Author Archives: Rob Ellard

We want to turn those frowns upside down and see nothing but happy faces. There may be no “I” in Team but there is “Vagina Temp”, “Mega Van Pit” and  “Anti Amp Veg” in Team Vaping. So the question we posed ourselves was how we could get all the vapers in the world to come together, bond and think with a hive mind. And the answer is simple: The Stealthvape Corporate Fun Team-Building Activity Centre.

Located on the edge of the delightful Thurrock Business Park, our seven-story management event centre is all about idea showers, helicopter views, low hanging fruit and cascading information. Vapers can come and touch base offline or look under the bonnet of our interactive online strategic staircase. We don’t just have buzzwords, we have activities like:

• Get all your ducks in a row. Teams of vapers will endeavour, against the clock, to produce a 93-page report and give a presentation to one of us impersonating a public health expert. Bonus points will be awarded for the use of evidence-based proposals and accuracy of custard pie throwing.

• Put a record on and see who dances. We have all the records and an ample supply of alcohol. Drinking to excess, making a fool of yourself and laughing at each other the next morning has been a bonding method for centuries. The winning team will be the one who places the most stunt traffic cones on the artificial bus shelter.

• Run it up the flagpole. The outward-bound aspect to the course sees teams race against each other to be the first to traverse a route from Tilbury Docks, passed the sewage treatment works and finishing East Tilbury. Prizes will be earned by those who have contracted the fewest diseases; deaths count double.

In the space of a long weekend, groups of hitherto grumpy individuals bearing grudges for those who vape in a different manner will be transformed into shiny, smiley cohorts of thoroughly bonded chums.

Previous attendees commented in the book:

• “I never thought I could learn to love a clone user, but we’ve since been out for a number of dates and now we’re married.”
• “I used to throw rotten fruit at people I saw blowing clouds in the street – now I take them out for meals and free sex. Thank you Stealthvape Corporate Fun Team-Building Activity Centre!”
• “I remember thinking that everyone who bought boutique liquids was funny in the head. The team bonding activities really worked. I still think they’re not right in the head but I no longer leave bags of flaming excrement on their doorsteps. Cheers for everything.”

There you have it, the Stealthvape Corporate Fun Team-Building Activity Centre worked for them – it can work for you too.

In case you have been living on the Moon this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his budget to Parliament. Part of it entailed a tax on sugar in drinks, an annual fee to listen to Def Leopard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me and a pay-to-view charge for each time Evil Dead’s Ash asks for some sugar. Baby.

We know how this is going to pan out. First they wanted to limit our tanks, then they wanted to limit our juice bottles – and just around the corner you’ll only be able to vape during the weekends after lunchtime. Clearly, sugar users can face further restrictions on processed food, donuts and the sickly smile breakfast TV presenters use.

But we’ve been making plans for the bans and we’ve got dedication to beat the legislation. We’re ahead of the curve. For a starter, and most obviously, Fasttech will no doubt be launching cloned fizzy drinks. Get your carbonated fluid friends up to speed with ordering from the Far East. All they need to do is anticipate when they are going to be feeling thirsty and make sure they order three weeks before that point.

Such a process cries out for an implementation of the back-up to your back-up plan and an inventive soul will be busy beavering away making a bandolier that takes drink tins.

We also know that buying the components separately is key to circumvention. Oddly, the thing not carrying any surcharge as part of the sugar tax is, err, sugar. Probably, once public health experts realise that bags of it are more dangerous than nic base combined with live ammunition, it may be banned or restricted to single serving sachets. In the meantime, why not consider setting up a Drink Shop where the public can pop in to buy their own glass bottle, a bag of carbon dioxide, a vial of brown sludge and a bunch of sugar cane sticks.

You know what the response will be: “but I can’t be bothered to make my own drink.” Aha, you’ll reply using your juice knowledge, but you can make it yourself for pennies. Not just that but you can go on to add how much fun it is to wear plastic gloves, the ecstasy of measuring things with a syringe and how the whole family loves it when you fill the fridge with mixing products.

