Wetherspoons has put out a leaflet in its pubs looking forward to the ban, and pointing to all the extra beer and food people can buy if they give up smoking. That's what I call positive thinking.

As for the stuff about tiobacco being more addictive than cocaine or heroin, I'm sure that's true for many people, and it's one good reason niot to get into smoking.

But no smoker should ever take that as a reason not to quit, because for quite a lot of people it's not hard at all, and you might be one of the lucky ones, like me and my father-in-law were.

I've recently been making a practice of counting the number of people smoking in the fairly sizeable and crowded barroom of a pub I frequent. The other day there were four, which is the highest yet. More typically it is one or two. Smokers don't always appreciate what a small minority they are. And I've never heard anyone apologizing for the discomfort they cause others, or thanking non-smokers for putting up with it all these years.