This day, the 17th of May and the 8th anniversary of the day I quit smoking, I woke up with...a lung infection? A dose of the plague? A walrus? Who knows! Sickest I've ever been as a grownup. My doctor phoned in an antibiotic and left me to gasp it out for myself, more or less on this spot. And a very touch-and-go thing it was, for a while there.

No more of that, thank you.