Pulse

known drinkers. Serious drinkers lie about everything . So they can drink. And I’ve lied about other things so I could smoke. You know, “I’ll just go outside and get some fresh air”, or “No, I’ve got to get back to the kids.”’
    ‘OK, so we’re saying, smokers and drinkers are general liars.’
    ‘Vote Hillary.’
    ‘We’re saying, all liars indulge in lying.’
    ‘That’s too philosophical for this time of night.’
    ‘Self-deceivers, too, that’s the other thing. Our friend Jerry was a big smoker – he was of that generation. Went for a general check-up in his sixties and was told he had prostate cancer. Opted for radical surgery. They took his balls away.’
    ‘They took his balls away?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘So – so he had just a cock?’
    ‘Well, they gave him prosthetic balls.’
    ‘What are they made of ?’
    ‘I don’t know – plastic, I think. Anyway, they’re the same weight. So you don’t notice.’
    ‘So you don’t notice ?’
    ‘Do they make them move around like real ones?’
    ‘Are we getting off the subject?’
    ‘Do you know what French slang for balls is? Les valseuses . The waltzers. Because they move around.’
    ‘Is that female? I mean feminine. Valseuses .’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why is bollocks feminine in French?’
    ‘We’re definitely getting off the subject.’
    ‘ Testicules isn’t. But valseuses is.’
    ‘Female bollocks. Trust the French.’
    ‘No wonder they didn’t support the Iraq war.’
    ‘Not that anyone around this table did.’
    ‘I was sort of 60/40.’
    ‘How can you be 60/40 on something like Iraq? It’s like being 60/40 on flat-earth theory.’
    ‘I’m 60/40 on that too.’
    ‘Anyway, the reason I brought up Jerry was because he said he was relieved when they told him he had prostate cancer. He said if it’d been lung cancer, he’d have had to give up smoking.’
    ‘So he carried on?’
    ‘Yup.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘Well, he was OK for a few years. Quite a few years. Then the cancer came back.’
    ‘Did he give up then?’
    ‘No. He said there was no point giving up at that stage – he’d rather have the pleasure. I remember the last time we visited him in hospital. He was sitting up in bed watching the cricket with a huge ashtray full of butts in front of him.’
    ‘The hospital let him smoke ?’
    ‘It was a private room. It was a private hospital. And this was some years ago. He’d paid – it was his room. That was the attitude.’
    ‘Why were you telling us about this guy?’
    ‘I can’t remember now. You distracted me.’
    ‘Self-deception.’
    ‘That’s right – self-deception.’
    ‘Sounds like the opposite to me – as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Maybe he decided it was worth it.’
    ‘That’s what I mean by self-deception.’
    ‘In which case being a smoker is a necessary training for being president.’
    ‘I really think Obama can do it. As your token American.’
    ‘I agree. Well, I’m 60/40 on it.’
    ‘You’re a liberal – you’re 60/40 on everything.’
    ‘I’m not sure I’d agree.’
    ‘See, he’s even 60/40 on whether or not he’s 60/40.’
    ‘By the way, you’re wrong about Reagan.’
    ‘He didn’t advertise Chesterfields?’
    ‘No, I mean he didn’t die of lung cancer.’
    ‘I didn’t say he did.’
    ‘Didn’t you?’
    ‘No. He had Alzheimer’s.’
    ‘Statistically, smokers get Alzheimer’s much less than non-smokers.’
    ‘That’s because they’re already dead by the time it normally strikes.’
    ‘New Brazilian health warning: “These Cigarettes Help Avoid Alzheimer’s.”’
    ‘We picked up a New York Times the other week. We were on a flight. There was a report about a study of life expectancy and the comparative cost to the government, or rather the country, of different ways of dying. And those statistics Macmillan was given – when was that?’
    ‘’55, ’56, I think.’
    ‘Well, they’re all to cock. Probably were at the time too. If you’re a smoker you tend to die in your mid-seventies. If you’re obese, you tend to die around eighty. And if you’re a healthy, non-smoking, non-obese person, you tend to die at an average of about eighty-four.’
    ‘They need a study to tell us that?’
    ‘No, they need a study to tell us this: the cost in healthcare to the nation. And this was the thing. Smokers were the cheapest. Next came obese people. And all those healthy, non-obese, non-smokers ended up being the biggest drain of all on the