New boy’s image goes up in smoke

Cigars are the talk of the town, thanks to the “inappropriate” goings-on of Bill and Monica over at the White House. But The Leith Agency chairman, John Denholm, remembers a time when cigars were as much a mystery to him as their various and imaginative uses were to the tabloid-reading public.

Once upon a time, John was a new boy on the Boots marketing team. Following a board dinner, cigars were duly handed round, presenting our virgin cigar smoker with a dilemma – how to smoke something with a sealed end.

Keen to impress his colleagues with a show of decisiveness, John promptly bit the end off the cigar with a growl – just as he spied the waiter bearing a cigar cutter at the other end of the table. Bill and Monica would have been proud.