THere are all sorts of things I don't want to try; drugs, for example, on the grounds that I'm aware they can have very negative effects. Possibly you're the same about smoking.

As for skiing, the snowdome at Milton Keynes is quite fun, I might be persuadable to organise a trip to a beginners' lesson sometime :)

I think I might be the same about smoking now, since my preconceptions have been challenged enough to make me actually think about why I don't do it. (In particular, a former colleague of mine actually recommended to me once that I should take up smoking, and once I'd got over the surprise that it was something anyone would seriously encourage, it did at least cause me to stop and realise I'd never even considered it up until now.)

And I definitely know I don't want to smoke dope, because the time I got passively stoned was enough to convince me I simply don't enjoy it.

Snowdome: ooh, that sounds like a nice idea. A major reason I feared I might never get round to trying skiing is because people tend to do it by travelling to strange bits of Europe for a week and that sounds like a lot of effort for something I don't know I'll enjoy. A convenient way to give it a try for only two hours' driving might be just the thing.

I have done dry slope skiing, and it is quite fun, even if you are a total wimp like me.

The snowdome isn't dry slope skiing though - it's a real snow slope, indoors.

They sometimes leave big piles of snow outide of the back doors in summer, which makes for really unexpected snowball fights.

The snowdome is great, I've been snowboarding there a few times. I've been contemplating learning to ski as I got fed up of falling on my arse...

The time I tried smoking cigars I woke up the next morning with a mouth tasting like an ashtray, which put me right off the whole thing. It didn't do anything positive that I noticed either.

I tried a cigar once and a cigarette once. I could see the point of the former, supposing you ignored the lung cancer, crappy effects on other people, being a social pariah, etc, but couldn't understand what the attraction of the latter was at all.