The trouble will come when people begin to try to take their homemade fizzy liquids onto planes or when bottles explode during the night. Welcome to our world, sugar lovers. Welcome to our world!

Sales

Some people labour under the misapprehension that selling is easy. All you need to do is claim you aren’t a one-trick pony (and that you have a whole field of ponies) because we’ve all seen The Apprentice. But it’s not simply a question of advertising something and then asking people if they’d like to buy it – no, that is ridiculously simplistic.

Go stand in a fast-food establishment. Go in, stand in the queue and wait until you only have one person to go before you get served. Think about how wonderful that burger or slab of deep-fried fish is going to taste. Imagine yourself slurping down the ice-cold fizzy drink loaded with more sugar than a Disney kids musical. Hmm, pretty fine living.

No. Because in front of you is that person who wandered in by mistake and struggles to remember their own name let alone what they wanted to order off the menu. One-minute life was all the ‘That’s How You Know‘ song and dance scene from Enchanted, now it’s the ‘waiting room‘ in Beetlejuice.

Because people invariably do not know what they want, we have employed Russell Grant and Mystic Meg to run the sales operations. Going forward, you won’t even need to visit the website. Russell and Meg will use all manner of scientifically proven divination techniques to work out what you probably don’t know you need and complete your order for you. All we need you to do is complete a direct debit mandate and we’ll simply take money from your account when we send you crates of things your life has been empty without.

Customer Service

Sometimes things go wrong. Not here, we never make mistakes, but maybe a football player is drunk on his riches and ploughs his Ferrari into the post van just because he can and laughs while he does it. So there’s your order languishing in a ditch and now covered in flammable liquids and steam – what to do?

The remedy is to contact our new Customer Service team with a long-standing record in delivering fast and efficient solutions from the hip. It is important that customers phoning up with gripes are treated in a polite, professional and courteous manner and that is why we felt Katie Hopkins and Deadpool were born to the role. Friendly, empathetic and welcoming – you can be assured that they will meet every circumstance with bonhomie and leave you with a smile.

Marketing

A great company needs great coverage in the media and a strong public likeability factor. We are that great company, so we have employed two people who know how to impress others and generated deep feelings of warmth and fondness. It was a tough ask to get both Kanye West and Bill Cosby onside but here they are ready to bring us all closer together. Welcome Kanye, welcome Bill.

Logistics

We know that football players and fast cars exist posing a clear and present danger to deliveries. Moving things from A to B isn’t as simple as asking one of your children to fetch a beer from the kitchen – it’s more like asking them to build a brewery and gift you a lifetime supply of pints of happiness.

Our fame preceded us so it was no problem getting the experts to come on board and join us on our journey into the future. Nobody knows more about logistics than Scotty from Star Trek and Thomas the Tank Engine. And we even persuaded John Candy’s family to allow us to exhume him and prop him in the corner of the office – strictly in his Planes Trains & Automobiles role. Rest assured, if there’s any hint of Uncle Buck we will be interring him again.

2016 – the year Stealthvape delivered you the same brilliance but now with added fantastic. No need to say ‘thank you’, it’s what we do.

So, we have been on the hunt for eliquid market niches where the Stealthvape brand could stand proud and strong. Befitting our tradition for breaking new ground and pushing the vape envelope, we believe we struck gold – and that you will be incredibly excited by the results too.

We’ve all listened to the nonsense about juice being targeted at children. Baseless allegations each and every one but, hang on we thought, it would make a great range. Welcome then: Stealthvape’s Junior Juice! The family that vapes together does something else together. We haven’t thought through that tagline properly as we were too busy inventing all of the flavour profiles.

The Junior Juice range shares a base centred on a popular rusk. Suitable for ages 3 months+, your tiny toker can pick his or her favourite from Calpol Cooler, Mummy’s Mammary or (our personal ADV) Smelly Bear Blanket. Colour-coded bottles ensure that your cute cloudmaker gets all the stereotypical imprinting they need while also benefitting from specially designed teats, ideal for dripping.

