Interesting Facts

20th March 1956 - Tunisia gained independence from France. 1993 - Johnathan Ball, aged 3, died in a bomb attack in Warrington. He was in town with his babysitter buying a Mothering Sunday Card. Tim Parry, 12, was fatally injured and died five days later in hospital. 1997 - The Liggett Group, the fifth-largest U.S. tobacco company, admitted that smoking was addictive and caused health problems and that the tobacco industry had sought for years to sell its products to children as young as 14. 2003 - American launched missiles hit the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. Civilian casualties were not counted.

According to a study led by the WHO, passive smoking causes 600,000 deaths every year. (One-third of those killed are children, often exposed to smoke at home or in the family car. The study, carried out in 192 countries, found that passive smoking is particularly dangerous for children, said to be at higher risk of sudden infant death syndrome, pneumonia and asthma. And yet people still smoke. Especially outside the school gates as they pick up their children. We are a funny species.)

According to studies conducted by Oxford University, the Chinese Academies of Preventive Medicine and of Medical Sciences in Beijing and Cornell University in the US, 350 million people smoke in China. (Nearly three-quarters of all Chinese men are smokers. Around a million people die of smoking-related diseases every year, the largest number of smoking-related deaths in the world. Unfortunately more than half of all male doctors in China smoke, so they can't really tell people to give it up for their health.)

According to the Global Times, officials in a county in central China have been told to smoke nearly a quarter of a million packs of locally made cigarettes annually. (The Gong'an county government in Hubei province, instead of banning cigarettes in the work place, has ordered its staff to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-produced cigarette brands a year, or risk being fined. I would look into the share holdings of the people making this ridiculous demand.)

Is National no smoking day in the UK.

powered by ODEO According to the Office of National Statistics just over two thirds (68%) of cigarette smokers in the UK said that they wanted to give up - but 59% said it would be difficult to go without smoking for a whole day. (It's easy actually - just give up. Stop. Now. Don't smoke another cigarette.)

Smoking was banned in all public places in England.

Tony Blair smoked his last cigarette 15 minutes before he got married. (No wonder he's pushed a ban through.)