WAIT until I'm Prime Minister…I'll have a few things to say.I'm not one to make a political point but there are a few things that have got my goat over the last decade or so.

WAIT until I'm Prime Minister…I'll have a few things to say.

I'm not one to make a political point but there are a few things that have got my goat over the last decade or so. Indeed, the other evening I got thinking about what seems to be an ever increasing amount of strange legislation affecting our lives.

The smoking ban - just because it's popular doesn't mean that legislation like this is not the hall mark of a nanny state. Should the state have the right to tell us that we shouldn't do things because they are bad for us? I'm not sure it should.

Extended drinking hours - alcohol abuse costs the tax payer far more than the cost of caring for dying smokers. The law has changed to encourage us to drink later into the night. In a strange turn of events we can drink all night long - something that must be bad for us and society at large but can't smoke while we do it.

The hunting ban- if hunting with dogs is cruel how come angling or horse racing isn't? The logical conclusion to this law has not been followed. Why not? Would hunting have been banned if it had not been perceived as a posh thing to do? I doubt it.

I've suggested a few other things the government might like to ban.

Chewing gum - common.

Reality television -cheap.

Net curtains - awful.

Well with that little rant off my chest - and I welcome your letters of opposing views as I love a good row - I can now reveal how I have already broken the law.

As regular readers will know I have recently moved to the Edwardian seaside resort of Felixstowe.

What a lovely place, I've found all sorts of nice little cafés handy for a scampi lunch and there's even a Wimpy. I'm made up.

Anyway, I left my Felixstowe salon with sea views (distant) and popped along to a comfortable drinking saloon on Sunday night where I knew the smoking ban was now in place.

I met up with some friends of a theatrical bent - all very high up the world of musical theatre both in Ipswich and on the Felixstowe peninsula - to enjoy a glass of something dry and crispy and a handful of salted almonds.

No sooner had I got half way down my glass I fancied a smoke and, do you know dear readers I am ashamed to say, I lit up without thinking.

I hadn't even realised I had done it until I was inhaling my second drag. What a faux pas.

As soon as I noticed what I had done I ran out of the door and stood on the pavement, and pretended I wanted to look at the rather rough waters of the North Sea all along.

How humiliating to have forgotten. I might as well have been handed a dunce's cap and been told to stand in the corner.

I didn't bother lighting up again.

OF course it was many years ago but Princess Diana once smiled at me in a crowd - I know it was me because, by all accounts, she liked handsome men.

Naturally I remember where I was when she died - in bed.

In fact I was a bit of a fan.

On Sunday afternoon, without much else to do, I watched a little bit of her memorial concert.

I saw a section by Andrew Lloyd Webber, it seems Diana, like me, liked the musicals.

She also liked having servants and comfortable cars to ride around in. We obviously had much in common.

But let's not be flippant.

It was good to see her children enjoying themselves. I rather like her sons, they seem to be doing well despite their rather strange lives.

I expect she'd be pleased with the way they are turning out.

DON'T talk to me about Scottish devolution.

I wasn't asked whether I wanted Scotland to have its own parliament and I am a British subject as much as any Scot and I never got a vote on the subject. Nevertheless, my anger aside at this issue, I was interested to see the Scottish crown being driven to the ceremonial opening of the parliament in Edinburgh. The man holding it looks a bit worried though, doesn't he?

JUST a little bit of trivia.

Yesterday was the middle day of the year. So 2008 is on its way.