They don’t call London "The Big Smoke" for nothing…

Aline writes: Now that it has turned colder, it seems that everyone in London is smoking. Or maybe it’s just that we were eating outside all the time during the summer and so didn’t notice it. It really struck home last week when we had coffee with our classmates, and it seemed that everyone in the coffee house was chain-smoking. It inspired a lively debate among our classmates, since there is currently pending legislation to ban smoking in restaurants. Whether smoking gets banned in pubs, though, is still being discussed. There was support for banning it everywhere from some of our classmates, while others thought the pubs would lose business (I remember this debate in Ca when it went non-smoking). There seemed to be little concern about individual rights. In any case, Bill and I already have two coffee houses near our flat that are non-smoking, so you’ll know where to find us this winter!

PS They really do call London The Big Smoke – a nickname I was unaware of until this year. The nickname seems to be from the prevelance of London fog/smog (in 1952 for a period of 5 days in December the smog in London was so bad it killed between 4,000-12,000 people.) But the nickname is also used as a point of pride in smoking.