Monthly Archives: February 2020

 

A by-product of the liberation of Afghanistan has been spiralling opiate use. From the 2009 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Drug Survey, the four-year period witnessed a rise of 53% in opium use and 140% in heroin. This isn’t an attempt to make a simplistic direct correlation linking freedom from decades of war to drug abuse; I include this simply as an example that by attempting to solve a problem another has grown in its place. Whether caused by or opening the opportunity for, Aristotle told us “horror vacui” – nature abhors a vacuum.

Every Christmas brings with it a renewed push to eradicate drink driving from the roads. Almost universally supported, but the act of being drunk and in charge of something has been an age-old problem. In 1872 you could be prosecuted for being drunk in charge of a horse-drawn carriage, cow or steam engine – and yet as recently as 2009 a man was prosecuted for riding a horse while intoxicated while another ran a red light, inebriated, riding a pony trap in 2014. Strict legislation neither prevents nor alters the behaviours; education and a sense of freedom to make choices does. Banning or taxing vaping will achieve nothing but resentment and non-compliance in the same way that a teacher punishing the whole class for the actions of one errant child does.

Under the Town Police Clauses Act, 1847 a person could be fined up to £1,000 for hanging out washing or even flying a kite in the street. Having rid society of such menaces it is now possible to wander any town or city centre on a Friday evening without being disrupted by anti-social behaviour. In the same way that preventing the public beating of carpets didn’t cause drunken yobs to fight a century and a half later, actions and behaviours were replaced for people in high office to continue being concerned about.

In Management Control Systems by Merchant & Van der Stede, in relation to employees, they write that it’s impossible for individuals to enjoy following a strict set of guidelines for a prolonged period of time…they rebel. Merchant and Stede caution that people will fake report figures, call in sick, slack off or demonstrate any number of undesirable behaviours. If employees see what they are being asked to do as out of their control, not meaningful to them or simply unfair they will subvert their outcome.

Their ‘employees’ are analogous for the general public. If public health officials and politicians place strict mandates on vaping then it will be met with large-scale non-compliance because it is devoid of logic, unjust and seeks to control our free will. Like sourcing Snus from Sweden, markets outside of the EU will flourish for mods and juice. Global eMarkets will fill the voids created by insensitive and ill-considered legislation.

There are few whose lives have not been touched by cancer and yet alcohol (which causes 1,008,850 hospital admissions and costs the NHS over £3.5billion a year) doesn’t face the same controls that are heading towards vaping. Imagine the outcry if we were to be told that beer was to be limited to 3.6% and only sold in 100ml child-proof/drip-free bottles.

And no one mentions dementia and Alzheimer’s, the biggest killer of women and fifth largest killer of men in England and Wales. There seems to be a huge disparity and unfairness in the attacking of vaping, targeted as a result of dogma and vested interests, wholly disproportionate to the threat it poses to the population.

I strongly suspect that even if electronic cigarettes are forced out of the national consciousness it won’t free up many hours for public health officials – they will seek out new monsters to battle. A new war to be fought will rise up in its place, probably of equal or less threat to the fabric of society as vaping is.

My postmodern nihilism leads me to pose a further question: to what extent does Karr’s maxim, from the satirical Les Guêpes, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” hold true for our use of nicotine? To paraphrase: the more legislators attempt to change things for us the more they will stay the same. Afghans will remain at risk, cows will still have the occasional drunk owner and people wishing to use nicotine will still find a way to do so.

I understand the reasoning to try to improve the public health but surely that should only be if those members of the public want it improved and their actions pose a clear danger to themselves or others? The data doesn’t support legislation or taxation and, until it does, the de facto position cannot be to assume threat.

All I do know for certain is this: If they remove my liquids from me I’ll be buying an awesome kite and heading for the M1, and to Hell with the Town Police Clauses Act of 1847.

 

 

Vapefest is the premier vaping event in the UK. Despite the welcome addition of other things taking place this year, VF15 will remain at the top of the list of must-attends for most vapers. Noobs will be full of questions like:

• Who is going to be there?
• Will I get to see the man passed out with a straw in his backside?
• Are beards compulsory? And,
• Should I take enough batteries to power a trans-dimensional portal?

