My glorified rebel-with-a-cause-for-cancer days are numbered.
As everyone is now aware – thanks to a belated yet comprehensive NHS information campaign – on Sunday July 1 2007, this country goes smoke-free.
There are barely four days of smoke-permitting England remaining and I'm nervously counting them down on my imaginary smoking-ban advent calendar.
I have just four days left to light up the very minute I alight at Waterloo. Four to go until I must leave a restaurant before the final coffee-and-nicotine course. Just three nights left to chain away a pack or three in my favourite club.
At least that was how I chose to see the impending ban – until last weekend.
Last Friday night I arrived at the Camden Jazz Café to enjoy a line-up of Rastafarian proportions. The venue is small and always crowded, allowing bands intimacy with their audience. The performances are consistently outstanding... and inevitably smoke-clogged. You cannot leave with clean clothes, let alone healthy lungs.
This slight drawback to a brilliant night out might infuriate the non-smoking majority, but it has never bothered me. After all, clothes can be washed and well, maybe lungs can't, but we don't think too much about that, do we, otherwise we may have to think about the consequences of our actions and that's just a pain.
Friday night, however, was a refreshing change and a delicious taste of what is to come in just four days. Because for one night only, Jazz Café was smoke-free.
I think my problem with the smoking ban was that I was knocking something I had never really tried. I never used to go to non-smoking pubs and I always sat in the smoking section of any restaurant decent enough not to discriminate against my foul hobby. The Jazz Café is no longer so polite. >>
As everyone is now aware – thanks to a belated yet comprehensive NHS information campaign – on Sunday July 1 2007, this country goes smoke-free.
There are barely four days of smoke-permitting England remaining and I'm nervously counting them down on my imaginary smoking-ban advent calendar.
I have just four days left to light up the very minute I alight at Waterloo. Four to go until I must leave a restaurant before the final coffee-and-nicotine course. Just three nights left to chain away a pack or three in my favourite club.
At least that was how I chose to see the impending ban – until last weekend.
Last Friday night I arrived at the Camden Jazz Café to enjoy a line-up of Rastafarian proportions. The venue is small and always crowded, allowing bands intimacy with their audience. The performances are consistently outstanding... and inevitably smoke-clogged. You cannot leave with clean clothes, let alone healthy lungs.
This slight drawback to a brilliant night out might infuriate the non-smoking majority, but it has never bothered me. After all, clothes can be washed and well, maybe lungs can't, but we don't think too much about that, do we, otherwise we may have to think about the consequences of our actions and that's just a pain.
Friday night, however, was a refreshing change and a delicious taste of what is to come in just four days. Because for one night only, Jazz Café was smoke-free.
I think my problem with the smoking ban was that I was knocking something I had never really tried. I never used to go to non-smoking pubs and I always sat in the smoking section of any restaurant decent enough not to discriminate against my foul hobby. The Jazz Café is no longer so polite. >>
