Smoker

The first full-time job I had was working in Weybridge in 1988. It was a large, open plan office containing, maybe, forty people. It was really quite spacious. I remember two (not entirely unrelated) things about this office, quite clearly: firstly, there was the splendidly 70s colour scheme of oranges, browns and beige, and the second was the smell of cigarette smoke. After that, I don't think I ever worked in another office where people smoked. (It wasn't accepted without objection: one chap who sat near me had a fan aimed at the lady across the aisle who smoked almost constantly, much to her irritation.)

A few years later, I had possibly my favourite meal of my life at Plato Harrisons in Kirkby Lonsdale with my then wife and another couple. The table was down in what I think must have once been wine cellars: it was low-ceilinged and, as I remember it, lit only by candlelight. Towards the end of the evening,when people had mostly finished eating, the atmosphere was enhanced by the swirls of smoke around the ceiling.

And, of course, up until a few years ago, we were all used to our clothes stinking of cigarette smoke the morning after we'd been to the pub or a gig. Then the law changed. When was that? A few years ago certainly*. Now it seems funny to imagine being in a pub with someone smoking. In fact, God, I've just remembered people smoking on planes!

These days, we are used to seeing smokers gathered around the entrances to work places and the doors of pubs. Sometimes, when the rain is falling, they almost look quite romantic. This morning, crossing the square to my car, I saw this chap outside The Royal, smoking and looking at his 'phone in the sunshine. Not a bad day to be a smoker. It'll be a labour of love (or, in fact, addiction) when the winter comes around.

*I checked when I'd finished writing this: it was 2007.