I interpret the drinking less as alcohol intake and more as an indicator of The Good Life that the cast pursue. It's a bit like the James Bond films. The fact that he drinks when he feels like it and also the things he drinks say something about his character - that he doesn't live by the same rules as normal human beings, I suppose. None of these people ever have a beer or a glass of white wine. It's always something brown and fierce. I don't think anybody ever did drink quite like these characters do. However they certainly did smoke like they do and yet strangely enough the rooms never fill up with smoke the way they used to do even up until the mid-80s. I can remember working on magazines in the late 70s where *everybody* smoked and the windows were never opened. That meant that the world smelled profoundly different. That's something they don't seek to convey at all.

cope with cutting down so much?

at lunchtime for a drink with a colleague for - literally - the first time in years recently.

This was in Soho. Lunchtime. We were - literally - the only people in there.

Back in the day (and I'm only talking mid 90s or so) - going to the pub for a couple at lunchtime was de rigeur and - you're right - everyone smoked. All the time.

I'm sure we are all healthier now - and it's a slow old day that I'm not shifting a paradigm or focusing on a matrix-managed outcome centric holistic solution - but is the qaulity of the work any better than previously? Not sure.

Later I worked at a management consultancy (yes, prepare the stocks and rotten vegegables). Drinking at lunchtime was distinctly frowned upon. Almost verboten. Took a prospective client to lunch. We had a bottle of wine. Two. Okay three. And stickies. Won the business. Millions.

I'm not saying that drinking is a good thing and habitual drinking and drug abuse in high-pressure areas like the city, law, media is endemic.

But, I can't help thinking that between the world inhabited by the Mad Men and the po-faced holier than thou one we have now - there is a happy medium.

But that calls for something we are not allowed to exercise anymore - common sense.