SOME of you may remember a little announcement which used to be made at cinemas before films started.

Over a picture of a burning cigarette, a voice-over ran: "For the convenience of patrons who prefer not to smoke, a non-smoking area has been provided way over to the right hand side where you can barely see the screen."

Well, that's not exactly how it ran, but that was the gist of it. And although cinemas are thankfully smoke-free these days, things haven't got an awful lot better for we non-smokers.

There has been a lot of debate in the media recently over whether smoking should be banned in public places. It's been done in Ireland, and has apparently made life a lot better in pubs and restaurants without killing the hospitality industry.

A lot of people have been going on TV and radio to defend smokers, who they see as underdogs discriminated against by the state.

But here's the truth: we non-smokers are the underdogs.

Go to a restaurant or cafe. Who tends to get the seat near the window, on the terrace, or at any of the other best spots? You can bet it won't be the non-smokers.

Not so long ago, Mrs Slade and I tried out a restaurant and asked in advance for a non-smoking table. They put us near the bar. And what to people tend to do at the bar, other than drink? In fact, the only sense in which we were in a non-smoking area was that they had put a "no smoking" sign on one table - ours.

Consider some of the other benefits smokers get.

I heard of an employer that gave its employees two 15-minute breaks a day which were not available to non-smokers.

That's a full two-and-a-half hours a week of leisure time. Or roughly 14 working days a year.

I think any non-smokers whose employer operates that policy should walk in one morning and announce that they're about to take two weeks off because they've been saving up their smoking breaks.

Failing that, they should buy some packets of what used to be called "sweet cigarettes" and are now named "candy sticks". Then they should insist on two breaks a day during which they will stand outside the building eating them and saying "I really must cut down".

It's funny that the companies which make enormous profits from killing people with cigarettes will go on the media and present smokers as a minority who are having their rights infringed. In fact, it's we non-smokers who are having our right to clean air taken away daily.

Or maybe I'm over-sensitive, because I can't watch people smoking in an old film without feeling the urge to throw open a window.