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I read today on Wikipedia that the the first public anti-smoking campaign in modern history was the anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany. Ironic, coming from a regime that was rather too fond of killing people with gas, but unsurprisingly the Reine Luft health drive was aimed at keeping the Aryan population healthy. Smoking was banned in trams, offices and schools; bomb shelters even had separate smoking rooms.

Opponents of the modern return to smoking prohibition will no doubt cite these Nazi associations as reasons to abandon excessive restrictions on people's enjoyment. "We must stop this smoking ban - the Nazis started it!" they may say, before going on to rid our world of other evils popularised in Naxi Germany, such as the Volkswagen or the motorway.

As for the smoking ban, it all came to an end when Germany lost World War II. The Americans spent $70 million of the Marshall Plan on importing free fags into Germany, and US cigarette companies made vast profits as they moved into the German market.

History is a funny old thing, innit?