The first thing that BD notices when shown into the room at the RIBA to interview the institute’s new president is the strong smell of stale smoke. It is a suitably grand room, with wood-panelled walls, a lofty ceiling and one huge window overlooking the luxuriously wide street of Portland Place.

The smell is not the result of a past fire, BD’s reporter is assured, but the remnants of countless cigarettes smoked in the room before such indoor practices were made illegal. That was in 2007. There must have been a lot of cigarettes.

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