Port Louis — I have two questions for you.

First, do you really believe that smokers endanger the health of non-smokers? The "ayes" would undoubtedly "have it" as they say there, where they vote the laws.

But do you know that this has never been proved true?

You are not to be blamed though - a lie repeated often enough becomes the truth, it's well known.

How about another truth then? Well, my truth at any rate. What if I tell you that, regardless of the amount of smoke you inhale, if there are no Pisces-Gemini afflictions in your birth chart, someone smoking a cigarette near you or several people smoking across the room will not cause you to develop lung cancer? That the only way that what is called 'passive smoking' can affect you is if you find the smell of tobacco unpleasant?

You'd scoff at me, wouldn't you? I can't say I blame you;

I'm no expert after all. But even experts gets things randomly wrong, as you well know.

But don't take my word for it; if you find this argument interesting, you can read more in Linda Goodman's Star Signs. I warmly recommend the book. Star Signs contains a number of controversial concepts of a moral, philosophical and intellectual nature in the areas of science and religion; you don't have to accept everything it says as the truth but it might get you thinking. Sorry if that sounded patronising!

Question number two; what do you think of the government's proposed policy to outlaw smoking in public places? Think about it for a minute.

Where then should people enjoy their expensively bought cigarettes, a percentage of the proceeds of which are filling the coffers of the State? Where, in a free country, which recognizes the right of the individual to his freedom of action, a country that grows tobacco and where smoking cigarettes is legal, should the person who likes to smoke go and hide? He can't hide in his favourite bar, restaurant or nightclub because the government is saying those places should also be smoke-free. So what then? Where is the line that should be drawn between somebody's private life and the law that infringes on it?

It seems it doesn't matter what the answers to these questions are because, you see, "developed countries" have introduced this repressive law, so that makes it right.

Well that's utter nonsense; developed countries do act stupidly as well, you know. Besides the fact that this measure is phenomenally ridiculous, it poses the problem of expediency; how on earth will the authorities ever be able to control smoking in closed areas?

The answer is simple - they won't. No way. And they know it. And therein lies the tragedy. We vote laws because we have to be seen to be politically correct but who cares that they're not enforced? Who cares that we are making a mockery of the rule of law? On top of being a pain in people's backside, that is.