A full weekend of drinking, laughs and vaping beckons. Best of all, it’s a family-friendly event. I can’t speak for others, but I know my children love nothing more than to watch me collapse near a PA speaker clutching a bag of shopping. Admittedly they get to do that most Saturdays in front of the market meat van but here they also get to hold my extensive collection of li-ion batteries.

Thanks to the free camping being laid on you can be assured of spotting a number of tent-loving personalities. It is highly probable that Kim Kardashian, Gandalf and Dame Judy Dench are seriously considering joining the ginger one from Harry Potter under canvas in Shrewsbury. Jack Nicholson has spent the last month making a sleeping bag out of Muji packets.

And for those aware of the dangers of being fallen on by a fat, drunk man at half three in the morning there’s always hotel accommodation. Rooms in Shrewsbury are plentiful and many come with that weekend away essential: bacon. A hearty breakfast is the most important meal of the day, it will set you up for the fun ahead and be the buffer between ‘waking’ and ‘curry’.

What is probably perplexing you is why this advice is being given out so early given that VF15 isn’t on until August. Simple, all vapers (if YouTube is anything to go by) appear to be sporting fantastic beards. With false beards available from most leading beard shops this is a truly unisex fashion statement. Also, as the day ticks by, a beard provides an excellent repository for breakfast morsels.

“Is there a VIP section?” I hear you ask. Why no, at Vapefest everyone is a VIP. Beard or no beard, everyone is treated as though they are more important than celebrity vaping politician Nick Clegg. Just like the Deputy Prime Minister, you will be able to shuffle from stall to stall with no one recognising you. No paparazzi photographers, no pressing meetings with the under-secretary in the Department of Pebbles, just an unhindered time to browse and laugh, to laugh like Johnny Depp the celebrity vaping pirate (who is sharing a tent with Doctor Konstantinos Farsalinos).

When you sit sharing a bottle of rum with Johnny Sparrow-Depp he is going to want to know what you own. And have ever owned. Carrying around a hernia-inducing bag full of kit you never use will be a wonderful talking point. Oh how you will both giggle in the sun as you look at the seventeen CE2s and that bottle of Dekang.

And what if something goes wrong or the hernia becomes unmanageable? Shropshire’s NHS is on the case. From minor coil burns to a hole in your ‘The Only Way Is Subohm’ t-shirt caused by a venting Trustfire, the wonderful nurses will be on speed dial to fix you up and send you back into the fray.

But do not ponder on disaster, despite the media hype no one has ever needed to call out the juice mountain rescue or the sea of raffle prizes lifeboat service. The only setback you may have is not having enough space to carry home your purchases and any freebies you’ve picked up. Maybe the time has come to launch the Stealthvape box on wheels. Go to Vapefest 2015!

 

 

For a while I’ve been accumulating more metal than a patient undergoing reconstructive hip surgery. Plans to cease buying things failed in the same way that I never gave up drink for January, never cut down on crisps and how the bicycle remains gathering a nice collection of cobwebs. The resistance to change, the force preventing me from clearing out those mods not seeing use, feels as though it increases the larger a collection gets.

Do mods combine their mass? Do they begin to exert a gravitational pull? I’ve not witnessed drip tips flying in orbit around the vape stand but I’m betting it happens. Probably when I’m asleep and the kids’ toys are playing around the house.

It’s the catastrophising mind-set I have; the worldview that if things go pear-shaped for vaping under the next government I’ll need to return to simple mech-based vaping…this, and the work of the evil vapers who drum into you the need for a backup to your several other backups. Damn you Pop Will Eat Itself, damn you and your “One’s too many, ten’s not enough”!

In March the collection finally numbered over twenty mods. Of that I only tend to use the regulated ones – so what purpose does a collection serve? How many mods turn you from a vaper into a prospective vendor?

