No smoking please, we're English

I went out last night to celebrate a colleague's 30th, and when I got home, I was struck by a thought. I don't stink of cigarettes.
As you may know, from 1st July this year, in England it's been illegal to smoke in public places, including pubs, bars, nightclubs etc. As a non-smoker, I was pleased about this, but it hadn't really sunk in until then.
Before, you always knew that if you went out for a drink, you'd have to sit in a smoky room, and it would cling to your skin and your clothes. When you got home, you'd feel horrible and you'd want to have a shower straight away. Now, it's completely gone.
It's also encouraged several people I know to give up. There's quite a few "social smokers" I know, who would only ever smoke when they went out, and now they are cutting down, if not stopping entirely. I think that it'll only be when winter comes that they'll really have to think about quitting, because they'll have to stand out in the cold (unless the pub has a heated shelter).
In unrelated news, I've finally taken the plunge and ordered an 80GB iPod video from Amazon. I didn't like iPods for a long time, but since I started using Last.fm I've been wishing I had one so I could scrobble tracks I played to my profile. I've had a Sony 20GB MP3 player for a while, and I like it, but the software is rubbish, I can't use it with Last.fm, and Sony are very keen on their DRM. I bought one of the 2nd generation iPod Shuffles last month and I really like it. Sadly, it won't scrobble to Last.fm either. Which is why I've now ordered the iPod video.
I'm still not keen on Apple as a company. They do seem to be slightly less evil than Microsoft, but not by much (there's still no iTunes for Linux, and Steve Jobs seems to think that Internet Explorer having 75% of the market, and Safari taking the rest, is a good thing, despite the fact that Firefox knocks the stuffing out of both).
You certainly will never see me buying a Mac. And, now that Dell have started selling PC's with preinstalled Ubuntu in the UK (yippee!) I don't have to pay for a copy of Windows if I buy another computer.
But, still, the iPod is nice. And I am really looking forward to being able to play anything on it and send it to Last.fm.