JACK THE LAD AT 100!

Right – smoking, day three.

A guy called Jack Priestly has just celebrated his 100th birthday. He started smoking when he was nine, working up to a 40-a-day habit, but gave up on a nurse’s advice when he was 58 … and switched to cigars. He now smokes up to 10 a day – “the bigger the better”.

The Lincolnshire lad also starts each day with a slug of whisky in his tea.

Jack’s wife died in 1993, but he said this week: “If I had the company of a good woman, I’m sure I’d feel 40 years younger in a flash.”

Jack, you remind me of the late, great George Best, who once said: “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.”

I have my sights set on making 100 – at least – but not on 10 cigars a day. That would kill me before I was, ooh … 90.

Still, I expect by then you’ll be able to wander down to the Lung Shop and order a new pair. It’ll be at the end of the high street, next to Hips R Us (unless you’re in Cornwall, where it will be Hips Be We).

My crystal ball tells me all this started, of course, as an on-line venture, but it proved just too damned difficult, not to mention messy, measuring up and delivering via The People's Mail (this is several years after the demise of the monarchy).

I don’t know about starting the day with a whisky – a good fantasy seems to do it for me.