A flight of fancy brought about by lack of sleep...

The time has come to confront the elephant in the room: In two weeks time smoking will be banned in England. The effect this will have on The Muted Slughorn – the labyrinthine boozer frequented by Dogtooth, myself, and on occasions even the Newt, or at least one of its creatures – remains to be seen. There have been rumblings about a euphemistically named ‘contingency plan’. Rumour abounds – only a couple of days ago a lean Swedish trawlerman seated in the saloon bar told me of a planned secession, which would leave the Slughorn beyond the law of any government in the world. Other less dramatic speculation suggests that a loophole has already been introduced, lending credence to the stories of a tunnel from the beer cellars emerging in a deserted office in Whitehall. Perhaps most alarming of all are the hushed mentions of a ‘patio garden’. What kind of garden the Slughorn might have does not bear thinking about…
The pros and cons of the smoking ban have been dealt with at length, and I’m not going to rehash them, but instead I want to draw attention to the aesthetic ramifications. No more Watteauesque taprooms, no more seeing Turner’s House of Lords, and its elemental interaction between smoke and water, recreated in a smoky gents. No more forgiving veil of blue smog to mask those of yellow tooth and grainy skin. The future will be hard and bright and uncompromising, and if that doesn’t make you feel like a cigarette I don’t know what will.

P.S. - I found this rather amusing.