Monthly Archives: February 2020

I don’t stand around pubs, loiter in shopping areas or get any reasonable use out of my Speedos at the municipal pool. I don’t meet strangers who are non-vapers and I don’t discuss vaping with my friends. As much as I enjoy it I have the sneaking suspicion that it ranks up on the Interesting Scale alongside stamp collecting, train spotting and whatever the damn scrapbooking is.

Someone who barely knows me signed me up to this social media group, supposedly for freethinkers. The kind of people who, I reckon, spend their days drinking expensive coffee and stroking beards. The kind of people who are probably glad I spend my days at a desk in my lounge.

And, within a week, the subject of vaping came up. And within minutes all pretensions of faux-intelligence left the building as the activity…my hobby…was roundly derided. It was mocked. It was mocked like Biggus Dickus.

Now when you have the physique of an Adonis gone to seed you develop a skin thicker than one found on a school rice pudding, I could handle Mock The Weak. But…but…they were roundly making merry about my tube of steel. It’s never happened before. Ever.

It transpired that they thought I was showing off, that we all vape just to show off. It wasn’t explained what we are all showing off but I bet it’s good. So I sought solace with like-minded vapers. We’re all there for each other – like members of a gigantic family of Waltons. We’re all there for each other, right?

Wrong.

The first thread I went into on the forum, the first post I read was by someone who had clearly been interfered with at Vapefest by a man wielding a Hellfire. “I hate anyone who spends £XXX.XX on a mod,” he cried in the style of a person who hadn’t heard the Elite War was over.

That’s when it struck me. That’s when I realised what vaping is and what vapers have become: we are the new cyclists. People in the real world hate us just for doing something we enjoy and subsets of us hate each other because…well, because reasons.

And so, in acknowledging that this is what we have sunk to I demand we have safety clothing to suit. Cloud chasers, for example, look a ramshackle bunch – the only identifying thing they have is a baseball cap that already looks stupid on anyone not from Harlem. We need apparel. We need lycra. I know what you’re thinking (and half of those words would make your mother blush). You’re thinking Lycra looks stupid.

Have you worn it? The gentle caress as it holds bits of you where they used to be when you were a teenager? It’s ideal for those arching backward moves as you attempt to watch your own exhale from somewhere you aren’t. It offers total flexibility when trying to thread four Claptons into a twin-post dripper. If we are going to be treated and act like cyclists then we may as well look like them.

You should see the headlight I’ve got on my mountain bike – cost a fortune it did. It’s far better than your headlight. I’m going into town now to shine it in people’s faces.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t entertain helping someone to do something so superfluous but John was my designated driver for the night. John was the designated driver every night – none of us owned a car. John the Driver took us to exotic places like the Overstone Lakes in summer so we could fail to meet girls somewhere new, and at weekends he’d drive us out of town so we could embarrass ourselves in front of women in new pubs.

John felt that adding the spoiler to his car did something. I’m sure someone with a better grasp of fluid dynamics can explain the improvement to me. I’m certain it did something to make the car travel closer to the edge of 30mph in built up areas. Maybe it reduced external noise at 60mph on the dual carriageway to Wellingborough? Who cares? What it did was make John smile when the job was finished. He vanished inside to put his eyeliner on and find his Grace Jones cassette.

I never understood men’s fascination with Halfords; I never got the whole go-faster stripe. I never understood it until I began vaping.

Todd, he of the videos on the Internetz, posted a picture of a switch button on social media this week. If anything is the vaping equivalent of Driver John’s automotive aerofoil then this was it. Beautiful inlay of swirling shiny pattern nested in polished steel and provides zero performance benefit, a replacement part to add uniqueness to a device. Superfluous and smashing in equal measure.

It seems as though the last twelve months have witnessed a growth in ways that people are converting their mods into reflections of their own personality. Gone is the frenzied trading of pristine devices on the second-hand market as we appear to be adding our own influence to the vape. Boxes can now be decked out in silicone sleeves, enterprising machinists are drumming up leather coats for high-end devices and dabbling in patinas on tubes has become an all out assault with engraving equipment.

But what the flip possesses a load of us to do this? What are we thinking when we are throwing cash or time at things that have no material benefit to our lives?

According to a psychology study in Texas it comes down to two things, one of which being a desire for control. By adapting the thing we own to be different we are, apparently, tailoring it to ourselves and this brings us a sense of control – and thereby wellbeing despite the control being illusionary. Psychology Today tells us that this is important. What was important to me was to regain the feeling in my fingers and ensconce myself in a pub for the night, who cared if John improved his notion of self-worth? Hell, did you have to suffer that Grace Jones tape?

