hough I have never considered myself a lager lout, I was for more than 30 years a big fan of lager, and especially of Stella Artois. That I became a very big fan - like around 17 stone - was one reason I gave up drinking it more than two years ago.

My very last pint of Stella was enjoyed on a sunny Sunday evening - May 15, to be precise. The location is interesting, in the light of what has happened since. I was in the garden of the White House (formerly Old Gate House) in Botley Road, a pub that has been shuttered and barred for the past couple of months and some say is facing permanent closure.

The sad thing is that this is far from being the only pub in this position - its windows covered over, its doors locked. On my bike rides around the city, I see them all over the place. The Marlborough House, in South Oxford, is another old friend in this position. Not far away there's The Wharf House (like the White House a building of architectural distinction).

The Oxford branch of the Campaign for Real Ale says 12 pubs have been lost in two years. The ban on smoking will result, I feel sure, in the situation becoming even worse. Soon, I fear, we shall have lost most of our pubs and with them, as Hilaire Belloc wrote, "the last of England".