POR QUÉ los cigarrillos electrónicos nunca se generalizarán: no son 'sexy'.

There’s a reason why the movie The Big Sleep opens with Bogey and Bacall in silhouette puffing away on fags. There’s something romantic about intimately huddling together to light up and then share in the nicotine fog. Used well, the cigarette is like an extension of one’s personality. Some wave it about like a magic wand; others dangle it from the corner of the mouth as they impart secrets; rum coves stick it between middle and fourth finger and pontificate like Noel Coward trying to seduce a busboy. And what’s hotter than standing behind the bike sheds during playtime with the girl of your dreams to share a cigarette? So long as you’re the same age – it’s seriously not cool if you’re her English teacher.

E-cigarettes have none of this. They’re thick, lumpy, plasticky. They glow at the end, like ET’s finger – something between a joke shop cigar and a children’s toy. They are not a good sex aid. Imagine post coital the two of you unplugging your e-cigarettes and lying there in the dark tugging in short breaths as it lets out that insipid puff of steam and a light whirr. They sound like a kazoo, and there’s nothing seductive about blowing a kazoo in someone’s face.