Match..please?!

A Scotsman, an Irishman, and an Englishman are each sentenced to a year in solitary confinement; before being locked away, each is to be granted a year's supply of whatever he wants to help him get through the long, long spell alone.

• The Scotsman asks for a year's supply of whisky; it's given to him and he's locked away.
• The Irishman asks for a year's supply of Guinness so he's locked up with several thousand bottles of it.
• The Englishman asks for a year's supply of cigarettes and he's given a pile of cartons and the cell door is shut on him.

One year later, the doors are all unlocked.

• The Scotsman staggers out and shouts, 'I'm free!' and then keels over dead from alcohol poisoning.
• The Irishman is dragged out into the light, whereupon he promptly dies of liver failure.
• When the door to the Englishman's cell is opened, everybody watches eagerly to see what sort of a wreck the man has made of himself.
  
  To their surprise, he walks right out the door, sidles up to the first person he sees, and asks, 'I say you wouldn't happen to have a match, would you?'