So were the Noughties nice?

Outside my local pub it says in big letters ‘£500’, and underneath: ‘This is the fine if you take your drink out into the street.’ What law imposes this fine, no one knows. It could be something to do with 24-hour drinking legislation, or even anti-terror laws.

The reason people want to take their drinks into the street is that they’d like a cigarette, which they cannot have in the pub, under another law. The pub now smells not of cigarette smoke but of cooking fat, drains and sweat. The destruction of the pub is a notable cultural achievement of the Noughties, a decade with plenty of other demolition jobs under its belt: the universities, public-service broadcasting, local shops, popular music, house-ownership and the notion of ‘retirement’ in old age.

The Noughties is not a name that has caught on in America (where zero is not commonly known as nought), but it seems to be the most acceptable name for the decade in Britain.