WENT down to London where - to paraphrase Bill Bryson - they seemed to be having a smoking competition and eveyone was joining in.
It was a beautiful clear winter's day, the air clear and crisp ... except everyone in the street seemed to be smoking. Maybe it's a fashionable London thing - this year's must-have: a bad cough and yellow teeth.
But strangest was when a cyclist with an anti pollution mask climbed off his bike - and lit up. These Londoners eh?
Only he probably wasn't a Londoner. The most prominent accent was more Dr Zhivago than Dick Van Dyke.
And these weren't your Roman Abramovich visiting tycoon-style Russkis, they were Russian builders, Russian shoppers, Russian hotel workers.
Bad enough trying to figure out the Underground without having to get directions from Leonid Brezhnev's nephew.
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DRINKING in pubs is down to its lowest levels since the 1930s.
And I think we can assume the problem then was unemployment and rickets rather than the smoking ban and the temptation of 20 bottles of Stella for £6,.99 at Lidl.
It's a future where only mega Wetherspoons and Lloyds bars are left - and then only open at weekends and the quick last orders at the local pub on a Tuesday is but a thing of the past.
And the only other people making money are the manufacturers of bottle banks.
