I have worked in public health and been preaching sun avoidance for 25 years. But what this statement says is that there are two sides to the story. The reason for this change of heart is that a new problem has emerged in Australia – vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is made by the action of the sun on the skin and is essential for good bones, a healthy immune system and possibly also for protection against some forms of cancer. While skin cancer still poses as great a threat as ever, the new advice says that people should remember the benefits, as well as the risks, of the sun.Spelling out exactly what this means, the advice in MJA says that, in Sydney and southern parts of Australia, people should expose their unprotected face, hands and arms to the sun for five to 10 minutes before 10am or after 3pm on most days of the week in summer to get adequate doses of vitamin D.

After more than two decades of warning people to stay out of the sun, the new advice, to be published in The Medical Journal Of Australia this month, says that a little of it is essential for good health.Australia has led the world in alerting its population to the damage caused by the sun and the link with skin cancer So if it is having a re-think, it is time to listen. The Cancer Council Australia has issued new advice on the sun, which, some claim, amounts to a seismic shift in its thinking. These people avoid the beach, keep their children covered head-to-toe in summer and go for regular six-monthly check-ups in the ubiquitous skin cancer clinics.This could be about to change. Here, in one of the most sun-kissed cities of the world, the people look as though they live underground.In a sense, many of them do. A generation of Australians has been raised to fear the sun, never venturing out without a hat, long-sleeved shirt and Factor 30 sunblock. You see why local estate agents promote Sydney as the city with the matchless lifestyle.
Now take a look at the people They are pasty-faced Pink necks emerge from pastel polo shirts.

The clothes are grey and beige, the skin a pimply shade of pale. To anyone who has holidayed on the shores of the Mediterranean, with its smooth, olive-skinned peoples, vibrant colours and noisy street culture, this comes as a shock – and a disappointment. There is something disturbing about Sydney when you see it, as it were, in the flesh. Australia’s premier city sits astride a sparkling harbour under an azure sky.

There is the famed opera house, the sunlight glinting off its polished fins, and the magisterial Harbour Bridge linking the northern and southern shores. My Test team: J Lewsey (England); J Robinson (England), B O’Driscoll (Ireland), G Henson (Wales), S Williams (Wales); S Jones (Wales), D Peel (Wales); G Jenkins (Wales), S Thompson (England), J White (England), P O’Connell (Ireland), M O’Kelly (Ireland), L Dallaglio (England), M Williams (Wales), M Corry (England).. But somehow I doubt whether Sir Clive wants anything very different.It seems that 44 players are going to New Zealand, presumably because Sir Clive wants a Test 22 and a midweek 22. Being a Lion will be like receiving a life peerage or gaining a Ph.D. – there are so many that the only distinction lies in not being one of them.Besides, though scrum-halves in particular go down like skittles on these tours, and Sir Clive will presumably take four of them, there will be certain players who will be lucky to put their boots on, except for training purposes, and will have to be satisfied with getting drunk, chasing girls and writing newspaper columns.Despite my concerns about the whole exercise, I shall nevertheless be grateful for a few English forwards. He might reply that he did not have the players to produce the sort of rugby he wanted and had to make the best of what he had, which he duly did, with spectacular results, in terms of brute success.