I’ve been looking around (sadly) for an alternative pub to frequent than the Lewes Arms, noticing how smoky each pub is, and wondering what they will be like to drink in after the smoking ban comes into force this summer. Or perhaps more pertinently, what smokers will do next winter, when the pub gardens are less inviting. Perhaps someone will invent smoking booths that vanish like a Tardis. It got me thinking about whether smokers and non-smokers can co-exist socially without wanting to slap each other. The ban suits me because I don’t smoke, don’t like smoke, and find negotiating about smoking agonising. But I understand it must be infuriating for smokers to be treated like lepers when the government are happy to rake off millions from tobacco tax. Anyway, being a bit inclined towards self-destructive habits myself, I sympathise with people who do stupid things for pleasure, and often find myself in the company of people hunched outside buildings in the cold. And the whole smoking debate is so earnest. A pre-film no-smoking announcement I once saw in California was more fun. Director John Waters speaks to camera with a cigarette in his hand: “I’m supposed to announce there is no smoking in this theater. But I think it’s one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard of in my life. How can anyone be expected to sit through the length of a film, especially a European film, and not have a cigarette? Don’t you wish you had one right now?” (taking a deep drag and moaning orgasmically) “I’m telling you. Smoke anyway. It gives ushers jobs. And if people didn’t smoke, they’d be no employment for the youth of today.”