Smoking...

[Silly Sausage]

[h=2]3. Smoking[/h]In the very earliest days of communal drinking, pubs used to be little more than crude huts where people huddled together for a drink and a chat. This style of meeting place has re-emerged as the smokers' shelter outside virtually every pub. Often there's more fun and better conversation to be had in the smokers' shelter. Smokers are naturally more sociable and entertaining than non-smokers, possibly because they know they haven't got long to live. For non-smokers in the pub it's a little bit disconcerting drinking or eating with smokers as they disappear every half an hour.

 

[telectrix]

fair enough in summer, but in this weather you'll not get me freezing my nuts off in a so-called smoking shelter which is deliberately open on the side of the prevailing wind and rain, hard wooden seats (if any) that make your arse ache after 5 minutes, a half-arsed attempt at heating with a pathetic little 5watt heater banged up with a couple of 4" nails, on a 30 second timer, fed with a bit of scrap T/E stripped out on the rewire to make the non-smokers inside all comfy.

 

[ian.settle1]

fair enough in summer, but in this weather you'll not get me freezing my nuts off in a so-called smoking shelter which is deliberately open on the side of the prevailing wind and rain, hard wooden seats (if any) that make your arse ache after 5 minutes, a half-arsed attempt at heating with a pathetic little 5watt heater banged up with a couple of 4" nails, on a 30 second timer, fed with a bit of scrap T/E stripped out on the rewire to make the non-smokers inside all comfy.

Easy cure stop smoking:earmuffs:

 

[kingeri]

Smoking shelter at my local is luxurious, it has an electric heater and a wood burner, it's bordering on being an extension to the pub actually.

 

[telectrix]

close, but no cigar. it's easy for some. balance has to be struck between the physical detriments of somoking weighed against the psychological, stress relief from smoking can reduce the incidence of ulcers, strokes, etc., at the end of the day, can we really trust doctors who initially bled patients as a a cure-all, prescribed thalidomine, drink to excess, and who all still think that all diseases are caused by smoking, drinking, and eating, come on!!!,

 

[Des 56]

In a very short time people will look back to the past and be aware that pubs and clubs had smoking bans and now no longer exist

The traditional pub without the smoker has already virtually ceased to exist
Its now a choice of not drinking or drinking in one of those "stuff your face full of food while you consume alcohol places" that make mockery of pretending to be a pub

The smoking ban will have destroyed the fantastic social gathering that was the pub,it has turned this once great institution into a non smokers dump

Even my non smoking mates rue the day this ban was introduced in the form that it has been,they prefered their social life as it was to the non smokers dumps that remain,non smokers who liked the traditional pub have been hoodwinked into supporting the destruction of their social way of life

 

[telectrix]

well put, des. pubs are no longer pubs, you can't move for tripping over pushchairs. they're like mothercare shops with bad attitude

 

[markc123]

I am going to be controversial here, oooft....

3. Smoking

In the very earliest days of communal drinking, pubs used to be little more than crude huts where people huddled together for a drink and a chat. This style of meeting place has re-emerged as the smokers' shelter outside virtually every pub. Often there's more fun and better conversation to be had in the smokers' shelter. Smokers are naturally more sociable and entertaining than non-smokers, possibly because they know they haven't got long to live. For non-smokers in the pub it's a little bit disconcerting drinking or eating with smokers as they disappear every half an hour.

I'm a non-smoker and always have been, i am a minority amongst work colleagues and drinking mates...and i for one am glad of the smoking ban, especially when im having a meal - the last thing i want is to be breathing in someone elses second hand smoke when im trying to enjoy a greasy burger. Yes, my pals do often go outside every half an hour but thats completley fine by me i can enjoy my meal and go home smoke-free

On the flip side, the amount of 'birds' that smoke and say "you got a light" in a smoker area is unbelievable - easy way to break the ice & chat the females up :38: ....so stop bloody moaning you smokers

Do agree that pubs have compleley changed with the ban though, and you're all right - probably for the worse. Endless amounts of kids their all hours of the day, less lock-ins, less randomly organised amature poker matches & to be honest an all round worse atmosphere. But still, i don't have to breath in others smoke anymore Can see both sides to the smoking ban debate to be fair.

