Where the fuck do I start? Seriously it’s such a primitive thing, but people over here still smoke EVERYWHERE. Lebanon is generally backwards from the rest of the world in several ways…I will be going into detail of these things in a series of posts. Some of these things are bloody annoying, some are endearing, while others feel amazing. When confronted with the bloody annoying aspects you can’t help but lament the fact of how far the country needs before it’s considered civilised in many respects.

One of these respects is smoking etiquette. Basically as far as I’m concerned I could give a shit about your health or lungs - if you don’t care, why the hell should I? What I do care about is respecting someone’s choice. Much in the same way you made your choice to smoke, I made my choice to NOT smoke and therefore don’t need you disgusting cancer stick puffed in my face, all over my clothes and into my lungs. My lungs are nice and pink (or whatever colour lungs are meant to generally be), while your are this browny, gooey, gunky black colour, you know the kind that’s left on the over after you’ve fried some food in batter or maybe an aubergine on the hob or something of that nature.

In the office, the smokers have decided to take over the kitchen at regular intervals and puff away. Some are considerate and don’t do it unless everyone in the room hasn’t got a problem. Others just do it as if it’s their god given right. I make it clear that I can’t be dealing with that shit, but smokers are addicts. They don’t care too much about what’s going on around them…well most of them don’t.

It’s strange buy I saw these two fat ladies in the bank on Saturday, indoors puffing away. I was struck at how wrong that scene actually was and how far back with regards to smoking Lebanon actually is. It’s a culture of ‘I don’t care about anything or anyone but myself’ which is honestly in direct contrast to the Japanese who put your space and your rights at the highest of levels - the irony of course is that they also smoke like motherfuckers, the difference is that they do it in a way that is honestly very considerate to those around them.