OK, I get it now! The hookah bubbling away is just a more fruity form of smoking tobacco. But is the shisha tobacco — flavoured with fruit and the smoke filtered through water — a similar health risk or in fact far more dangerous?

Shisha cafés have always struck me as the Arab equivalent of ye olde English pub of yore, minus the beer-stained carpet.

The pubs I have occasionally used — usually for a quick dash to the loo — are bastions of maleness suggesting a bygone era. But I have never dared enter those exotic all-male shisha emporiums. Although I've enjoyed the fruity wafts of smoke as I walk by.

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