Author Archives: Rob Ellard

They were the highlights because my family would attempt to ruin the endless days of bliss by dragging me away to a part of the country where the sun never shone, the portable black and white couldn’t get a signal and the toilet needed emptying far too regularly.

Like all things we go through during those years, you never fully appreciate them until they become distant memories. The Kendal Mintcake, the pokey smoke-filled cinema, the boys at the campsite football match who thought my 70s hair made me a girl – oh, cherished memories.

At my smoking peak I was burning my way through 60 Rothmans a day while working as a sales rep. At no point during this period did I think “Hey, I love this thing so much I ought to hang out with some other people who do it to too.”

Now, fine, smokers do tend to congregate. We did it down the bottom of school playing fields, in works canteens and (for those who carried on into the smoking ban) doorways. The enforced conviviality of standing with strangers in alcoves must have had a lasting impression on us, a desire to share our experience.

Becoming a family man you have to draw up a set of rules, no one issues you with a book on Dadhood and if they did it would probably be a pile of toss written by someone who wants you to indulge in non-competitive games and refrain from using coarse language. It saddens me that while researching this piece a number of such tomes are readily available from your local bookstore. Little do they understand men – we don’t need no stinking instructions.

For anything.

So where do we draw our inspiration from? Well, in my case it is repeating all of those things that I hated as a kid so that my kids can look back fondly on the stupid things I made them do; we share our experiences, we pass down our stories.

The vaping journey has taken me into forums where the notion of “Hey, I love this thing so much I ought to hang out with some other people who do it to too” doesn’t seem as stupid as the fag-based version. And one, the Planet of the Vapes, arranged to hold a big get together for all of us keyboard warriors so that we could stand in the Lake District with a pint in hand and not recognise each other from our online avatars. We don’t share opinions about politics, football or an awful lot – unsurprisingly seeing as we are a cross-section of society. We share vaping and, seemingly, a liking for alcohol.

During one summer I stood at the top of Hardnott Pass holding the dog’s lead. I don’t know what the weather was like back then but I suspect it was raining. Last weekend I stood there with a couple of leads and two kids. And the sun shone on us all.

I have no idea if it is possible to extrapolate that all the vapers I was with were really nice people and therefore all vapers are really smashing types? I’ve no idea if forcing children to revisit the horrors of their parents’ past is as character-building as I’d like to hope even if I feel a failure because they enjoyed it so much.

What I do know is that the primary school notion of  ‘it is good to share’, experiences or otherwise, was deeply rewarding. Sitting sharing beers with vapers while swapping stories of nonsense I wondered if my Dad had felt the same?

It was this love of being a self-appointed moral arbiter and fighter for a just & fair society that led to my father picking up the torch when he complained to the Chronicle & Echo about a popular brand of real ale moving from cask to a pressurised system.

It would have been my shoulders that had to carry the weight of putting the world to rights were it not for the intervention of my brother. An early career in a newsroom opened my eyes to the proliferation of angry old men displacing the regret over the aging process by vilifying everything they once did.

Consequently I was amused to see the reaction to “Vaping Boy” this week.

Anger and notions that this was a clandestine plot by the anti-vaping industry gushed onto the modern day virtual equivalent of the print letters page.

“Ban this filth!” “Disgusting!” “Complain and get it taken down!”

Now I’m not going to judge the lad (aside from a gentle mocking of his inability to differentiate between vape and smoke), I was 12 when I bought 10 Embassy No.6 from a vending machine in the High St. I was a year older when I covered our village bus shelter in graffiti.

The fact is young kids act like this, they explore the world and make a succession of poor choices just like we all did. My wife, from a respectable middle class family, spent her 13^th birthday face down in a pool of vomit and vodka. Lil’ Asap may go on to a lifetime of nicotine addiction, he might even be one of the very few to make the leap from vaping to a more unpleasant alternative, who knows? Despite launching into the mighty world of booze like global stocks of it were more limited than the remaining oil reserves, the wife has cut out a lifestyle drinking culture for herself that involves a half of lager in her slippers and sleep by 9pm.

