Guilty pleasures

While the smoking ban may be irksome, says Daily Telegraph pubs writer ADAM EDWARDS, it will only sustain smoking's illicit allure

In the flurry of proposed legislation to ban smoking from pubs, the Government has forgotten one important factor ­ the joy of the illicit cigarette.

The furtive ciggie was our first rebellion. The secret Number 6 in the school bogs followed by an extra strong mint was as much part of growing up as acne. The quick fag in the bushes while bunking off games, the illegal hit of nicotine from a fag left smouldering in an ashtray and the hidden stogy cupped in the hand were an integral slice of our teenage sedition.

And as we matured we smoked in the pub (to try to look older). And that, too, had overtones of naughtiness, with its frosted windows, strong liquor and laws prohibiting service to minors.

This has left most smokers with an enjoyably clandestine relationship with nicotine and it has been the reason why smokers have so far taken all bans of the weed in their stride. Nobody, for example, much minded when smoking was forbidden on public transport because the average smoker knew from his or her schooldays that he was always bound to be caught if he lit up on the bus. The ban on airlines was a blow, but there was the pleasure of the nervous cigarette in the departure lounge before the flight and the joy of the first puff in arrivals. The no-smoking section of a restaurant was acceptable because of the intense pleasure of anticipating the post-prandial puff in the smoking section. Even when smoking was disallowed in offices, there was a natural bonding between those who skived off for a quick Marlboro Light outside.

But now the Government is determined to hit the smoker where it does hurt, in his heartland ­ the pub. This is where the real war will be fought and there will be bloody battles over what is and what is not "prepared food" and fights over distances from the bar. But of one thing I am certain, legally or illegally, the smoker will continue to puff away.

I say this after reading about the feminists in the USA who successfully outlawed the traditional all-male bars in the nation's golf clubs. While the clubs were forced to open their bars to both sexes they cunningly converted the men's locker rooms into drinking dens. Comfy chairs and satellite television were introduced into the changing area, Optics were fitted into spare shower lockers and male waiters in towels served drinks and canapés.

English landlords might follow suit with Sky Sports, cigarette machines, one-armed bandits and canned beer vending machines installed in the loos. After all, the customers won't mind drinking there ­ they will be doing what they have always done, enjoying a secret fag in the bogs.

EXTREME MEASURES

A recent survey by InnSpired has concluded that most people believe that the pub offers more to a community than the church. I wondered why this was so, given that the pub and the church are remarkably similar. They both, for example, have altars (let's face it a bar is a place of worship). Both offer wine and bread and have bells (the one for drawing people in, the other for kicking them out). Both have pews (in fact the pub ones usually come from a decommissioned church), customers that sing when they are happy, organised outings, charity boxes and a kindly fellow who listens to the world's troubles.

Why then is the one viewed more favourably than the other? I can only assume that it is to do with the amount of alcohol served. Perhaps the church should think about serving its communion wine in larger measures.

DARK ARTS

Last month the Irish landlord of Delaney's pub in Norwich got so fed up with his regulars claiming that Guinness tasted better in the Emerald Isle than in England that he flew 48 of them to Dublin for a taste test to lay the urban myth to rest. Unfortunately the regulars repaid his kindness by claiming that the Guinness tasted better in Ireland.

It is of course nonsense, as the brewers will confirm. So too is the way Guinness is served. If a pint glass is filled three quarters full of the black stuff and then left to stand for a lifetime before it is topped up it tastes exactly the same if it were poured in a single draught.

These legends are a sad indictment of the Guinness drinker who seems to believe any old marketing guff about his drink except the bleeding obvious. Firstly that bottled Guinness Original (or Guinness Extra Stout as it is called in Ireland) is truer to the spirit of the original stout than the nitrogen-pressured draught black ink he insists on supping. And secondly that Guinness Draught Extra Cold is as pointless as a Perrier ice-lolly.