One Internet advert later and eleven parcels sat waiting to be wrapped – and now I realise where the inertia to divest the collection comes from. I’m a man, I have man genes…we don’t wrap unless it’s in a gangsta style. My wife’s birthday present was tastefully presented in the packaging a bicycle rack was delivered in, with a side order of masking tape circumventing the joyous gift.

Packing up eleven items made me empathise with vendors across the country doing this on a daily basis. Not just the tedium of fighting tape, tearing skin from lips and slicing into skin with paper but also the worst bit – having to visit the Post Office.

Entering our local mail specialists is like climbing out of HG Wells’ Time Machine. You are flown back to a time where customers are as welcome as children talking in Victorian family dining rooms. The wonder of the modern age is that for most people, most of the time, we can avoid the ritual humiliation of the Amusement Park queuing-style system.

A woman employed for her observation skills noticed something was up. “You have more than one parcel,” she opined, the air now charged as clearly I had contravened the secret first command of posting. Other options were presented to me that included form filling. Exactly how difficult should sending mail be? Meanwhile, in the ever-growing queue, there had been a birth, two birthdays and one unfortunate fatality involving a greetings card.

I may have finally managed to overcome inertia and sell on some kit but I can’t see this happening again in a hurry.

 

 

The problem with personality is that there is no discernable cut off. It seems to me that it’s impossible to say some people are positive and others negative, it’s not a Boolean on/off function. I prefer the notion of intersecting rainbows where one end resides in a pot of gold and the other a vat with the dismembered body of Katie Hopkins filled up with excrement. But focus on the rainbows.

It’s this mental impression of personality that holds me to a belief that no one apart from Katie Hopkins is purebred evil. Pol Pot may have massacred between 2 to 3 million people but, by all accounts, he always sent his mother flowers and was a massive fan of The Two Ronnies – especially Ronnie Corbett’s seated monologues to camera.

The Spock-like logical side to me knows that mods, coils and atomisers have no soul. I fully appreciate the in-human nature of metal. And yet I can help but feel that sometimes, shortly before I wake up, they get together on the rack and plan out to the finest detail exactly how they’re going to ruin my day.

Just look at your box mod, now. Do it.

See that? See those buttons? They follow you around the room. I swear there’s a hive-like collective intelligence like that exhibited by a colony of ants. A single one is stupid – but lob a load of them together like the Argentine Ant super colony stretching 3,728 miles from Italy to Portugal. The same thing if you managed to clone Katie Hopkins and make a billion of them live together without access to Twitter.

No. Sometimes atomisers are egged on by the rest of the collection: “Go on, Gary, you’re nearly empty. You know he’s going to recoil you later. Just mess him about a bit for shits and giggles.”

And so that coil you’ve made a hundred times before, the one you know always runs in at 1.1Ω, gives an odd reading. Or the reading flits about. Or, halfway through vaping, the regulated mod finds the ability to throw up 1,000 watts. But mainly that the wick and coil that operate so effectively on a daily basis suddenly don’t wick juice.

Damn your hide, denizens of the rack, I know what you’re doing – I can hear your tinny chuckles. But it isn’t just that they conspire to mess me about, they constantly flummox me by simply working.

I’d put off getting the new Kayfun for a whole host of reasons. It struck me that the level of complexity of the device was overkill and that, combined with the cost, it would fail to reward me. Of course there was also fear. Not fear that I’d be unable to master the thing, more the fear that being a sizable lump I’d not want to be hit with it when my partner discovered I’d bought yet another addition to the collection. My expectations couldn’t have been lower, like when my daughter made me watch La Hopkins in an episode of Big House Full Of People No One Knows (apart from Cheggers and that vessel of spite in human form).

“Go on Sharon, mess with his head. He thinks you’re nothing – but there are two types of atomisers, those that do and those that don’t. Be the atomiser that does.”

