I've just seen an email sent to Forest.

Subject heading: 'David Bowie'.

It reads:

Keep up your good work :(

Oddly enough someone with the same name wrote to the Guardian in 2001 following the death of George Harrison.

The original letter doesn't seem to be online but it generated this response:

I think x will find it is beagles who are forced to smoke, not Beatles.

There may be a gap of 15 years but I'm guessing the email and letter were written by the same person.

It says everything about the anti-smoking mindset that there are people who instead of celebrating the life of a remarkable showman/artist can't wait to comment – indirectly – on that person's lifestyle and attack those who believe everyone should have the freedom to make informed choices.

I don't know what caused the cancer that killed Bowie – perhaps he was just unlucky – and on this of all days it seems inappropriate and distasteful to even speculate.

But I do know this. Bowie made the most of his 69 years and if that included a tendency to take risks (personally and professionally) without harming anyone else then it was no-one's business but his own.

If you celebrate someone's life you have to celebrate everything about them because that's who they were.

Meanwhile spare us from the sanctimonious puritans who would have us all live 'healthy' risk free lives.