Thursday 16 February 2012

Pop goes the smoker.

I have used my Zippo to light my pipe. It's not easy. The Zippo isn't safe to use tilted so the pipe is almost on its side for lighting. It can be done without setting fire to yourself, but you do need to be familiar with the Zippo.

Unlike the gas lighters, you don't need to hold down a button to keep the Zippo alight. The only way to put it out is to close the lid. If you drop one of those gas lighters, the flame goes out as soon as you let go of the button. If you drop a Zippo, it doesn't go out. If it's just been filled (or worse, overfilled) you could soon have quite a little conflagration going.

I fully expect a ban on Zippo lighters soon because obviously we can't be trusted with fire. I mean, it's not as if you'd let cavemen have it so you're not going to let modern adults have it, are you?

The ban will go hand in hand with the ban on smoking in cars because of a single incident. Bucko has already covered that aspect of it and he is right - any car accident that can be even tenuously linked to smoking or to a smoker, whether they were smoking at the time or not, will be 'smoking-related' in future.

The comment drones are all present and correct and declaring that 'smoking while driving must be banned'. Several commenters have pointed out that, according to the article, he wasn't driving. He was sitting in his car, in a car park, outside his home. Not driving.

Naturally, the drones come back with protests about being red-arrowed for saying that smoking while driving is dangerous and again they are told that he wasn't driving. Again they come back with the same noises, still doing their best to take advantage of a man's appalling death.

To those people, he wasn't a man. He was a smoker.

Just how low can ASH and its drones go? The man burned to death within sight of his own home and their glee at making a political statement out of it is almost tangible. These are the very dregs of humanity, the most vile and disgusting creatures on the planet, and they think they have the moral high ground because they don't smoke.

None of them wonder why an elderly man might be smoking in his parked car just outside his home. None of them connect this incident with their years of hectoring about the pretend dangers of second hand smoke and the nonsensical insistence that smokers leave their own homes to smoke.

It was October. Not very warm outside. This man, after all the hectoring by those who now claim him for their campaign for more hectoring, was very likely outside his own home for a smoke. It might have been cold, windy, raining, maybe all three. If there was a smoking shelter available it would have been as woefully inadequate as they all are. He had a car. Why shouldn't he sit in his own car, maybe even have the heater on, and smoke in comfort?

Why the hell did he have to leave his home in the first place? Because of the Dreadful Arnott. Because of Nick Clegg and David Cameron and that stupid bastard Blair who let it all start. If not for them he would have been in his house, in the warm, smoking his pipe in comfort, not sparking a Zippo in old and cold fingers.

Why did he drop the lighter? Why didn't he get out before the car burned? The clue (which no commenter, nor even, it appears, the coroner has noticed) is in the article. He had a stroke. After or before dropping the lighter? We'll never know but it would explain why he didn't get out when the seat went up.

They did this with their hectoring and now they want to use it to do more hectoring. The end justifies the means, as all Nazis are fond of saying. At this moment I can think of nothing more disgusting than an antismoker. Stuff Godwin. Hitler had nothing on these people.

Don't think you're going to get away with being an antismoking vaper. I still use my Electrofags because of the weird flavours they can do and because they irritate the hell out of the Righteous. Antismoker is antismoker, and some of the vapers are among the worst. Not all, but the smugness of a few is so immense it just makes you wish their batteries would explode.

It seems there has indeed been one such incident. I remember, a long time back, a claim that an ordinary cigarette had exploded. It didn't sound very likely and neither does this. Lithium batteries can explode if they overheat or are shorted but they get very hot before they do. If you had one in your hand you'd notice and you'd be unlikely to hold on to it, much less put it in your mouth. So something odd happened there.

The commenters show the mindset of ASH and their antismoking drones perfectly:

Sorry to have to say but this has been the best laugh I have had in years reading this. I've had to stop writing I can't stop laughing. Just think how much money he's saved on Dentist Bills, free dentures from cost acquired. My eyes are full of tears from laughter. Sorry I can't help it. - Carl Barron, Christchurch, Dorset, 16/2/2012 13:20 

oh my goodness thats funny!!!!!!! - charlie, margate, 16/2/2012 7:50 

Still did him less harm that smoking a regular cigarette.... - Carl, London, 16/2/2012 13:12 

I don't know why, but the thought of teeth flying everywhere cracks me up. (poor guy)... - rene, virginia, usa, 15/2/2012 21:12 

Moral;-Smoking is bad for your health - Down2Earth, Edgworth Towers, 16/2/2012 9:36 

Now that's FUNNY !!!!!!!!!! - ONSLOW1066, LONDON, ENGLAND, 16/2/2012 14:24 

 These are Duncan Bannatyne's brethren. They are the spawn of Clegg and Cameron. They are the Children of ASH. They are the ones who consider themselves superior. They revel in the death and pain of smokers and vapers alike. Yet we hear all those vapers telling us smokers that we are disgusting.

