University Of Bath Finally Get Serious

Great news!

A south western seat of learning is, for a change, hosting an event which is more serious than their regular fare.

The University of Bath will host what is billed as Britain’s biggest paranormal conference next week. 

Seriously Strange will run from Friday, September 6 to Saturday September 7, looking at issues from ghosts to telepathy. 

It features 30 speakers including Bafta-winning screenwriter Stephen Volk, former MP Lembit Opik and poltergeist investigator Guy Lyon Playfair. 

More than 200 delegates from all round the country will attend the event, which organisers say will include debates, research and live paranormal experiments. 

Organiser Dave Wood said: “This is a huge weekend packed with the weird and the wonderful – everything from poltergeist to vampires, UFOs to telepathy, monsters to shamanism. Subjects are addressed in a serious way by top experts in their fields.”

Well, considering their previous efforts have focussed on trying to pretend minimum alcohol pricing is a great idea; producing a hilariously inept website which seeks to undermine e-cigs; coming up with heart attack reductions which don't exist from a hopelessly compromised shill; and pretending pubs haven't been closing since the smoking ban, this event could be their most believable to date.

It's a step in the right direction, I s'pose.

H/T Moonrakin

The Rovers Return

Just a quick note to say that the Puddlecote Midlands jaunt is now over and that there will be no selection of links tomorrow morning. After a week of being dragged round theme parks, safari parks, souvenir shops, overpriced eateries and chocolate factories as a walking wallet, with the reward being to drive three sleeping bodies back from each destination (not to mention the three hour return trip with only a Killers CD for company), I have no intention of emerging from my much-missed duvet before midday.

In fact, you'd be better placed telling me what's been going on.

Not that I haven't stolen a few moments to trawl some favourite blogs and comment threads, mind (mostly late with a glass of Chilean Sauvignon Blanc in a country garden containing far too many flying things for my liking). The pick of which has to be this comment from Anna Raccoon's report of the excellent news that a Scottish mental hospital smoking ban has been ruled illegal.

I am not sure that my reaction to cigarette smoke is exactly the same. For example I swim laps daily, which requires controlling your breathing so that you breathe in when your face is out of the water and breathe out when your face is underwater. If someone comes close to the pool and lights up a cigarette, I immediately find that my breath catches or stops, putting me off my stroke or sometimes making me swallow water, even though I have not yet seen that person or identified who is smoking. There are no false positives. I would imagine that the cause of this is irritation caused by invisible particles discharged from the burning cigarette which probably falls through the cooler air above the water and settles on top of the water.

So, second-hand smoke can cause drowning now? It's imaginative, I'll give it that.

Normal tabloid guff will be resumed shortly (including perhaps the best e-cig sighting ever!), but for now I'll mostly be ploughing through the seventy-odd e-mails you kindly sent me while I was away ... and wondering what on earth possessed me to spend nearly £20 on Wednesday attempting - and failing - to win a bloody soft toy minion!

Midlands Marvels

It's more than likely that these pages will be sparse in the coming days as we Puddlecotes are on our hols. However - especially for Junican - I must report some encouraging e-cig sightings on our travels so far.

A couple with two kids vaping what looked like eGo Twists while driving a weathered red car through a safari park next to us; a woman throwing out some impressive vapour from a cig-alike at a theme park yesterday; and - most impressive of all this afternoon - a forty-something couple using tank systems in the gardens of Shakespeare's birthplace while watching actors taking requests for favourite passages ... just before we adjourned to a pub garden where, out of the six occupied tables, the tally was two with smokers, two with non-smokers and two with a combined total of four vapers. One even being advanced enough to be using a 'mod' which he stood on the table between puffs.

Now, I see quite a few e-cig users in and around Puddlecoteville, but the Midlands appear to be a thriving hotbed of e-cig revolution activity. Bravo!

What's more, there was no perceivable reaction from anyone in their vicinity - it's like e-cigs are now accepted as just another normal facet of life round here.

Hence, presumably, the recent furious drives to ban them and the accompanying lies and deceit, as reported by the Times today.

