to know, so he asked me to keep it for him.”
Mmm, did he really think that I believed that? Fact is that his father smoked, and therefore as parents we could not stop him from doing the same, as much as I wanted him not to develop the habit. During a discussion, after he left school, he told us:
“The only way to be ‘in with the guys’ during high school years was to smoke with them behind the ablution blocks during break.”
He confessed to have been smoking since grade 9. Then he met Marlene. She had an aversion to cigarette smoke because she grew up with a father who was a chain smoker. So, when Eugene proposed she said ‘yes’, but on condition that he stopped smoking. He did, and hasn’t smoked since, thankfully.
Number of known positive cases: 29 240
Number of deaths: 611