Third Avenue

So we'll go no more a-smoking

The cultural power of the United States is strong, indeed it is almost overwhelming. How likely would it be that the rash of smoking bans now popping up all over Europe had been introduced had it not been for the Americans blazing the trail in advance? Europe is not so anti-American as many like to think.

So it is that all parts of the UK will now ban smoking in all public places. It's not the first time I've touched on this issue. In principle, it saddens me that society now looks more and more to the state to ensure its own wellbeing, as if we as individuals were somehow unable to make good decisions for ourselves without some outside force directing our pathetic hands.

But this concern is, unfortunately, outweighed by experience. Pubs and bars in New York are, for the most part, pale reflections of their British counterparts (at least in the eyes of this exiled Brit). But for one thing. Their smoke-free environment is just a joy. And in this, my selfish needs as a punter trump my principled, or not so principled, belief in personal freedom.

Roll on 2007, when British pubs will become even more magical places to spend an evening. But, now that this ban is in place, can we have no more nannying, please? As they say here: Enough already.

The snowstorm that beat the records

The heavens opened here yesterday and over two feet of snow fell in what felt like a few minutes. The biggest snow fall in recorded history.

Some photos of the event - Central Park and Second Avenue. One of my favourite moments was a vox pop interview with some disgruntled commuter on local television. 'I was in Great Britain once when it snowed - everything worked like clockwork. Why can't it be like that here?'

The cartoon war continues

This one could run and run.

A publication in Iran is looking for cartoons on the subject of the holocaust, on the odious pretext that 'if you do bad things to us, we will do bad things to you - see how you feel'.

No doubt the cartoons will succeed in being at least as if not significantly more offensive than anything published in the Danish press about Muslims. No doubt they will produce predictable and justifiable outrage from many, not least from Jewish organisations.

But, in pure political terms (quite apart from the morality involved), the Iranian move is likely to backfire. For I doubt that embassies in Rome, Berlin, London or Oslo will be torched by crowds demanding the death of all those who make fun of the holocaust. And the many people in Europe already hostile to Muslims will be given another reason to say: 'See, we really are better and more civilised than you are.'

Depressing stuff.

Government abolishes elections - no-one cares

Every now and then a story comes along that seems to justify a huge outcry, and yet it passes by with hardly a whimper.

This is how I felt on reading that the BBC had discovered that the government is considering scrapping next year's council elections in England, on the pretext of reforming local authorities. I find the lack of outrage at the suggestion that elections could be scrapped for administrative convenience almost more shocking than the possibility of the scrapping itself.

If George Bush were even to dream of scrapping local polls here (which he wouldn't), he'd be slapped down by the entire country sooner than you could say 'states' rights'.

The Labour government in the UK is frequently (and often justifiably) seen as being at best suspicious and at worst totally contemptuous of local government. But in this regard, it is merely acting as a pretty accurate bellwether of the views of the general population.

Those cartoons - the offence and the violence

Many, many words and not a little blood have been spilt over the cartoons of Muhammad that appeared last year in the Danish press, and were then reprinted in newspapers all over Europe.

As far as the cartoons themselves are concerned, I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing wholeheartedly with the Bush White House whose spokesman, Scott McClellan, I heard a few days ago drawing what should be a pretty obvious parallel to anyone looking at these images with even the smallest amount of historical sensitivity: the heritage they draw on is that of the nauseating anti-Semitic cartoons that disgraced so many European publications of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Oriental 'other', with its stereotyped and grotesque facial features, set on destroying society.

Those on the right and the left who are praising the Danish newspaper for its courage need to reflect with a little humility on the pedigree from which these cartoons emerge. It is a pedigree which spawned the most terrible chapter of European history.

But the debate is not wholly about these cartoons. It has gone wider to a debate about ideas. And if the continent of Europe has much to be ashamed of, it can also be rightly proud of its post-enlightenment principles, one of the most important of which is that ideas, however deeply held, however devoutly believed, must always be open to be ridiculed. Religious beliefs, religious practices, religious clothing are no different. Questioning, debunking, even laughing at and deriding others' beliefs is a positive part of Europe's heritage. I have no sympathy with those who would seek to curtail this aspect of European society, and certainly none whatsoever for those who call for violence against people who they believed have slandered their religion.

But these cartoons have used genuine and acceptable religious satire as a smokescreen for what they for the most part really are: modern updatings of some of the most vile images ever to have polluted the European media.