A few years ago, Ireland imposed a ban on smoking on pubs, imposed by the then health minister, Michael Martin. Martin is the sort of politician whose hand you don't want to shake, because you not only need to check for your wallet afterwards, but you need to shower as well. Martin was an inept minister whose jackboot stunt was a cover for his general ineptitude. The sad part about it was the way the Irish caved to this jackboot stunt. No objections, just meek surrender, even in Cork, which laughably calls itself the Rebel County. Hah.

So it was good to read this report in the Irish Independent by Ian O'Doherty.

Yeah yeah yeah, this column has been getting it in the neck for being so mean about those lovely Chinese, who only want to hold the Olympics without pesky Westerners banging on about human rights and democracy and all that namby pamby liberal hogwash.

But there are some things we can admire in them – – particularly the fortitude of their smokers. Furious at the proposed smoking ban in public places, the country of 350m puffers are quite simply refusing to obey.

In fact, when they tried to introduce the ban in one of Beijing's restaurants the smokers barricaded themselves inside the dining room and refused to either come out or allow the staff to enter until they had finished their fag.

Which, in a country where they run you over in a tank for talking about democracy, was a pretty brave thing to do.

Yeah, thats very horrible and I never knew about it. Coming to smoking, its injurious to health. And its good that smoking is banned in some countries.

The Irish ban was accepted for one very simple reason. It didn't pretend to be for the protection of general health of the public. It was solely to protect the health of workers and was rigorously sold as such. This made obeying the ban an altruistic act, rather than one of doing the Government's will because "it's for our own good".

The Chinese ban made no such pretence. Neither, for that matter, did the British. Though the Chinese have been more militant, the Brits - unlike the Irish - hate it as well.

As most Irish people don't smoke and many smokers actually wish to give up their addiction, it's not surprising that this smoking ban was not resisted in Ireland. In fact, Irish pubs, restaurants, and nightclubs are far more pleasant places to be these days, it is one thing that I would admire Micheal Martin for - that said, I wouldn't want him as Minister for Finance as he's not exactly that economically literate.