No.

No, I did.

Jean-Paul Satre would, if he were alive, contend that we invest importance in our mods because they are external displays of the fruits of our labours. As we all strive to earn money we, well most of us, don’t walk home in the evening clutching the thing we made. Him and Locke would argue that our devices are chosen representations of self and our choices for vaping ancillary items are investments in objects that then become reflections of our identity. The time and choices embody our values and identity. They justify work.

I’ve got optional silver pins in some mods, I’ve paid for handmade Vince driptips and there’s a smattering of aftermarket replacement tanks in all manner of coloured Pyrex. I play with all manner of wires types and coil to my exact tastes. There’s a heavy personalised aspect to my vaping and it makes me feel damn good.

You may chose to disagree with John Locke and Satre but there is only one thing of importance to me: if they were in the back seat of that Volkswagen as we headed to Sywell, they would have agreed that we should have listened to Flock Of Seagulls and not Grace Jones.

I knew who the good side were from reading Warlord and Commando comics, which had the added benefit of teaching me some German. As an adult riding a motorbike to Cologne I discovered that “Schnell”, “Gott im Himmel” and “Schweinhund” weren’t as useful as I’d previously imagined. Fortunately I’d taught myself “zwei bier und ein Schweineschnitzel bitte”.

The feeling of posting off my collection of Kayfuns was similar to when my soldiers went back into their Tupperware barracks for a final time before being redeployed to a car boot sale in my mother’s Hillman Avenger. The Kayfun is a mighty bit of kit. After starting with basic stuff, it was strongly recommended to me by the gaggle of admin from a forum at my first Vapefest. Each of them had bought a new one that day and were declaring them the single best thing in vaping ever. When I eventually got around to grabbing my first from Cloud 9 I shared their opinion.

As time rolled on everyone had at least one, whether the genuine or one of the millions of clones that China churned out. My collection stretched to eight at one point. Easy to build on, convenient and a great vape. Well, a great vape at 1Ω+ coil builds on a mech and taking the vapour into your mouth before inhaling.

The problem they created was that I needed my next fix, I needed to recreate that moment when you try something so incredibly better that it transforms your vaping world. I needed the next leap like the one from Evod to KFL.

As quickly as companies released new tank systems I’d buy them. Each time they seemed to be surrounded by people going “Blimey these are good” or words to that effect. And every time I was left feeling the same as I did when the family first got a SodaStream – invariably more complicated and it didn’t taste as good. I’m looking at you here in particular, Erlkönigin.

My disillusionment grew until I rediscovered the dripper.

Dripping and me parted ways as they couldn’t compete with the Kayfun in my affections. They didn’t suit what and how I vaped at the time, but now there a legion of mechs and RDAs on the shelf. It’s a return to the old days, a celebration of what was really great but I’d forgotten about. So, on that basis, I’m selling my iPad and buying a load of boxes of Airfix troops. “Achtung! Achtung!”

Someone at Tactical Workz headquarters must have been offended by the delicate curve of a protractor at school. Or maybe they are assaulted late at night while walking home from a bar by a bunch of right-angle triangles. Whatever happened changed them, the world was no longer a beautiful place to live in and they felt the need to express their anger in metal form.

The thing about anger is that it offers a paradox. Little old ladies become adrenaline-fuelled WWE wrestlers if someone hoots at their driving – but at the same time their all-consuming rage robs the withering brain of its ability to process coherent thoughts. Feelings of weakness and self-doubt become externalised as conflict or, in our case, the Tactical Workz Lotus rebuildable dripping atomiser. Some people look at the city of Hull and believe it’s ugly. These people have never seen the Lotus.

This isn’t an attack on any one company…even if they did go on to make the Dreadnaught; a mod so hideous that its best use was as a blinding implement so you never had to gaze on it again. No, this isn’t an attack on any designer; it’s a statement that sometimes engineers should stick to playing with lathes. Good ole’ engineer stuff. When I discover something I’m good at I’ll stick to that instead of writing this drivel.

You see I was always told not to worry about my visually challenging appearance. I was told that there’d be someone out there for me who could appreciate my inner beauty. I was told I couldn’t put people in a re-education camp and I had to wait.

