I was working in Miami last week, specifically Miami Beach, where the streets are lined with pastel coloured Art-Deco buildings and the beautiful people walk along Ocean Drive pausing only to sip their margaritas and admire one other. Being far removed from such glitterati I was sat in a plain old bar drinking Budweiser with my head buried in a newspaper but that’s another story.

What struck me about my visit was the fact that, strategically located near to the beaches, are sun cream dispensers supplied by the city medical authority, enabling folk to apply factor 30 sun protection free of charge (as if they cannot afford to buy their own!).

No doubt the prominent location of these dispensers serves as a useful reminder to the forgetful. I imagine that, if you spend half the morning sculpting your eyebrows, removing unwanted body hair and putting on your designer make-up, a little thing like sun protection is probably easy to overlook. I’m sure that the local women struggle too!

On a serious note, since skin cancer is one of the fastest growing diseases of the modern age (described by many experts as an epidemic) the move makes sense, if only to save on medical bills. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this idea catches on elsewhere.

As an additional service, applications are now being accepted for the job of rubbing in the cream on the young and beautiful of Miami Beach. Apparently the queue begins somewhere in New York!