According to Cancer Research UK, an estimated 28.6 billion cigarettes are smoked in Britain each year.

On the back of this Hazel Cheeseman, chief executive of ASH, and I were interviewed on GB News. According to Hazel, the fact that tobacco products are legal is “one of those weird freaks of history”.

Last week I was delighted to attend a dinner to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Freedom Association.

And given the advanced age of most of the guests, the medieval Baron’s Hall at Penshurst Place was arguably the perfect venue!

When I visited Gibraltar 13 years ago I was a bit sniffy about the place.

In truth I don’t remember a great deal apart from the fact that we arrived in port on a cruise ship. We then disembarked and walked to Main Street, the pedestrianised thoroughfare, which was crowded and, to my eyes, a bit grubby.

I should have been in Gibraltar today.

But thanks to French air traffic controllers my flight was cancelled and instead of spending the day exploring the Rock – including the World War II tunnels and cave system – I am at home in Cambridgeshire. Grrr …

Bit late to this but I wanted to write something about Mick Ralphs whose death at the age of 81 was reported last week.

A founding member of Mott the Hoople, Ralphs played a small but important part in my early teenage years.

Sorry to hear that Sandy Gall has died. The former journalist and ITN newsreader had a remarkable career that went slightly under the radar but he was up there with the very best.

He was also the first prominent person I ever interviewed. The year was 1979. Mrs Thatcher had just been elected prime minister and Gall was rector of Aberdeen University, having been elected to the honorary post the previous year.

Organised by Students for Liberty UK and Ireland, this was a far cry from the huge conferences and conventions hosted by the parent organisation in the US.

But I rather enjoyed the intimate, almost clandestine, nature of an event that was advertised and promoted at relative shortly notice.

Taking Liberties has moved. It’s also been given a makeover. And a new URL.

The previous platform, Squarespace 5, was released in 2008 and transferring the blog to the current version, 7.1, was long overdue.