From Free Life No. 22, April 1995.

The first act of the new German Government in 1933 was to ensure that lobsters were cooked in a compassionate manner: they were to be slowly coaxed across the Styx by a gentle increase in the temperature of the water, rather than plunged into a boiling pan. It's possible to draw a number of conclusions from this. One is that no group has a monopoly on compassion. Another might be that fascism does not restrict itself to actions that are obviously fascist. I take it as an example of how an intense narrow focus can accompany blindness to larger matters.

When I read the subtitle of this collection of cartoons and short items, Some Joy for the Beleaguered Smoker, I was pleased. Smokers need some simple joy. Look at their joyless oppressors, who focus on one idea - that smoking is not good for your health - and use it to deny the rights of the poor smoker with a thoroughness often worthy of the Schutzstaffeln. You remember Mr Elphick? Refused a consultation by a specialist at Wythenshawe Hospital because he smoked. He had a heart condition. What would you do? Mr Elphick stopped smoking and another appointment was arranged. He died before he could attend.

It is a logical truth that you can not know, definitely know, for any one person that smoking has caused their illness. Statistically, perhaps, it can be argued that smoking contributes to cancer, emphysema and so on, but to know that it caused any illness is not possible. You simply can not exclude all the other factors that may have operated. But, of course, logic does not have anything to do with the acts of the virtuous, who can demonstrate their concern while exercising their power.

Would those who said turning away Mr Elphick was understandable, take the same position if presented with a gay man who had had unprotected sex and was as a consequence HIV positive? I haven't heard it argued. What about those who drink more than the recommended number of weekly units? What about those who go out for walks in cold weather without wrapping up?

And so, at last, Crash the Ash, a collection edited by Auberon Waugh, appears as a small occasion for rejoicing. Sadly, it doesn't bring much joy.

The main problem with this collection is that it simply isn't very amusing. I suppose the variety of jokes that can be made on the theme of prejudice against the smoker is limited. On the evidence of this book, the editor found this a severe pressure. We come across the same joke again and again, with just the suggestion of a reworking appearing to justify another inclusion. On the cover a man sits in a cafe with a sign saying "Thank you for not asking me to stop smoking". On page 40 a different man sits at a dinner table with a sign which reads "Thank you for not asking me not to smoke". A revised version occurs on page 41 where a boss sits at a desk with a sign reading "Thank you for not lecturing me about smoking". And so it goes on.

The book gives the definite impression that the editor was so anxious to present his gift of joy to the smoker that any old cartoon, woodcut, engraving, sketch, line drawing from pre-War Punch, or doodle left absent-mindedly on a restaurant napkin, is gathered in to support the cause. Just as long as somewhere someone holds a cigarette or a pipe. There is a photograph of one of the giant statues on Easter Island. Someone has scrawled a pipe in its mouth. Good. The editor throws it into his 'include' tray.

It may be that the publishers insisted on the book's being a certain length, but where then is the editing? We see workers trooping to a factory belching smoke from all four chimneys: a sign says "No Smoking Beyond This Point". Well, yes, all right. On the same page, sitting under this cartoon, there is another. A bemused factory worker looks out from his office where a sign hangs prominently saying "No Smoking". He gazes at (have you guessed by now?) the chimneys pouring out smoke. Was this joke so very good it could be repeated immediately?

When the device of simply repeating jokes fails, the editor puts in items which have no connection (or hardly any) with smoking at all. The fact that tea-drinking was once considered a vice (like smoking, you see) allows a nice line illustration from a Victorian magazine of two ladies imbibing. Automata once 'smoked' perfumed pastilles, and that allows the editor a page on perfumed gloves (Napoleon ordered 24 pairs shortly before Waterloo) and a grand picture of a clipper cutting through the stormy waves (sails were perfumed too).

The book is 148 pages. Of course there are amusing and interesting things in it - there is a wonderful note on the scheme of Professor Manhesel to emulate the gas supply, so that smokers could have good tobacco smoke piped to their houses - just not enough of them.

I looked at The Spectator the week I got this book and found three excellent cartoons on smoking. They were more amusing than most of the cartoons here. One of them showed a depressed man looking at the shelves of a bookshop. Apart from the other books crowded together was one lonely volume segregated to a section on its own, entitled Smoker's Digest.

I wondered why there should be this sudden concentration of humour on this subject and found the answer in Hansard. The Government's defeat on raising VAT on domestic fuel and power had led to the Treasury experts needing a plan to recoup the revenue lost. They came up with the novel idea of a new clause to raise tobacco duties by 3.7 per cent. This was in addition to the already existing plan to raise duty by between 5 and 6.4 per cent (showing that Auberon Waugh is not the only one to substitute repetition for inspiration). Doubtless most of the freelance cartoonists in Britain were sending offerings to The Spectator. I suppose this is what you might expect. It is topicality, and the pressure of deadlines, that produces the best work from hacks. The anti-smoking crusade is continual; there is no topicality to it.

If only the publishers had waited.

Michael Barry