And I can smoke in a restaurant without dirty looks from other patrons!

Dirty looks would be the least of your concerns in Blighty, you'd be hung, drawn and quartered as soon as you lit up. You are quite right of course, you should have the freedom to smoke a fag if you want to. There's been a lot more air-born diseases on the London tube I understand since they banned smoking. Shitty little viruses couldn't cope with the smoke but now they have carte-Blanche. Fresh Air can kill.