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The extra 24hours vaping is not going to be the only thing vapers will notice in what no one has yet called The Year of Change: Doctor Konstantinos Farsalinos became a well-known figure within the vaping community over the last twelve months. If he wasn’t publishing scientific studies or ripping other studies to shreds, he spent the last twelve months being interviewed and advocating for vaping. It will come as an almighty shock then that the TPD is forcing him to throw in the towel.

We found someone in Greggs who was willing to speak on the doctor’s behalf. “For sure, it is going to be a different world without him,” said Carole, a semi-professional Come Dine With Me viewer. “But I will be continuing to support Konstantinos.” Supporting indeed, as he is due to announce his intention to take up bare-knuckle fighting and is set to take on Brad Pitt behind the Wetherspoons in Kettering next month. Cynthia Pett-Dante, Pitt’s manager, has yet to deny the speculation.

Farsalinos isn’t alone as many vapers and advocates questioned whether it was worth bothering following the news from the European Court. Scott igetcha69 is moving over to making videos reviewing cross-stitch patterns, Mark Toddy McTodd is on the verge of announcing his intention to begin stamp collecting while the whole of the UK Vapers forum is rumoured to be set for a makeover – as an online venue for fans of Um Bungo juice drink, renamed UB Drinkers.

How can the vaping world change so dramatically? Well it all comes down to the things Jeremy Mean of The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) hasn’t said. We are all fully aware that atomisers will be restricted to 2ml in volume and that refill containers are to be limited at 10ml – but has he also said that you can only vape on a Tuesday? No. This mean-spirited individual could well have an untold number of plans yet to be announced.

The likelihood is that if a juice or device manufacturer wishes to obtain a licence then not only will they have to undergo a costly and lengthy administrative procedure – but they will have to do it while wearing roller skates, a tutu and singing the theme tune to Happy Days. Falling over or forgetting any of the words will result in immediate disqualification. We know this as well-funded Big Tobacco corporate lawyers have been spotted and photographed preparing their submissions.

But then there are the resolute bunch of hardened vapers and vendors who will refuse to be oppressed. For them the only recourse is going to be subterfuge and flying under the radar. Stealthvape is in the process of moving premises to Zanzibar while Scopes Eliquid are appraising whether or not Trading Standards can get to them if they relocate to a trading estate in Syria. We believe they said Syria but could have misheard them saying Slough – either way they’d probably be equally inaccessible.

For those who intend to stick with the new approved products we will sign off this forecast by predicting the likely winners of the end of year awards. There is no doubt that best mod and atomiser will go to the only legal one on the market: The British American Tobacco Shitstick™. Juice of the year will be either Ashtray Experience or Stale Tabs from Phillip Morris’ Taste of Ash range.

Or maybe it won’t be this bad, no one knows.

Barely a week goes by when someone doesn’t ask to be sent the entire stocked range so that they can use their five subscribers to send vape company turnovers into the stratosphere. Do not laugh, it is almost highly probable that Auntie Joan, Granddad Kevin, Lucy from down the road, Pikey Dave and Jazz2000 have huge buying power and are incredibly influential in the vaping community.

What is incredible about these requests is that they come from reviewers with amazingly high video production standards. Clicking on the links they supply is like being taken into worlds co-created by Steven Spielberg and James Cameron – with maybe a hint of Alan Parker.

When you combine awesome reviews with the comments you can see why vendors feel compelled to give away products for nothing. Or, as Pikey Dave writes after one scintillating two minutes and nineteen seconds: “Innit tho lol yeh wooo”. We’ve touched on this before but with the huge growth in the number of vapers here’s a detailed brief for anybody considering making a competent review online.

Location – Location – Location

Do not worry that you don’t have direct access to Pinewood Studios. Why not film your reviews in the toilet or maybe that cupboard under the stairs? People are clamouring to witness your hideous taste in home decor, the unwashed pile on the sink behind you or that photo of you and Pikey Dave being arrested in Poundland. On the other hand you may think this is a brilliant moment to show off the old computer Auntie Joan never uses now and the tablet you got for Xmas – put those in the background and the public will naturally assume that you work at Jodrell Bank or GCHQ. This is a mistake, vendors will believe you are too rich and should buy your own things for review. Likewise, some vapers may labour under the misapprehension that you are in league with the MRHA and have seized control of their webcam.

