A Perfect Population Level Experiment

The NNA spotted a superb statistic on Friday at the government's Tobacco Control Debate. I don't know about you but I think this deserves more attention.

Yesterday in a debate on the government’s Tobacco Control Plan in the House of Commons, Sir Kevin Barron highlighted the gulf between the UK and Ireland, two countries with identical traditional tobacco control policies but with differing approaches to e-cigarettes. Between 2012 and 2016 smoking dropped by nearly a quarter in the UK . In Ireland, where e-cigarettes are viewed with suspicion, the smoking rate actually went up in this period. 

Here is the Hansard entry for it.

I want to give a comparator and to refer back to my intervention on the Minister. I chaired the Health Committee in 2005, after we had fought an election on a manifesto commitment by the Labour party to introduce a ban on smoking in public places. I stood on that manifesto, but the ban proposed was not a comprehensive one. The Health Committee, of which I became the Chair, investigated smoking in public places. We went to Ireland to take evidence, because it had had such a ban for about two years. 

I will now demonstrate the effectiveness of e-cigarettes by comparing smoking rates in the UK versus those in Ireland, where every other approach to tobacco control is identical to those in the UK, such as plain packaging, retail display bans and marketing promotions all stopped. In recent years in the UK, smoking rates have dropped by almost a quarter—according to the Office for National Statistics, 24.4% of UK adults smoked in 2012 and 15.8% in 2016—and the UK now has the second lowest smoking rate in Europe. In Ireland, which has exactly the same tobacco control as we put through this place over many years, smoking rates have stagnated: 23% of adults smoked in 2015 and 2016, dropping to 22% in 2017, according to Healthy Ireland stats. That shows how the use of e-cigarettes has been good in reducing smoking in this country.

As the NNA has shown with their links, Hansard and Barron are actually wrong here. In Ireland the rate was reported as 22% in 2012 (chapter 3) and 23% in 2016. Maybe Barron was confused himself, perhaps it didn't compute. But both figures are derived from the same source, Tobacco Free Ireland.

But whether it is down by 1% or up by 1% matters not, this is a real life experiment which is just about perfect. In the UK smoking rates have nosedived, while in Ireland they have barely shifted. In the UK we have a supportive environment to e-cigs, in Ireland high profile politicians are doing everything in their power to turn smokers away from them.

We are not comparing the UK with a country with vastly differing levels of disposable income here, far from it. Ireland is a country on a par with the UK as far as the economy goes.

What's more, we're not comparing with Africans, south east Asians, Indians, Scandinavians, Americans north or south or antipodeans. We are comparing with our nearest cultural neighbours, so closely aligned are we that we don't even enforce passport requirements between the two countries.

The British and the Irish are about as good a comparison for ecological purposes as there can possibly be.

And, as Barron said, the only difference between UK policy and Irish policy is that over here our government cautiously welcomes new nicotine products whereas in Ireland they don't.

As I mentioned only yesterday, if politicians really want to get smokers to quit smoking - because that is really what they want, isn't it - this should be compelling stuff.

For a political class who consistently say they always wish to act on evidence, this is about the best quality evidence they can get. A population-level, real life study of two almost identical countries - with just the one difference in nicotine policy - but with vastly differing outcomes.

So why are other countries not scrambling to emulate the indisputable success of promoting safer alternatives to smoking that this inadvertent experiment proves? Well, I guess it also shows that the other tobacco control policies legislated for in that timescale - of which there have been many - are completely and utterly pointless. And I suppose there is always the fear that if smokers actually did what politicians pretend they want to see, tobacco tax receipts would also plummet, and they are fully aware that the economically fraudulent propaganda tobacco controllers spout about smoking harming the economy is utter bollocks.

So bravo to Barron for highlighting such a stark comparator in the House of Commons chamber. You just have to wonder why the tobacco control industry and other politicians, both sides of the Irish Sea, have been so silent about it, whereas if the results were the other way round they would be screaming it from the rooftops.

It's never been about health, you know. 

#Brexit Fallout

Life is still weep-inducingly busy at Puddlecote Inc. Building work means we are interviewing prospective staff in our vehicles, while the 19 new bespoke vehicles we ordered are starting to arrive and being kitted out by our fleet guys. Brochures are out to the printers but staff nerves are frayed at such a lot happening all at the same time.

It's exhausting stuff which is why I've had no energy (or inclination sadly) to write anything here since last week. And what a week I've mostly missed!

I'd planned to spend the EU Referendum night at the IEA for an all-nighter but slumped in a sofa around 6:30pm on Thursday with no thought whatsoever of making the trek up to Westminster. However, with nothing on TV I decided at around 9pm to drag myself there just to say hello for an hour or so before getting a kebab on the way home and collapsing.

It didn't quite work out like that though once engaging in conversations ...

... and enjoying the IEA's (in)famous hospitality.

Greeted at the venue with the words "welcome to the wake", a pro-Brexit attendee humorously signalled what those who had voted leave expected to happen. The British public looked set to chicken out and just go with the 'safe' option, to succumb to fear of the unknown and let the EU carry on taking the right royal piss. The markets said so and the bookies - whose price on Brexit had flown out during the day from slight odds against to 20/1 at one stage - said so.

How wrong we all were!

Spending the evening with economists and keen political wonks who have studied all the referendum data to destruction was incredibly interesting. When the first result came in from Gibraltar - a thumping 96% vote for remain - one in the group I was talking to said "that's not actually bad, we were expecting 97%".

Then, when the Newcastle result was announced ("strong student population, should be 56% remain") as a comparatively paltry 50.7% majority for staying in, the astonishment began. One well-connected leave campaigner was confident enough after that declaration to shout "We're going to win! We're going to leave!". And so subsequent results seemed to go the same way; I stood close to one analyst who seemed to have encyclopaedic knowledge of all of the regions, and apart from a few outliers, all the results were exceeding Vote Leave's best hopes. It was gripping stuff and impossible to tear oneself away.

The team who produced Brexit The Movie were obviously more than thrilled at this, it's fair to say they were positively buzzing.

As you can see from the clock behind them in the picture above, I stayed well beyond when I had originally planned. In fact, I ended up nodding off on the morning commuter train and getting home in time to wave the girl P off to wherever the hell it is that teens go once they've finished their GCSEs.

