Smoking Ears

Somehow, I managed to miss this piece in yesterday's Telegraph, but it's such a perfect example of its kind that I just have to mention it.

It seems that the latest alleged misery to afflict those of us who refuse to renounce the pleasures of tobacco is - wait for it - deafness. DEAFNESS? Strange as it may seem, I can imagine how that might come about, although it has nothing to do with the hotshot research from Antwerp.

No, unlike the boffins from the University of Belgium there, who claim the alleged loss is something to do with reduced bloody flow, I suspect it's got rather more to do with excess noise. Wherever we go, there are folks screaming at us, pestering, warning, complaining - it's just way too much for the ears to handle!

And who dreams up this kind of research anyway? What do they do, pick random factors and compare one with the other? Do males with one leg have larger noses? Are smokers more likely to suffer hearing loss? Seems like an odd way to work to me, but I suppose a job's a job - and it won't be long before many people don't have one of those!

But even if the research is deadly accurate - and it might well be - do we really care? I doubt it. It's just one more thing to use as a lever in the never-ending quest to harass the smoking public.

Billy Seggars.