Maintain Your Focus

Remember, this isn’t about the product. Many successful Youtubers make this schoolchild error and invest in a decent camera in order to obtain boring close-up shots that reveal the fine details. Who needs that? These videos are about you getting free shit and being able to talk aimlessly for as long as you want without interruption. All anyone wants to see is a badly out of focus lump of metal being held in front of a badly out of focus hand – keep them guessing, keep them keen.

When Only The Best Will Do – Don’t

Do not buy the best equipment; this stuff will ruin it for everyone. Viewers will be able to see what you’re talking about and who needs that? Stick with the camera on your phone or the laptop. The only deviation from this advice is that you should invest in a selfie-stick. There is a gaping hole in the reviewing community for someone who can talk about things while holding a camera that is constantly moving. Be prepared to think outside the box.

Peaks and Troughs

Life is a rollercoaster so there’s no reason why the review shouldn’t be as well. Spend time getting Grandad Kevin to make a flashy set of intro splash screens for the opening. Augment them with music that is a) pounding, b) something only you and deaf people would like and c) finishes abruptly just as the song gets going. The opening credits need to be the high point of the experience so that everything can go crashing downhill rapidly.

Juxtaposition

Black and white, hot and cold, up and down…life is about opposites so what could be a better follow on from a tight, loud and visually terrifying opening sequence than for you to speak in a monotone or so quietly that people turn their monitors up to full?  Nothing, that’s what. Imagine you are giving a talk about small stones to the massed ranks of the Grimsby Rock Appreciators & Small Stone Fanciers Society – this is the mental image you cling on to. Talk like you do when asked how you are, that monologue where you actually drone on about your backache and foot fungus to a bored and disinterested acquaintance in the street. Put inflection into you voice only for those bits that are teenager-like statements but spoken as if they were a question.

Shine A Light On Me

No. This is something aliens do when they come to abduct people. Light is the enemy – ask any self-respecting member of the Galactic Empire or new First Order. This is where sticking to your guns with cheap filming products enhances your production values. Just in case that atomiser briefly rushes into focus a suitably dark room will render the viewer unable to see it. Providing a great visual service is not important, this is work to help a community, a calling greater than nurses or serial killers have.

A Right Stitch-up

Yep, we all saw the newspaper. We know that the only reason you and Pikey Dave were caught was because someone grassed you up to Poundland’s overweight security guard. But take that feeling of being framed and translate it into your filming. Who needs the video to occupy the whole screen with landscape format when it’s all about painting you in a portrait? Hold that phone upright and make sure you left a big, fat fingerprint on the lens. Filming in portrait mode doesn’t just make your review unique – your channel will be flooded with six people (more than doubling your views) pointing out why this is a crime greater than that perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Framing is everything.

Atmosphere

The only thing better than straining to hear someone drone on about a mech mod is trying to hear them over the sound of a washing machine or a train. Or anything at all that makes it impossible to pick out a single syllable. Consider relocating to a house next to Heathrow. Failing that, get Auntie Joan round to watch Celebrity Big Brother while you record.

Supported Ever More

The final advice to be furnished is that you may wish to give consideration to: think about getting a mate involved. It could be that you are simply too chipper, talented or too interesting and this won’t do. If this is the case then you need Pikey Dave to sit next to you wearing a hat at a jaunty angle. Give him the responsibility for speaking while you wave things in front of your face and nod.

We hope this will help you in setting up your channel and look forward to receiving your begging letter presently.

*All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

One Billion Lives is a film by Aaron Biebert. Biebert is a non-smoker who has never vaped, but after seeing the struggle his friends faced was amazed nobody had documented the corruption, lies and disinformation being used by people supposedly promoting public health.

Seventy-three percent of our survey’s respondents reported that they previously suffered from an ailment as a result of their smoking. Ninety-three percent of respondents went on to say how their health had improved as a result of them switching to vaping. Our survey was clear: vaping works as a quit tool and delivers health benefits.

We are used to the negativity in the media, it has become a predictable part of the coverage of vaping. Whenever there is a positive study there will be an immediate slew of scare stories and a laughably bad piece of opposition “research”. It is facts like this that informed the making of One Billion Lives.

“Everywhere we look, we see big business interests corrupting the truth and affecting millions of lives,” writes Biebert. “We see that in the food industry, healthcare, government, and now with alternatives to smoking. With nearly unlimited funds, the big money always seems to drown out the truth when it suits them.”

“As filmmakers, it’s our job to tell stories that need telling, give voices to the voiceless, and make our world a better place. It’s not every day that filmmakers get to tell a story that can change the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world. With A Billion Lives, we have that chance and we’re not going to waste it.”

