Much confusion in India, where health officials are trying to work out how on earth a picture of John Terry ended up on packets of Gold Flake Honeydew Smooth cigarettes. The England defender and Chelsea captain appears with his lungs blackened above a “SMOKING KILLS” slogan. The footballer’s legal team are investigating, while an Indian government official said that “How Terry’s picture got to be used is not clear. I am trying to find out.”  As a smoker, I must say of all the alarming health warnings on fag packets I have seen, this one has to be the most effective. Smoke and you’ll end up like John Terry, a bloke who makes Neanderthal man look like George Clooney in a cravat and top hat? Geez, I better cut down on the gaspers. And actually, health authorities could probably go further with this one – stick pictures of Wayne Rooney on fag packets, for instance, causing the instant collapse of the tobacco industry (he once paid £200 for 20 Marlboro, you know, proving that smoking is really stupid).  And then – lightbulb moment! – if celebrities are being used to deter people from buying products, rather than sell them, isn’t it about time they came with public health warnings themselves? Isn’t it our responsibility to learn from the mistakes we have made in the past decade or so, and warn younger generations that celebrities are little more than glossily packaged half-wits?  Had lads’ mags plastered Jordan’s boobs with the warning “PLASTIC SURGERY IS EXPENSIVE, LARGELY VAIN, AND INVOLVES GOING UNDER GENERAL ANAESTHETIC, YOU MUPPETS”, might fewer women have felt compelled to stick industrial silicone in their chests? I wonder what would have happened if instead of handing out superinjunctions, judges gave brainless footballers stickers to put on their kits that read, mysteriously, “Danger: act like me and you’ll end up handing over half your pay-packet to lawyers”. Perhaps, in the future, designer advertisements in magazines could come with the caveat: “This model has been heavily airbrushed, is malnourished, miserable, and has spots”. The cast of The Only Way is Essex could be taken on by Michael Gove to front a “Stay in school, kids!” campaign. It’s not as if they’d realise the negative implications.  Of course, this might cost a bit in the short term. But eventually, I feel that turning the idea of “celebrities as role models” on its empty little head would probably pay off.  The Chinese authorities are – whisper it – a heavy-handed lot, but with their latest intervention, they might be on to something. In a war against lowbrow TV, satellite channels have had to axe two thirds of light entertainment shows in favour of news programmes. So soap operas, dating competitions and singing shows have all been cut.  Apropos of nothing, here’s a selection of telly you can watch in Britain tonight: Celebrity Big Brother; Most Annoying People of 2011; Great Movie Mistakes III; Tweets of the Year; The Biggest Loser; Teenage Tourettes Camp. Just something to ponder there.  News to turn your nose up at, unless you happen to be a teenage boy: according to a researcher in Australia, wearing jeans for months without washing them won’t result in the garments smelling. Thirty brave volunteers wore a pair of denims five days a week for three months, without cleaning them. At the end it was found that far from smelling like the bottom of an adolescent’s laundry bag, the jeans were fine.  “You really don’t need to wash clothes as often as you think,” said Tullia Jack, who conducted the research for her masters degree. Perhaps, like hair, jeans start to clean themselves. Or maybe they just become so stiff with dirt that they walk to the washing machine on their own.
How the Chelsea captain's photo ended up on Indian cigarette packets, we don't    know. But what a deterrent.