 

[telectrix]

i don't disagree with you there, mark. eating areas should be smoke free. most pubs would have been happy to have the bar only as a smoking area, but that was not good enough for blair's fascist state.

 

[monkeyelectric]

I am going to be controversial here, oooft....



I'm a non-smoker and always have been, i am a minority amongst work colleagues and drinking mates...and i for one am glad of the smoking ban, especially when im having a meal - the last thing i want is to be breathing in someone elses second hand smoke when im trying to enjoy a greasy burger. Yes, my pals do often go outside every half an hour but thats completley fine by me i can enjoy my meal and go home smoke-free

On the flip side, the amount of 'birds' that smoke and say "you got a light" in a smoker area is unbelievable - easy way to break the ice & chat the females up :38: ....so stop bloody moaning you smokers

Do agree that pubs have compleley changed with the ban though, and you're all right - probably for the worse. Endless amounts of kids their all hours of the day, less lock-ins, less randomly organised amature poker matches & to be honest an all round worse atmosphere. But still, i don't have to breath in others smoke anymore Can see both sides to the smoking ban debate to be fair.

Thats why i always carry a lighter despite being a non smoker, true it does make me look like an arsonist but still before the smoking ban my local pub was so smokey some nights that you had a job to see the smoke was so thick and coupled with the eye stinging but i for one will agree the local pub was a lot better back then! Whenever we go out for a few beers now when all the smokers go out for a smoke i go with them so i'm not left in the bar on my own, although some nights its too damn cold and rainy so i stay inside like billy no mates

 

[markc123]

Yeah, split the pub half smoking and half non-smoking would be more than adequate to be fair. Now the laws been changed though i can't ever see it going back. I can't even remember when the ban was now, was it 2007 or something?

 

[telectrix]

around then. 2007/8.

 

[simpson93]

certainly effected some pubs down my way, 4 local to me closed in the last year 3 of which are now tesco expresses

 

[monkeyelectric]

Yeah, split the pub half smoking and half non-smoking would be more than adequate to be fair. Now the laws been changed though i can't ever see it going back. I can't even remember when the ban was now, was it 2007 or something?

I can't see it ever going back how it was which is a shame, yeah i think it was 2007, it seems longer than that though

 

[Darkwood]

3. Smoking

In the very earliest days of communal drinking, pubs used to be little more than crude huts where people huddled together for a drink and a chat. This style of meeting place has re-emerged as the smokers' shelter outside virtually every pub. Often there's more fun and better conversation to be had in the smokers' shelter. Smokers are naturally more sociable and entertaining than non-smokers, possibly because they know they haven't got long to live. For non-smokers in the pub it's a little bit disconcerting drinking or eating with smokers as they disappear every half an hour.

May i say a little biased in your view ..... obviously you smoke and ill make clear now i dont, firstly smokers attract smokers and usually congregate together as is with non smokers, i have both smoking and non smoking mates and do pop out to the smoking shed with them ... i find the conversation no different or lesser in quality from non-smokers in the pub to smokers outside.
I have no issue if someone smokes as long as they respect im a non smoker ill respect their addiction and need to smoke i only have strong views on parents subjecting their kids to second hand smoke and believing winding the car window down is enough to stop the carcenogenics getting into their kids lungs but thats another debate altogether, getting back to your comment with respect 1 out of 5 adults smoke and this is declining fast so at an 80% non smoking adult population the majority of people will stay in the pub and if you find this not to be the case then its probably more to do with the pub and the custom it attracts...... smokers are usually like minded with similar views on this and other related subjects which when chatting to like mindedpeople makes for good talk ....its only when you subsequently join in with a conversation of non-smokers often enough you find the conversations not as enjoyable in comparison but it dosn't mean they are any less enjoyable to those partaking in them...... your just in a different mind set.