There’s no waiting with mods – the appeal holds firm regardless of how ugly and horrendous they are. The V3 Flip found fans despite being designed in a dark room by mice with felt tips cellotaped to their tails. The Ehuge? Nothing quite says ‘I have no sexual organs’ quite like a device the size of Gandalf’s staff. Or what about The Only Fools And Horses cellphonealike with a Transformer or Thomas the Tank Engine logo on it?

This is all because for every mod there’s a vaper with big cow eyes coveting it. For Ridley Scott fans there’s the Alien-like Deviate, horror film in vape form. Those blessed with a love of cogs, steam and Victorian dysentery there’s every gruesome steam punk ever made. But what about folks who couldn’t join the Territorial Army because they had a splinter? I present the plethora of mods looking like grenades (upsetting airport security everywhere…despite them having all the power of a small child’s party balloon).

And the new rush of ones looking like knuckle-dusters? Apparently there are people who think they’re a good idea too. Whoda thunk it.

“You don’t want another motorbike,” said the wife. “You don’t need another machine cluttering up the place.” The words were proffered with (probably) good reason. The mancave already groaned like an obese man as the sweet trolley approaches the table. There were functional machines, members of the motorcycle walking dead and lumpy metallic memories from rides long gone. I didn’t bother listening. I never listen.

It was a matter of necessity that the garage emptied out. Beating a hasty departure to South America meant that anything not fitting onto a bicycle was instantly classified as excess to requirements. Periodic clearing of the vape desk takes place for entirely different reasons as items fall out of favour. Of course that space is then useful as you can fill it with new stuff. I hang on to my ability to say goodbye to things with pride, it confirms to me that I’m not quite ready to be the person pushing a shopping trolley destined for the house full of rubbish.

The kids cop the same advice. Usually at ten minutes to dinner when they’re cramming down the entire range from Cadburys and Walkers. Of course, the words get bent and take on the hue of adamant instruction. Less ‘you might like to consider‘ and more ‘stop!’

Age is an awesome thing. Whereas most children respond to direction with blind compliance, aggregated birthdays imbue you with the strength to ignore instructions. Do I need to look at Ikea assembly cartoons? Do I flip. I vote, shave and procreate so I will do what I will with a Halford’s socket set. Only when necessity rears its head do I have to give the appearance of conforming. Until that moment I can give succour to my infantile and stubborn nature, relishing those things that deliver pleasure and give life a dab of colour.

And that’s why I blow some big clouds from my dripper. I do it because I enjoy it, it’s my go-to form of vaping, but I’m becoming aware that it isn’t how others would like me to vape. Having spent a couple of years talking to the local MP and sending off letters to my MEP about the planned changes to our ecig-world I reckon I’m pretty conversant in arguments for the freedom to make informed personal choices. But those who would like to see me stopped are other vapers.

I don’t sit in the front row of a cinema doing it – even if I lament the lack of atmospheric smoke sparkling in the projector’s glare. I’d even go so far as to say that if I did it’d be the least offensive thing happening there given the public’s love of mobile phones, explaining film plots to each other and endless crisp packet rustling. I get it, I get that some places aren’t conducive to cloud production. I’d no sooner vape in Asda than indulge in fellatio in Poundland. I get it. But on the other hand it’s hard to accept that sub-ohming makes those who do it the equivalent of a cross between Stanton Glantz, Pol Pot and Vanilla Ice.

In fact I’d contend that flashing images of vape gear online alongside knives and guns is probably worse. In even more fact, I’m almost pressed to say something like ‘you might like to consider‘ or ‘stop!’ when I see them. But then I’d also have to advise people to do what I do and ignore that request as well.

“Is it meant to be like this?” It’s the only question going through my mind as I run across the dystopian, post-apocalyptic landscape in Fallout 4. Picking up my seventeenth carrot before having a super-mutant scythe me in two because I only have the weapon equivalent of a cap gun…surely there’s meant to be more to this game?

I’ve clocked up days playing Fallout on the PS4 and everyone I’ve met in the game (even the dog) doesn’t like me. Isn’t the point of computer games meant to be escapism? If I want reality I’ll go to the shop or ride a bus and let everyone take an aversion to me as usual.

That juice I’ve just bought, the one everyone is going on about – you know, that one getting rave reviews in videos? Is it just me or is it meant to taste like something cooked up by Heston Blumenthal? Surely it’s not meant to be like this? Quite how does someone manage to skilfully blend the flavour of sheet metal with a subtle nuance of bleach?