I don't think I've ever been more proud of my country in recent years. The British public had heard a monumental amount of often ludicrous scaremongering and withstood it; ignored it; going instead with an instinct that democracy, sovereignty and self-determination are things this country values highly and always has done.

Then the quite astonishing shit-flinging from butthurt remainers began. Anyone who voted leave was obviously "stupid", "racist" or just plain evil. One alternative comic stated on Twitter - with no hint of irony - that "17m people have voted for Fascism", seemingly ignorant of the fact that denying democratic will of the public is almost a definition of fascism.

Unsurprisingly, the 'public health' community have been front and centre in this mass outpouring of grief that the public has dared to disobey commands, as I obliquely mentioned on Twitter yesterday.

It's v amusing seeing ppl who've never run business & only ever sucked on public teat self-declaring as experts on economics & global trade

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) June 29, 2016

But that's what 'public health' liggers are all about, the pursuit of a perfect echo chamber. Just last month we witnessed exactly this in relation to a debate held in the same room where last Thursday I marvelled at the wisdom of the British public.

Prior to the IEA's debate about the TPD and its effect on the free market surrounding e-cigs, numerous invites were sent out to 'public health' personnel to give their side of the story. The IEA were actively seeking out an opposite viewpoint but for tobacco control, especially, debate is something to be avoided at all costs. All invites were refused. Likewise, in April the RSPH managed to host a 'debate' about vaping in workplaces which was devoid of anyone who has actually run a business.

Now, we are seeing a whole host of 'public health' tax spongers crawling all over social media insulting anyone - even those who generously engage them - and insinuating that they are somehow inferior or ignorant for voting leave. Only someone whose income is guaranteed by the state machine should be allowed to make such decisions about the EU obviously, and if you dared to have weighed up the evidence and come to a different conclusion to aforementioned tax spongers, then you're obviously a retard.

'Public health' has increasingly devoted itself to excluding any input from anyone who disagrees with their world view. When invited to speak, they not only want to know beforehand who else is speaking but often who is in the audience as well. If there is any chance they might meet real people they run away screaming, so is it any wonder at all that they now scream foul when real people have rejected the ideals that they and others in their echo chamber take for granted.

And, as is customary for tobacco control especially, this is evidently proof that those who disagree with them are instantly classed as stupid. They couldn't have made their own decision because their own decision isn't what 'public health' considers to be the right one. Ergo, they must, of course, be ugly and illiterate racists.

It beggars belief, it really does.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In the past couple of days we have seen politicians rallying round reality and realising that Brexit is real and that the winning margin - as referendums go - is a thumping one. It was a clear message and it should be respected. Sadiq Khan, who campaigned for remain, has come out and said Brexit could be good for London, the Conservative party has not gone into meltdown but instead admirably embraced the idea and looks to be behind the public's decision. One by one those who were upset by the result are falling in line with the will of the people, as they bloody well should.

So we're increasingly left with just the spoilt, the entitled, the fearful of losing EU funding, and the deliberately intolerant still arguing that the referendum was wrong and should be re-run or even ignored.

Yet again, boys and girls, we are on the side of the angels. And yet again 'public health' are showing themselves up to be selfish, intolerant, and quite disgusting trolls who should be exorcised from civil society. May God rot them all.

Tough Times At Puddlecote Inc

I was at the Global Forum on Nicotine at the back end of last week which featured a showing of A Billion Lives. As many readers will remember, I was not enamoured with the the trailer in the slightest last year so I shall be writing a review about it at some point when I get time.

Time being the operative word because the Puddlecote Inc re-organisation/refurbishment is in full flow with a hell of a lot going on at the moment. It was expected that we were going to endure a very tough few months to deliver a necessary office building project and a large new piece of business all at the same time, but needs must and my team is doing incredibly well under some pretty tough conditions.

For those of you not on Twitter, here is a glimpse of the state of our offices at the moment. For example, this is my desk yesterday.

Behind that plank of wood (don't ask me what it's intended for) is a newly-created hole in the wall behind which were a couple of guys using a kango and a 'big breaker' to dig out a channel to serve one of the new toilets being built and installed.

The noise has been unbearable so yesterday - despite being incredibly busy with contract mobilisation efforts - we had no choice but to give the office staff the day off. A couple of key personnel had to work remotely from home to provide a skeleton service but that was about it. After a relatively peaceful day today (just the odd circular saw buzzing away), we have to do the same again tomorrow for one last day of hellish noise.

It also doesn't help that there is no water, what with not having much of a kitchen to speak of ...

... so the only way of providing tea and coffee is by buying in big bottles of mineral water from the Sainsbury's Local round the corner.

And as for the loos, well they're at the rear of the maintenance yard for the next week or so at least.

And all this while the clock is ticking for getting finance, new vehicles, staff recruitment, route schedules, PR materials and more in place in time for the new contract start date.

I've got plenty of things I want to write and only a few hours tonight to get some thoughts down - maybe even publish something else - before the pressure kicks in again in the morning. It's never been more uncomfortable at Puddlecote Inc and also never been busier, but wouldn't we be so bored otherwise, eh?

Happy Days At Puddlecote Inc

I was planning to write about today's amateur and laughable CJEU judgement on article 20 of the TPD (and ASH's gleeful jubilation at the banning of many vaping products) but something pinged in my inbox at 5pm which changed things somewhat.

You may remember last month I mentioned a large contract Puddlecote Inc was waiting on ...

The tender we submitted is in the region of £650k pa for a contractual seven years and would entail significant staff recruitment to cover, as well as vehicles to source in a hurry. It's not something you approach lightly so in advance of this we have undertaken a major business reorganisation. This involved taking on three key professional managerial staff for our office (one more will be necessary if our bid is accepted), renegotiating around 40 staff contracts, and commissioning building work to extend the premises to cope with the added workspace that will be required should we be successful. It has been a process which has been many months in the planning, has been quite costly (and continues to be), unfortunately involved unavoidable redundancies, but gained me three free coffee cups and a load of post-it pads from a grateful Reed Employment.

Well, we've just found out that - pending a few routine contract approval procedures - we have been awarded it!