What is the appropriate response? I’ve no idea, I do know what my response was though – and it was the same as when I saw a comment by Martin McKee: laughter.

He isn’t the first kid to try vaping, there was one walking around Vapefest with his parents in 2012, and he certainly won’t be the last. Pretending it’s not taking place or hoping to hide the activity from the outside world is no better than the lies made up by Glantz. Deal with it and twist it into a positive would appear to be a positive step. Use it to amplify how the industry abhors vendors who sell to children, take it and run with the notion that kids have always experimented with smoking and if this prevents them from doing so then society wins.

Just don’t tell me that insulting him and getting his online account blocked is anything approaching the right thing to do as I would be forced to write a strongly-worded letter of complaint.

*These opinions are my own and do not reflect those held by Stealthvape

In the book, Orwell argues powerfully against the control of language, because those who tell you what words you can and can’t use are automatically dictating how you communicate. Through the censorship of words or by changing their meanings, Newspeak replaces English and thereby limits the opportunity of the individual to express or formulate thought. The endgame for “The Party” is that no one would be able to question its absolute power because they would no longer have the words to do so.

Taking the notion to an extreme end of the spectrum, Chomsky says “if we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”

On Vaping forums we will happily debate the potential dangers related to coils oxidising and what may be released into the lungs. We will discuss the nature of wicks and the likelihood of particulates finding their way down to our alveoli. But mention the M-word and the ban hammer will loom large.

“Smoke inhalation delivers damaging carcinogens and an onslaught of other damaging materials directly through the bronchial tree and into the lungs. The most immediate effect is the irritation of the windpipe, but long-term exposure to any source of hot smoke is unnatural and very hard on the lungs” – not my words but those of Royal Queen Seeds. Something so strikingly similar to any number of vaping-related forum posts and yet this doesn’t relate to tobacco discussion, it belongs to a comment about the combustion of a different leaf entirely. A leaf consider so taboo for vape-talk I’ve even made up an image through the imaginative use of nettle leaves.

If we are so keen to ensure that others have the opportunity to use nicotine in a manner accepted to be orders of magnitude safer than through smoking then why is it we spurn any direct reference to Mary Jane? When people using traditional means to access cannabinoids are opening themselves up to combustion products (88% of the smoke compared to 95% pure through vaporising) shouldn’t we be more welcoming to these vapers? These are purely rhetorical questions; I am not a user and have no vested interest.

“I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write.” ~ Voltaire

Clearly, we are comparing something that is legal (albeit with impending restrictions) to something illegal in most countries but exceptions apply and the technology is the aspect of interest. A reason given online would go along the lines of ‘we are at an important juncture in the formation of legislation and could do without the association to illegal substances.

The response ought to be: but if the argument is about health promotion and harm reduction then surely this transcends legality of substance in the wider interests of society? If we support the idea of vaping for a healthier population and lower costs on the health service infrastructure then should this be restricted only to those who vape the substance we agree with?

Vaping does not encourage people to smoke, the discussion of vaping does not draw people who do not smoke into vaping and, by extension, talking about the use of Maui Wowie in vaporisers will not culminate with lines of new people outside late-night snack shops.

The rights and wrongs of this topic will never be debated in our forums, we will continue to allow ourselves to be censored, which can only be doubleplusbad.

“Take away the right to say “****” and you take away the right to say “**** the government.”  ~Lenny Bruce

Stealthvape’s biggest news of the week has to be ‘The Return of Little Bill’. How wonderful it was to see the mass of messages flooding onto Facebook and Internet forums wishing him a speedy recovery and how understanding customers were that delays might happen. There can’t be many business markets where a vendor is positively encouraged to take time with deliveries because “other things in life are far more important”? We know that vapers are a special bunch of people; this week confirmed it even more.

The launch of the OCD connector has been warmly received by Vapeland’s modders and orders are flying in from all parts of the world. It would be wonderful to see pictures of it in action – why not post a picture or two up onto the Facebook page?