We hope that the film goes on to be a huge success and many non-vapers get to see it. There are some select screenings coming up near you – but you need to book a ticket in advance to guarantee the film will be shown. Why not take along a bunch of friends too!

• Monday 14^th November – Belfast Odeon
• Monday 14^th November – Manchester Odeon
• Wednesday 16^th November – Greenwich Odeon
• Wednesday 16^th November – Hatfield Odeon
• Thursday 17^th November – Cardiff Odeon
• Thursday 17^th November – Crewe Odeon
• Wednesday 23^rd November – Swansea Odeon
• Wednesday 23^rd November – Southampton Odeon
• Wednesday 23^rd November – Southend Odeon

Or maybe you would like to arrange a screening nearer to you? One Billion Lives offers a risk-free chance to arrange a showing in your local cinema – you can read more here.

Let us know what you think of the film on our Facebook page.

There was a time when every forum was awash with new vapers asking for coiling advice. More precisely, they wanted to know how to make a 1.4-1.8Ω coil without our dear friend the hot spot. For those of you who weren’t vaping in 2013, this was before everyone began coiling at a ridiculously low 1.2Ω, which, in turn, was shortly before the world went barmy, and began coiling at 1.0Ω.

So not only do we bid hot spots a safe journey to the vape rack in the sky, but we need to shed a tear for all of those over-ohm coils and their stainless mesh wicks. The debate will never be closed; was it better to heat the mesh in a flame or pulse a new coil to bed it in? No one cares anymore; the young vapers of today have no idea what they missed.

And they missed a hundred different ways to manufacture a genesis/genisys/geneysis/geniusises/whatever and still lay claim to originality and an improved quality of vape. The genny had its heyday and then became the weird cousin at a family reunion. Some might like to think it isn’t dead but that’s like attempting to claim the classical British motorcycle industry has never been in a healthier position. You still see Ariel Square Fours on the road from time to time, but they are nothing more than ghosts reminding us of a more romantic period. As is the genny, a product from a bygone era that kindles warm memories in the hearts of those who once owned one. Or several.

And how did the genny come to be owned? Through websites no longer with us and the F5 button. We will miss you, F5. As rumour cascaded down the vaping grapevine of the launch of a new product, keyboards used to be smashed into oblivion by vapers desperate to get their hands on something that would hit harder, taste better or look more, err, whatever it was. It is time for the F5 button to be prised from its place and buried near the cabbages.

We also commit the word Pinoy to the place beyond this realm. As the vaping boom really began, never have so many grown adults got so excited about metal tubes doing the job that all the old metal tubes did. At least, not since they argued late into the night about whether a genuine metal tube could be any different to a cloned metal tube. Pinoy goes to its final resting place, now their wares have slumped from fashion, alongside clone wars arguments.

Because there was once a time when we were ecstatic about the prospect of a mass new product launch. In 2014, to be precise, we were flipping out over twenty yes, TWENTY new mech mods being launched at Vapefest. That was set to double the number of original mods on the market.

We commit these items from vaping’s history to the ether, and cherish their memory for delivering us to a point where vaping is working for over 2.8 million people in the UK alone. What a great job they all did.

Firstly, this gateway thing: The data says there’s no gateway, the experts say there’s no gateway – flip, even the Welsh government’s own health survey said there was no gateway. But, still, public health nannies insist on dragging it up. So if they aren’t going to read the reports or listen to harm reduction advocates, we thought they might be open to hearing from experts on the topic of gateways?

To this end, we have issued invitations to a number of gateway authorities. Firstly, that strange little lady from Poltergeist as she knew it all when it came to getting both in and out of the television set. Then we asked Ben Feldman. Although many might not have heard of Ben, his work on As Above, So Below marks him out on being a true portal expert. Lastly, and probably quite scary to some of a nervous disposition, several farmers from The Archers, for obvious farm gate reasons.

The public health bods also love to knock vaping because of the flavours available. It’s blindingly obvious that these are part and parcel of why eliquid works so well but, again, they aren’t listening. We need even more experts so we asked them. We’ve phoned up Heston Blumenthal and he’s agreed to come on board to explain how flavour works for adults. Also, Tori Amos replied to our postcard. “Will you choose fear, or will you choose love,” she sings on her misspelt and slightly boring song Flavor. Our final expert was born to take part as he, like vaping is cast to be, is a public enemy: Flavor Flav. We’re going to fight the power and say to Stanton Glantz: “Don’t believe the hype”.

