Hide those cigarettes!

To make smoking even more difficult, the Government could force each newsagents to hire a big bloke to stand by the counter calling you a wa*ker and another one to slap you round the neck.

You can say what you want about this Government but not that it lacks sense of humour. Who else would otherwise enforce a game of hide'n'seek by law? Because this is what is going to happen now if you're off to your local newsagents for a packet of fags. You'll walk up to the counter and, except for a couple of Duracell rabbits and a torch, the shelves are all desolately empty.

"Can I help you, sir?".
"Well, I was just after a packet of Richmond, but where are they?"
"You'll have to guess, sir, because I can't tell you. For all I know you could be from Trading Standards".

And the exchange continues with a game of hot and cold. "Cooler, sir, cooler, they're not, I repeat NOT anywhere near the magazine section". Until, "Peekaboo!", the newsagents bloke finally produces your well-earned packet of Richmond.

Forcing cigarette sales "under the counter" is the latest of a series of anti-smoking measures. Because so far, everything else seems to have failed. First came the advertisement ban (which our friends Tony Blair and Bernie Ecclestone didn't fully grasp). Then the warning signs on fag packets telling you that you're doing something obnoxious. Then the warning signs got bigger and told you that lighting that fag would make you a mass murderer. Then there was a price hike after the other. Then they banned smoking in all public places, including pubs.

So now, if hide'n'seek fails to make a difference too, Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson can come up with even stronger deterrents. Physical humiliation, for instance. They could force each newsagents to hire a big bloke to stand by the counter calling you a wa*ker (no, not a walker) or a c*** if you dare ask for cigarettes. Then another massive geezer would stand by the exit and slap you round the head as you walk out. That way buying cigarettes would be made even more difficult.

And, think about it, if every newsagents in the country employed two hunks each this would also help tackle the rising unemployment.