Pinstripe: Shooting, rugby and cigarettes

I know it's only anecdotally arrived at but I reckon when it comes to industry 'R&R', half the sector and their business acquaintances love little more than to blast hapless wildfowl out of the sky, while the other fifty per cent lives for rugger.

I'm not much of a shot, it has to be said, with my own recreational penchant erring towards the oval-shaped ball. I played at school, though my determination to retain my limbs in good working order and for my internal organs to stay in roughly the same place as God intended meant I was never very good. I was always out on the wing, running like hell.

However, watching​ the sport is another matter entirely, especially with a beer in one hand and a stogie in the other. Which means I'm somewhat irked about missing our clash with the Scots at Twickenham, since tomorrow I'll be in Paris for a family 'do'.

Mind you, I haven't been to the French capital for yonks, and I do recall a very enjoyable evening on my last trip when I visited a smoky old bar near the Abbesses metro station in the north of the city. It was like a scene from one of those old black and white French films; customers of all shapes, sizes and ages, jostling for space, all babbling away to each other, a glass of cheap vin rouge​ in one hand and a Gauloise in the other.

Sadly, I'm going to have to make the most of such experiences while I can, as I think I'm right in saying a smoking ban in French bars kicks in next year.

Parisian friends of mine think this an affront on their right to kill themselves in a manner of their choice and who's to argue with them?

But the 2008 timetable does offer an entrepreneurial opportunity for some; as of this summer I predict canny tour operators on both sides of the Channel will be offering English smoking pub goers special weekend trips to Paris to make the most of one of the few places left - for now - where one can light up in a bar.