Back out in the real world, NHS Scotland has taken a lead role in standing up for common sense and good science by including electronic cigarettes in its advise to smokers. For the first time in the United Kingdom a health organisation has recognised the popularity of vaping and has instructed all of its smoking cessation services that they should not tell vapers to put down the ecig in favour of NRT products.

Previously, only the NHS Stop Smoking service in Leicester had taken on board such a proactive stance, but now the 24% of Scottish men and 22% of Scottish women who smoke will have the opportunity to vape as part of an integrated policy to reduce smoking-related disease, (figures from ASH Scotland). The guidance sent out states that “current expert opinion on the limited evidence available suggests that they are likely to be considerably less hazardous than tobacco smoking.”

Fiona Moore, public health adviser at NHS Health Scotland, said “increased interest and inquires about e-cigarettes had prompted us to revisit guidance, amid concerns the numbers using quit services were falling, meaning they might be missing out on the extra support these gave.”

Plus, as the saying goes, when America catches a cold Britain sneezes; news from Fortune magazine demonstrates a 24.2% rise in the sales of e-cigarettes and it is predicted that this strong growth will continue at around 25% per annum through to 2018. The market for vaping devices is now conservatively estimated to be worth $1.5billion in the States alone.

Harking back to the research produced by Robert West in the journal Addiction, last month, the progression from 1^st to 3^rd generation devices is marked. It is also confirmed by the findings of the ASH UK report into vaping and so vendors should continue to see increases in trade despite the looming TPD regulations (however they may be interpreted by Parliament).

It will be interesting to see how the 3^rd Gen market develops over the rest of this year as a number of traditionally limited run manufacturers appear to be setting, or have set up an online presence. With Mikro Engineering making the latest run of the Challenger available through Facebook, the Hellfire website advertising atomisers in stock, and new to the market manufacturers set to release products at Vapefest demands for home-made high end devices has never been bigger.

Popping back across the pond there are more positive signs, as reported by Bloomsberg Businessweek. In an interview with Mitch Zeller, head of the Food & Drug Administration, he was quoted as saying that regulators were going to have to keep an “open mind on the potential for these emerging technologies” with regards the health benefits of vaping. That the head of the FDA is now using phrases like “It’s time for us to start looking at nicotine differently” will come as a massive slap in the face for anti campaigners.

Meanwhile, in Boston, gubernatorial candidates were asked for their thoughts regarding the rise and rise of the e-cig. To which one candidate, Mark Fisher responded “I trust that the good citizens of the Commonwealth can decide for themselves how to run their lives and pursue happiness without any interference from the State regarding the sale of e-cigarettes. If the State were to be involved in this, then what’s next, banning Santa Claus because he smokes a pipe, is overweight and has rosy cheeks after enjoying an adult beverage?”

I hope not, Mark, because I’m pretty sure that would upset Little Bill and he’s had enough to cope with this year.

The phenomenal growth in online forum membership and the proliferation of Facebook groups dedicated to vaping stand in testament to position decried by idiots as unproven: Vaping works.

18,434 people belong to Planet of the Vapes, 23,455 people are members of UK Vapers, Vape News Magazine now has a circulation figure over 35,000 and a Google search for ‘facebook’+’group’+’vape’ returns 1,130,000 results.

As we’ve grown in numbers, as vaping worked for us as individuals, we’ve drifted apart along the way. There’s just so much to see and do, there are so many opinions.

I remember starting vaping just over two years ago as a means of not relapsing back into smoking after a seven year break from cigarettes – and I remember feeling how there was so much to learn as I proudly puffed on my eGo and CE2 with a lump of Kuwako plastic stuck on the end. I bought my horrible juice from a market man and worried every time I cut a piece of silica that I was going to kill myself, my children and the dogs with the bits flying off.

And over that time we have seen fashion shift to Pinoy mods, then to ever increasingly pricey American and European models to 2014 ‘The Year of the Box Mod’. Regulated devices have never been more popular as the cloud chasers seek higher and higher outputs and people lust for DNA40-powered kit.