We feel it is essential to have some giants in the scientific community in order to produce press releases on batteries. We are delighted to announce that Steven Hawking (black holes), Brian Cox (the one who says “amazing” all the time, not the one from Planet of the Apes), Spock (science officer) and Sheldon Cooper (Ph.D., Sc.D.). If Sheldon tells you that the problem is with people not understanding how an electrical circuit works – and not with vaping – you stay told.

Also, as a similar thing worked so well for Tony Blair, we have roped the entire cast of Casualty on board to put across the medical profession’s opinion on vaping. While some might have wanted real doctors – this lot will say anything we pay them to say, they’ll say it well and we get to arrange lots of gory accidents.

There’ll be no stopping us now, not with this incredible team. All thanks to Stealthvape – always thinking the unthinkable.

At the outset, let us just say that we adored Animaniacs. It’s important to remember this love as we plod through the next couple of sentences. Your dalliance with DC characters has been an “absolute failure”. Not our words, just something we read on Rotten Tomatoes. And every other movie review site.

Batman vs Superman? The dysfunctional Suicide Squad dialogue? And now you’ve contracted five independent scriptwriters to produce five different scripts for Wonder Woman? It sounds like you need some Stealthvape support.

Imagine the scene, it’s a dark and gritty sky over Gotham. Anyone but Ben Affleck is kicking back in the Wayne Mansion with his feet up on an old desk, vape curls up from his top lip. The door creaks, in comes Albert. “Master Bruce,” say the bent old man. “Not a lot of people know this – but there’s a new super squad of evil rampaging through town.”

We’re not even a couple of minutes into the film and we’ve already got cooler tech going on than anything Batbloke had in his belt. Everyone loves vaping these days. Vaping and killer dialogue from anti-heroes.

So who’s this evil gang? Joker? Messed-up face? The bloke who does lame riddles? Nope. It’s crossover time; movie fans love crossovers. Say hello to The Legion of Evil.

Flashback.

For Lion, Rabbit, Raccoon, Elephant, Pig and the other Care Bears this was just another normal day at the nuclear plant. Five minutes of mayhem later and the irradiated posse became bent on pandemonium and destruction. Or, as the witty but amoral Uncare Bear says: “Panda-monium”. She laughs after saying that. Killer dialogue.

Because evil.

Fast forward again. Batchap, his soul crushed by the perma-dark of Gotham but mainly by the last abysmal feature presentation can no longer face fighting crime. Albert is packing travel vape kits and the pair of them go off to live in Miami. As the plane takes off, Supervaperman’s vapemobile crushes the gravel in Batchump’s ex-driveway.

“Join my great fight against the malevolent horde,” implores Supervaperman. Plumes of cereal-scented vape clear to reveal yet another crossover moment. Surely it can’t be true? But it is. It’s none other than Ponies For Justice.

It’s the feel-good, fighting evil hit of next summer. It’s vapetastic explosions, clouds and snappy one-liners (designed to be the only things people remember and put into memes). The story arch is a rainbow, Rainbow Dash is a rainbow and even the rainbows in the films are rainbows. Rainbows, unicorns, ponies, evil bears and vaping – “it literally couldn’t be more exciting”, says the poster for people who don’t understand the meaning of literally.

We are prepared to act as consultants for the production of Supervaperman – Man of Feels; Dawn of Flufftice.

It is very rare that we come across vape items exuding this level of quality. It is exceptional that one atomiser can appeal to absolutely everybody (*except Mexicans, social democrats or terrorists). The atomiser was designed and built  100% in the USA by a Trump employee picking up the phone and calling China.

The first 1,000 units come in a gift box with a free sample of Trump Hair cotton wick – that works by placing a tuft at a jaunty angle on the top of the drip tip.

What can we say about it that the great man hasn’t already said to a large crowd while having people ejected by security: “I know lots of reviewers. I know the best reviewers. They are behind this atomizer 100% because they know I would not put my name to anything shoddy or likely to fail. And it won’t fail because I have all the vapes. I have the flavor vapes, I have the cloudy vapes, I have the vapey vapes. I have all the vapes. And this Trump atomizer, everyone wants it. Even people who don’t want to vape want it because they want a bit of me because I’m successful in everything I do.”

Benefits:

• It is the only atomiser that looks like one of Trump’s buildings.
• It is the only atomiser that stands a chance of defeating ISIS.
• It can even be held in small hands with cocktail-sausage fingers.
• It comes in a range of one colour, that being billionaire/cheesy gold.
• It would perform quite well during a televised election debate.
• Anyone calling it ridiculous will be sued.

