When the bombshell was dropped I was lost for words. Those who know me understand what a rare occurrence this is, only beaten by my daughter’s inability to draw breath in order to add punctuation to her seemingly endless monologues. Staggered. Shocked. Sad. Wave upon wave of sadness.

I guess if I think back now I can point to indicators that this was coming but while the good times are rolling you don’t take time out to plan for the worst. At least I didn’t. I don’t have a pre-nup, I’d made no provisions for this and I own no insurance. I do own an impressive music collection and it has been in the bosom of Kirk Brandon I’ve sought solace this afternoon.

At some point during the haze of the week just gone I received news of a juice. The vendor or manufacturer, I can’t recall which, included a snippet of a review:

“It’s an unctuous juice with sweet and natural fruit syrup tones.”

Vikings, out of all actual cool people that really existed, must top my list of things I wish I could be. Clearly, being a vampire or a person with superpowers would beat being a Viking but we have to remain fixed in reality here. Wanting to be a vampire is just stupid – for a start your shopping experience would be limited to 24hr supermarkets and late-night kebab shops, neither of which carry a good range of blood. No, definitely a Viking.

Vikings, out of all actual cool people that really existed, must top my list of things I wish I could be. Clearly, being a vampire or a person with superpowers would beat being a Viking but we have to remain fixed in reality here. Wanting to be a vampire is just stupid – for a start your shopping experience would be limited to 24hr supermarkets and late-night kebab shops, neither of which carry a good range of blood. No, definitely a Viking.

It is with a sense of pride (and a belief we should work to help the community) that Stealthvape are delighted to announce we are one of the first companies to sign up and support the latest research proposal by Doctor Farsalinos.

There, said it.

For all these years we’ve had the dangers of tobacco rammed down our throats as if Satan himself created the plant. It takes some doing to appear so evil in the public consciousness that one can only assume the poor piece of vegetation must have hired the same PR team who look after the ghost of Jimmy Saville, Rose West and the reputation of estate agents the world over.

When the iPhone was launched in 2007 I watched television reports covering queues stretching around the outside of Apple stores and shook my head. Not only did this product seem to be as gimmicky as the bells in a boy-band Christmas single but also the willingness of people to act like sheep to hold one baffled me.

In 2007 a phone was a damn phone – albeit with the brilliant ability to play music and take picture that made the world look as though it was covered in cellophane and steam.

There have been a number of articles recently purporting to help you find what subset of vaping you fall into. You may well have found that all of them have glaring omissions due to the fact that they are trying to sell you something and don’t want to upset you. It’s Friday – we’re going to put that right. Here begins Part 1 of a seventeen part collectors series.