Wednesday 26 April 2017

The 400 year history of English tobacco addiction


This is one of our barmen. It's an interesting pub.

The worst thing about modern technology for me is how I now seem to spend most of my time either worrying about batteries going flat, or making sure they don't by constantly charging them. I hate the way it is always impinging on my consciousness. I am charging my vape now. The phone charged as I slept.

I know they have been working on it ever since they managed to reduce the size, but until they get the graphene technology sorted I think I would prefer to carry around a car battery to power my mobile gadgets. I would almost prefer to go back to my old 5-day dim-phone, but the genie is now out of the bottle. I sound ungrateful, don't I?

Now, illness. I think I gave the wrong impression last night when I seemed to ask you not to go on and on about illness, but I was really talking about BBC radio. I should have made that clearer. You can talk about your illness as much as you like. I am not saying I will always read it, though.

Someone said they felt the same way about people who give up smoking and two people agreed with him. One of them was me.

Someone in that pub up there gave up smoking a few months ago, and has not stop talking about it since. He would say, "I have given up smoking and I really miss it," every night, and I would respond by telling him that I did not care. He has all but stopped going into the pub now because his wife did not let him smoke in the house, so being there feels more natural than in a pub.

When I stopped smoking about a month ago, people noticed because I was using a vape. Then they would ask me if I had given up smoking (they brought the subject up) and I would say 'yes'. Then they would say 'well done!' as if I had just completed a marathon, and I would say that it really is no big deal so I don't need this sort of encouragement.

Maybe there is something wrong with me, but I always feel like standing in the street during the Bath Half Marathon and shouting "IDIOTS!" at the runners.

25 comments:

  1. Come to think of it, that barman looks like he introduced tobacco to England 400 years ago.

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  2. Should vaping be classed as "given up smoking", it's a bit like saying I've given up drinking - I only drink shandy now. It always amuses me when following a car, you see great clouds of vapour suddenly pour out of the window like it's a steam train.

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    1. How about if I say I have given up smoking cigarettes and ingest nicotine without setting fire to tobacco? Actually, I would rather not say anything.

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  3. I wasn't trying to be a smart-arse and good on you for not ingesting nicotine but I tend to be in the "either you do or you don't" camp and I see vaping as still satisfying the need to inhale something. I've cut down on my drinking massively and tell people that but at the end of the day, I'm still drinking.

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    1. I AM ingesting nicotine. Oh Christ, I give up. You can win if you really want to.

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  4. I wasn't trying to win anything Tom and clearly I must always make my points badly because you always tend to get the wrong end of the stick where I'm concerned. Never mind.

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    1. What were you like before you drastically cut down on your drinking? I mean alcohol by the way, in case you thought I meant water.

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    2. I was a renowned piss-taker, wind up merchant and sarcastic bastard Tom. Unfortunately I've found in the past that when you react in that way to one or two bloggers that comment in that way themselves but don't like it back, they delete your comments, so I'm more moderate these days - perhaps I should take up drinking again, wine that is.

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  5. So you have given up using cigarettes and are vaping with tobacco. Now don't get me wrong but would it not have been better to have switched to organic tobacco, which I understand is available in the UK ?

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    1. Well they haven't done much research on vape liquid, but I do know that organic tobacco is just as poisonous as any other. There is much bollocks attached to organically grown tobacco. Deck chairs and Titanic...

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    2. There has been a ton of research on vaping, and the liquid nicotine. All good. That's why there is so much ado about the batteries. The 'Antis' have to have something to to shoot down do we all become evangelical. I've been vaping nine years. It comes in handy on those ten hour flights to Barcelona!

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    3. You live ten hours from Barcelona??? You must live in the arsehole of the Universe.

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  6. As well as being fed up with people's illnesses I am also fed up with people boasting about going to the gym. My three children have all been gym devotee's and all three have ended up with joint problems. Can it be natural to do repetitions of the same movement util you are sweating your ******** off, I think not.
    Same goes for marathons in my book.
    I like a man who speaks his mind and you do.
    Briony
    x

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    1. I not only speak my mind, but I often call them cunts.

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    2. Fair enough but can you accept being called one, or are you one of the bloggers that deletes immediately such comments before other readers can see some one has disagreed with you.

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    3. I only delete boring or humourless negative comments or ones using my site to attack others.

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    4. Oh, and ones deliberately designed to rattle my cage. They are the worst, because they make me lose my sense of humour.

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  7. I smoked a Lucky Strike tonight. It was delicious. I ran out of battery power, but it hardened my resolve to try and locate some proper Balkan tobacco as a treat.

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  8. Replies
    1. I thought he was a bit cranky.

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    2. I think he is talking about something else, Iris. Either that or preempting me as in, 'thank you for not smoking'.

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