“Hang on a minute, Stealthvape,” we hear you cry. “It’s all fine and dandy sorting the kids but we want in on this too!” Fear not. We are working on rapidly expanding the brand mix to target other (guaranteed not to offend) niches. We are just waiting for the final bottle designs to be returned from the drunk in the park we outsourced the work to.

Close to completion: The Stealthvape Speaklouder range. Old people don’t like tobacco or fruit – we all appreciate this – we plan on delivering exactly what pensioners do desire: Sparkling Sanatogen, Lovely Cod Liver Oil With Cloves and Brilliant Boiled Cabbbage set on top of a luscious base that hints of socks.

Women will be ecstatic to find out we are planning unique range just for them too. Everything comes with a taste of glitter and you get to pick from Daring Duckface, Lucious Lillettes or Tremendous Twerk.

Finally, and we hope to roll this out by Father’s Day at the latest, the Manly Man range for Men containing three more liquid options. All set against the cliff face of the great flavour of Brut you will be able to opt for the amazingly good Taste of Grit, Scent of Sport – or maybe you will settle for Traditional Fight…it’s like a town centre on late Friday night in your mouth.

So, we need to say ‘thank you’ to the Youtubers who provided the inspiration and motivation to bring this to fruition. Excited? We bet you are.

A camera somewhere in Oregon was sending images of cranks and the certifiably insane toting the kind of weapons the British government couldn’t afford to equip the army with. Apparently the whole thing revolved around them not being happy about something. Or their mutual love of camping in snow? Clare hadn’t got a clue to be honest, and cared even less. What she knew was one thing – if it was a legitimate form of protest for Americans then it was bloody well good enough for the vapers of Ramsgate.

A plan formed in the part of her mind that sat between the bit devoted to watching Jeremy Kyle and the section for deciding what delivery meal to have on Friday night. The TPD was coming. She wasn’t quite sure if it was an injection or the paramilitary wing of the NHS…but she was adamant that it was bad. “Takin’ our bleedin’ right to do what we want,” she’d exclaim to anybody on the settee during advert breaks. Rights such as picking a fight in Primark by blowing clouds at the till, failing at vape tricks in KFC and pretending her juice delivery hadn’t arrived (even though Jim had signed for it).

Their mate Barry has a catapult, she reasoned. Not one of those things that kids have, Bazza’s one could take the coconut clean off a rigged stand at the travelling fair. Jim had an obscene collection of chef knives. A hoard that was stupid for the number in total, the size of some and the fact that he only ate crisp sandwiches. Finally, her mate Josie’s 27yr-old had an air rifle and he’d got a load of practice shooting at cats. Ramsgate Town Council wouldn’t know what’d bloody well hit it – they could stage their very own armed militia occupation. Stuff the TPD, the fact that they close at 12 every day and Malcolm sodding Wilkinson and his mace. She’d show them. She’d show them all.

Of course, Clare had received the same opportunities every vaper had been given to negate the need for direct action. Down the Vale Tavern, she’d been asked to:

• Talk to her MP – “They’re all corrupt ain’t they. It’ll be a waste of time.”
• Write to her MEP – “Sod that, they put ‘em in the bin.”
• Sign the petitions – “I did one but I can’t be bovvered with the rest. There’s too many. Why didn’t they just have one for ***** sake?”

Yep, Clare had the same chances but she reckoned that someone else would sort it all out for her. It was their fault, whoever “they” were. “They’d” cocked up well and truly by not stopping this TPD whatever it is – “probably because they were too busy with their stoopid petitions or sumfink.”

“If you want to get sumfink done propa,” she shouted across at Jim, “you ave to do it your bloody self. That’s why we’re gonna take it to the council.” Jim brushed breadcrumbs and the remains of some Walkers Cheese & Onion from his stomach and nodded. He’d not heard a word she’d said but after all these years of marriage he knew that any other response usually ended up with one of them explaining to the police why the other was sitting in the back of an ambulance.

