Smokin' fools!

First things first, I don't smoke. But that doesn't make me a smoking Nazi, determined to see anyone who likes a sly fag forced to stand in the rain outside.

And before we go any further, I'm not a reformed smoker who suddenly believes the decision to stop smoking puts them on the same moral level as St Paul, and in lieu of being able to rewrite the scriptures, instead goes around telling everyone else they should stop too.

But I do know a lot of people who do smoke. Some smoke every day, others just when they are out with friends. I don't talk to them about their habit, but I am pretty certain of one thing: When they started smoking, it wasn't because a cartoon cat had regularly drawn breath on a cigar during a five-minute animation which preceded 'Rolf's Cartoon Club' on a Saturday afternoon.

Yet, according to one goon out there, a smoking cat could be seen as glamourising smoking. This goon, anonymity protected of course, wrote to Ofcom after one episode of Tom and Jerry was shown on the cartoon channel Boomerang. Audience unknown, but it's a safe bet Tom and Jerry isn't one of its biggest audience pullers.

Ofcom has now insisted that the owners of Boomerang go through all150-odd episodes of the cartoon, which ended production in the 1950s, and edit out smoking scenes. Presumably scenes where Tom hits Jerry with a hammer, or where Jerry conspires to electrocute Tom can stay in.

But how many smokers do you know who, when offered a ciggie in a moment of peer pressure in their teens thought to themselves 'yeah, I'll do that, it's cool, Tom offa Tom and Jerry did it.' Presumably the same number who think the voice in a train carriage tannoy is that of the engine pulling the train. Possibly called Gordon, Henry or Thomas.

Perhaps Ofcom should have told the anti-terror police about their belief that cartoons influence behaviour in older life. Perhaps that's why young British Muslims turn to terrorism. After all, seeing so many episodes of Wile E Coyote turning to blow up Road Runner with dynamite from the ACME Corporation must make terrorism so glamorous.

I might ring Crimestoppers.