SO near, but yet so far. March 9 is looming - the anniversary of my having given up smoking - and I was looking forward to marking its passing with a proper sense of pride.

Two minor glitches aside, I had put the evil weed successfully behind me during 2005 and was feeling a rosy glow of self-satisfaction that maybe, at last, the temptation had passed.

In fact, I'd been bragging about my success, in part to encourage myself not to fall by the wayside as I have so many times in the past.

But pride comes before a fall, as my mother and every other know-all like to say; and I fell with a resounding thud on Saturday night.

I was at a big charity dinner, goodwill was flowing like the Pinot Grigio, and as the evening evolved I became more relaxed, as you do.

There was laughter, there was dancing; there was even a bit of singing around our table as we tried to guess which tune would be next on the play-list for the band of the night.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, I forgot about not being a smoker any more, and made substantial inroads into the supplies bought by my tolerant dining companion. The efforts of people around my table to remind me that I was now an ex-smoker seemed curiously ineffective at the time.

Only the following morning, when I awoke with a banging head and a throat you could file your nails on, did I remember that I wasn't supposed to be doing this any more.

Now, I had not only to live with my own sense of shame; I realised I had a list of people to whom I would have to confess my sins.

All the individuals to whom I had boasted about my newfound abstemiousness would certainly have to be told, because those who had seen me having a crafty fag or ten would certainly enjoy passing on the news to the smokers over whom I had been lording it ever since I packed in smoking.

How right I was! Two days after my shameful night out, I got a phone call from a friend I have not seen for a month or so, who said: "Did you enjoy the do on Saturday night?"

"Yes," I said cautiously. "It was really good fun." "Hmm, so my spies tell me," said the friend, pitilessly. "You were seen. In a red dress. Sitting with a glamorous blonde friend. You were both smoking."

And then there's the Other Half, who had been away on business at the weekend, contributing to my feeling of being off the leash.

"It must be coming up to a year since you stopped smoking now," he said on his return on Monday night. "When is your anniversary?" Strangely, he didn't see the funny side when I told him my news.

Still, one good thing has come from my downfall. I remembered, the morning after, that the habit is as disgusting as ever; that it makes you feel like death, costs a fortune and leaves yourself and your unfortunate friends stinking of stale tobacco.

Oh, and it might just kill you, too.

That's why I'm one of the many thousands of recovering addicts who give three cheers over last night's Commons vote for an absolute smoking ban.

It gives me confidence to say publicly, right here and now, that I'll never do it again.

In any case, if I do, I'll never get away with it - and I'll never live it down, either.

Updated: 09:01 Wednesday, February 15, 2006