“I’m gonna sort it out tomorra. Or maybe at the weekend. Or maybe someone else will do it.”

“Yeh, someone else will probably do it.”

With a deft sweep of his right hand he cleared space on the desk for his box of juices. Three drippers and a coil of wire failed to comply with the delicate operation and tumbled to the floor whereupon the coil of wire transformed itself into a piece of modern art. Jeremy hated art. Jeremy hated everything at the moment. He held a particular loathing for inanimate things that didn’t automatically guess where they should be and what they should be doing. He let out an exasperated sigh and growled as he bent down to collect the nest of metal.

“I mean, what the…” And silence punched him in the mouth. Like every other person who rightly believed that nothing in life was more important than vaping, Jeremy took great umbrage at the comment he’d just read on Twitter. He got annoyed when his old boss called his professionalism into question after he’d thrown a steak slice at a customer. For goodness sake, the customer deserved it seeing as they’d had the temerity to question its “Freshly Baked” status. He was incandescent when the traffic warden gave him a ticket. It’s not like the damn traffic was waiting for long and no one walks from the car park to the Post Office in the rain.

Life just didn’t run correctly for Jeremy. It was full of idiots but, worse, they were idiots who always thought the wrong things. Like his wife. Only yesterday they were travelling back up from Southampton and she took the M40 instead of continuing on the A34 to Northampton and joining the M1 there. He punched the dashboard and spat: “What’s the bloody point of building an excellent dual-carriageway if nobody is going to use it?” Northampton Roadchef does a good coffee too. Jeremy drank too much coffee.

Dripping some of Stealthvape’s new Ladybits eliquid onto the coil, his gaze returned to the monitor. Re-reading the thing that made him angry reminded him of how irate he was. It also caused him to forget to pay attention to the other thing he was in the process of doing – and juice flowed from the air holes. “Oh for the love of fu..!”

How the blinking flip could this person not be convinced by the efficacy of vaping? How could anybody not automatically discount anything negative published on the subject of electronic cigarettes? It was tantamount to The Internet calling him a moron. The last person to do that was the bloke in the petrol station to which Jeremy produced a gold-medal winning sulk.

The keyboard was attacked with fury. One hundred and forty characters of expletives questioned if the anonymous tweeter had an IQ over 75 and likened him or her to various parts of the human anatomy. Jeremy sat back. He felt as though the storm of emotions had passed. “Let that put you straight,” he spoke to no one. Jeremy knew that if this person had any kind of intelligence they’d take his abuse on board and question their entire position on the matter. He knew he’d just performed a great service to vapers everywhere. He mopped the side of the mod with some tissue and luxuriated in a deep inhale.

Then a notification message popped up.

Anyway, the first question on your lips is likely to be, “Why?” It’s very simple: before this morning, when we were slumped over a coffee and nursing the mother of all hangovers, nothing called The National Union of Apathetic Vapers existed. That ought to be a damn fine reason to set it up, we reasoned. Are you excited yet? In all probability, no. But don’t let that put you off; you haven’t heard all of the great things we can offer in return for a very affordable monthly direct debit yet.

For a starter, there are all of the wonders you will receive as a new member. Each new application will be treated as fast as we can be bothered to get around to. Normally we’d say within a couple of days or something – but it really depends if there’s a decent new series worth watching on Netflix. At some point you’ll get a pack containing a hand drawn membership card bearing an artist’s impression of what she thinks you might look like. Keep this safe; you may need it to vote at the annual general meeting. That’s if we get around to organising one, there’s literally tons of stuff to do to arrange them. Of course, as an apathetic vaper you’ll be fully conversant with all the things that you can’t be bothered to do either and empathise with us. If we come across some other stuff we’re not using from the vape kit we might thrown those in your membership pack too.

