The Camel Who Loved Smoking

There once was a Camel who liked to smoke. As a young'un he was sold to some wild Arabs and they let him finish their rollies. The first time he just chewed up the butt, but after that he learnt that chewing burning tobacco hurts quite a lot. Eventually, he became quite the smoker. His owners thought it a fine novelty and let him puff on their hookah (his favourite flavour was double apple although he was quite partial to passion fruit). He got really good at blowing smoke rings, and lots of tourists paid to watch him smoke their Dunhills and Marlborough Reds. A Russian Oligarch gave him a cigar which went down a treat. Some Swedish hippies rubbed snuff on his gums and that he did not like so much. It tasted like the rim of an old man's hat.

The Camel slowly became addicted to cigarettes. He developed a pack a day habit, and his cough got worse and worse. He always stank of tobacco and his teeth started to get all yellowy. When he didn't have his morning fag he would get grumpy and refuse to let fat German ladies on his back. He couldn't carry them very far anyway, because his lungs were so full of tar.

The Camel kept up his putrid habit for a long while, for he was a proper addict and couldn't quit even if he'd wanted to. His owners started getting sick of him, he kept stinking up their tents and coughing up brown phlegm onto their nice white robes.

Eventually, they took him to an NHS stop smoking clinic, where a nice nurse gave him some Nicorette patches. He stuck one on his face like Nelly and looked pretty fly. It gave him a bit of a rush for a bit, but he still craved a smoke. Too bad for him he didn't have hands. Have you ever seen a camel try to roll himself a cigarette? It looks a bit like a camel stamping repeatedly on a tobacco packet 'til it bursts and the tobacco gets sand all over it. Bet you've never seen a camel light up a cigarette, either - it looks like a camel crushing a lighter into little plastic shards.

So, his owners stopped giving him cigarettes, and stuck on his patches every couple of hours, and although the Camel was pretty grouchy at first, he'd soon given up his nasty habit. Well done, Camel! Thanks, NHS.