The sheer range of mods and attys now is simply amazing…and no longer is there just a straightforward wick and wire option either: Voodoowool, cotton, Muji and less delectable offerings joined silica; Kanthal can be bought in fancy premade formats, Nickel for the DNA40 crowd and even G-spot welding wire.

Forums have been preoccupied with silica fragments, metal particulates, kitchen sink juice manufacturers, the contents of juice, exploding Gen 2 batteries, sub-ohmers destroying the space-time continuum, more things in juice…oh, and a bit of politics. And so it will continue because we love to talk about vaping stuff.

Whatever confusion I felt when beginning must pale in comparison to the challenges faced by today’s quitters. So welcome to the world of vaping everyone. Sorry I couldn’t say ‘hi’ on your intro thread personally but with the Sun due to expire in 4.5billion years there wasn’t the time to get to you all.

Fortunately, from my experience, the bulk of vapers are enthusiastic and happy go lucky types who adore sharing their knowledge of this absorbing hobby. And it is a hobby, it meets all the criteria: it consumes my free time, almost all of my disposable income and my wife doesn’t understand it.

So, once again, welcome to our wonderful and sometimes frustrating and infuriating world. Welcome to a voyage of discovery where you can just kick back and enjoy. What works for you is always good enough and every analogue you don’t smoke is a win.

If your memory serves you well then you’ll recall that the likes of British Gas had abysmal customer service, premium-rate phone numbers and liked to keep you on hold for as long as possible. I took to reciting a list of possible key words with each call in the hope that it would break me out of the hold queue. Kidnap revolution bomb fatwa plot.

Annoying family members and friends who send me pictures of cats or their children by email now get the same treatment. I make a point of trying to use as many key words as possible so that they can spend a fortnight being followed by a black van with blacked out windows. Lockdown epidemic toxic plague CIKR.

A FOI request to the Department of Homeland Security in 2012 highlighted the (then) 377 words they actively scan for in intercepted emails and social media posts. Giving information like this to someone as “emotionally immature” (not my words, the words of my line manager during an annual performance review) as me is begging for problems. Perica NBIC port heroin worm conflict NH4NO3.

Clearly there is a need to drop a dirty bomb of mischief and I’m the idiot to do it. The point of this? Well, frankly I’m a bit disappointed that you think there has to be one – it places unacceptable levels of expectation on my writing. There is a point, it was reported on Reuters newswires this week:

The Food & Drug Administration is monitoring your Facebooks. That’s right, the American agency tasked with the oversight of US policy on vaping has employed people as part of its $270 million spend over the next five years to snoop. They are going to be sifting social media posts for details of how we vapers are “tinkering with e-cigarettes to make the devices deliver extra nicotine”.

In British contract and case law there is the term invitatio ad offerendum meaning ‘invitation to treat’. This action by the FDA is just that – it’s an open offer to wind them up with a succession of bizarre and outlandish bogus posts demonstrating how we have adapted our Kayfuns to deliver extra nicotine.

The simple fact that they don’t understand someone could just buy a higher strength cigalike says everything about their comprehension of the subject at hand.

I know, it’s a puerile idea. I understand, a man of my years ought to be seeking pleasure in the arms of a good chair and a pair of slippers – or a shed. The thing is when stupid comes knocking on the door I always open it up, invite it in and mess with its head. Think of it as a hobby. A hobby like attacking my dripper with a durka durka screwdriver to increase the Mohammed jihad nicotine output.