Read those comments again and then tell me who is disgusting. Still want to set yourselves above the smokers? Still want to be friends with those sort of people? Then go ahead because if you think like them you will never be welcome here. Smoker, ex-smoker, vaper, nonsmoker, all are welcome here but antismokers, fuck right off. You people are vile.

Also stupid.

Electronic cigarettes have propylene glycol in them and are not proven safe. - Deana, London, England, 15/2/2012 19:42 

I'm not even going to bother with any kind of explanation because antismokers are far too dim to grasp it.

I have said in the past that vapers and smokers should be fighting the common enemy but too many vapers see themselves as a cut above the smokers. They see themselves as superior and more than one of the Electrofag companies has joined in with the antismoker rhetoric. Feeling good about that? Read over those comments again. They are talking about a vaper, not a smoker. Yes, they hate you too.

Meanwhile, in Honolulu...

Check out the vapers in the comments. All they see is that the smokers they left behind are stinky, filthy things. Now they are to be taxed just like the filthy smokers and that's not fair.

No. It isn't. It's also not fair that the only ones paying extortionate tobacco tax have to go out into some half-built shed while those who pay no tobacco tax can vape away indoors in comfort and I guarantee that is the first time that idea has entered your head.

Fair? You expect 'fair' from the kind of people who will try to make capital out of a man's death and laugh at someone who's had half their face blown off? You really think they give a damn about what is fair?

You vapers are up against sociopaths. So are the drinkers, the salties, the fatties, all of you. The smokers told you and you are still not listening because we are only filthy addicts and not worth your time.

Fine. Find out for yourselves. The hard way. Pretend it was only the smokers they wanted beaten and left at the roadside. When the realisation finally dawns, don't come knocking at the Smoky-Drinky door.

We're not open to the public. Your antismoking law won't allow it. I'm afraid you're on your own.


(Thanks for all the Email and comment tips. I'm slow and inefficient at responding but I do read them all)

18 comments:

Monty said...

I'm inclined to agree with you about the man in the car, he should have had several minutes to get out of the vehicle. He may indeed have been a victim of some kind of seizure, such as ischaemia. 

And the comments are indeed vile. It is disturbing that supposedly civilised folk can relish such pain and suffering. But we have to bear this in mind- they are sociopathic in their outlook. Any man's suffering lifts their spirits. They probably relish terrorist attacks, but by and large they dare not say so out loud. Their spite may only be expressed when channelled towards a safe target. 
Nowadays, that is us. And the majority of the public are quite happy to let that continue, because it is not directed at them. Spartacus, they aren't.  But we have already found our strategy, and it came to us when we realised we no longer want or need the companionship of venal unprincipled compliant sheep. We have started  seeking out the society of one another. Fellowship.

can't remember said...

Zippo is the only lighter I can get to work with horizontal rain and wet hands, so I have 3 and used them for decades. For ten years I filled them from the petrol tank under the passenger seat of old landrovers, you just dipped the bottom into the tank. That gave a good light with black smoke but did the job well. Now every week I overfill them and get a hand full of flames for my sins. A good bit of kit if you like sturdy and reliable.

Lou said...

Well said Monty. Thanks.

Twisted Root said...

'An inquest heard Read was smoking in his car ...', not Richard Read, not Mr Read but 'Read'. Framed as a criminal. Disgusting.   

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Those comments calling for a ban on smoking in cars are all a bit samey, aren't they? And all unaware that the guy wasn't driving at the time. Suspiciously like there being a link somewhere pointing to the article as evidence that a ban is required, leading to some clicking through and advancing their pre-conceived view without reading the article. 

Moi said...

Notwithstanding the hideously cruel nature of many of the anyone-who-pretends-to-smoke-is-as-evil-as-anyone-who-really-smokes commenters to the e-cig article, might the Wail have been "persuaded" to highlight the e-cig article so prominently by the "smoking must be denormalised at all costs" campaigners - thus indicating how fearful they truly are at the threat which e-cigs pose to their beloved denormalisation campaign?

English Pensioner said...

Some years ago I was driving and hit a drunk pedestrian who walked into the road a couple of yards in front of me. Fortunately he wasn't hurt, but the police were called and I was told that it would be recorder as "a drink related incident".
So when you read any reports about "drink related motoring accidents" don't believe that the driver was drunk, it could be a passenger, or as in my case someone not even in the car.
Smoking will be recorder in exactly the same manner when these zealots get their way - the driver was distracted by a pedestrian "lighting up".

dafthat said...

You might want to listen to this from 5 Live re the BBC's view on pregnant smokers.  Starts at 1:24:38 and a comment at 1:26:00 will get your goat.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01bycgs

prog said...

Classic Glantz

'This is certainly all the evidence that the Department of Transportation needs to issue an emergency order banning e-cigs on airplanes.  (We needs an underwear bomber when you can explode an  e-cig?)'

http://tobacco.ucsf.edu/e-cigarette-blows-smokers-mouth-creating-severe-burns-enough-provoke-action 

Legiron said...

