Around this time of year, a lot of people are trying to give up smoking.

They tell you all the benefits, but they don’t warn you of the hazards.

I have given up a couple of times, so I know what I am talking about.

The big day comes when you quit. You feel virtuous. You feel self righteous. You feel smug. You have to tell everyone how good you are. You become an overnight bore. So colleagues, friends and family begin to avoid you.

Don’t worry. That doesn’t last long. After the first day, reality kicks in and you begin to feel irritable. I’m not talking grouchy here; I’m talking major pain in the backside. No-one can say anything to you.

“Hiya John. Lovely day isn’t it?”

“Ah go f*ck yourself. What the f*ck would you know about it?”

You know what I mean.

So those colleagues, friends and family that survived the smug bit are now leaving you in their droves. Life is suddenly a lonely miserable place.

And you have nothing to do with your hands now so you have to take up knitting.

Soon you are craving company, so you head down the pub. You find yourself sitting on your own in the corner with your pint and your knitting and all you can hear is the laughter and the craic from outside where the smokers are getting to know each other and are having a ball.

And because your sense of smell has become rather acute, you can smell everything. Someone farts on the other side of the room – you feel sick. You can identify every spilled drink in the carpet. The barman’s BO nearly kills you.

So you decide to go home, but treat yourself to a pizza on the way. But the pizza tastes all wrong. It’s too spicy. There are flavours there you never noticed before, and quite frankly, you don’t like them.

You arrive home. You kick the cat. You wonder how the wife and kids are at her mother’s place. And it suddenly dawns on you – this is the rest of your life.

But there is one more surprise in store. Up to now, your throat and lungs have been bathed in smoke. Now they are clear. The bacteria soon discover this. So you start to develop sore throats, chest coughs and probably pneumonia. And there is no-one to look after you.

You are now lonely, sick, hungry, irritable and very very depressed. It’s an automatic response – you light that emergency fag you had kept “just in case”.

And suddenly God’s back in his Heaven, and all’s right with the world………..

P.S. And in case you should all start writing saying that I am advocating smoking – I’m not. I’m just being politically incorrect because I feel like it.

P.P.S. And I bet I don’t get kicked for this one!!