So, what other benefits does being a NUAV member confer? Not much to be honest. You’ll be able to join our Facebook group (because they’re dead simple to set up). From there you’ll be able to download our amazing range of jpegs we copy-pasted from the Internet and maybe ones we made ourselves (that resemble the work of a toddler suffering from St. Vitus Dance).

Policies and campaign issues are an important aspect to The National Union of Apathetic Vapers. As in, we realise that apathetic vapers don’t want any policies or campaign issues. Joining us guarantees you that we will never ask you to stand outside a building in the cold to show people you vape. Not just that, we also pledge we will never ask you to sign a single petition or watch a video about the issues impacting on vaping.

In fact, the default option on the enrolment form is for you never to be contacted in any form whatsoever. No emails, no personal messages and no status updates clogging up you life – isn’t this what the two million, five hundred and ninety-five thousand of you have been calling out for? Damn straight. The National Union of Apathetic Vapers is just the organisation you’ve been waiting for so just look at our website for more details…when we’ve done one.

Thanks,

The National Union of Apathetic Vapers committee

Then the spirit of progress arrived in the form of bulldozers, diggers and men. But then progress is awesome when you’re 8 years-old and allowed to do anything during the summer. We gave little thought to the grass being churned or them razing the beautiful dovecot to the ground because for kids scaffolding is like cake to members of the Women’s Institute. Not just any scaffolding, this was 1970’s scaffolding. This was the kind that didn’t have an impenetrable fence surround or daft signs telling you to go away. Daft signs compelling you to go vandalise a bus shelter instead – and this would have been really stupid as we’d already done that.

A new road and identikit houses rose from the rubble and mud. The stream steadily filled with old cement bags and then the village shop shut down. Something was going wrong with the world. It was becoming a greyer place. Adulthood beckoned with a life devoid of milk floats, rural bus services and frequent power cuts. I didn’t have a concept that this would become a preamble for a tale on the UK’s leading vaping spares company’s website at the time. When it took place I didn’t care about the future.

So there it is, an event from my life that I’ve now despatched to the Internet like Peter Kay tale of yore, but lacking in humour and no mention of lamb bhuna. That’s because we didn’t have them; if we wanted to go all fancy food then it was lasagne or a Sodastream. Damn, now I’m just a couple of references to Juliet Bravo and Crackerjack away from a full-on Kay routine.

Sharing. It’s nice to share, it has to be true because that’s what children are told. We don’t lie to kids. Imagine the misery that would exist in a small person if they had to eat an entire packet of Haribos all by themself. No, little ones prefer to feel a warm glow of contentment as a parent removes a fistful. Sharing stories or sharing sweets, it matters not – the world adores being involved in our lives.

And that is why joy is unbridled when it comes to like and share competitions on Facebook. Not only do you get to see what competitions are running you can count how many of your friends have already entered by the email notifications of being tagged in them.

During 2015, he said, the NHS dealt with over 25,217 incidents directly related to the use of electronic cigarettes. The incidents included an unplanned pregnancy after a Miss Shona Tights confused her contraceptive pills with a starter kit, and a surprise sex change when Roberta Buttocks (formally known as Robert) mistakenly used a venting unregulated device.

Martin McPies, a leading British health campaigner, greeted news that the sale of all merchandise will be banned with delight. “It is overdue,” he said with a wide grin. “I have been demanding this kind of response ever since I heard of so-called ‘vaping’ last week.” McPies has dedicated his online life to outing the dangers faced by vapers. He spoke to us about the clear links between suppliers of eliquid and organised crime, that vaping has been proven to radicalise potential terrorists and that an ecig user said something nasty about him on Twitter.

We contacted the British Medical Council for their take on the subject. Professor Simon Cashback, qualified surgeon and part-time drag act, confirmed: “We’ve been researching the dangers of smoking for decades. Thanks to the billions of pounds we’ve received there is a clear understanding of how cigarettes ruin lives.” In a plea to ministers, he added: “We now need at least the same amount of money to spend on yachts and golf equipment so we can categorically link vaping to cigarettes.”

