Smoking rates have now dropped to an all time low I

HAVE you heard about the sunglasses that can video whatever you see?

Snapchat Spectacles contain a camera and connect by WiFi or Bluetooth to Snapchat, a mobile app that allows users to send photographs or videos to friends.

The Snapchat app was launched six years ago and has been so successful it’s originators turned down a $3 billion take over bid from Facebook. Snaps or vids sent to Snapchat are programmed to self destruct within 10 seconds, like messages in Mission Impossible, but there is also a facility to save the ones you want to keep.

Now it has launched its Spectacles to add a further layer of fun and embarrassment to instant communication. Its camera takes 10 second clips of video, without having to produce a phone or camera, and one enthusiastic reviewer said: “Spectacles are a brand new way to answer everyone’s favourite small talk question: What did you do today?”

They come in three colours – black, coral and teal – and cost £129.99 direct from Snapchat, with free postage and delivery from three to five days. Which makes me wonder why people are attempting to sell them on ebay for up 250 quid. I mean, you can get them click and collect from Argos for £119.99.

I’m not sure I’d want people to have a window on my world so everyone could see what I T’S 10 years since smoking in pubs and enclosed public places was banned.

Since then, smoking rates have dropped to the lowest ever recorded. Only 19% of the adult population are smokers and 83% of the nation support smoke-free legislation.

When I was a youngster, cinemas had a low level nicotine cloud hanging between stalls and circle during every performance.

The picture on the silver screen was more in sepia than black and white or technicolour.

It was taken for granted you entered a pub through a killer haze, which every tobacco addict inhaled with delight and every non-smoker put up with.

I once commented to a landlord that I liked the cream colour he had painted the ceiling.

“Great improvement on that dark brown,” I said.

“We haven’t had it painted,” he said. “Just washed the nicotine off.”

In those days, cigarettes were advertised as being healthy, sporting or as a sign of sophistication. Everybody did it.

I was never a proper smoker because I couldn’t inhale, although I tried and failed to learn, in those heady days of the Swinging 60s, when the clouds exhaled were of peace and love and herbal extras. Mind you, the cakes were nice.

So, totally by accident and good fortune, I was never hooked on one get up to in my private life. Imagine the wife sneaking home to film a surprise and opening the door with a cry of “Smile, you’re on candid camera!” to find her husband dressed as the Fat Controller and waving his flag about.

But it could be a wonderful weapon of retaliation for a young lady in fashionable sunglasses who is being pestered by a drunk who’s idea of sophistication is to say: “Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven? Give us a kiss, angel?”

To which she could reply: “Did you know your chat up line has just gone viral on Snapchat?

“Oh, and by the way, Malcolm. I work with your wife.” of the easiest available deadly drugs known to man.

My wife Maria was not so lucky. She started smoking as a schoolgirl and tried to give up dozens of times over the years.

But nicotine is as addictive as heroin.

The smoking ban vitally helped her cut down and she finally kicked the habit altogether with the help of an e-cig and vaping.

It’s amazing that it’s only 10 years since pubs kicked it into touch or, more precisely, to an outside area, and I applaud the success of the ban, although I’m sure there will be those of a different opinion.

For me, the inconvenience of the minority is worth it for the majority to be able to chat, socialise, have a meal, a coffee or a beer in a smoke free environment.

Sir Harpul Kumar of Cancer Research UK said: “As well as protecting people from the deadly effects of passive smoking, we’ve seen big changes in public attitudes towards smoking.

“It’s now far less socially acceptable and we hope this means fewer young people will fall into such a potentially lethal addiction.”