The Editor's Hospitality Blog

Come next Monday morning, smoking in public places will be an offence. Smokers across the nation are facing up to the fact that their way of life is about to change forever.

I bumped into a friend of mine here at Caterer's offices, this afternoon. "Why the sad face?" I asked him. "I've just had my last fag in the smoking room", he replied, with a forlorn and distant look in his eyes. I should give you a bit of context here: our smoking room is a bare and stinky place, where lone figures stand, cigarette in hand, staring out of the window at suburban Sutton's underwhelming landscape. In truth, I don't think it's the room Fergus will miss, more the several-times-daily ritual of getting up from his desk, taking the lift down to the first floor, lighting up and inhaling deeply.

This weekend will see an end to such rituals. In bars and clubs, punters will nurture a pint and a fag in a reassuringly fuggy room for the last time ever. In restaurants, diners will blow smoke-rings with the last post-dinner cigar they will ever enjoy at table. And in pubs, old men in cloth caps will stuff a wad of Old Virgina into their pipes one last time.

If I sound like I'm already in mourning for a lost way of life, don't be fooled: I'm not a smoker, and I look forward to getting home from the pub without feeling I've been kippered. And it's a fact that Caterer campaigned actively for the smoking ban on the basis that it would be benefit the health of hospitality workers, for whom passive smoking is a professional hazard.

Still, I feel the pain of all you smokers facing a lifetime of lighting up on the pavement in the rain. And I hope that your last smoke indoors is a truly memorable experience.

Where do you plan to savour your final smoke? Let us know - better still, send us an image of your last cigarette.

Other magazines and websites may be content to focus on a single subset of the hospitality industry, but here at the Caterer Group we like to challenge ourselves.

I like to think of us as a great, big bag of Revels with all the toffees removed - lots of different flavours, none of them disappointing. All facets of the industry are covered, from restaurants to hotels and from pubs to corporate dining, and at times this can make for some pretty varied working days for us journalists.

Take today. At lunchtime, Caterer Towers were visited by frozen meal suppliers (and Cateys sponsors) Apetito, who were keen to present their palatable new range of primary school meals. I tried the lasagne and the meatballs and can confirm that neither would have me calling my mum and asking her to pass me a burger through the school gates.

Three hours later, an impeccably attired gentleman in tails was leading me through the corridors of Buckingham Palace and past the famous first floor balcony from where the Royal Family have done some of their best waving, to a teatime reception at which the new City & Guilds Level 2 dimploma for butlers was unveiled.

The palace was, well, palatial. In common with many of London's poshest addreesses, there was Moulton Brown in the loos. And, inevitably, there was a plate of Duchy biscuits on the sideboard.

I'll write more about the course in next week's Caterer. Suffice to say, it sounds fascinating, and a positive step towards improving levels of service in this country. Course modules such as "introduction to wines, spirits and cigars", "maintaining surfaces and antique furnishings" and "country sports" had me tempted to jack in this editing lark and retrain.

Who's your favourite fictional butler? Mine's Batman's butler, Alfred (pictured).