As I said at the time, this means that there is now a lot of work to be done and my time is going to be squeezed.

Of course, if we do win it then the contingency plans for that go into effect and all hell will break loose! At which point you won't see hide nor hare of me during certain periods I expect.

By crikey, my options for sneaking away to the cricket on weekdays this summer look likely to be diminished too.

A Whatsapp group with my office staff has been buzzing away this evening with a combination of excitement at the award, and trepidation as to the extra efforts which will be required to implement the contract successfully. We're arranging a lunch tomorrow for all of them to say thanks for their efforts so far in gaining the new business and also to brief about the plans we have to put in place straightaway for such a large undertaking.

The overall feeling is that these are happy (if undoubtedly stressful) days to come, and I have to say that it's at times like this I'm proud of the team we have assembled at Puddlecote Inc HQ.

There is one of my key personnel who isn't on Whatsapp, though, so I had to text him instead. He's our Fleet Maintenance Manager (FMM), a down-to-earth guy who will be tasked with helping to source the large number of extra vehicles required and keeping them maintained and regulation-compliant along with the 70 odd he already handles.

It was a short conversation:

DP: We won the new contract.
FMM: Fuck! 

I think a new bonus scheme might be in order.

Breaking Eggs To Make Omelettes

After a particularly hectic week at Puddlecote Inc, it's worth my posting a notice to warn that you might be reading very much less on these pages in the near future (stop cheering at the back!). It replaces the usual Saturday links because I simply haven't had much time on the net to gather them this week.

To explain, I'll roll you back to 2008 when this tabloid junk (© Ben Goldacre fanboys) first appeared and the output was prolific. Back then the business was a fairly small operation, from memory only employing around 30/40 people. Our March 2016 payroll was a little more involved with 118 staff members being paid and our turnover having roughly tripled in the intervening time too.

On top of this, I'm waiting on news of the outcome of a significant tender exercise which took around a month to compile; if you've wondered why content here has been pretty sparse of late, well that would be it.

The tender we submitted is in the region of £650k pa for a contractual seven years and would entail significant staff recruitment to cover, as well as vehicles to source in a hurry. It's not something you approach lightly so in advance of this we have undertaken a major business reorganisation. This involved taking on three key professional managerial staff for our office (one more will be necessary if our bid is accepted), renegotiating around 40 staff contracts, and commissioning building work to extend the premises to cope with the added workspace that will be required should we be successful. It has been a process which has been many months in the planning, has been quite costly (and continues to be), unfortunately involved unavoidable redundancies, but gained me three free coffee cups and a load of post-it pads from a grateful Reed Employment.

The purpose of all this - whether we gain the additional business we've just tendered for or not - is to sweep away some of our inefficient practices and better position ourselves for the future. We do, after all, operate in a very competitive sector and I must admit that our competitors are starting to appear rather more of a threat of late, so we had to react to that. With the changes we've made, the likelihood of retaining current contacts at renewal - because we have to compete and not just rely on 40 years of uncontested state handouts like some  - and capacity to expand has been enhanced so the investment will have been worth it whatever happens.

This particular contract award is imminent and there is still lots to be done in preparation so articles will continue to be sporadic at best for a while. Of course, if we do win it then the contingency plans for that go into effect and all hell will break loose! At which point you won't see hide nor hare of me during certain periods I expect.

Cue, I suppose, months of impending hideous 'public health' nonsense which will require comment. Wouldn't that be just typical?

Seven Years Of Deadly Sins

Today is the seventh anniversary of this blog, yes really! Described once early on as "tabloid guff" by a Ben Goldacre fanboy - a badge I have carried with pride ever since - we've tripped the light fantastic and cartwheeled 'cross the floor here since.

By way of a progress report, visits continue to tick up despite content becoming more sparse through pressure of work. Since 2008, there have been 3,157 articles published attracting 25,658 comments at time of writing and 2,808,143 page views according to miserly Sitemeter (Google Analytics reports a more flattering 3,585,000 plus, don't ask me how). Still an increase over an already good year last time out but with ever-decreasing articles, it's almost like homeopathy or something.

This less is more thing will, however, be sorely tested in the coming months because business is taking up more and more of my time. I enjoy recreational writing of an evening but posts here will dramatically reduce from hereon in, I just can't spare the time despite the vast riches quite clearly being lobbed my way by Big Tobacco.

Many thanks to all of the nearly 300,000 souls who have popped by this corner of the internet in the past seven years. In the spirit of Alcohol Awareness Week which began yesterday, I shall tonight be attending a fesity-looking event marking 10 years since mythical "24 hour drinking" was initiated and downing a Peroni or few myself in your honour. Other drinks are, of course, available if you feel like joining in.

Sure As Night Follows Day

Oh good, it's all still here.

These pages have been empty for a number of reasons recently. Puddlecote Inc has been dogged by large scale staff sickness, not helped by a further two drivers being called up for jury service in the same week! Your humble host then got smacked out of the park for 6 by a savage flu bug which could have been designed by the Devil himself, all of which was then topped off by a family tragedy over the weekend. There is still some mopping up to do after all that but things will return to normal over time.

In the meantime, there is news out today from Australia about that tobacco black market that was, apparently, just an industry lie during the campaign to install pointless plain packaging.

ILLEGAL tobacco is booming across Australia with a 30 per cent increase in black market trade in the past two years costing taxpayers more than $1.35 billion, a new report has found. 

Illicit tobacco continues to fund international crime syndicates with record tax increases and plain packaging fuelling the demand for cheap counterfeit and contraband cigarettes, according to the report released today.

Considering this is a quite obvious reaction to tax rises and removal of popular branding if you were to talk to any smoker, it shouldn't come as a surprise. But a facet of every tobacco control campaign ever created is to deny the bleeding obvious and pretend it's all just a creation of tobacco industry imaginations. You know, pubs won't close because of smoking bans, there is no shift to black market when you tax tobacco, and smokers will simply carry on buying their fags as normal in plain packs ... except kids who will magically no longer see them, that kind of thing.

Tobacco control sees only policies they want enacted, and require their demands to be backed up by faith in the denial of basic rules of economics and human nature. But then, anti-smokers have never really understood people anyway, and the only numbers they care about are those in their back account.

