Henry's Smoking Column: Which will you choose?

Many smokers are shallow, vainglorious trolls and the only reason they buy a particular brand of cigarettes is for the way the box looks. B&H smokers, for example, are invariably lacking funds and find the gold ingot look appealing. Not all designs are so simply understood, however, and I have made it my wife's work to interpret the more esoteric aspects of cigarette art.

One of the more astonishing discoveries I made recently concerns the distinctive red and white chevron design of the classic Marlboro box. It was designed in 1936 by Angstrom Grasnovskyj, a visual psychologist and pidgeon fancier, after a severe sneezing fit. The design has been shown, in independent trials, to momentarily hypnotise 83% of all consumers forcing them, against their will, to buy the 'boros.

It also induces belief in fairies, Atlantis and the supremacy of dogs over cats. A state of bald-headed bravado and mild urtication in the palms follows this lapse into insanity and the smoker sparks up to alleviate his discomfort.

It is widely thought by me, that all these effects can be attributed to the stupidity of Americans and nothing like that could ever happen in Blighty. Blue Embassies, on the other hand, are a different matter altogether . . .