I had to roll one up just to steel myself to read this: University announces smoking ban

Newcastle University is banning smoking anywhere on its campus from next year.

Staff and students are being warned if they want to smoke after 1 January 2007, they will have to leave the university site - not just buildings.

Now, I don't know Newcastle University at all. I presume it's a city centre type affair where it won't be too much of an inconvenience to step onto the public highway (until smoking is also banned there of course). Though I know they have an agriculture department and the policy applies on the university's farms which probably will mean a long walk to the roadside.

But no doubt this will come to us all eventually. Here at Brookes we have a policy that says not only is there no smoking in the university buildings, but also, in theory, not within five meters of outside doors or windows.

I am a good smoker. I always stub my cigarettes out and put the butts in a bin, if there isn't an ashtray. I can't stand the habit of just chucking it on the floor as you get to the door - often not even stamping it out - that seems to go on a lot around here.

And I always stand the requisite five meters from buildings if at all possible. The nearest spot to my office has a huge plane tree that provides as good cover as any umbrella or bike shed for most of the year, but elsewhere you can usually find some eaves or something to stand under that don't infringe the five meter rule. But I have to say that from watching other smokers I am if not the only one, in a tiny minority that give more than one hoot about people coming and going at entrances or working in offices with not terribly well fitting windows that always let in a little unpleasant whiff if someone's smoking outside.

So, fellow smokers, especially those here at Brookes, the only way in my opinion to delay this fascist onslaught is to abide by the quite reasonable rules we already have. Mind you, the university could take greater steps to ensure people know what those rules are. At the moment it is up to occupants of offices for example to print off a little petulant looking poster and stick it in their window. It doesn't look terribly official and it looks like the occupants are being a bit petty if you don't already know the rule.

But maybe the attitude is "why spend any money publicising the rule when we could spend the same simply banning smoking on site altogether".

Let's hope they don't want to extend it to one's own space in halls of residence.