British American Tobacco Australia (BATA) spokesman Scott McIntyre said people were down-trading from legal brands to the black market “in droves”. 

“Illegal tobacco is mainly smuggled into Australia from overseas and sold at much lower prices than legal cigarettes, avoiding tobacco excise tax obligations,” he said. 

“They’re normally under $10 a pack, have no health warnings and aren't plain pack compliant.”

What's not to like? Smokers have long since worked out that government hates them, so why respect the laws government lays down, eh? Smuggling is seen as a victimless crime and those providing the black market operate in an increasingly friendly environment. In Puddlecoteville, for example, the local community is well served by the milkman - he's going to enjoy an even larger customer base once daft politicians have finished their plan of making all boxes gory and beige.

As Snowdon notes today ...

If it does nothing else - and we can be fairly sure it won't reduce legal sales of cigarettes - plain packaging will bring the size of Britain's non-duty paid tobacco market into sharp focus. Any cigarettes that are not in 'standardised' packaging will, by definition, not have had UK duty paid on them. You will see them wherever you see smokers. This observable fact will come too late to prevent the ridiculous policy being introduced, but the reality of plain packaging will make it impossible to deny the reality of Britain's black market. 

The UK's smokers mostly couldn't give a rat's fart about being loyal to the rules of a government that despises them. In fact, there's a certain joy to be had from buying off the radar and depriving the exchequor of a few bob, I always find.

This is precisely what is happening in Australia.

“Smokers are literally walking into their corner store and asking for the cheapest pack available,” Mr McIntyre said.

And if you want to see what that looks like, here's some undercover filming of it happening down under.

There's no reason to believe Australians are any different to the British, so we can fully expect an increase in the black market in Britain too once plain packs comes in, just as the campaign against the stupid idea predicted. Except with a turbo-charge added to the effect thanks to our proximity to Europe with its freedom of cross border purchases.

So once again politicians fix nothing while the black market creates more profits for gangsters and terrorists, and cheaper smokes become available with no control on sales to kids - and all the while, tobacco companies rightly queue up to sue them for theft. Nice job, idiots.

Anti-Vaping Lie Comprehensively Busted (Again) By The NHS

To begin with a parish notice, the tumbleweed blowing around this corner of the internet recently has mostly been a result of pressure of work. I'm still mired in submitting for new business while also suffering the added complication of a sustained period of unusually heavy staff shortages which is shoving me out on the road on a regular basis.

The effort is paying off though, as we celebrated the largest remittance advice in our history landing in the Puddlecote Inc mail yesterday with one of our clients having a pre-Christmas clearout and paying £212,000 in one hit! Oh how I wish I'd had a Tardis at hand to go back and wave the little slip of paper in the face of the mid-90s me to assure him that the 16 hour days are/were worth it.

Yesterday was also a good day for producing this.

E-cigarette use rare in non-smokers, NHS survey shows 

Just 3% of adults are using e-cigarettes but almost all are current smokers or those who had given up, according to a new NHS survey of people’s health and lifestyles. 

The disclosure further allays fears voiced by some doctors and health campaigners that “vaping” could attract non-smokers who then get hooked on traditional cigarettes containing nicotine. 

The Health Survey for England 2013 found that 3% of its 8,800 participants aged 16 and over were using the devices, which have become popular in recent years. Some 29% of smokers and 6% of those who had quit said that they had used an e-cigarette, whereas just 1% of people who had never smoked had done so. Few children have tried them, it found.

This is yet more overwhelming evidence - after studies by ASH, the smoking toolkit and others in the UK which match the global trend - which proves that any tobacco controller or politician talking about there being a 'gateway' into smoking with regard to e-cigs is clearly a blinkered fantasist, an inveterate liar, or quite simply ignorant.

There isn't even any evidence that vast numbers of never-smokers are taking up vaping, let alone the extra absurd leap of logic which is required to claim that these pretend people would then bin their cheap, multi-flavoured e-cigs and plump instead for vastly more expensive, one-flavoured tobacco.

What's most amusing though, is the reaction of commenters at the Guardian piece to this new study. Mentions of the Pope's religion and bears shitting in the woods are woven into the thread as a recurring theme. Most are more worried that the NHS budget has been used to discover something so patently obvious. For example.

thomasdavid10 December 2014 11:22pm 

Er...why would I want to use an E-Cigarette if I dont smoke "normal" cigarettes?

So not only is the contrary evidence for this daft theory overwhelming, but the public wouldn't have expected it to be any other way. As hard sells go, it's right up there with flogging a guard fox to a chicken farmer. Any tobacco control industry dinosaur who still thinks pumping the 'gateway' line is a winning strategy is either incredibly stupid or so in hock to their pharma buddies at cost to their professional integrity as to require psychiatric supervision.

They're a bit like the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail; you cut their legs off, you ...

.@ASH_LDN Maybe so in UK, but looks very different in Poland http://t.co/xhiKFRAR4Q
— Simon Chapman AO (@SimonChapman6) December 11, 2014

Six Years Later ...

Today is the sixth anniversary of the evening when your humble host first asked "is this thing on" and began publishing what one early haughty detractor - to my great delight - once described as 'tabloid guff'.

Since that time in 2008, there have been 2,933 articles published here attracting 24,240 comments and 1,979,852 page views according to Sitemeter (or 2,909,702 if Google Analytics is to be believed!). Despite having to devote increasingly more time to my business - and subsequently less time on here - average daily page views are encouragingly up 5% on this time last year and April 2014 was the second most visited month in the history of the place.

Today is also noteworthy for me because I've just submitted a 21 page 11,000 word Puddlecote Inc tender submission for a potential £6 million of business over the next five years which has frazzled me for the past fortnight. This will, I hope, go some way to explaining the lack of content here recently. It is only a brief respite though, before I begin to tackle another hefty tender bid which will almost certainly lead to a few more article-free days in the next week or so.

Considering the above, and since today is also the start of Alcohol Awareness Week, I am very aware that a generous number of sherberts with a good friend of mine are definitely in order tonight.

Many thanks to all of the more than quarter of a million unique visitors who have passed this way since 2008, I shall raise a glass in your honour this evening, to be sure.

