Don't stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

A wave of panic has swept Berlin in recent days as rumours have spread about proposed new legislation banning smoking from public places.

More so than the rest of Germany Berlin has a love affair with smoking that can be traced back to 'The Golden Twenties', when Marlene Dietrich infamously waltzed around town pouting with a cigarette holder. In fact 'the dirty habit' has always been considered rather cool in Berlin, where the desire to be sexy and risque always overrides the desire to be practical and boring.

The new proposed legislation, which will come into effect next year, would ban smoking from all public places, except for bars, but including discos, and is seen as the beginning of the end of freedom by many German smokers. That it maybe, but with 3,300 Germans a year dying from passive smoking alone it is unlikely that these cigarette touters will garner much sympathy from any non-smokers. Sorry to be boring Berlin, but there's simply nothing sexy about cancer...