Plain packs came into force in Australia on Saturday.
I was invited to talk about it on BBC Breakfast. This meant getting up at three o'clock to drive (in freezing fog) to MediaCity in Salford where the programme is now based.
Sandwiched between interviews at 7.12 and 9.20 (approx) was a five-minute discussion on Five Live Breakfast which has also moved to Salford.
All three spots featured me and Andrea Crossfield, director of Tobacco Free Futures. I rather like Andrea. On air we have a lively difference of opinion but it never gets hostile.
Off air she's approachable and easy to talk to, a far cry from some tobacco control activists who won't even look at you, let alone say hello.
I won't repeat the on air debate but it's worth noting that a couple of presenters were genuinely shocked by some of the images that are on the new packs in Australia.
Seen for the first time, or in a gantry with lots of very similar packs, the effect is, I admit, quite gruesome.
That said, people reacted in a very similar way the first time they saw the graphic warnings that currently adorn branded packs. Very quickly people got used to them and the impact has been marginal at best.
Another reason graphic warnings don't work is this: most of the pictures portray something that, in reality, few of us witness first hand so why should we take them seriously.
When was the last time you saw someone with severely rotten teeth? Or oral cancer? I'm not saying that smoking isn't responsible for these things but putting such images on the packet is disproportionate to the risk so consumers tend to ignore them.
Anyway, the public health industry has been forced to develop a new shock tactic – even more grotesque packaging. Tobacco control calls it plain or standardised packaging but they can call it what they like. It will make no difference.
Standardised packaging is all the evidence you need that graphic health warnings have failed and there is no reason to think that plain packaging will be any different.
Click here to watch the 7.12 interview.
Click here to watch the 9.22 interview.