so it seems the answer to the titular question of this thread is "smoking fags", good an answer as any, as i love smoking fags. it's the first thing i do in the morning without fail and continue throughout the day. i've just got a new pack of pall mall in, which is what i smoke unless i feel like treating myself, in which case i get blue drum. on the continent you can get not only blue and gold drum, but also pale blue drum which is like the holy grail of rolling tobacco, and also white drum which is the roll-up equivalent of silk cut, basically sucking air through a drinking straw. when i first started smoking roll-ups in '98 you could get golden virginia dark which was also great and came in a little wrap, just like the green stuff, at the time. until then age 16-18 i smoked marlboro, 100s length if you could get them, in manchester say, or lucky strike, also rare. sometimes you'd get a "soft pack" which was especially prized, for some reason, probably rarity. on holiday in france we used to get american brands called Winston and Chesterfield. these were available in a pack of 26 as well as 20. which reminds me, if you bought a pack of fags from the pub vending machine, it was only 16, rip off. a lot of people in lancashire were devoted to embassy, and regal, brands you don't really see any more (but maybe still exist up north?) there was also lambert and butler as a budget option, famously made from the scrapings from the floorof the B&H factory.
believe it or not, when we used to go on nights out in manchester, while waiting in the queue for a club you'd sometimes be given a pack of 20 marlboro for free by people hired to get you hooked, basically. that's unimaginable today.
love fags