 

 

My childhood was made up of amassing football cards and Panini stickers. Years were measured in collecting albums with my all-time favourite falling in 1977, the year of punk. Buck-toothed supposed athletes with bad perms and dodgy facial hair littered my waking moments. For the best part of Secondary school the only words I uttered in public were: “Got got got want got got got got want got got want want got got got…”

Cards and stickers were replaced by 2000AD and Marvel comics, there must have been a point I dabbled in the DC world but it never took root. There has to be something wrong with people who dreamt up Aquaman – a superhero who lived in an underwater fishing boat and who’s primary ability was the power to read the minds of fish? Come on. Being able to tell that Flipper is feeling a tad frisky is hardly the kind of stuff to enrapture a teenager in middle England.

Comics made way for graphic novels and books. It wasn’t enough to read 1984, I had to discover and own everything by Orwell; the same for HG Wells, Alan Moore, Iain Banks and the rest. Then came music and motorbikes – at one point there were eight in the garage and one parked up by the side of the house.

And this has progressed into vaping, much to the wife’s disappointment. I think she was hoping midlife would bring about a desire to collect DIY skills or see me developing a mutual appreciation for the works of celebrity TV chefs. But I’ve hit a snag.

Whereas it was easy to define what I would collect in my formative years I’m struggling with vape gear. To begin with it was Pinoy mechs and attys; I fully appreciate that some find their take on design, well, err, challenging. But there was one thing I knew for certain – I didn’t like the plain British design. That was like Aquaman as a metal tube.

And then I did, consequently it was mods from Europe that filled my rack. There was no way I was going for any of that regulated nonsense though until I had an epiphany. Tubes were suddenly outnumbered by boxes…before boxes became outnumbered by tubes. Rather than a bar chart graph of likes, my purchasing history resembles a three-dimensional sine wave after a child covered in jam and dried Weetabix has attacked it.

I’ve tried one in/one out strategies, one purchase a month techniques, just trading gear approaches and an outright ban on buying anything else – nothing seems to work because there’s always something interesting. No one needs fifteen mods and attys, a drawer full of batteries and boxes loaded with juice bottles but I just can’t stop; asking me not to collect things is like asking Katie Hopkins to stop writing guff.

Now, what I really need is a DNA40. I know this because I’ve said in the past that I don’t want one.

 

 

I have taken huge, puerile delight in plonking all manner of sauce bottles onto our table ever since – including the loathed brown sauce that we’ve not touched after opening it in 1983. I exaggerate; it’s what I do, so that’s another reason why they probably asked me to go.

That said, I make a point of always holding doors open for people following me. Sometimes to the point of hanging around while they meander in my direction and despite the muffled grunts which may or may not translate to “thank you”.

I don’t speak with my mouth full, I rest my cutlery when I’m not shovelling food and I refrain from telling every idiot I meet that they are a challenged individual requiring immediate repositioning to a part of the world I’m not occupying. I’m nice like that, see?

It’s manners.

It’s remembering to say thank you when someone gives you something – even if it’s hideous. It’s smiling when your partner tells you about their day and nodding and humming in the appropriate places despite the football being on. It’s saying “Yes, that’s a brilliant plan” when forced to watch Enchanted by the girl for the fifteenth time.

It’s being the opposite of Lisa Watson the vaper. Note: This opinion is mine and does not reflect the views held by Rob or Emma Stealthvape.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Lisa says, “I was in Morrisons a couple of days ago, took a couple of puffs and was told by a member of staff to get out.”

I’m going to gloss over the whole bit where Lisa was shopping in Morrisons in the first place, some of you may like the store – some of you may work there. Good for you. I’m not going to mention that they only ever seem to have one till open and staff it with someone who was too lethargic to be employed in KFC (the company resolutely trying to remove the tags ‘fast’ and ‘food’ from fast food). Nor am I going to mention the fresh vegetables that resemble a biology lab experiment by the time they’re unpacked at home.

“I was pretty annoyed, but when I rang Morrisons head office they said it’s company policy across the whole country. I think it’s disgusting. I spend over £300 a month there, but I won’t be going back – I’ll take my custom somewhere else.”

