Many younger readers will find it hard to imagine a large, open-plan office in which many people smoked. That was the world of work I inhabited in the 1970s. By mid-morning you needed to use thermal imaging equipment to find your colleagues on distant desks.
In the noughties we finally got wise to that. Smoking disappeared; first from the work-place, then all public places. On return from the pub I no longer have to consign all my clothes to the washing basket.
The new, iconic scene for the noughties is of employees huddled around the exit doors of shops and offices (I won't enter a shop where the single assistant is smoking outside the front door) having a quick fag.
The beneficiaries of all this were the manufacturers of awnings and gazebos who suddenly found the term 'smoking-pavilion' would quadruple the sales of their pre-existent products. And of course that well know Irish soul singer Patty O' Heater got more gigs.
1 comment:
yes, I wonder if someone's done the arithmatic of what the smoking ban has done to CO2 emmisions from the UK?
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