“Is it meant to be like this?” I was sitting trying to fix the positive and negative wires to the Evod head. And then I was poking either too much or too little cotton through the coil. It struck me that vaping wasn’t half as enjoyable as other people would have me believe. I spent weeks bouncing from dry hit to flood – it was like a self-made analogy for post-global warming British weather.

Of course it isn’t meant to be like that. “Get a genesis tank, that’s what you want,” they said. “Get a genisys tank and bathe in the rich flavours hitherto hidden from your palette.” Oh yes, just what a new vaper needs: hotspots. I’m not sure how long it took me to work out how to coil with mesh to avoid hot legs but I’m pretty sure I missed out on a couple of wedding anniversaries.

But then shouldn’t love be strong enough to overcome the lack of a bunch of flowers? Shouldn’t marriage be able to withstand the vagaries of a man obsessed with making little bits of wire coil in such a way that he smiles like he did at the birth of his children? Sure it is; love can overcome all. Love can make you forgive anything, even a lumbering oaf who cares more for pizza than he does for his in-laws. *This paragraph was definitely not inspired by the failure to book a table tonight at El Toro but should my wife read it she may wish to consider the words ‘love forgives all’.

Love can make you forgive the Kraken for the months of suffering because it looks lovely. It doesn’t get up to much these days and I’m thinking it probably never will – much like its owner, it sits here quietly contemplating life. But love isn’t at home for the Succubus (the dripper, not a pet name for my darling wife who would have loved a steak for tea). Love has packed its bag and slammed the door. I’m sitting writing this next to a mountain of used toilet roll. Dribbles and gushes from the low-slung holes have recreated Hurricane Barney’s devastation on my desktop. It’s not supposed to be like this, but then without the set-backs in life how sweet would the good things feel? Who needs steak anyway – there’s always Fallout.

I wouldn’t mind if the purpose of waking before birds’ chirping time was to get stuff done or go to work. It isn’t; the buzzer goes off, there’s shuffling and mumbling before the object moves downstairs to watch recorded programmes about back gardens. I’m not being euphemistic.

Fighting pillows becomes a losing battle and, in the end, I reach out to stick on the radio and tug on some GVC. I used to hate Grants. That was before I grew to like it…which came shortly before I made the decision that if the opportunity presented itself I’d skip the atty and simply mainline the stuff. I’m not addicted to vaping; I could (as Zammo might have said in Grange Hill) give it up anytime. But not Grants Vanilla Custard. I have a nasty feeling that if I ran low I might indulge in robbery to sustain my fix. Or prostitution. I’m prepared to keep my options open.

But downstairs there’s something important happening in a front garden. Or maybe there’s a new type of accident that no one in Casualty has ever seen before, certainly not at half five in the morning. I’m expecting today, the vendor’s website says so on the tablet. It’s time to wave a white flag and get up, coffee beckons.

Stairs are a wonderful invention. Stairs allow you to go up, and then you can use them to go down.  You can even use them as a makeshift storage unit for all of the things you can be bothered to put in your room because your life as a child is simply too damn busy. At this point stairs help you go down far faster than you could have previously envisaged going at 5:45am.

Nursing a throbbing toe, a coffee and an intense hatred of Alan Titchmarsh – I sulk. I sulk because more bad things have happened in the space of sixty minutes than I’d have hoped would enter the entire day sprawling in front of me. Mainly, I sulk because 6am has only recently featured in my sphere of reference and Alan bloody Titchmarsh is talking about something I couldn’t develop an interest in if my kids’ lives depended on it. But their lives don’t depend on it; they depend on whether or not they leave something on the stairs again.

I draw deep on the GVC-fuelled Squape. I draw deep and blot out humanity through the medium of more coffee until almost 7am. It’s at this point in the morning that two little people, who aren’t so little anymore, join us. Two not-so-little people moaning, two dogs barking and a partner panicking they’re now late because time has been frittered.

Satre said: “Hell is other people.” What he didn’t know is that they live in my house while Breakfast TV drones. Dante needs to add my pre-7:45am lounge to one of his levels, somewhere between fornicators and liars.

And then the door clicks and it’s done and it’s over. Heaven. Just me and you, Squapey. Me, you and a bottle of GVC to us through the next threeish hours until Posty rings twice. And Posty is going to ring because the vendor’s website said so on my tablet. Posty will ring and I’ll answer like it’s my birthday because he’ll be carrying a parcel containing a new atomiser. You take your pleasures in life where you can find them and we know the unbridled excitement of receiving an expected envelope with kit in it. Boy do we know that joy.

