Nobody has to endure any real risk of involuntary smoke inhalation, and no further laws are necessary to secure this existing immunity from harm…Don’t pursue me to the park bench if you prevent me from smoking indoors; I will of course ask permission of anyone else sitting there. I will even ask permission to smoke from people who visit me in my own home. But I won’t let them visit me and then tell me to put my cigarette out. Anyone failing to see this distinction is a moral cretin, and several other kinds of idiot as well, the sort of person who thinks that a fine bar can be reduced to the utilitarian definition of a ‘workplace.’

I’ve been dealt a good hand by the cosmos, which doesn’t know I’m here and won’t care when I’m gone.

Don’t drink on an empty stomach: the main point of the refreshment is the enhancement of food. Don’t drink if you have the blues: it’s a junk cure. Drink when you are in a good mood. Cheap booze is a false economy. It’s not true that you shouldn’t drink alone: these can be the happiest glasses you ever drain. Hangovers are another bad sign, and you should not expect to be believed if you take refuge in saying you can’t properly remember last night. (If you really don’t remember, that’s an even worse sign.) Avoid all narcotics: these make you more boring rather than less and are not designed—​as are the grape and the grain—​to enliven company. Be careful about up-grading too far to single malt Scotch: when you are voyaging in rough countries it won’t be easily available. Never even think about driving a car if you have taken a drop. It’s much worse to see a woman drunk than a man: I don’t know quite why this is true but it just is. Don’t ever be responsible for it.