Cigarettes, Alcohol and Emigration

'Do you know what I hate?' said Paul as we alighted from the train at Euston one morning. 'People who get off the train and immediately have to light up a cigarette.' Sure enough, among the hundreds of fellow commuters who'd just got off the train, a few of those were lighting up their cigarettes.

I've never smoked. Well, apart from a very drunken packet of cigarettes smoked in Corfu about four years ago which just made me look effeminate and not sophisticated like I thought I did - not that I would condone smoking as a vehicle for appearing cool, kids; it was a mistake, take it from me, as I'd always prided myself on never having even tried smoking whereas all of my school friends had. Anyway, as a non-smoker, I can't hope to understand the cravings a committed smoker must have that mean they have to have a cigarette in their mouth ready to be lit before they've even got off the train. I hated the taste of cigarettes and I can't even begin to imagine how disgusting that must be first thing in the morning. But I just can't understand the desperation that a smoker must evidently feel if they've been cooped up on a train journey with no facility at all to smoke, can't even contemplate such a dependency.

However, Paul's observation did get me thinking – this furore over the future smoking ban in London's pubs and clubs seems to ignore the other public places in which people are able to smoke. I've not been to many railway stations where people cannot smoke, whereas if it was an airport you'd be restricted to a very small, dingy area of the terminus in which smokers can feed their addiction prior to boarding a plane. Why is it that stations have historically been considered somehow more socially acceptable places for people to smoke? Furthermore if you factor in the fact that stations are not age-restricted like pubs, you may well find children travelling with parents waiting at stations. With the risks of passive smoking abundantly evident and the effects that these risks can have on children, it seems illogical to have focussed so much conjecture and hot air about pubs and largely ignore other areas where people congregate.

As for that small minority who choose to smoke cigars first thing in the morning, while in a way I am in awe of their ability to chuff away on something that looks and smells like dog excreta, I'd really appreciate it if they wouldn't blow out their acrid smoke into my face when I pass them in the street. I was offered a cigar at my good friend Matt's wedding on Saturday. 'They're really good ones,' he said keenly, and I'm sure that they were, although I couldn't honestly say what the measure of a 'good' cigar actually is. I shook my head profusely, gestured to where Seren was lying in her pushchair and said that I shouldn't have one because I didn't want to teach her bad habits. I didn't want to admit – that peer pressure thing again – that I'd never in my life smoked a cigar and didn't want to look stupid while coughing and spluttering.

If I am at a loss to understand the cravings of a smoker, I am even less able to comprehend why any individual (individuals such as the besuited and sweaty gentleman I am currently seated next to) would want to drain cans of cheap lager on the train on the way home. Said gentleman has just finished his third can. It's Monday evening and we're half an hour into a forty-five minute train journey. Is this his normal evening ritual? Or is Monday the day where he drinks the least and builds up to Friday where he really kicks back, buys a couple of bottles of scotch and glugs away while the train rattles through Betjeman's metro-land onward to Northamptonshire?

True enough, the warmer weather which has carried through from the weekend does give a beer after work a certain appeal. But a couple of warm cans obtained at no doubt over the odds prices from a station shop has no such appeal to me. When the signs on the trains and Underground appear in the summer urging commuters to stay hydrated, I'm not sure that this is what they mean.

It is with a degree of timely irony, actually, that I find myself analysing the gentleman next to me. A couple that my wife and I know through the National Childbirth Trust are considering emigrating to New Zealand. The principal reason is that the job market is apparently more favourable for graphic designers over there whereas over here there are too many designers chasing too few commissions. The secondary reason is that they don't want their son to grow up in England drinking cans of Special Brew on street corners, the state of our nation having got so bad that there is an inevitability attached to our essentially wayward impulses that we cannot hope to control.

True enough, crime levels – irrespective of what the government has you believe – are rising, and worse still, violent crime is on the increase too; crime by young teenagers is now an almost daily recurrence in the media, and so to a certain extent I share this couple's concerns about the poor health of our society. However, and I also feel this a somewhat obvious point to make, environment alone does not dictate how a child is going to turn out. And certainly within the context of society generally, it certainly isn't the case that every teenager is a lawless bandit knifing and shooting and snorting their way through life. The biggest influence on a child is the attitude and actions of their parents, unless I'm very much mistaken, and that's going to be the same whether they're in England, New Zealand, Los Angeles or Timbuk-effing-tu. Society provides a context, but parental actions in those formative years determine the path that you're going to take. And these parents – unless we don't know them very well – don't strike me as being the sorts to engage in anti-social behaviour and so the chances of their son ending up that way would be slim; and if they were, then they'd be exporting that attitude to the supposedly crime-free New Zealand along with the rest of their possessions and bigotry anyway.

The guy next to me on the phone made me think about this, because everything about him – the cut of his suit, his mannerisms and his diction when he answered his mobile – certainly didn't imply a rebellious or reckless soul, yet here he was drinking in an arguably anti-social environment just like the kid this couple believe who, upon being prevented from leaving this once green and pleasant land behind, has no choice but to turn to underage drinking on the street. Moreover, he was about forty-five. Now, I know that this is somewhat different from a group of lads congregating on a street corner downing illegally purloined cans of lager, sharing happy-slapping clips and comparing flick knives. This was just a guy knocking back a few drinks after a hard Monday in the capital. He was clearly reasonably affluent, well-mannered and fundamentally unthreatening. Sure, it was incomprehensible as to why he was boozing on a Monday evening but it wasn't anything to worry about. A teenager sat next to me necking Special Brew would un-nerve me, of course it would.

The poor boy whose country of residence is being decided by parents with a rather gloomy outlook on British society and vague aspirations of success despite low wage inflation is only a year old. All his grandparents, aunts and uncles live in this country, and all of the parents' friends do too. This notion of societal woe degradation seems a rather flimsy reason to up sticks and chase a dream on the other side of the world, and I simply don't believe or understand any of it.

Just like I don't understand sparking up at 7.30 in the morning or drinking warm lager at 5.00 on a Monday afternoon. Perhaps some things are outside of rational comprehension.