The Wolf Of Wall Street And A Vaping Wino

With the kids off doing their own thing before we got up on Sunday - as they increasingly do now they're approaching teenhood, in possession of a travel card, and still with leftover Christmas money - Mrs P came up with a brilliant suggestion that we don't recall being able to consider in the previous dozen years or so.

"It's 10:30am, if we get a wiggle on we can catch the noon showing of The Wolf of Wall Street"

So we did, and I can recommend it as an amusing and quite disgracefully rude romp through 80s and 90s junk brokerage culture (don't go if you're easily offended by nudity, by the way ... lots of it, oh, and shagging too).

On a side note, the number of smoking scenes were many although it's clear that Jonah Hill has never puffed on a real tab in his life, not great when portraying a character who is supposed to have spent much of his waking life "fucked up" on just about every drug known to man.

Having said that, it was interesting that when Rob Reiner - crooked investment banker Jordan Belfort's (Leo DiCaprio) Dad in the film - was around, smoke was notably absent. One scene in particular, where all in the boardroom were discussing the merits of different dwarf entertainers - "no, it says here he'll get his cock out" - while smoking with abandon, altered completely once Reiner stormed into the office to criticise their expenses a few seconds later. The air was clean and the ashtrays strangely empty, as far as I could see.

I expect this will be due to Reiner being a bit of an arse about smoking. There's no way he's going to butter-lubricate his way out of a car to act in an Oscar-nominated film if he has to fake cough and wave his way through it, eh? It just wouldn't be right. I presume DiCaprio would have had to hide his e-cig off set too in case Reiner snapped it in a smokerphobic rage.

Anyway, that's not what this article is about.

You see, when we got parked, Mrs P went off to buy bags of Haribo from the pound shop (no way we're paying £6.50 for popcorn) while I bought the tickets. As I crossed the street to meet her in Puddlecoteville's shopping mall for a snatched panini lunch at Costa, there just to the side of the doors were two local winos. I've seen them before, many times, but something was different. It took me a while to work out exactly what because it was so very unexpected.

At 11am-ish, one was chugging on a Tennants Extra and the other a Bulmers, no surprise there. But while matey with the Tennants puffed away on a cigarette, his pal was clutching - and vaping - what looked like a Tornado V3 or something damn similar.

Not even a cigalike. A bona fide refillable!

There I am, about to watch a film starring one of the most glamorous people in the world, when I come across someone most would consider one of the least glamorous ... yet they are both united by their appreciation of vaping.

I'm starting to get an inkling as to why these devices seem to upset the pharma-enthralled bansturbators so very much. Every time they see one - and sightings are becoming commonplace now - it's yet another smoker not toeing the line and quitting or replacing tobacco in the manner they've been told to. After all their years of structured droning, for tobacco controllers this must feel like being whacked over the head with a baseball bat while the world around them laughs in their face.

Bless.