Another Step Towards Stepford: Loads of figures were released yesterday detailing how many people have stopped or started smoking over the past 12 months. They even gave a (speculated?) figure for the number of youngsters who have taken it up. Where do these figures come from? School kids aren't going to fill in a survey form admitting they started smoking, so how do they know?

The cigarette vending machine has also been outlawed. They once hung proudly on the walls of every pub, working men's club, Labour club, Conservative club, Liberal club etc; and although a packet cost way over the odds; any port in a storm was better than no port at all.

They are also on about making the cigarette packets unattractive, printing them, regardless if they are B & H, Marlboro or whatever; a light blue or grey colour; which is a bit like all the girls in a Red Light district wearing black bin-bags.

The answer to the smoking problem is to bring back the packaging they outlawed 10 or 15 years ago. A black packet with an embossed skull and crossbones on it; brand name DEATH - and a similar packet in white, (the 'Lights' version), with the brand name SLOW DEATH.
Then everyone knows exactly what they are buying, and there would be no need for the silly photos of cancerous lungs because those cigarette packets don't f*** about.