Those 377 Department of Homeland Security words in full:

• Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
• Coast Guard (USCG)
• Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
• Border Patrol
• Secret Service (USSS)
• National Operations Center (NOC)
• Homeland Defense
• Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)
• Agent
• Task Force
• Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
• Fusion Center
• Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)
• Secure Border Initiative (SBI)
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
• Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF)
• U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS)
• Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS)
• Transportation Security Administration (TSA)
• Air Marshal
• Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
• National Guard
• Red Cross
• United Nations (UN)
• Assassination
• Attack
• Domestic security
• Drill
• Exercise
• Cops
• Law enforcement
• Authorities
• Disaster assistance
• Disaster management
• DNDO (Domestic Nuclear Detection Office)
• National preparedness
• Mitigation
• Prevention
• Response
• Recovery
• Dirty bomb
• Domestic nuclear detection
• Emergency management
• Emergency response
• First responder
• Homeland security
• Maritime domain awareness (MDA)
• National preparedness initiative
• Militia Shooting
• Shots fired
• Evacuation
• Deaths
• Hostage
• Explosion (explosive)
• Police
• Disaster medical assistance team (DMAT)
• Organized crime
• Gangs
• National security
• State of emergency
• Security
• Breach
• Threat
• Standoff
• SWAT
• Screening
• Lockdown
• Bomb (squad or threat)
• Crash
• Looting
• Riot
• Emergency
• Landing
• Pipe bomb
• Incident
• Facility
• Hazmat
• Nuclear
• Chemical spill
• Suspicious package/device
• Toxic
• National laboratory
• Nuclear facility
• Nuclear threat
• Cloud
• Plume
• Radiation
• Radioactive
• Leak
• Biological infection (or event)
• Chemical
• Chemical burn
• Biological
• Epidemic
• Hazardous
• Hazardous material incident
• Industrial spill
• Infection
• Powder (white)
• Gas
• Spillover
• Anthrax
• Blister agent
• Chemical agent
• Exposure
• Burn
• Nerve agent
• Ricin
• Sarin
• North Korea
• Outbreak
• Contamination
• Exposure
• Virus
• Evacuation
• Bacteria
• Recall
• Ebola
• Food Poisoning
• Foot and Mouth (FMD)
• H5N1
• Avian
• Flu
• Salmonella
• Small Pox
• Plague
• Human to human
• Human to Animal
• Influenza
• Center for Disease Control (CDC)
• Drug Administration (FDA)
• Public Health
• Toxic Agro
• Terror Tuberculosis (TB)
• Agriculture
• Listeria
• Symptoms
• Mutation
• Resistant
• Antiviral
• Wave
• Pandemic
• Infection
• Water/air borne
• Sick
• Swine
• Pork
• Strain
• Quarantine
• H1N1
• Vaccine
• Tamiflu
• Norvo Virus
• Epidemic
• World Health Organization (WHO) (and components)
• Viral Hemorrhagic Fever
• E. Coli
• Infrastructure security
• Airport
• CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)
• AMTRAK
• Collapse
• Computer infrastructure
• Communications infrastructure
• Telecommunications
• Critical infrastructure
• National infrastructure
• Metro
• WMATA
• Airplane (and derivatives)
• Chemical fire
• Subway
• BART
• MARTA
• Port Authority
• NBIC (National Biosurveillance Integration Center)
• Transportation security
• Grid
• Power
• Smart
• Body scanner
• Electric
• Failure or outage
• Black out
• Brown out
• Port
• Dock
• Bridge
• Cancelled
• Delays
• Service disruption
• Power lines
• Drug cartel
• Violence
• Gang
• Drug
• Narcotics
• Cocaine
• Marijuana
• Heroin
• Border
• Mexico
• Cartel
• Southwest
• Juarez
• Sinaloa
• Tijuana
• Torreon
• Yuma
• Tucson
• Decapitated
• U.S. Consulate
• Consular
• El Paso
• Fort Hancock
• San Diego
• Ciudad Juarez
• Nogales
• Sonora
• Colombia
• Mara salvatrucha
• MS13 or MS-13
• Drug war
• Mexican army
• Methamphetamine
• Cartel de Golfo
• Gulf Cartel
• La Familia
• Reynosa
• Nuevo Leon
• Narcos
• Narco banners (Spanish equivalents)
• Los Zetas
• Shootout
• Execution
• Gunfight
• Trafficking
• Kidnap
• Calderon
• Reyosa
• Bust
• Tamaulipas
• Meth Lab
• Drug trade
• Illegal immigrants
• Smuggling (smugglers)
• Matamoros
• Michoacana
• Guzman
• Arellano-Felix
• Beltran-Leyva
• Barrio Azteca
• Artistic Assassins
• Mexicles
• New Federation
• Terrorism
• Al Qaeda (all spellings)
• Terror
• Attack
• Iraq
• Afghanistan
• Iran
• Pakistan
• Agro
• Environmental terrorist
• Eco terrorism
• Conventional weapon
• Target
• Weapons grade
• Dirty bomb
• Enriched
• Nuclear
• Chemical weapon
• Biological weapon
• Ammonium nitrate
• Improvised explosive device
• IED (Improvised Explosive Device)
• Abu Sayyaf
• Hamas
• FARC (Armed Revolutionary Forces Colombia)
• IRA (Irish Republican Army)
• ETA (Euskadi ta Askatasuna)
• Basque Separatists
• Hezbollah
• Tamil Tigers
• PLF (Palestine Liberation Front)
• PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization
• Car bomb
• Jihad
• Taliban
• Weapons cache
• Suicide bomber
• Suicide attack
• Suspicious substance
• AQAP (AL Qaeda Arabian Peninsula)
• AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb)
• TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan)
• Yemen
• Pirates
• Extremism
• Somalia
• Nigeria
• Radicals
• Al-Shabaab
• Home grown
• Plot
• Nationalist
• Recruitment
• Fundamentalism
• Islamist
• Emergency
• Hurricane
• Tornado
• Twister
• Tsunami
• Earthquake
• Tremor
• Flood
• Storm
• Crest
• Temblor
• Extreme weather
• Forest fire
• Brush fire
• Ice
• Stranded/Stuck
• Help
• Hail
• Wildfire
• Tsunami Warning Center
• Magnitude
• Avalanche
• Typhoon
• Shelter-in-place
• Disaster
• Snow
• Blizzard
• Sleet
• Mud slide or Mudslide
• Erosion
• Power outage
• Brown out
• Warning
• Watch
• Lightening
• Aid
• Relief
• Closure
• Interstate
• Burst
• Emergency Broadcast System
• Cyber security
• Botnet
• DDOS (dedicated denial of service)
• Denial of service
• Malware
• Virus
• Trojan
• Keylogger
• Cyber Command
• 2600
• Spammer
• Phishing
• Rootkit
• Phreaking
• Cain and abel
• Brute forcing
• Mysql injection
• Cyber attack
• Cyber terror
• Hacker
• China
• Conficker
• Worm
• Scammers
• Social media

