My last column was a 700-word gloat about how great it is to be free and single, so it’s rather amusing that this week has been all about dependency for me.

Exams, for one thing. They’ve reduced me to a gibbering wreck. Not to the extent that I’ll do proper revision, of course. So much for all that ‘I’m independent and I don’t need any of you!’ thing… I’m now seriously appealing to every god I can think of to help me through the exams. In fact, I’ve moved on from gods and am now just making sacrifices to anything that will sit still long enough. I prayed to Wilfred Owen. I prayed to my great great great aunt May. I prayed to my pink flock Virgin Mary moneybox. I lit a candle under my poster of Oscar Wilde, and watered the bay tree in our garden, muttering urgent entreaties under my breath. I don’t know if Apollo (my intended audience) was watching, but my mother was. She thinks exam stress is getting to me. She could be right. But the good news is – it seems to be working! My papers so far have gone much better than I’d dared to hope they could. My only problem now, having asked for so much divine aid, is who to thank. I should have made a list.

Cigarettes becoming a problem too. Judging by the blaze of expletives that exploded from my mouth when I couldn’t find a lighter the other day, I’m developing a bit of a dependency on the little buggers. Oh well. According to a trustworthy online test, I am stuck in Freud’s ‘oral stage’ – I like to put things in my mouth. So if a cigarette wasn’t clamped between my lips, something else most likely would be. Probably a Mars Bar. I’ve decided to blame today’s body-fixated culture for the fact that I’d go for cancer over fatness. God forbid that I blame “myself”.

I left the house the other day and walked down the road, feeling inexplicably not-quite-right. I checked myself over. Mobile, purse, house keys: all present and correct. I’d remembered to wash the conditioner out of my hair, and to put on socks and shoes (in that order). Then I realised. My sunglasses! I’d left them on the hall table! I tried, how I tried, to carry on without them… but I couldn’t. I felt so unprotected. I felt so “uncool”. I had to go back and get them. This really has been the week for dependency hasn’t it? The stupid thing is that when I’m wearing sunglasses I don’t feel comfortable either – it feel as if somehow all my senses are impaired. I’m scared to cross roads because I’m sure I can’t be looking hard enough. And if I make conversation I cannot do it with the shades on, because I get uncomfortable if I can’t make eye contact… so then I have to take them off, and I look like an idiot just clutching them, and then because I’m so oral I end up unconsciously chewing them, and that isn’t classy.

Last of all, throughout this solitary confinement I’ve become absolutely dependent on music. I’ve just bought in a stack of albums, and they’re all cracking. Especially Ryan Adams’s new one, “Cold Roses”, which is just – ahhh. It’s a return to Whiskeytown standards. It’s almost as good as “Heartbreaker”. I’m telling you, this man is a modern legend. I don’t agree with this quest for a New Bob Dylan (what’s wrong with the old one?), but if you insist on looking for one, he’s right here. I think all the evidence you need for his greatness is this: I am the sort of person who gets bored after the first minute of a song, and yet I have been listening to Ryan Adams for nearly five years, and still want to hear every song over and over again. I’ve been dragging it from room to room like a two-year-old with a snuggle blanket. I’m seriously thinking about buying another copy so I can have one for the kitchen and one for my room. It’s not my job to write a review… not least because it would be less a review, more an effusive burble about how wonderful it all is. I think you should just all go out and buy it. Make that two copies.

Imogen’s Brand New Albums:

(Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves, Hawskley Workman. Top song: “Jealous Of Your Cigarette” (“I’m jealous of your cigarette/ and how you wanna suck on it/ and not me”. The man is a lyrical genius.)

Pneumonia, Whiskeytown. Top Song: “Paper Moon”. But you can hear God 3 minutes and 30 seconds into “Easy Heart”.

Here Be Monsters, Ed Harcourt. Top Song: “She Fell Into My Arms”

Cold Roses, Ryan Adams. Top Song: “Mockingbird”

Martha Wainwright, Martha Wainwright. Top Song: ”Factory”; ”BMFA” (why did she make the words ‘bloody motherfucking asshole’ so eminently singable?)

Smoking recently has been getting a raw deal. Anybody stating otherwise is usually hung drawn and quartered. Here we like to buck the trend, often for no reason what so ever than to buck the trend.

We know your square rents will be shouting “But Jimmy they kill you,” or “Jimmy you’ll smell”. You’re however, better than that, you know there are two sides to every argument. What are the cool kids saying you ask? That smoking is undeniably cool, it’ll get you laid, you’ll look cool and your peers will respect you. Max Robson is here to give the low down on what’s hot and what’s not in Smoking paraphernalia.

Marlboro Lights

Marlboro lights are a somewhat universal smoke. Many a person were brought into the world of smoking by this brand; this is probably the reason why, that never in extensive smoking years have I met another who dislikes them with a passion. In general you’ll find that Marlboro light smokers are generous with their cigarettes, why this is nobody knows, but it certainly is fact. One thing I personally like about them is that you don’t feel like your dying every time you take a drag as can be the case with their older brother the reds. Always a bonus.

Taste
A good balance has been achieved by the good people of Phillip Morris here. They somehow manage to be low tar and yet have a full flavour like the heavies. The interesting quality of Marlboro lights is they have a seemingly standard taste and yet somehow exceed that at the same time. You could smoke Marlboro lights all day as they have very low if any scratch to them. If you are a smoker make sure, if you haven’t already for some absurd reason, you experience them.

Coolness
One issue they have which could be considered a let down is that those of us who aren’t seasoned smokers can give off a ‘My mum knows I smoke but I don’t care’, image with these. But for the rest of the world they are pretty cool, not exceptionally cool mind. If you want to be really cool whilst smoking Marlboro lights you’ll need some of your own cool at hand.

This weeks member of the public had this to say
‘well they’re amazing – wow, what a creation, I remember all the way back in 1999 when I had the first toke of one, it sent my heart pumping, my blood gushing, my mind racing, my taste buds bursting ..wow .. I ….I think I love them.’

5 – Cost
7 – Coolness
6 – Health
7 – Effectiveness
8 – Taste
8 – Overall