Beer, cigarettes and social change

Beer sales in pubs are falling. Last year more than 1,400 pubs closed in the UK. Take home sales of beer, meanwhile, are increasing. The strength of beer is increasing too.

We used to put the world to rights in pubs. Now we do so on internet forums. Dinner parties are simply not the same. For a start, you are not on neutral territory, you're expected to behave yourself for the good of the host and then there's the smoking problem.

Last week I was having dinner in a pub with my wife and three others - all men. Conversation was flowing quite nicely during the main course but as soon as our plates were empty Gill and I were deserted by our companions as they went outside to smoke.

I never liked smoky clothing or smoke in my eyes but I do get on well with plenty of people who smoke. Now, however, as the law has excluded the smokers from public interiors, it is the non-smokers who are facing social exclusion.

Our social lives are changing and I'm not sure that all the change is for the better.

The way things have changed

Readers of the BBC website magazine have suggested various way that Britain has changed in the past 10 years. Among the 3o suggestions featured here my favourite is the one that says: "people go to hospital to become ill."

I have ten others:

1. A single man can no longer enjoy watching children playing in the park.

2. You no longer have to breath cigarette smoke in railway carriages.

3. Fun has been abolished for fear of personal accident injury claims.

4. Everyone has grown allergic to the inside lane of the motorway.

5. The weekend newspapers have outgrown most dustbins (which now have wheels).

6. Two people read the TV news.

7. Schools have discovered lettuce.

8. Asian teenage boys can't carry duffel bags.

9. Art galleries have turned in to fun parks (a caveat: see point 3).

10. You have to dress like an Eskimo to survive a supermarket shop.

Does anyone have any more?