TO shave or not to shave, that is the question.

Body hair on women is a divisive topic - sprouting toxic rants on the right and wrongs of going au natural.

When pop provocateur Miley Cyrus posted pictures of herself on Instagram with underarm hair, social media erupted in frantic debate over her lack of lady grooming.

It was a re-run of the furore last year when Madonna took a selfie of her armpit tufts with the caption: "Long hair…… Don’t Care!!!!!! #artforfreedom #rebelheart #revolutionoflove".

It was dismissed as a desperate publicity stunt, but the rumbles about whether women should wax or not carried on, like aftershocks from a quake.

It reminded me of the time Julia Roberts dared to appear on the red carpet for the Notting Hill premiere without a date with her lady shave first - and was pilloried in the press for daring to bare.

The latest fuss about fuzz is coming from China. An "armpit hair competition" is underway, with women encouraged to post pictures of their progress on Weibo, China's popular micro-blog, generating a forest of views for and against.

The fact so many of us feel uncomfortable at the sight of underarm hair is a sign of our modern times. Shaving our underarms was hardly thought of until the 1920s, when the arrival of the sleeveless, flapper dress, exposed that part of the body for the first time to public scrutiny.

But our ancient ancestors shared our desire to shave. Earliest records suggest women were using hazardous substances such as arsenic as long ago as 4,000BC. The Egyptians removed all body hair, while the Romans used pumice stones and experimented with a prototype of the razor.

Today, young girls are starting to de-fuzz at startlingly early ages. I have friends who sent their daughters for waxing while they were still in primary school. I have just relented and bought my own tweenager a razor after pleas that she was only one of two left in her PE class with hairy pits and legs.

It is tempting to conclude that women and girls who reach for the wax, razor or depilatory cream are caving into some patriarchal conspiracy to keep them hirsutely oppressed. But the truth is, they are doing it because their pals are, and they like the feel of nice, smooth skin.

Given that the majority of women choose this path, what really grates is the exorbitant cost of a hair removal regime.

Razors for women and even female shaving cream routinely cost more than their equivalent for men.

Now that's something to rant and rave about.

WALES has taken the first move to stub out e-cigarettes from public spaces - and the rest of Britain should follow suit.

The Government has been sitting on the fence on this issue, almost adopting a wait and see approach, unsure whether e-cigarettes are a good or bad thing.

The dilly-dallying is not helped by the fact that opinion is so strongly divided. The BMA is against vaping while Cancer Research UK is for it (on the grounds that anything that helps people give up cigarettes is worthwhile).

The worry is two-fold. Firstly, we don't actually know whether e-cigarettes pose any long-term harm to health, and secondly, there is a risk that having people use them in public will once again "normalise" the habit of smoking.

There is a further concern that users are just replacing one habit with another. Surely the ideal aim would be for people to give up nicotine altogether?

Vaping may be a successive way to ease people off smoking tobacco, but there are other methods to do that including patches and group therapy.

This week, 120 health groups led by Action on Smoking and Health, have called for a new levy on the tobacco industry to directly fund anti-smoking measures.

We should support this move, but also press Government to reconsider its view on vaping. Much progress has been made on reducing smoking levels, and nothing should be allowed to jeopardise that.