“For a start, they look the same,” Cashback stated. “They both look like strong, attractive penises – except this new type of death stick is made from metal. Other things made of metal include bombs, guns and Lemmy from Mötorhead. – and just look what happened to him! Plus, these e-cigarettes have metal bits on the top too, just imagine the carnage in maternity wards if women had metal nipples.” Powerful arguments with strong implications.

We put the points raised to Timothy Frothingatthemouth, freelance vaping advocate and full-time power-walking blogger. “It’s all about money,” explained Tim. “There are studies out there like the one showing a field of bunnies thrived when given access to mods and atomisers.” Although McPies for one questioned the methodology of the bunny research, Tim remains unfazed. “Not only did the buns demonstrate easier breathing while copulating, compared to when they used to smoke the fags researchers gave them, but they also improved their fine motor skills as a result of coil building.”

McPies replied to this point in an email: “Yes, but it then raises the question of what would happen if rabbits with keen hand-eye coordination were to find access to weapons of mass destruction. Can you tell me they wouldn’t kill everyone given the opportunity? That’s so-called vapers for you. That’s why the ban is justified.”

“Money and genitals. Genitals and money,” concluded Frothingatthemouth. “How can we ever move forward when politicians and public health experts are obsessed with money and genitals?”

Travel by plane, train or, as the late John Candy demonstrated, automobile is often not easy. But the issue is more fraught when you are a vaper as it can lead to danger, being spoken to in a condescending voice or even public humiliation. We plan on tackling the toughest challenges head on.

In a car, especially at this time of year, vaping leaves a residue over the windscreen. It can quickly build up and combine with dust particles to form a barrier that scatters light in multiple directions and leave the driver feeling like that acid tab from 1982 is kicking in again. It should be noted at this point that this is simply information we’ve gleaned from our research and does not reflect our lifestyle choices.

While some may tell you to use an alcohol-based wipe to clear the screen we believe they have overlooked the cost this would incur to a heavy cloud chucker. The solution, as if it wasn’t obvious enough, is to have a small child hold the steering wheel while you lean out of the driver’s window and carry on vaping. If also means that you will be able to give other travellers a friendly smile as you point to the impressive cloud you’d just exhaled. A cheeky wink at the same time will elicit smiles and goodwill amongst the other road users – and probably improve the overall image of vaping to boot.

As little Johnny angles the motor into a stationary vehicle in the station car park, it’s time to turn our attention to trains. Be it on the platform or in the carriage, there are multitudes of people ready and willing to take offense at something they can neither smell nor be endangered by. A number of strategies are open to us in overcoming this problem starting with a Thomas the Tank Engine costume. Instead of demanding a SWAT team wipe your blood over platform 2A, parents will be lining up to shove their children’s faces into your chimneystack.

Fancy dress is less practical in the confines of a carriage. By far the best play here is to take some tugs behind a newspaper and then, after breathing out, declare in a loud voice that you are worried you are about to self-combust again. In order to make this tactic work for you it pays to have spent thirty minutes talking in a loud voice about the last time it happened. If no one is sitting with you then pretend to have this conversation on a cellphone, everyone loves to listen in on other’s telephone conversations.

The police will have safely handed over little Johnny to social services, and impounded your car, by the time you arrive at the airport. The trick to dealing with vapes on a plane is to keep an eye on the toilet. Thrill seekers continue enjoy a bout of coupling at altitude and will be so focussed on each other they’ll never notice you nipping in at the same time. Grab an article of frantically discarded clothing, place it over the smoke detector and lose yourself in a flavoured haze. The fog you’ve produced will help you to return to your seat unnoticed, leaving you free to tut loudly with the other passengers at the toilet couple being berated by angry cabin crew.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for travelling with Stealthvape, to remind you to return your seats to the upright position and hope that you have a lovely weekend.