Health experts who recommended that the Government tighten the regulation of electronic cigarettes failed to declare their financial interests in Big Pharma’s rival products. 

A panel of academics met twice to discuss licensing e-cigarettes before the medicines regulator decided this summer to classify them as medicines rather than as consumer products. 

Against the wishes of much of the nascent e-cigarette industry, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency ruled that e-cigarettes, which contain liquid nicotine and not tobacco, do not meet safety and quality standards. 

At the meetings held at the MHRA’s London headquarters in May 2011 and January this year, the chairman asked the expert panel to declare any interests. Minutes of the meeting in 2011 obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act show that “no interests were declared by members”. However, some members of the panel worked as consultants for big pharmaceuticals companies and advised on nicotine.

And they try to tell us that the tobacco industry is corrupt? Sheesh.

Link Tank 24/08

The top link is my favourite of the year so far.

Seven reasons the news looks worse than it really is

The good old days of the cigarette girls before joyless prodnoses interfered

Nanny Bloomberg proves conclusively that he's never been that interested in health

Being a typical 7-year-old boy is now a punishable offence in American schools

Going mental over menthol

Linda Lovelace is not a porn star

Bizarre things you are paying for - number 279

Harm reduction for beer: Developing the hangover-free brew

Canadian dentist plans to clone John Lennon from a tooth

Caveman curries

Frozen frogs

NHS Pharma-Based Service Is Brilliant, Say Pharma Shills

You know that study - widely reported on the BBC the other day, and propagandised by Nick Triggle - about how hugely successful the NHS stop smoking service is?

Well, here is the source document.

There were four authors. Robert West (RW), Sylvia May, Matthew West (MW), Emma Croghan (EC) and Andy McEwen (AMcE). Scroll down the linked page and check out the conflicts of interest.

RW is a director of the NCSCT, undertakes research and consultancy for companies that develop and manufacture smoking cessation medications (Pfizer, Johnson &Johnson, McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline, Nabi, Novartis, and Sanofi-Aventis), has a share of a patent for a novel nicotine delivery device, and is a trustee of QUIT, a charity that provides stop smoking support;

MW has a share of a patent for a novel nicotine delivery device.

EC previously worked at the English Department of Health as the delivery lead for tobacco control policy, has received travel funding, honorariums, and consultancy payments from manufacturers of smoking cessation products (Pfizer, Johnson &Johnson, McNeil, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Sanofi-Aventis), and receives royalties from a book on smoking cessation and a book on health promotion.

AMcE is a director of the NCSCT, has received travel funding, honorariums, and consultancy payments from manufacturers of smoking cessation products (Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, and Novartis), receives payment for providing training to smoking cessation specialists, receives royalties from books on smoking cessation, and has a share in a patent of a nicotine delivery device; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

This is what the BBC considers impartial headline material. Right to reply will, then, naturally be offered to Allen Carr, ECITA and the tobacco industry very soon. Yes?

Well past time that the licence fee was scrapped, doncha think?

H/T GB via FB

Pathetic Britain

From Manchester Evening News:

A tram driver was caught smoking an electronic cigarette while at the controls – by a passenger who snapped her in the act.

Err, this is news?

She was pictured by a commuter travelling from his home in Whitefield to his job in finance in Sale. 

The 35-year-old passenger, who asked not to be named, said he saw the driver rummaging in her handbag while the tram was stopped at Shudehill – before she smoked the e-cig all the way to Market Street, where he got off.

All the way to Market Street, eh? It must have been hell on earth to witness that ... through plexi-glass.

Be afraid, be very afraid

He said: “What I saw wasn’t acceptable. I couldn’t believe it when she pulled out an e-cigarette. My first thought was for passenger safety – it’s clearly a distraction and the driver shouldn’t have anything that’s distracting.”

It is quite incredible what chicken littles can deem as a danger to safety these days.

The driver was sitting in front of a sign saying ‘Please do not distract the driver while the tram is moving’.

Nothing was distracting the driver except, perhaps, some pathetic prodnose taking pictures. Would this effete plank be equally concerned if she was scratching her nose while driving a mode of transport which doesn't require steering? On this evidence, probably yes.