So Long And Thanks For All The Furballs

As mentioned this time last week, content has been sparse here of late which - after checking my calendar for the week ahead - is a trend which looks like continuing for a few more days at least. My evening schedule for the next seven days consists of an end of term presentation at the girl's school; a cricket match with the boy; a celebration meal with extended family; Forest's excellent Freedom Dinner; and our company's eighth annual summer party.

Regular readers may have noticed the lack of a link tank yesterday too. This was due to our being preoccupied with a pretty nasty Saturday.

RIP our beautiful cat who went to sleep today after 16 wonderful years. We miss him terribly already.
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) July 12, 2014

As you can imagine, this had a lot to do with why tumbleweed was billowing around this place in the days that preceded it.

We only had our first idea that something was amiss on Monday - the second day that the old fella had left his food untouched but was sucking up water like a sponge. It's not like him at all so I prepared myself for the usual fierce battle to get him into the cat carrier and down the vet's Tuesday morning, only to watch him walk in without a fuss the moment I opened the front grille!

On hearing that he wasn't eating, the vet's brow furrowed and she suggested he be kept in overnight for blood tests. The next day I received a series of phone calls checking agreement for further tests, an ultrasound, and x-rays - complete with an ever-mounting bill - which eventually led on Wednesday evening to a crushing diagnosis.

Fears that it might be something wrong with kidneys, liver or perhaps pancreas were well-founded as it turned out his insides were all screwed. His 16+ years had caught up with him in an all-too-sudden way.

We were given steroids and antibiotics to try to alleviate the symptoms but he was having none of it, refusing to eat even his version of crack cocaine - chicken sticks and marmite - in which we could hide the tablets. At a further visit on Thursday, we were told that it "wouldn't be a wrong decision" to put him down there and then, but that a vet-administered appetite booster could help to get him eating and taking the medication. We were advised to book another appointment for Saturday morning and left in the hope that something miraculous might happen in the meantime, but knowing that it was more likely to be his last day.

So it was to be, and he fell asleep for the last time in Mrs P's arms at about midday yesterday.

It was an extremely tough day, especially due to the incredibly short lead time and since he was older than the teen kids so they'd never known what life was like without him. We'd first got him in 1998 and he was nearly two when the girl was born; and three by the time the boy arrived. In the early years he had meekly suffered the girl tying ribbons to his tail and trying to ride him like a pony; and kept his claws sheathed while the boy found it highly amusing to yank his tail or chase him around attacking him with plastic swords. Despite all that, he grew up with them and was like a third sibling.

When it all ended, the kids were crushed and tearful, and Mrs P and I were thankful for our two great friends Nick O'Teen and Al K Hall as we sat in the July sunshine and felt totally flattened.

What surprised us though, was the reaction of our neighbours. We've had a steady procession visiting here to tell us how sad they were to hear of the news, along with stories such as how they'd leave a door open to empty their bins only to return and find him happily preening himself on their sofa, or how he would position himself outside their front garden to solicit strokes from visitors and passers-by alike. All of which came as a complete surprise. The general consensus was that he had installed himself as the 'owner' of the street, and that he wasn't just ours, but also partly the pet of those living near us. When we Puddlecotes were all - with very heavy hearts - getting in the car to have him put to sleep, two families came out at the allotted time to say their own goodbyes!

It's been deeply sad, but we've also experienced a great amount of pride. We've lived in rented flats and houses while the business was built up, and now in a distinctly urban mortgaged semi, and he's always lived on fast-moving main roads with cars, buses and trucks flying by, yet he was streetwise enough to live a long life of unfettered freedom before an end surrounded by those who really loved him. If I'd been offered that when he was small enough to sit on my hand in 1998, I'd have taken it in an instant.

I suppose this is a roundabout way of explaining why it's been quiet around here recently, and why it will likely be similar for the next week at least. It's only a short hiatus though, sooner or later I'll be able to actually write something on the many notes I leave myself in Blogger's drafts.

I'm beginning to think that, as the obvious tobacco/alcohol/e-cig/junk food/fizzy drink/salt/sugar/gambling industry shill that I am regularly being accused of, I'm not really worth the non-existent cheques I'm being sent, am I? For shame.

Irrational Revulsion

Regular readers can't fail to have noticed that content here has been sparse of late. Well, almost non-existent is a more accurate description.

This is a result of real life in Puddlecoteville thrusting itself rudely front and centre like John Terry at an award ceremony. The fallout from four days away in Poland (see event report here) was an inevitable catching-up exercise at Puddlecote Inc, since - due to being booked way back in February - the trip just happened to coincide with necessary purchasing of four new vehicles and a renegotiation of the financing of our company premises. Most of the past week has therefore been spent by my either answering a backlog of 80 odd emails, or tip-toeing between two different bank lenders who are fighting like cats over debentures and worst-case-scenario priority over our assets (the plus side being that we traded them off against each other for mad keen interest rates). There was the odd cricket match and the usual family stuff to distract too, natch.

In the meantime, I've missed a lot but will hopefully be back on the keyboard for a few days before an even more hectic week looming from the 14th.

For a Sunday night listen though, try this half hour report on e-cigs before it is archived by the BBC website. Apart from the sensationalistic intro - where the presenter describes his "irrational revulsion" at seeing someone vaping while also displaying a herd-minded and typically hysterical nanny Beeb attitude to real tobacco smoke in the distance - it is a decent piece.

I'd urge you to don the earphones and listen to it in full, for one or more of the following points I found amusing or curious may interest you too.

Firstly, it came as a big surprise that - as mentioned around 11 minutes in - the government's Behavioural Insight Team (BIT) became aware of e-cigs as a way of "finding alternative solutions to regulation or just throwing money at problems" in 2010!

Funny that, because it was in June 2010 that the MHRA - a government body itself - threw money at a public consultation for a product they had decided was a problem, and attempted to regulate e-cigs out of existence before they knew anything at all about them.

No, really. The consultation text made it quite clear what they had planned.

In order to ensure there is no risk to public health from unlicensed products on the market that have not been assessed for safety, quality and efficacy and in the light of the developing extent of their use and familiarity we are consulting to elicit views on whether and how to bring all products containing nicotine into regulation. 

