Banning alcohol on public transport? No smoking in pubs? Thats nothing compared to Turkmenistan, where President (for life) Saparmurat Niyazov has banned opera, ballet, young men with long hair or beards, car radios, and now recorded music.

The reason for the last one is to protect the musical and singing talents of the Turkmen people by preventing lip-synching, which seems like an admirable aim even if the method is more than a little draconian and heavy-handed.

Mind you, he started with a ban on smoking in public places…

I don’t agree with trying to legislate for cultural influences, whether it is the extreme of Turkmenistan or just the French policy of having a certain percentage of music on the radio in French language. Protectionism is protectionism whether it is economic or cultural, but on the other hand if we ever consider going down that road here, there are a few things which should go top of the list:

• TV impressionists who start a sketch with (for example) “Hi, I’m Mark Lawson”. If the impression is so bad you need to tell us who it is, then don’t do it! And if half the audience don’t know who the person is anyway, telling them the name won’t help much.
• Chat show interviewers who ask questions longer than the answers could possibly be, and then interrupt the answer anyway just to make sure.
• The clip-art of a duck hitting a computer with a big hammer. It wasn’t that funny in the first place and its just boring now, even if its used ironically.
• Biographies of celebrities, released within a week of their death. Have a time limit of at least 6 months before publication.
• The use by any one person of more than one TV comedy catchphrase per day.
• Publishing football league tables after the first Saturday of the season, before all the teams have even played a game – even if that is the only chance I ever get of seeing West Ham at the top.

I’m sure there are plenty more we could add.