The passenger added: “There should be policy on this. Anything that is taking the driver’s attention away from their job has got to be a bad thing. Luckily I was about to change trams – if I’d had to stay on it would have bothered me more and more.”

And this precious tart should never be bothered by anything at all. It's his birthright, so it is.

Metrolink chiefs told the M.E.N. they have asked staff not to smoke the e-cigs on the network as a courtesy to others – and are developing policies which could prohibit passengers from using them too.

And why is this, Metrolink? Any evidence of harm you might like to point to?

Human resources boss Marie Daly said: “We have taken the steps to develop rules and procedures for the whole company which stipulate that e-cigarettes should only be used in designated areas."

Designated areas being, presumably, the pavement.

“In the case of one of our drivers using an e-cigarette, we have spoken to the driver in question to ensure their understanding of our position regarding this subject, more from a safety point of view as the use of an e-cigarette may mean they could be distracted from their job.”

Oh do fuck off.

Remind me, how the hell did this country survive two world wars?

Failure Is Success; Real Success Must Be Banned

On the same day that the BBC hailed the NHS stop-smoking service as its 'jewel in the crown' despite spending just under a billion smackers on an appalling success rate, comes this ... also from the BBC.

Merthyr Town Football Club is to rename its ground the Cigg-e Stadium after its sponsor, an electronic cigarette firm.

Great! A company selling products with a far superior track record than patches and gum are giving something back to the local community. The story has win/win daubed in bright red paint all over it!

But a doctors' professional body said the marketing, sale and promotion of E-cigarettes should be restricted.

Which makes said 'doctors' professional body' a collection of repulsive monsters, in my opinion. But then, that's precisely what we have come to expect from the BMA.

But BMA Cymru Wales, responding to the renaming of Merthyr's ground, said the sale and use of E-cigarettes needed to be regulated urgently "to ensure they are safe, quality assured and effective at helping smokers to cut down or quit".

Smokers are already cutting down or quitting - in unprecedented numbers - as a result of using e-cigs, they are 'helping' like a motherfucker.

And, err, they need to be regulated urgently? Too late sunshine, they already are, under 21 - count 'em - 21 different EU directives.

General safety
General Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC 

The RAPEX system – notification and alerts of dangerous products

Technical Standardisation under Directive 98/34/EC  (an option not so far used, but could be used to set performance or design standards) 

Packaging and labelling
Dangerous Substances Directive 67/548/EEC 

Dangerous Preparations Directive 99/45/EC 

Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures – the CLP Regulation 1272/2008 applies from 2015. 

Chemical safety
Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation (EC) 1907/2006 

Electrical safety
Low Voltage Directive 2006/95/EC  

Electro-Magnetic Compatibility Directive 2004/108/EC

Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive 2011/65/EU (where appropriate) 

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive 2012/19/EU 

Batteries Directive 2006/66/EC 

Weights and measures
Making-up by weight or by volume of certain prepackaged products – Directive 76/211/EEC 

Nominal Quantities for Prepacked Products Directive 2007/45/EC 

Commercial practice
Sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees 99/44/EC 

Distance Selling Directive 97/7/EC 

Directive on Electronic Commerce 2000/31/EC 

Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive 2006/114/EC 

Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC 

Data protection
Protection of Personal Data – Directive 95/46/EC

If this is an 'unregulated' product, the OED must have redefined the word 'unregulated' quite dramatically without our knowledge.

Remember that, with 1.3 million users in the UK and growing - pulling tens of millions of cigarettes out of the market, as in the USA - e-cigs have had a massive hand in the paltry 1% decline in smoking prevalence since 2007 mentioned in Nick Triggle's pathetic NHS proselytising exercise today ... again on the BBC site.

So while the BBC have been loudly praising - on every platform available to them - what is, actually, utter failure of a state-funded operation, the real reason for declining smoking rates is quietly being undermined on their South East Wales pages.

You see, in BBC circles, this isn't really happening ...

Source: ASH .. yes, ASH!

... while their disgusting chums at the BMA are desperately scrambling to stop e-cigs helping any more smokers to quit.

It's never been about health, you know.