Option 1 – Whether products containing nicotine should be considered by the Agency to be medicinal products by function and, if so, whether all unlicensed NCPs should be removed from the market within 21 days. 

The MHRA’s preferred option is option 1, which is in line with current practice.

This move was only headed off by a monumental response from vapers which made it impossible for the MHRA to proceed. I don't remember the Behavioural Insight Team having anything to do with it, do you?

In fact, as described by Clive Bates in the comments here, the MHRA were still trying to nobble the consultation results even while the BIT was - apparently - identifying them as a great tool for harm reduction. Sounds like bollocks to me, but hey.

However, political douche-baggery aside, it is very encouraging that their spokesman is using hindsight so wisely here, and I reckon that this is something they could use to the government's advantage in light of May's election results. Because if the BIT think that e-cigs are such a force for good, why not advise HMG to reject entirely the EU TPD's ridiculous restrictions on them in 2016, eh? It would fit very well with the stance against interference from the EU we all voted for in May and would show the world that Cameron does actually possess a pair of balls, as well as kinda fitting in with his party's promise to abolish pointless red tape. What's not to like?

Look out also for the BBC's recognition of the dramatic effect of e-cigs around 22:00 or just before; for the accurate ridicule of provincial pillockry with the statement "policy in Wales is being driven by caution and fear"; and - for some comedy - marvel at Mad Stan Glantz say "I don't trust the tobacco companies" while being regularly caught telling huge whoppers (a character trait not missed by the BBC), and using the same fraudulent methods as other proven liars.

If your curiosity has been piqued, do pour your favourite beverage and go listen to the programme here.

The Cliff Edge Perils Of Puddlecote

This was going to be a short parish notice explaining why content may dry up for a while, but it's more serious than the usual run-of-the-mill 'pressure of work' so some may be interested in more detail.

2013 is turning into quite an extraordinary year for Puddlecote Inc which has led to my slipping back to working days of 12 hours plus, something I thought I'd left behind in the late 90s/very early noughties.

It's mostly as a result of winning a far greater amount of work than I'd planned when placing bids for long contracts. The general success rate I budget for is around 20%, so when awards come in at around twice that, there is a hell of a lot to do. Any businessman will tell you that rejecting work will inevitably harm your quality score with the client, making future awards far less likely, so is to be a last resort. Yet already, for cold practical reasons we've had no alternative but (with much tearing of hair, gnashing of teeth, and almost tears from yours truly) to hand back two smallish offers and are desperately struggling now to cover the rest with a competent service until the cavalry arrives.

The juggling this entails with begging overtime from current employees; desperately pursuing swift recruitment; and - most annoyingly - striving to comply with state red tape which seems designed specifically to hinder growth or put us out of business altogether* is a proper headache. But this also comes at a time just after we have opened a new south coast branch which requires special nursing (hence my journey there recently), and also while we are preparing documents and liaising with a client to defend our two stand out biggest contracts when they come up for re-tender, after five years in our care, in March.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Well, yeah, mostly. But financial concerns then come into play. Finance for new vehicles is front-loaded, and everyday costs for running trucks, paying staff etc have to be incurred well before the 30 or 60 day credit receipts start rolling in. The only way round this is by talking to banks about creative finance arrangements and banks - as you will have read widely in recent years - are extremely careful these days when it comes to lending cash. On any given day in the past month, we've been a couple of days away from running out of liquidity. Big suppliers of parts, tail-lift engineers, and maintenance contractors are being wonderful in accepting subsistence payments, while a fuel card bill which is constantly close to its credit limit has to be serviced almost hourly with part payments to keep the engines running. All while the VAT and HMRC bills sit there with their rigid deadlines saying "fuck you, pay me" like some character out of Goodfellas. No point in trying to negotiate with them, you just end up with an inspection.

So I'm producing cash flow forecasts up to three times a day, and compiling monthly debtor predictions right up to February next year to make the case for extending credit facilities beyond where our bank feels in its comfort zone. It has required forming a new debenture on directors' assets, the creation of an invoice financing draw-down scheme, and an overdraft extension of 60% for the coming 30 days, all of which needs to be approved by the credit management personnel at the bank ... none of whom we will ever meet, and who don't seem to understand the concept of urgency because boy are they leaving their decisions late!

If that great big jigsaw puzzle fits together, we're gonna have a relaxing and happy Christmas and around 10 more people are in employment; if one piece doesn't fit, the whole thing goes bang and Lord knows where that takes us and 107 brilliant current staff.

So ... if you don't see anything on these pages for a day; two days; even more, that is most probably the reason. Actually, scratch that, it is the reason. And if I owe you money, please don't ask till November, at least (cos I can't even bloody pay myself at the moment!).

* Up to 13 weeks (a quarter of a year!) for VOSA to change a single ASC11 character of our O licence, for example. Plus a pointless state regulation which cost us £20,000 to overcome in the past year, £20k we could really do with right now.

The Creatures Outside Looked From Pig To Man, And From Man To Pig ...

Busy in Puddlecoteville again, and likely will be for the next few days.

However, after yesterday's revelation that Labour despise the working man (and woman) so much that they will lie to deprive them of their meagre pleasures, I couldn't help but notice this exchange in the commons yesterday.

Angela Eagle (Wallasey, Labour): Many of us were shocked by the omission from the Gracious Speech of the promised legislation to ensure plain packaging for cigarettes. The public health Minister, Anna Soubry, publicly supported the proposal, and when the Leader of the House was Secretary of State for Health he said: 

“The evidence is clear that packaging helps to recruit smokers, so it makes sense to consider having less attractive packaging. It's wrong that children are being attracted to smoke by glitzy designs on packets.”

Note: Anna Soubry supported the proposal when she had no business doing so as a minister before a public consultation has been concluded. If this was done by a Tory about a policy Labour disagreed with, they would be scandalising Soubry and calling for her resignation.

Andrew Lansley (South Cambridgeshire, Conservative): The hon. Lady asked about standardised packaging. I initiated the consultation on standardised packaging, and I did so, as I said at the time, with an open mind. As my right hon. Friends have made clear, no decision has been made in response to the consultation on that. I think that the hon. Lady will recall that the nature of the Queen’s Speech is to put forward proposals for legislation where the Government have decided what their policy is, not to venture into legislation where no policy decision has taken place. It is completely false to imagine that there was ever a question of including reference to standardised packaging in the Queen’s Speech; there never was, and it would not have been appropriate to do so.

