So, imagine my dad in the Neurological ward, after he's a had either a small stroke or a weird epileptic seizure, 30 hours after he’s been hospitalised. Meaning, he hasn’t had a cigarette and was forced to be still for 30 hours. Now, when we visit, we visit in a horde. It’s said only three people per visitor, but who is counting. Mum brings the cigarettes and sis asks for permission to have one. Gets one. Now dad, like a spring, in PJs that don’t fit (and always threaten to show some interesting bits), dragging his IV, tripping over it, barely dressed in a bathroom robe and caped in a borrowed parka and vested, back to front, in my parka, making his way through the hospital while one nurse is arguing he is not allowed to leave the ward, the other that he should consider quitting, maybe, at this point, and a dozen or so of us, like crazy geese, following him, getting into lifts, then out again, through doors, manoeuvring this strangest entourage, jabbering what he should and shouldn’t be doing, while dad ignores pretty much every warning and just wants his minute of tranquillity, enjoying a drag… Can you imagine the vacuum / cone of silence that remains after we exit a floor?