So, The Trump Atomiser – coming soon.

As many will already be aware, the implementation of rules in the USA have given companies a push to get new products onto the market before August 8^th. The date is a deadline set as part of the Deeming Rule by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Evolv have been working to produce products that are mindful of the work by Doctor Konstantinos Farsalinos, where he researched the production of compounds from e-liquid at elevated temperatures. This saw them driving innovation through technology focussed on harm reduction with e-cig use by temperature control.

While most seasoned vapers vape their ejuice without a second though for dry burning wicks, some saw a future in a board that could monitor its own and the coils temperature. Vapour could be customised with the earlier boards from Evolv through changing the power to the coil; wattage regulation was an evolution of the customisation that embodied the early vaping scene. The Kick and the DNA 20 were popular, spawning the DNA 30 that sat in many high-end mods of the time. Trouble kicked in when the company launched its DNA 40 as many saw the direct competition from cheaper Chinese rivals as having the potential to kill its prospects.

Concerns about the future for Evolv were kicked into touch when the firm released the ground-breaking DNA200. Despite bringing with it a collection of teething issues, the new product offered up the potential for mod makers to think outside the electronic cigarette box. While anti-ecig public health mouths-for-hire continued to portray vaping as a gateway to smoking for children, and questioned the efficacy of ecigs in general as a means to smoking cessation, the DNA 200 increased safety through the raft of customisable aspects incorporated in the Escribe software.

Quitting cigarettes and enjoying a vape took another leap forward as the benefits from the DNA 200 were bestowed on the DNA 75. For many, this represented real-world vaping and meant devices could use Lithium polymer packs, thereby reducing bulk.

And so to the new DNA 60.

Here is a new board that combines the reduced dimensions of the DNA 40, and the convenience of utilising 18650 Lithium-ion cells, but retaining the fantastic features of Escribe and the customisable advances (not forgetting the safety features) of the DNA 200 and DNA 75. Or, as someone on the Evolv DNA forum said: “Awesome.  The long awaited small format Escribe compatible DNA board becomes a reality!  Yeah!” Its size means it’s backwards compatible with products like the Hana V4D, and able to use the same charger to boot, as well as being excellent news for new mod designers.

The DNA 60 will offer a range of benefits:

·      Temperature protection – coil temperature is monitored via fluctuations in resistance and the power supplied adjusted accordingly. This means that “vapor production”, as the Americans like to say, can be maintained without dangerously high temperatures being reached and risking dry hits.

·      Preheating – coils take a finite time to reach the temperature at which ejuice begins to vaporise. With preheating, the chip supplies additional power to the coil to reduce the lag before it achieves its working temperature.

·      New coil identification – the circuit board will identify a change in atomiser and adjust output to suit.

·      OLED screen – smaller in size compared to the DNA 200/75 in order to reduce the dimensions of the mod or fit into devices currently using the DNA 40.

·      Multiple display information – regarding the wattage, voltage, temperature and ohms can be conveyed to the user.

·      Other display information – battery charge, room temperature, coil material name, total energy of the most recent puff, puff duration, board temperature and puff count.

·      Modes – stealth mode (our favourite for some reason) to prolong battery life, power lock mode to prevent accidental changes, resistance lock in case of reading creep and the ability to store eight vaping profiles to quickly obtain a desired vapour.

Safety monitoring is reported back to the user to highlighted any issues with atomiser problems, a short circuit, a weak battery, a problem battery, if the resistance is too low or too high, if temperature control has been triggered and if the chip has got too hot.

Manufacturers have the option to include an on-board 1 amp micro-USB charger as an alternative to removing the li-ion cell for recharging. Charging through the mod will be safe as the current output from the computer or socket will be detected and the device will only draw 1A. Likewise, polarity protection is included to protect the user, device and board from a wrongly inserted battery.

You can read about all of the features in full detail in the Evolv DNA 60 pdf.

If you’re interested in purchasing a board we would encourage you to sign up for notifications on the product page. This will guarantee that you will receive an email as soon as stock comes in – these are going to be popular and will sell out quickly.

Mr Kirkham had his hobbies. Oh how he had his hobbies. “It’s ridiculous,” Mrs Kirkham regularly took pleasure in pointing out. “Twenty-two men pointlessly chasing a ball around for 90 minutes. Twenty-two men who can barely string together a coherent sentence between the lot of them.”