I’m pretty sure Morrisons are concerned but their £17billion+ turnover might just help them cope with the bitter news that Lisa is off to Tesco. Sure, they might be dim when they say “We feel it’s right to protect those who don’t want to be exposed to second-hand smoke from e-cigarette vapours” – but what sort of person acts as if it is their right to vape wherever they want?

Hmm, condescension: tag that onto the list of things that ticked my parents off.

A rule of thumb for me has always been not to vape wherever I wouldn’t have smoked. No one but those bent on conflict would walk around a supermarket puffing on a fag. Given that Morrisons have a sign banning vaping, you’d have though that if you can’t make it the whole way through a shop without a nicotine fix you’d do a crafty stealthy number or nip off to the toilets….or use something like the outstanding Coke mod.

I guess we all have our personal set of rules for this kind of thing, but whenever I’ve seen the subject raised almost all of us are in agreement. I feel that whereas we know the relative dangers posed by vaping, and the non-existent impact on others, there is still a battle for acceptance. I don’t see confrontation and entitlement winning any hearts and minds – of course, I’m perfectly happy to be wrong if you disagree. That’s me being polite and using a sense of decorum.

Now while I go and pop the ketchup back into the kitchen cupboard can someone organise a bus? We need to go sit out in Taunton’s Tesco next week, I’ve a feeling it could be good entertainment. I can’t apologise for it, it’s the wicked streak I was born with; my parents should have understood.

 

 

My answer at the outset is an unequivocal ‘No‘ but that isn’t to downplay the spirit that does exist throughout groups of vapers. Let me explain:

As we’ve grown in numbers we’ve become groups within a collective. Not all supporters of a football club share the same feelings regarding the manager, the tactics or the signings just as no all teams in a league have the same goal. Some board members seek cup glory; some would like to win a championship while others prefer to fixate on the lofty aspirations of midtable mediocrity. But fans of all scarf colours love football.

It’s impossible to expect 2.1million+ people to share the identical values and outlooks. I don’t know if it’s a Christmas hangover, the realisation that life is the same as it was before the country spent a week drunk, but vaping social media appears to be a tad tetchy.

I’ve not seen groups of 18350 enthusiasts rounding and lambasting 26650 fans, but there’s whinging about plenty of other irrelevant topics. It really doesn’t matter if someone prefers cotton to mesh in a genny, at the time of checking no rulebook can be found on the matter. Likewise, if a person gains a huge amount of pleasure from blowing a cumulonimbus in their living room then why should that put anyone else’s nose out of joint?

Some people love politics; they care passionately about this aspect of vaping whereas others (as in life) prefer a back seat. It really doesn’t matter that everyone isn’t engaged in campaigning because the odds are they don’t share the same perspective on methods or objectives. Mechs or 150V regulated devices? Surely the point is simply to not be smoking regardless of the device? Oh, and to be enjoying it. And not to call anyone Shirley unless that is their given name.

The reason for raising this is that I’ve seen so many positive things come from vapers interacting on the Internet. Vapers with broken or stolen kit frequently get offered up loans or free replacements in Facebook groups and on forums. One forum, with a reputation for being a bit of a rough house, raised a fortune for a disabled man and his family who suffered a break-in/robbery with violence – generosity extending far beyond spirit.

The thing is that it isn’t just confined to vape matters. The huge hearts full of compassion on another vape forum have a thread dedicated to mental health issues. Such kind words of mutual support are offered up that you would be hard pushed to find outside of the vape sphere – in fact be slaughtered for on a number of other interest forums I belong to.

We aren’t a community; we’re a cross-section of society and a right mixed bag as a result. There will be chancers and ne’er-do-wells, but likewise there are people and tales to melt your heart. Some of us may never meet in the real world but genuine and fulfilling virtual friendships develop.

And the humour: I can guarantee several full-blown laughing fits every day thanks to my virtual vaping chums. So, we may not be a community in my eyes but we are legion and so many of you make my days the pleasure that they are. So, thank you.