As we see above, Labour are desperate to bypass a consultation (to which half a million citizens objected) because they couldn't give a flying fuck what you think. And they are brazenly happy to employ bare-faced lies in doing so.

While Tory Lansley - to his credit - at least recognises that the public are a feature of something which is called, err, a public consultation.

Why do Labour hate the electorate so much that they will lie their arses off to ignore their views? Wasn't their movement originally set up in objection to Tories and Liberals doing exactly that to working people?

Clever man, that Orwell.

If Things Go Quiet ...

Life is rather sweet at Puddlecote Inc. at the moment.

We've recently been taking contracted work away from competitors, which is always a nice feeling, but along with the increased turnover comes the increase in bureaucracy with tricky legal TUPE transfers to be negotiated with each new member of staff. Guess who has to do that.

Another part of our business has been quietly blossoming with regular work burgeoning from three sites of one client. So pleased are they with our service that there is great potential from other sites ... and we've just found out they have around sixteen of them! We've tentatively engaged a business development professional on a commission basis and are hopeful of some good business to come. If he pulls it off, we could be adding to our staffing by around 20% in a very short space of time. Of course, if it does, your tabloid-gushing host is going to be mighty busy with presentations, price negotiations, and recruitment while our fleet and maintenance team suffer cold sweats at the thought of vehicle sourcing and the nightmare of inspection lunacy and other nonsensical red tape they are going to be put through.

To complement, our website is in need of a comprehensive overhaul (hence a meeting with our designers last week) and there is even a new off-shoot venture being contemplated which promises to be very lucrative but also labour intensive.

Then there are the usual woes resulting in the recent end of the tax year, domestic obligations which will be familiar to anyone with pre-teen kids and ... the cricket season has started!

This is my roundabout way of saying that posts might be sparse or non-existent on these pages for the next couple of weeks. Regular readers will have noticed that there has been a slowdown already, well now you know why.

In light of all this, jewel-robbing fun may be significantly - but only temporarily - curtailed for a while.

In the meantime, if you haven't already, please do follow my Twitter feed where I often link to articles I'd dearly love to write about if I had the time (I'll work out how to do a widget here for it one day, promise!).

Short On Inspiration

Content may be sparse for a few days due to my having far too many hats to wear at the moment.

Mrs and Mrs P Snr have just moved house which has been a burden on my time, while I've also just signed a contract which could increase Puddlecote Inc's turnover by 10%-20% with any luck.

There's also the not inconsiderable amount of time being spent getting the little Ps to cricket training and matches, martial arts events, netball training and other such stuff, all out of school time.

The reason for outside clubs being necessary for their activities is illustrated by the girl's school experience with athletics this month. Due to a scarcity of entrants, she was press ganged into taking part in the sports day's high jump competition. Never having done the event before, it was quite a surprise when she not only won it, but also narrowly failed at a height which would have broken the school record for her year.

We asked her what award she received for her achievement and she replied that there wasn't one. Not a cup, medal, certificate or even a sticker. She just took part, won, and then it is all forgotten about. I was surprised they even know what the school record is since they attach so little importance to it.

To make matters worse, as champion she was naturally chosen to represent her school in the high jump event at the district school sports day. Warming to the task, she asked if she could practice after school for a couple of days before the event to ensure a good performance. The reply was that no, she couldn't, and that the teachers thought the best approach was to "rest" (laziness or health & safety, you decide).

In the year when the Olympics come to our country - with much fanfare and the slogan "Inspire a Generation" hanging from lamp posts up and down the torch relay route - here we have a member of the younger generation receiving barely a pat on the back for performing well, and then being stopped from enjoying sport more when she was 'inspired' to do so.

And don't get me started on the boy being told he can't bowl overarm at a very rare inter-school cricket competition because "other children don't go to out-of-school clubs so aren't as good as you".

For all the talk of inspiration, I don't see much seizing of the Olympics opportunity where it actually matters, sadly.

Competitive Tendering: A Personal Anecdotal Update

Last Spring, some may remember a piece here on public sector competitive tendering; the way that it now arguably costs the taxpayer rather than saves; how it is a right royal boon to Puddlecote Inc; and how, despite that, I still fundamentally despise its EU-led, self-serving administrative pomposity on principle. Go read it if you have time, as it is a pre-cursor to this latest chapter.

You see, in that article I explained how our competitors had been whittled away in the past seven or eight years. Where there used to be around 120 of us battling for the opportunities from public sector contracts, at time of writing last April it was down to just under 40. We were successful in being accepted for that particular framework, but things have moved on somewhat since.

In what, at times, resembles a game of oneupmanship, a different authority re-tendered their available work in our field ... with even more administrative pre-qualification than that described, at the back end of last year.

This time, incredibly, it demanded a submission of nearly 10,000 words, which took me six full days to compose, along with comprehensive vehicle listings; profiles of all staff, along with full CVs in certain cases; and a pricing structure questionnaire running to five A4 pages. This, for an industry populated mostly by industrious working class people not adept at understanding, let alone regurgitating, middle class Sir Humphrey-speak.

Again, it would seem that many of our competitors have thrown their hands in the air and walked away from the whole process (I can tell you that there were times when our own office urged me to do the same). We ploughed on though and, from what we can gather, our competition has now been whittled down by a further 40% or thereabouts.

We thought that would be it, but oh no. Word has reached us that 'presentations' have been hastily arranged for the surviving short-listed firms, with just two days to compile them. We are expected to present - for 40 minutes including Q&A - exactly the same information I spent a week and a bit detailing in shark-jumping detail at the turn of the year. It's like they read all the reams of paperwork and said "Yes, very good. Now, tell us it all again over tea and biscuits.". Fortunately, we are large enough to devote one person's time - muggins's - exclusively to this hoop-jumping exercise, but others have no such luxury even if they were willing and able. There's the small matter of them actually performing the paying employment which keeps their businesses alive, you see.

Remember, there is still not a penny of work on the table yet. This is all just to be placed on a framework agreement for the opportunity to bid.

