Ways of smoking: A cigarette is like a proscenium arch for a dialogue

A lovely, lengthy conversation in the Observer between Sean O'Hagan and 78-year-old John Berger, "one of the most influential British intellectuals of the past 50 years," still drawing and writing essays, novels and criticism while "collaborating" in interviews on a month-long visit to the UK: "From the off, he sweeps you off your feet. Here is Berger on smoking, which he does with the fierce enjoyment of a true addict. 'A cigarette', he says, inhaling deeply, 'is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared you are both in that parenthesis. It's like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.'For the first time in a long time I wish I was a smoker, but, fagless, my side of the proscenium arch teetering, I listen, slightly mesmerised, trying to keep up with his free flow of ideas and the oddly illuminating tangents he keeps going off on. He shows me a strange-looking fish, given to him by the local fishmonger, who knows he likes to draw them: 'See, a collaboration that emerged from a conversation.'"