Sketches from a cigar smoker's album

Always a great believer in easy access I have been working tirelessly to collate the many exciting evenings and adventures that I have had on the back of cigars. Here for the first time are the collected 'Sketches from a cigar smoker's album'. This page will be updated as and when another sketch is written. 

On one level a homage to the great Russian author Turgenev and on another a detailed paean to one of my favourite pastimes these little vignettes are sure to provide a rib-tickling insight into the heady world of the stogie smoker!

Sketch I - Promising Beginnings

I should feel a wretch for adapting the title of my favourite author's debut, especially for a pastime that so many find so socially abhorrent… read more

Sketch II - The Ultimate Challenge

Sat in my kitchen listening to Jeff Beck's fantastic There and Back (1980) I am taken to one of the greatest cigar challenges of my life... read more

Sketch III - The Pelican's Brief

There is no easier way to make yourself into a remarkably unpopular person than lighting up a cigar in a public place... read more

Sketch IV - Abstinence 

Aargh! what possessed me to embark on this course of action? a challenge to myself? a concern for my health? I don’t know... read more

Sketch V - The Sheltering Sky

I found myself sat with one of the densest, richest cigars hot-boxing a room of close friends at a little lunch thrown the other day... read more

Sketch VI - The Christmas Annals

Half the best smoking moments come during the festive period. It was on a solitary session listening to the dulcet tones of Phil Collins and the lesser know Andrew Gold that I appreciated that some of the best moments in writing are to be had on the tod as it were!... read more 

Sketch VII - Occidental (Parts 1, 2 & 3)

n a small corner of the financial district not far from my hotel, there lurked a corner of civilisation which thankfully had managed to bypass the strict dictats of the State of California... read more

Sketch VII - Uptown

Picture a young, dashing fellow by the name of Henry Rubinstein, wrestling with the harsh snow and ice of London last Saturday, frozen to the bone and looking forward to the prospect of fried chicken... read more 

Sketch VIII - Hotter Than July

It was a hot day at Henley this year and I was struggling to pull myself together. After a rather boozy previous night at the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery and only two hours sleep I was running on empty... read more