Scenes of jubilation have been witnessed throughout the world, as smokers celebrate the findings of a study carried out by the Harvard Medical School into protective factors of cancer epidemiology.

After a relatively uneventful primary data analysis was administered on such variables as diet, exercise levels, genetic makeup and IQ, a baffling discovery was unearthed when researchers carried out rudimentary secondary analyses, necessary for their funding grant from Armitage Shanks.

"They were interested in the restroom habits of smokers, and whether or not they stood up or sat down while wiping their behinds after defecating", explained Dr. Mark Craggy, the head of the research team, "but what we actually found was a 100% correlation between vertically postural wipage, and contracting lung-cancer".

In a statement to the press Dr. Alan Daley (Harvard Medical School associate professor) commented on the findings as "bewildering", but "air-tight". "We've reanalysed the data several times; we've absolutely no way of explaining the connection, but it's irrefutable: standing up while wiping one's anus is the missing link in lung-cancer contraction."

Anti-smoking groups are said to be perturbed by these findings, and are demanding independent validatory research to be carried out by impartial bodies such as The NiqutinCQ Research Lab and the Institute of Smoking Being Really Really Bad (ISBRRB). "It's disgraceful", commented a spokesperson "that our years of lobbying, propaganda, vague assertions and scare tactics are set to be all but discredited by this impartial, rigorously monitored research; who the hell do these cowboys think they are?"

It remains unlikely, however, that these findings will affect the Workplace Smoking Ban, introduced in Ireland on the 29th of March, 2004. The then acting Minister for Health, Micheal Martin TD, introduced this legislation after seeing how easy it was to pull women in the smoking sections of New York bars and clubs. Seeing as figures published in several subsequent Oireachtas reports suggest he and other back benchers have since been 'getting more ass than a toilet seat', change is not anticipated to follow any time soon.

Neil Dundon