There were all the times when I looked for comfort and fulfilment only to find the store was empty and I’d have to wait. The paranoid side of me would set to work: who else had been here? How come I’m being spurned?

I can still remember the burning pain of realisation as if it was only yesterday. This is because of because of two things: I’ve got a decent memory for stuff like this and, secondly, it was only yesterday. Yep, this is an unrequited love song filled with still fresh in the mouth misdirected rawness and anger.

Was it something I’d not done? Had I not been there when it mattered?

I’d taken you everywhere with me, through good times and bad we’ve been inseparable since we met. Now there’s nothing left except your scent.

For sure, I’d played the field in days gone by gather ye rosebuds and all that. We all go through that experimental phase to see what matches us as people, our tastes, our needs. But in the end I found the one that would see me through until everything was over and buried. Nothing else compared to you, as Sinead O’Connor sang; the contentment I felt, the fulfilment – I know I’m still going through the denial phase but I can’t see me ever having anything like this in my life again.

Why House of Liquid? Why?! A Dear Dave note? Noooooo…

In a world of coffee vapes there has only ever been Brasileiro for me. The sweet ones can take a running jump, the expressos taste like vaping raw petroleum by-products. Brasileiro was everything I ever wanted in a coffee vape and it’s all I want now. Oh no, I think the realisation phase is kicking in, I feeling morose and tearful.