Or the times she’d exclaim: “And what’s the point of that? A bunch of rich men driving around in a circle trying to find out who is the fastest this week, in cars you couldn’t take to Tesco because they don’t have a boot. It’s stupid.”

In a desperate bid to salvage some peace, Kirkham had accompanied his darling spouse to her first vape meet. Never again. The only redeeming feature of his night had been the well-stocked bar and it’s ability to help blot out most of the conversation. “There were grown men and women discussing wire,” he slurred on the way home in the taxi. “No, they were actually talking about sodding wire. I’ve heard some bollocks in my time but that really took the biscuit.”

He didn’t get why they needed to show each other what it was they were holding either. A metal tube is a metal tube – and a box with three buttons on it is hardly as interesting as watching City pass United off the pitch. Ohms? The only one he was interested in was the one he’d been dragged out of in order to attend the whole sorry proceedings.

“And what’s wrong with us talking about mixed-diameter Kanthal Claptons? It’s hardly like we were swapping tales of the time we saw ‘a DMU Thumper in the now extinct Pitsford sidings’.” She absolutely loathed that night out with the train spotting gang.

More than a couple of years ago there was common ground. It was ground where they’d park up the motorbike and drink, listening to awful rock covers then collapsing into a tent. But their opinions of what constituted a great night out had gone separate ways.

Now Kirkham would be laughed at for wearing his full football kit, despite his distinctly non-athletic appearance, while “the Mrs” would cop flack when she expressed delight at receiving vape things in the post. “Vapemail? It’s post that is delivered by a postman. Pfft, stupid bloody term.”

The casual observer might surmise that this is not a happy relationship but snapshots never tell the whole tale. Mr Kirkham loved Mrs Kirkham and she him. They shared a passionate love for their children, anything featuring Graham Norton and the fact that she no longer smoked. As far as he was concerned she was welcome to go to as many of those daft meets as she wanted to. She closed the front door, clutching her bag of assorted vape paraphernalia. Mr Kirkham smiled, opened a beer and turned on Sky Sports.

John was barely in long trousers in a time when celebrities of the day loved the fact that parents forced their boys to wear shorts. And while we are thinking about stupid things parents made children do in the 70s, why on earth would anyone send their child out of the house wearing a cap and carrying a satchel? Honestly, it’s not hard to see how this developed into a lifetime of struggle.

John stood in front of the cigarette machine hanging on the wall outside the closed shop. Many memories have been lost to him over the years, but buying that first pack of ten Embassy No.6 for twenty pence remains clear to this day. As does that evening, standing in the village bus shelter with the other Youth Club escapees, performing mouth inhales and wondering why people did this kind of thing for fun.

A decade on and he had progressed, as if there were a ranking system for smoking. Now the proud owner of a company car, a boot full of breakfast cereal samples and an expanding waistline, John smoked for England. A local shop readily exchanged cartons of Marlboros for cases of cereal to support his now forty-a-day habit.

John, Dave, Carol? I may as well be a boy named Sue. The appellation is as irrelevant as the background because every smoker began at some point and escalated. For most of that time we’ve convinced ourselves that we really enjoyed the habit, the smell and the wheezing. When we were young we were invincible. Sure, smoking causes diseases but we were destined to be one of those few people still happily smoking into their 90s. Our lungs were made out of stronger stuff than mere cells and tissue.

And we were all brilliant at quitting because (and told this line each time as though it was original) we’d done it loads of times. But you don’t quit a forty-fag habit just like you don’t stop a dependence on twenty; the numbers mean nothing, the addiction is everything. John was as successful at dropping the smokes as he was at convincing supermarkets they needed to stock more bran-based products. The world really doesn’t like bran for all it goes on about the need for us to be healthy.

Sue, Sophie, Bob or Kevin discovered vaping. They, you and me found a way out. If it is only as far as a substitute for smoking then at least it’s at least 95% safer according to the recent reports, but John was aiming to quit for good. Quitting for good for once and for all.

He remembers last Thursday as clearly as he remembered that day in 1976. Last week was the first time he purchased some 0mg juice. It forms part of the vaping journey that saw him initially using 24mg liquids before cutting to 18, then 12, then 6. Then 3mg. Some might like to knock the efficacy of vaping as a means to stopping smoking and curbing a nicotine addiction. Some might like to talk to Gary, Clare, Helen, Josie, Jim and Gary. They might like to talk to Dave because, although they may consider it only anecdotal, there are quite a lot of Daves doing it.