 

 

Anyone venturing onto the Vapefest website will be greeted with the following message: “Retune your browser in February for an exciting announcement ” I’ll make no bones about it: I love Vapefest. I can’t begin to fathom all of the hard work that must go into arranging an event that becomes exponentially more popular.

One of the main drawbacks of the vaping world is that so much of our interaction is online. We buy and sell through websites while posting memes on forums yet mini-meets are always great fun, just like the big one in August. But this year we are going to have even more opportunities to get together.

On the 25^th of this month groups of vapers will be standing outside BBC buildings to mark the first year since people tried to raise the profile of vaping in the news. It was due to take place on the 11^th but moved following the recent tragic events in France. You can discover further details on the Facebook events page.

Come May and there’s Vape Jam being held at London Olympia on the 8^th and 9^th. Still waiting for the list of vendors confirmed so far but all of the 300 free tickets were snapped up quickly. The event is being organised by Amir Saeed and Maria Borissova. Time will tell if vapers used to going to Vapefest for free are willing to pay up to £75 for entry.

The following month brings the Ecig Expo to Harrogate on June 27^th. It’s free to get in on Saturday for members of the public with a trade-only session on the Sunday. I’ve never been to Harrogate so this one is already marked up on my calendar.

Will we be gathering in Shropshire again for Vapefest 2015 come August? Will it be at the Showground? Will there be camping? How many sore heads will there be the day after the night before? If past years are anything to go by then people will be leaving VF15 with bags loaded with new juices to try and new vaping kit to play with. Plus, of course, memories of a cracking weekend with friends and like-minded people.

Rounding up the year is Tabexpo in London, running from 20^th-23^rd October. Primarily a tobacco industry event; Smok, Kanger, Hangsen, Kamry and a number of other Chinese manufacturers will be in attendance – it will be interesting to see what they are pitching by way of vaping products to Big T.

Also, mini-meets will be dotted about around the country. It’s going to be a great year for vapers who like to get out, about and share a drink or two. Where are you planning on going?

 

 

2014 was rubbish so, in an attempt to be more efficient, I’m writing a review of 2015 now. It will probably all be true. In case it isn’t I’ll substitute a 6 for a 5 next December and be quids in. This writing lark is easy.

January

Scientists proved vaping was 100 times safer than smoking. The WHO greeted this great news by stating that electronic cigarettes should be banned from cars and @ir8vaperz tweeted “prof glantz iz dumb lol”.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from steel and replete with steel accents for a bargain £185

February

BBC launches Celebrity Vaping On Ice, a program so popular the rest of television was cancelled. Gary Barlow launches his own flavour range but failed to submit a tax return as his business wasn’t liquid.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from steel and replete with brass accents for a bargain £190

March

Barry Victorian-Beard, UKIP election candidate, stated that vaping was the missing link between homosexuality and the decline of the British artisan biscuit industry. After a venomous campaign by outraged vapers across social media he later said his words had been taken out of context due to someone listening.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from brass and replete with copper accents for a bargain £200

April

As my birthday fell somewhere in the middle, I spent most of this month drunk. The only thing I remember is that I wanted the new JDT mod but didn’t get it. My family hates me.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from copper and replete with brass accents for a bargain £250

May

Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos sought funding for finding the link between Martin McKee’s job title and his inability to engage with the public. No conclusions could be drawn from the resulting data. @Johnrashton47 questioned @ir8vaperz’s parentage on Twitter before blocking him.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from cheese and replete with cracker accents for a bargain £300

June

The first regulated box mod with a true 1,000W capability released to critical acclaim. Additional features included the ability to prevent toxins from being produced by the coil, a sensor indicating the optimum time to rewick and a facility to boil water for Pot Noodles.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from Jeremy Clarkson and replete with Ferrari accents for a bargain £400

July

Youtube featured the first negative vape review – questions were asked in Parliament. @ir8vaperz tweeted “this is just like ameravape all over again but for the first time lol #shocked”

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from the Queen’s corgis and replete with posh accents for a bargain £500

August

Vapefest ran over a full fortnight on Canvey Island where Diablo Mods gave away a container truck full of hybrids to one lucky winner. “I’ve only used my eGo and Evod to date but look forward to spending the next three years wicking them all,” said a smiling Gary Codface from Darlington.