Anyway, I suppose that's a round about way of telling you that there might not be much content here in the next two or three days, as I'll be busy building an entirely unnecessary Powerpoint slide show to justify the budgets of the concerned authority's procurement division. While I enjoy writing in all kinds of settings, I'm afraid priority goes to doing so where I have the chance of being paid, and that ain't here.

Oh, silly me, I nearly forgot to mention. The said procurement division, as I understand it from someone who retired from there last year, used to comprise 12 staff. They now boast 75.

Still, there are upsides to all this effort, though not for the taxpayer natch. Firstly, there was certainly more wriggle room when it came to pricing this lot up, there being a big drop in competition and all. And one question required of the presentation is dead easy to address, that of our ability to bring in staff to cope with the extra demand. The constant stream of applicants through our doors - from former competitors losing work the whole process inflicts on them - means we won't even have to spend anything on recruitment advertising.

I can only finish with the same denouement as last time.

Remember, our industry is just one small part of public sector outsourcing. Every supplier, in every field, is being put through this.

Competitive tendering is supposed to act against monopolies and cartels, yet EU legislation is actively encouraging them in every town hall up and down the UK.

Sadly, this is the big problem. Whereas the rules on competitive tendering were designed to empower the little guy in providing a service to drag costs down amongst the bigger players, burgeoning administrative demands - through red tape handed down in so many areas it would require a new article just to list them all - means that the public sector is profiting at the expense of efficiency and increased savings to the taxpayer.

It's never been better to be a big fish, and never been worse to be a small one trying to get a first fin on the success ladder. Fortunately, the government are furiously working on the problem, as their incredibly busy Red Tape Challenge Twitter feed shows.

Sigh.

Furniture Rearrangement, Err, Rearrangement

You may remember that we were supposed to have threaded comments courtesy of Blogger from Wednesday. Well, um, sadly there are glitches aplenty with their new tool, so much so that post URLs were compromised and under some platforms the blog disappeared entirely, as a few of you kindly e-mailed to point out. On looking at support forums, these were commonly reported problems so it was changed back. There's work apparently being done to fix these but it's slow in coming.

I'd really taken to the idea of a bit of to and fro in the comments, though, so being an impatient soul had a play with Disqus which offers just that. It all seems to slot in nicely, and if it's good enough for the ASI, it must be pretty decent. If you find anything hideously wrong, let me know.

On another note, do look in over at Pat Nurse's place (edit: and Leg Iron's) if you haven't already as there's a worthy appeal which could do with your modest financial help.

Furniture Rearrangement

Just to point out that I've installed a new widget from Blogger which means you can reply directly to other commenters. The shortcut takes you to the bottom of the comments at the moment, but I'm told they're working to clear that up.

Should liven things up a bit, eh?

One Last Push

Broadband has been down at Puddlecote Towers since Friday night, so I've been out of the loop somewhat and unable to write this tabloid gibber. Instead, I've had to watch that telly thing in the corner (tell me, is Ross Kemp ever not in Afghanistan?), which means I've had a lot of sleep.

Normal disservice will be resumed soon but, in the meantime, the Spectator's parliamentarian of the year nominations close tomorrow. So please consider chucking a vote the way of our esteemed blog mascot if you haven't done so already.

You could mention Philip Davies's stance on the EU (against), his action towards nannyism on tobacco and alcohol this year (against), or just that he's been an all-round good egg by opposing the righteous and defending personal liberties. Your choice.

To do so, just click here and nominate away.

G'wan, it'll only take a minute.

Hanging Wiv Da Yoof

After a July which was the busiest ever for this blog, August may prove to be the most sparse.

This is partly because some mind-bending effort expended back in the Spring has potentially brought in a lot of work for Puddlecote Inc, but also due to a general increase in real life stuff getting in the way (and when that's not going on, there's cricket and some tangible summer-esque weather too).

The weekend did offer an interesting observation or two, though. It's been a messy one for your host after two heavy male-orientated nights on the town. Saturday was particularly eye-opening after a night spent in a town centre nightclub of the 'drinking barn' variety. I can't remember the last time I was attendant at one of those ... till 3am!

Of course, I had no knowledge prior to this weekend how such venues coped with the smoking ban. The one concerned was a multi-level meat shop (great, ahem, scenery) with no outdoor balcony, or any other area to speak of.

Which of course meant hundreds of people on the pavement out front for the duration (so wish I'd had the wherewithal to take a pic).

The club handled it very well but still required three front of house hired muscle just to make sure everything was OK (sneaking in without paying the entry would be quite simple without them there). There being just the one way in, this meant every single person entering the club was to do so by passing the smoking area. All those young people seeing smoking going on must have - according to anti-smoker logic - added another 20 or 30 new smokers to the ranks. Obviously.

What's more, there were three such clubs within close proximity. Two on one side of a one way street, and another opposite. To a passing pedestrian, smoking has never been more visible.

Anti-smokers like to talk of the 'externalities' of tobacco use, but their lauded ban has externalised the act of smoking to such an extent that it now appears more normal and sociable than ever before. All the while clubbers were inside the venue, external noise was not such an issue and the many local authority-paid 'street wardens' were pretty redundant unless someone was thrown out by bouncers. More staff are now needed too, which I'll bet club owners are right chuffed with ASH for.

One wonders how much this talk of "you can see the drunkenness on any city street every Friday night" is down to the fact that, yes, you now very much do see these people where you didn't before as they were inside until kicking out time.

There was an upside, though. While outside, it was a hell of a lot easier to strike up conversations with attractive strangers, plus when one runs out of tabs it's simple to pop over the road and buy more when before - in my more frequent clubbing days - if you exited the venue you were taking a gamble on being allowed back in at all.

You'll doubtless be pleased to know that I admirably survived this trial by £5.50 a shot Peronis, was a thoroughly good boy (stop that sniggering), and arrived home in one piece. Sadly, my computer chair can't boast the same after a friend leaned back in it too much as the sun came up at 5:30am, leaving the 7 year old stalwart in two irreparable pieces.

Until the new one arrives, that's just one more obstacle to my composing 'tabloid' guff, I'm afraid. But then again, I've said such things before so you never know.