Fags' Last Night out

Our pub quiz team, appropriately titled 'Fags' Last Night Out', had just lost the weekly Deri Inn pub quiz by a good 16 points in what was perhaps one of our most forgettable performances. Yet this night will not be quickly forgotten by us all because of this dismal score. For myself, Jen, Tom, Emma, James and Leighton, witnessed history in the making in a simple Rhiwbinian pub. For Sunday April 1st, was the final day in which people can legally smoke in public places here in Wales.

For those hardened draggers who may have been living under a rock over the past few years and had returned on that very day, they would not be wrong in insisting that this ban was a cruelly played April Fools joke. I say this because it even baffles me how attitudes towards smoking in public have changed in the 21st century. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that now everytime I go out into a pub I can now escape the heavy blankets of smokey filth, which was slowly destroying my lungs and making me smell like an ashtray. But it was not long ago that smoking was considered to be cool, a bit rebellious and was a major staple in establishing the social order. If you didn't smoke, you were a square. The dangerous effects of cigarettes and tobacco were not being explained properly and people had continued to suffer the effects of lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. It wasn't too long ago that tobacco advertising was banned in this country, and that all fag packets had to have clearer warnings on them to explain the danger. Yet we were still well behind the likes of California where smoking bans had confidently been put in place, and we dismissed it as an excessive idea. Truth was that Britain had, and still has, a real love affair with the cigarette. It has always been revered as the appropriate partner to a cup of coffee, or a pint of lager. Its a British tradition which no-one was willing to separate.

And yet today, the Parisians have now started to call time on open smoking in their own public places. Paris was certainly another place where cigarettes where commonplace in bars and cafes - I'm sure if you had to conjure up a French stereotypical bloke in your mind, he or she would have onions around his neck, a french loaf in one hand and an unfiltered cigarette firmly between his lips. Scotland have had their ban in place since last year, we have followed suit, whilst England will make the Great Britain smoke free in July.

So why the change in attitudes? Perhaps because more people are waking up to the silent killer which they have no control over. Passive smoking is being proven to be almost as deadly as direct smoking itself and quite rightfully, the public doesn't like this fact. I know as a passive smoker for 23 years that my life may be significantly shortened as a result and that it is now I've started to take a stand when I am around my mum and dad, who both smoke. I don't want to be near them when they smoke, I blatantly open windows even when its pouring down or freezing cold, I make bellowing gestures with my hands and other types of resistance. I do anything to convey my utter disgust at the habit, since reasoning through science had no effect. I did the old-breathe-into-a-cotton-wool-ball trick and it had no effect whatsoever. And although I realise its tough to quit or cut down, the fact is that those sticks are playing around with people's health around you. It is just plain disrespectful. Im glad to say something has gotten through however, my mum will now leave the room when she lights up and even if she is watching something on TV, she will stand by the door and smoke.

Sadly there are bound to be people in society who aren't so considerate, who are too selfish and still live in the stone age to see that smoking has an effect on everyone else. I've met them - and I'm glad to say that their defiance is just the perfect example of their stupidity. These people will continue to light up in pubs, because its what they do, its what they always done and no-one will tell them otherwise. But this ban and the attitude of the majority of the people of Wales shows quite clearly that YOU are a dying breed. In more ways than one.

This ban will be hard to enforce now, but its clear that this is a measure for the future. It will teach the next generation that smoking in pubs and other public places is something we were ashamed of, and we want them to turn up their noses in disgust at the very idea. We want them to stay healthy, we want them to live without the worry of one particular type of cancer lingering over them. Not that its too late for us of course - I can now enjoy a pint without having to worry about my breathing.

As we quizzed on that joyous evening, it was ironic that a couple smoked quite happily next to us. Smoke filled the air and it was thick as fog, and they seemed as though they were smoking to save their lives considering the rate they were puffing away. And yet, I wonder if tomorrow, or indeed next week when we quiz again at the Deri, they will be there with Marlboro's at hand. I wonder whether they will be feigning ignornance or expressing utter defiance just to continue their dirty habit. I wonder if they will be dinosaurs trying to outlive their time.