The terrible caffeine addicts.

Work is picking up. Since I can't send the bills until I send the reports, I'll have to spend more time writing reports and less time writing the blog for a few days. I'm not closing down, but the verbosity ration will be reduced. I won't be putting up multiple huge essays every day. Which I suspect will come as quite a relief to everyone.

I have a Gaggia espresso machine which gets a lot of use. If I don't have time or can't be bothered firing it up (and cleaning it afterwards) I have a jar of Percol instant espresso. It's like the Electrofag equivalent for espresso; not quite as good as the real thing but a reasonable substitute. I drink a lot of espresso, while smoking, and I'll bet nobody out there thinks there will ever be any restriction on coffee.

Some time back, Mummylonglegs pointed out that the latest attack on Buckfast centred not on its alcohol content, nor on the boozy urchins drinking it, but on its caffeine content. The post is gone now as are all her other posts, due to a recent cybermugging by an online self-important git. She is recovering and will come back stronger than ever.

Anyway, the caffeine was the target. Mention was made of Red Bull, which I like but don't buy because the supermarket own-brand versions taste the same to me and are considerably cheaper. It is downright evil to mix caffeine and booze, says the current mantra, but it's the caffeine they are concentrating on. The booze controls are already well advanced.

Yes, but that's caffeine mixed with booze. They won't touch coffee or tea because there's no booze in them. Right? Not quite.

Caffeine causes heart problems if taken in excess. I take it in excess (at least, above what is currently defined as 'excess'), and smoke while I drink it. I haven't seen a doctor in decades and if I did, he'd have my death certificate printed in minutes because it is statistically impossible for me to still be alive, much less healthy.

So it's coming. You can only get unleaded petrol at a petrol station, and soon you will only get decaffeinated coffee at the supermarket. What will they do with all the extracted caffeine? Well, they'll put it into patches and gum and sell it to you at a huge price to help those terrible caffeine addicts because everyone knows caffeine is highly addictive and nobody could ever give it up without help from the Pharmers.

I was totally decaffeinated for two years. I had gut problems and was working out what caused it. I suspected caffeine but it turned out to be that fake milk you get in coffee machines. So it was a part of the coffee that gave me the bottom deadlies, but not the caffeine. Once I stopped drinking coffee with that 'milk', the problem went away. The point is, I was decaffeinated for two years and was fine and dandy with it. No problem at all. Many of you believe you are addicted to coffee and you'll buy those caffeine patches and they might even appear to work. You'll still be drinking coffee, decaff, so you'll still have your cuppa as normal.

The patch won't be doing anything at all. Well, it'll do one thing. It'll empty your wallet.

Never happen? That's what they said about smoking in pubs.