How to get off Scot free and enjoy the luck of the Irish.

(From Lloyds List)

Byline: Extreme aspects of health fascism are meeting with resistance, writes Pieter Tesch

THE vanguard of the anti-smoking lobby has lately resorted to the Stalinist approach, air brushing history in an attempt to persuade us that historical figures never smoked.

First we had a new statue of Brunel in trademark stance but without his trademark cigar, then a classic Tom and Jerry cartoon in which Tom lights up to woo the maiden has to be withdrawn because impressionable toddlers may infer that 'smoking is cool'.

Last but not least, actor Mel Smith was told by the Scottish health authorities not to light up a cigar in a play about Churchill under threat of closing the theatre during the Edinburgh festival.

Asked how a historical context could be recreated they replied, 'simulation', as sex scenes were also simulated and not performed for real. But to my knowledge there was a bit of a furore last year when some boys and girls of the Fringe enjoyed a spot of the other on stage.

Poor Mel, he can only suck his. He should go instead to that other Georgian gem Dublin, where not only is smoking is still allowed on stage, it would be very difficult to imagine an O'Casey play with smoking being 'simulated'.