“It’s only an eliquid, Dave, it’s only an eliquid. There’s plenty more bottles of juice in the sea of mixed metaphors.”

I’m a man who likes to have an atty for every mod and a juice just for that atty. What the flipping blazes am I to do now with the Versa? I don’t have a juice for it. I’m thinking I’ll just place it to a side and mournfully suck on its battery-less corpse, breathing the ebbing sense of flavour until it will become a homeopathic tool with nothing more than memories of the juice.

If you would like to contribute to MawsleyAid then please send your donations of full or empty Brasileiro bottles to: “The saddest man in Mawsley, Mawsley, Mawsleyshire.”

Thank you for listening to me, it helps. :'(

I was struck primarily by the reviewer’s wonderful command of language. And then wondered if the person selecting the quote had the first clue what the word “unctuous” meant.

It’s a glorious word and, as a noun, would happily grace Moss’ board during “Street Countdown“. The sound of it implies juice vaping nirvana while the hidden meaning paints the liquid as a false pretender; all bottle no cap.

Unctuous food is a desirable thing, my dogs will fight over an unctuous bone but unctuous people are odious – I’d insert a list of job types here but you can make your own up. Suffice to say that I believe Michael Gove to be one of the most unctuous individuals on the planet.

I’m not saying that I believe this vape is greasy or smug (I’ve never tried a bottle of it), just that the choice of words can be so important. It put me in mind of the plethora of new bottles springing up left, right and centre. It made me think that fumbling around for an original angle must be pretty tricky these days – how do you explain that your orange or coffee vape is in any way different to the hordes of similar products flooding onto the market? And, by logical extension, how on Earth can you differentiate the metal tube or atomising chamber you might like to produce?

Something that was very popular twelve months ago were the claims made regarding how “hard” a mod hit and references to voltage drops. Vapers grabbed the words and used them with a vengeance for a while. Fortunately this appears to have waned. Numbers have taken over: 20 became 30, which in turn ramped up to triple digits. As someone who has never gone over 15 I can’t see me buying a “Life begins at 50W” t-shirt.

Given, some brands for juice, mods and atomisers hold a well-deserved reputation for product quality. For them there’s no scrambling around to announce that the new line includes adamantium-coated packaging or is manufactured in an atmosphere rich in expensive perfume. They have no need for florid descriptions; the products sell themselves on merit alone.

For the rest, fighting over the middle ground as reputations are built or squandered, it appears to involve reinventing wheels and over-complicating (what should otherwise be) simple designs. Well, that and adding the label “Competition” as if that meant anything other than “we’ll sue you if you dare criticise our tube or we’ve had a drink or something…but anyway we’re going to sue yo ass” and then withdrawing it from sale. The word is now tainted by that episode, everyone using it since has drawn sneers and giggles by the container-load. Words are so important.

I’ve just watched a review for an atomiser that is similar in purpose to the Kayfun – and yet in order to differentiate itself it possesses a relatively complicated wicking process. After two years and countless atomisers I know that the difference in vape quality will be minimal and so I need persuading to get it. I need a compelling visual appeal or a winning collection of sentences. I want someone to paint me a picture of how wonderful my life will become if I add that device to the collection on the desk. I want someone to tell me it’s unctuous.

Or something.

So, if anyone is currently developing a new line and needs inspiration then try this out: “It’s a real loblolly of a liquid, a finer slubberdegullion of a atomiser you won’t find anywhere else online. Buy our mod or forever be thought of as a pilgarlic.”

Have a great weekend, enjoy your vape.

*No Getty images were harmed during the making of this blog post.

You get to wear a hat and wave around an axe without fear of someone calling the police. As another plus, Paul Gascoigne would bring you beer and chicken in a bucket. You don’t have to tie yourself down to a single God either. I like the idea that you could hedge your religious bets. I’d go for one of the sexier ones. If I were going to spend eternity with a god then I’d want it to look more like Demi than Alan Moore.