Time ebbs then Dog#2 barks. Dog#2 barks at everything that might be coming near the house but the thing he loves most is Posty. Loves as in ‘hates with a passion based on no logical motive whatsoever.’ The fury in his woof is my cue: it’s the signal to ride the flotsam and jetsam on the stairs as I try to break land speed records covering the distance to the front door.

And there it is.

No ring, no knock, no vapemail – just a letter. A miserable letter. A miserable excuse for a letter wrapped in the brown paper of doom. I draw deep on the GVC-fuelled Squape. I draw deep and resist the urge to kick Dog#2.

Kipling once wrote: “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster – and treat those two impostors just the same…” Kipling was probably proud of that. He was probably as proud of it as the self-congratulatory business managers who quote it during training seminars. I’m going to hazard a guess that Kipling never waited for vapemail.

Whether or not to engage with advocacy and opinions about demonstrating raises a number of opinions. We contend that, in its current form, Article 20 will strip vapers of the right to vape in the manner they choose. It replaces informed free choice with a dictate that imposes unrealistic and unworkable proposals. We believe that it will restrict the access to vaping, curb success rates of smokers switching to a healthier alternative and cost jobs of those working across the industry.

We encourage all of our customers and the vaping community at large to find the time to support the pan-European events planned for the 29^th May.

From the Facebook group:

“On Friday May 29th 2015 vapers all over Europe will hit the streets to protest against the TPD2 that will curtail our citizens rights massively. The implementation of the TPD2 will ban all the vaping devices of 2nd and 3rd generation. No more liquids and bases in bottles bigger than 10 ml or stronger than 20 mg/ml. Tanks will be limited to 2 ml and must be filled via an ominous mechanism. Anything that might leak will be prohibited. There will be no more glass or makrolon tanks as they aren’t unbreakable.

We don’t object to easier handling. But we don’t want our choice limited to a single system. Most important for the success of vaping is the plethora of devices and liquids. The TPD2 means the death of vaping in Europe!

With a global protest we want to show how vast our community is. How coordinated and determined we are to fight for our rights. The selected date is chosen to get media attention.”

Rob, Emma and the rest of the Stealthvape team #vaping2015

We’ve all travelled this road to a lesser or greater extent. The hunt for something that rewards with a superior vape inexorably leads to purchasing mods and atomisers. And then more mods and atomisers. And then more. We call it ‘collecting’ to justify the unusable quantity of excess. And we change the course of conversation if people begin to question it…

“Oh look at this daft person on television, the wife. Look at them with their ridiculous collection of pristine Star Wars effigies all in the packaging and everything. What on Earth are they thinking?”

Of course, then she looks over at me attempting to fit all of my drip tips into the holes on the self-made mod stand. Not the first self-made mod stand mind, that one ran out of space within a couple of weeks, no, the fifth generation self-made mod stand. But unfortunately the fifth generation self-made mod stand didn’t account for the advent of excellent box mods and only had 24mm holes. She looks over at me with my fifth generation self-made mod stand, that she never saw the point in to begin with, as I attempt to shoehorn it between the box mods and the 26650 tubes. She looks at me and sighs.

My go-to position on regulated devices was formed during the ownership of a V2 Vamo. Regulateds always had wobbly buttons and a stupid gap between the top and the atty. All regulateds were like this because my Vamo was like this. Being able to umbrella concepts is innate to us; if it has claws and pointy teeth then it is probably going to try to eat us. Generalising prevents us being attacked in the High Street by sabre-toothed tigers and the like. And hoarding ensures the cave is always full of mammoth meat. If the wife were reading this as I type she’d be sighing all over again.

Boxes, as for the majority of vapers, have taken over my vaping. I made sure I kept some mechs back from the last clear-out but they see less use than Russell Brand’s comb. And from buying everything I saw, I began to shift to saving for fewer choice bits of kit. And then, akin to a politician once elected, I stopped bothering altogether.

But the little Goblin got me in the mood to see how the budget end of boxes now stacks up – and the Kbox stands testament to my excellent hunter/gatherer skills. I’m staggered at how good cheap vaping gear has become while I was frittering away the children’s inheritance. So good in fact I may have to scrap plans for the sixth generation self-made mod stand and set about on the seventh.