Fads and gadgets come and go. Spotting the right place and time for something that perfectly captures the technological zeitgeist of a generation is no easy thing – but we are masters at our game.

There are many great questions such as ‘what is the meaning of life’, ‘do germs get ill’ and ‘are chickens really little dinosaurs’. All of them pale into insignificance when faced by the greatest question of all: what kind of vaper am I?

No matter where you looked this week (be it the Greenock Telegraph, the Pharmaceutical Journal or Italy’s Sig Magazine) everybody seemed to be talking about how successful vaping is. For the very first time, more than half of Britain’s vapers have quit smoking – or “Gran Bretagna, vapers esclusivi superano consumatori duali” as Sig put it. Congratulations everybody!

While this week’s articles were being compiled, consideration was given to how the immediate environment could be improved. But then the notion that Hull is 2017’s UK City of Culture came crashing into my consciousness. I wasn’t thinking about Hull, I try to as little as possible, but there it is. Makes sense I guess, seeing as the UK is hosting the International Festival of Road Works and everybody wins prizes at primary school sports day.

It is often said that in the land of the academically challenged the man with the online survey is king. By “often” we mean “never“, and by “said” we mean “something we just made up, so not said at all“. Which is why we have embarked on a quest to see if there are any research studies comparable to those floating around the vaping community. We have been successful.