In fact, the only downside to being a Viking would be the Age of Ragnarok but then that was supposed to happen on the 22nd February according to the IB Times. A world on fire would really interfere with my vaping pleasure – even if it meant I wouldn’t have to faff about preheating my Kanthal.

Luckily for me I didn’t send all my money to Harold Camping both times he predicted The Rapture in 2011. His multiple predictions of an imminent dire future had an advertising campaign and everything. I’d never have been able to buy my Origen V2 dripper had he got my cash because he doesn’t seem all that inclined to return any of it. But then why did he want the money if The Rapture was coming anyway?

So, the world is safe, there’s no asteroid hitting the Earth this week and Hellfire is restricted to those few able to afford one. Well, it all kind of depends on whom you place your trust in.

There was a passing moment when I thought about stockpiling nic and concentrates given the impending EU legislation. I thought about it and then reckoned it would be stupid. Why waste time hoarding juice stocks when the four horsemen are close to trotting into Northamptonshire? It must be true because Sarah Palin said so. In 2008 she laid claim to be of “the final generation” and that she’d see the End Times in her lifetime.

It’s when you hear stuff like that you really wonder whether it’s worth bothering to walk the dogs or cut down on bacon. If she was a bit more precise with a day then at least I’d know whether or not to order some more silica.

I guess it’s the constant barrage of doom from one corner or another that has just got me to the point of giving up with all of it. Take the Llanelli Star this week: “E-cigarette ban would be ‘suicidal’ for industry, says business”. Surely I can’t be the only person getting bored with the constant cycle of people being afraid of ecigarettes while other people let rip with hyperbole?

But then maybe this is it.

Maybe this is how Ragnarok starts? Maybe Palin is correct? Maybe this entropic spiral into daytime TV show mentality and shock headlines is just the beginning of the end. I tell you what though, if it happens before Vapefest I’m going to be more than a bit miffed.

You get to wear a hat and wave around an axe without fear of someone calling the police. As another plus, Paul Gascoigne would bring you beer and chicken in a bucket. You don’t have to tie yourself down to a single God either. I like the idea that you could hedge your religious bets. I’d go for one of the sexier ones. If I were going to spend eternity with a god then I’d want it to look more like Demi than Alan Moore.

In fact, the only downside to being a Viking would be the Age of Ragnarok…but then that was supposed to happen on the 22nd February according to the IB Times. A world on fire would really interfere with my vaping pleasure – even if it meant I wouldn’t have to faff about preheating my Kanthal.

Luckily for me I didn’t send all my money to Harold Camping both times he predicted The Rapture in 2011. His multiple predictions of an imminent dire future had an advertising campaign and everything. I’d never have been able to buy my Origen V2 dripper had he got my cash because he doesn’t seem all that inclined to return any of it. But then why did he want the money if The Rapture was coming anyway?

So, the world is safe, there’s no asteroid hitting the Earth this week and Hellfire is restricted to those few able to afford one. Well, it all kind of depends on whom you place your trust in.

There was a passing moment when I thought about stockpiling nic and concentrates given the impending EU legislation. I thought about it and then reckoned it would be stupid. Why waste time hoarding juice stocks when the four horsemen are close to trotting into Northamptonshire? It must be true because Sarah Palin said so. In 2008 she laid claim to be of “the final generation” and that she’d see the End Times in her lifetime.

It’s when you hear stuff like that you really wonder whether it’s worth bothering to walk the dogs or cut down on bacon. If she was a bit more precise with a day then at least I’d know whether or not to order some more silica.

I guess it’s the constant barrage of doom from one corner or another that has just got me to the point of giving up with all of it. Take the Llanelli Star this week: “E-cigarette ban would be ‘suicidal’ for industry, says business”. Surely I can’t be the only person getting bored with the constant cycle of people being afraid of ecigarettes while other people let rip with hyperbole?

But then maybe this is it.

Maybe this is how Ragnarok starts? Maybe Palin is correct? Maybe this entropic spiral into daytime TV show mentality and shock headlines is just the beginning of the end. I tell you what though, if it happens before Vapefest I’m going to be more than a bit miffed.