Ooh La La!

Folks, I was saving this French smoking ban story so I could link it with my trip to Paris...except my trip to Paris didn't happen 'cause the boss vetoed it as he considered it excessive travel for a 2-hour meeting. Now, I tried my best to overcome his objections...I even got the France office manager to pay for my airfare and the hotel, but in the end I gave up even though I could've made it happen as the boss would've scowled. Little did he know my plans for a visit to Colette dept. store and a club or two! Hence my persistence... ;)

So I "took one for the team" and will now get up at 2am tomorrow (11am Paris time) to take part in the meeting on the phone. Bah humbug! But, the show must go on so here's the "A Smoke-Free France" story.

"On a gray January morning in Paris, Sebastien Jauny huddles against the door of a café in the rain, shivering in his long black overcoat, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. The ban on smoking in restaurants and bars has been in effect only one day, but Jauny, himself a manager of a bar a few doors down on chic Boulevard Saint-Germain, is already fed up—and freezing.

"It violates human liberty," Jauny exclaims, not to mention the timing could have been better. England, for instance, chose to put its new antismoking law into effect in sunny July. "But it's a good thing. Normally, I smoke three packs a day. Yesterday, I smoked only 10 [cigarettes]".

Mobile phone ban In California, there'll be a ban of another sort in the summer, but just as traumatizing! Hands-free mobile phones in cars?! Gasp - yes, how will LA drivers manage with time away from the phone during the long commute?