News that The Hollies have finally retired as a live band after 63 years might come as a surprise to those who thought they disbanded several decades ago.

In the early Sixties few bands - not even The Beatles - expected to be around for more than two or three years.

Today is the 60th anniversary of the opening of the Tay Road Bridge which connects Dundee to north east Fife.

Before the bridge was opened by the Queen Mother on August 18, 1966, there were three options. People could cross the river by train via the Tay Rail Bridge (opened in 1887); they could board one of the car/passenger ferries that ran from Dundee to Newport-on-Tay on the Fife side of the river; or they could travel by road via Perth, which added at least an hour to the journey.

Remember Andrew Black? He’s the former civil servant who was tobacco programme manager at the Department of Health when Forest was campaigning against plain packaging.

In 2016, after a decade leading the UK’s tobacco control programme, Black moved to Geneva to work for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and now, ten years later, he has been appointed Head of the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Newstalk, Ireland’s leading independent talk radio station, got in touch yesterday to ask if I would be available ‘to discuss the [Irish] government's possible generational ban on vapes and cigarettes’.

Yes, you read that right - a generational ban on vapes as well as tobacco.

Bit late to this because I was on holiday when it happened, but two weeks ago Mayo beat Kerry in the final of the All-Ireland Football Championship.

Unusually for a Gaelic football match, the result was reported around the world because Mayo’s victory marked the end of a ‘75-year-old curse’ that had condemned the club to ‘decades of defeats’ including eleven losses in eleven finals. 

Good luck to Sophie Sandor who is performing a one person play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, starting today.

Sophie is a writer, director, and performer, but our paths first crossed a decade ago when she worked at the Institute of Economic Affairs. She then took the brave decision to move into writing and filmmaking.

I was so sorry to hear that Rod Liddle had died. We met on several occasions and although I never really got to know him he was always great fun.

The first time we met was at The Savoy Hotel in London in 2007 when Forest hosted a dinner to mark the imminent arrival of the smoking ban in England. The event was promoted as one of the last opportunities to eat, drink and smoke in an indoor public place, and almost 400 people joined us on that memorable night.

The pub smoking ban continues to divide opinion. According to a UK-wide poll commissioned by Forest and conducted by Yonder Consulting following Restore Britain’s pledge to allow indoor smoking rooms in pubs:

35% think pubs and private members’ clubs, including working men's clubs, should be allowed to provide a well-ventilated designated smoking room to accommodate smokers, 51% think they should not be allowed, and 15% said ‘don’t know’.