The last bastion falls

A small disaster has befallen the life of gemmak today, or at least the knowledge that it will do before very much longer.

Since my move South, when things have become particularly 'trying' and I have sought a place of solace, I have headed to the great and the good that is Caffe Nero ....and you thought it was just a coffee bar eh?


Nero's was is my little bit of heaven, my place of escape, somehwere I can wile away an hour or two with a good book, a fantastic restretto or cappuccino and most of all a place I can enjoy these things and settle my mind's concerns, all with a cigarette in hand....for Nero's didn't judge, they didn't deem the pariahs like myself as evil, no, they allowed the top floor of their wonderful coffee emporium to be inhabited by smokers! It was heaven indeed. They stood alone, Nero's was hallowed ground. The one place, the only place I knew that allowed me, as the devil incarnate, to truly relax with my favourite things, caffeine, a book and a smoke.

But the last bastion has fallen, things are looking bleak, for today, as I made my merry way to the counter to order, book clutched in hand, I was greeted by a heinous sign announcing that from 14th September, they too will bow to the pressure of the 'good and the sensible', of those who hop blithely onto one or another of the politically correct bandwagons..... and smoking will no longer be allowed anywhere on their premises.

There have of course been customer surveys (though no one 'surveyed' me despite my almost daily visits) professing to prove that their customers wishes are that the evil weed be banned but hey, did anyone survey any smokers?, because one thing is for sure, in the particular branch I use, the top floor, the smokers domain, is always far busier than the lower floor that is already a smoke free zone!

A bleak day indeed.....hell, I know that next year it will be obligatory anyways but I had faith in these guys.....