JD Tech released a brand new Stingray made from the Turin shroud and rubies for a bargain £1000.

September

The beginning of the new school year found teachers facing compulsory random nicotine testing. Professor Muppet, Public Health England, explained that such measures were essential if we were “going to keep bike sheds free for Dazza and Shannice to grab a crafty fag instead of going to Maths.”

JD Tech released a brand new disposable Stingray made from toilet rolls and sticky-back plastic for a bargain £25,000.

October

Stealthvape released sneak details of this year’s Xmas product – based on the space ship Event Horizon’s gravity drive.

China released the clone of next month’s JD Tech mod before JDT thought about making it. JDT announced a partnership with the Devil and planed for the acquisition of the soul of vaping.

November

Vape fashion hit the catwalks of Paris and Milan: vapers could now stealth vape by using the cunning combination of wearable tech and haute couture.

JD Tech bought China on Ebay and cloned themselves in a freakish accident just like that one in The Fly with Jeff Goldblum.

December

Celebrity Vaping On Ice did a Christmas special crossover with Top Gear, widely held as being the best television program ever made. Sales of Stealthvape’s Gravity Drive™ continued despite concerns over Rob developing an evil sentience and telepathic abilities. Meanwhile vaping commentators predicted that 2016 would be the year electronic cigarettes finally achieve political and public health endorsement.

Brundlefly Tech re-released January’s JDT mod with a special edition bumbag, retailing at half a million pounds.

 

 

Like most people, when I’m meant to be getting on with something productive – you know, the kind of thing that pays bills and keeps the wife happy – I wander. It’s just far too easy to open a browser and search for donkey-juggling images (or a guide to building an explosive bag filled with dog excrement for forum members who rip others off with trades) while I’m sitting at the keyboard.

Which is why I was delighted to stumble across the Asch Conformity Experiment.

I’m sure we’re all well aware of the Stanford prison experiment. It’s the one where people were selected to take on the roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison…and the guards were encouraged to enforce authoritarian measures and ultimately subject some of the prisoners to psychological torture.

If you aren’t familiar with it, you can see that a similar experiment is being carried out by Channel 5 where they are the guards and Celebrity Big Brother is the torture weapon.

There’s this well-known RTA brand, see. I owned not one but two of them; buying the first was a simple response the praises being sung, but the second? Honestly, I’ve no idea. I thought I really liked it but I didn’t – I hated it. The flavour produced was sorely lacking when compared to the market leader and it was such a pig when it was time to recoil.

But I persisted.

Eventually I sold one after a want ad went up and the second quickly followed suit in response to a personal message. It’s left me wondering what on earth I was thinking; what possessed me to stick with something I knew was a let-down? Anybody watching the recent series of Prime Witness or The Walking Dead Series #2 (Hershel’s farm) will know exactly where I’m coming from.

“Imagine yourself in this situation: You’ve signed up to participate in a psychology experiment in which you are asked to complete a vision test. Seated in a room with the other participants, you are shown a line segment and then asked to choose the matching line from a group three segments of different lengths. The experimenter asks each participant individually to select the matching line segment. On some occasions everyone in the group chooses the correct line, but occasionally, the other participants unanimously declare that a different line is actually the correct match. So what do you do when the experimenter asks you which line is the right match? Do you go with your initial response, or do you choose to conform to the rest of the group?”

I’ve always considered myself to be a freethinking non-conformist, it says so on my underpants, but I’m obviously not. I am some kind of human-Borg/sheep just going along with the collective mind. Everyone else tells me the atty is awesome then it must be me who is wrong and I really do enjoy vaping with it.

Only I didn’t, I really didn’t.

So, with the knowledge that I am as sentient as a Page 3 model in a reality show I am putting in place plans to avoid future errors of judgement: Hereonin I’m only going to buy things everyone else says is rubbish. Thank you Solomon Asch.