 The man's an idiot.

Any such ban will apply to lithium batteries, not E-cigs.

Laptops, iPods, hearing aids, and (not sure) pacemakers?

If he claims lithium batteries can spontaneously explode, those things won't even be allowed in the hold.

Perhaps he should be encouraged...  ;)

Legiron said...

 It wouldn't surprise me if 'drink-related accidents' include those on the way home from the supermarket with a six-pack in the back.

So if there's a pack of cigarettes on anyone involved, it'll be 'smoking-related'.

Doctors think we don't trust them any more. Can't imagine why that might be, eh?

Legiron said...

 They are also running anything involving a crossbow. The latest was the story of a man who was caught on CCTV sneaking into a hospital with 'a loaded crossbow'.

I have a crossbow. It is impossible to sneak anywhere with it. It would be like trying to sneak a gravestone out of a churchyard. CCTV shows him with empty hands.

The first article showed a picture of a full-sized crossbow. Someone obviously thought 'oops' so the second shows a picture of a pistol crossbow. Even with those, you cannot whip it out of a pocket any faster than you could whip out a grappling hook.

And if it's point-downward, chances are the bolt will drop out.

Bows are the only thing you don't currently need a licence to own. They are no use to the inexperienced, an idiot with a crossbow will probably lose the tips of his fingers and an idiot with an 'ordinary' bow will likely take the skin off his forearm.

But they are weapons, and the authorities want us disarmed.

They also don't want us to own dogs. So we hear every day about the morons with dogs, which will lead to controls on all dogs.

In the end, the goal is total control of the minutiae of everyone's life and the absolute prevention of anyone's ability to do anything about it.

It's not going to work, but they will keep trying anyway.

Legiron said...

 They are starting to look like cut-and-paste, aren't they? Just insert the appropriate Terrible Thing into the blank spaces and your comment is done.

Anonymous said...

I read this story in the Mail and it rang like a cracked bell. It just wasn't right. I called a good friend of mine, he's in "the motor trade", he's a scrappie and, like me, is a dedicated smoker with a healthy dislike of ASH and their ilk. He'd seen the story and also thought that it sounded dodgy. We discussed the story later over a few beers and decided to perform an experiment.
Yesterday we took a seat from a Hyundai car, I don't know which model, and, in the shelter of his workshop doorway, we tossed a lit Zippo lighter onto the seat. It went out after about four or five minutes, leaving a damaged patch on the seat about two inches by two inches. We thought that the lighter had run out of fuel, so we filled it with Ronson lighter fluid and repeated the experiment. The lighter went out after four or five minutes, leaving another damaged patch about the same size as before.
So, where was the fireball mentioned in the Mail's story? We dod some Googling and came up with this:-  http://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/rules-regulations/administration/fmcsr/fmcsrruletext.aspx?reg=571.302
Now, Hyundai are not going to make one set of seats for the US and another set for the European Market so we presumed that the seat we were trying, unsuccessfully, to set alight matched the US safety requirements.
We were now intrigued. After a few minutes of head-scratching and WTF thinking, we looked at the Zippo lighter. Culprit or victim? Out came the oxy-acetylene torch. We re-filled the Zippo and, with the lid closed we placed it on a concrete block. The oxy-acetylene flame was then moved around and over the lighter but was never directed straight at the lighter. After 20-30 seconds of this treatment there as an audible but feint 'pop', the bottom of the lighter came off and the lid of the Zippo opened. Two fags and a coffee later we re-filled the now-cool Zippo and repeated the test. Same result.
Our amateurish, unmeasured and, unfortunately unrecorded test throws a great deal of doubt on the assertion of Fire Investigator Phil Whild's assertion that the lighter was the cause of the fire. From the Mail's article:-
He told the hearing: 'It is clear from the
evidence that in the debris of the passenger side was an open Zippo lighter.
'Car fires tend to generate very rapidly
and if a lighter like that is not moved from a car seat quickly, it is likely to
catch fire.
'With it being an open flame source, it
would take a short while to ignite in its surroundings.
'Zippo lighters have the ability to burn
when dropped.'
He is WRONG about how fast the car seat will catch fire. He is WRONG about the fact that after the car fire the Zippo was found to be open, therefore it was open when the fire started.Whild's findings are a farce. He needs to go and look at the car again, properly this time. The man who died probably had the engine running and the heater on. There are a thousand other possible causes for the fire.I am posting as Anonymous but LI will know who I am.

Legiron said...

 I hadn't thought of that - the vapour pressure in a heated Zippo would certainly pop the lid open.

The picture showed the car's bonnet blown open which, looking at it again, suggests a petrol line leak.

I once had an Astra that did something similar because the rubber petrol  pipe was covered with a woven cloth. So there was no way to see that the rubber had perished.

Fortunately I wasn't in it at the time. It blew while a garage was looking for the 'starting problem'.

So maybe it had nothing to do with smoking at all.

anon again said...

And as a funny pay-off, my unemployed mate came across a vacancy for a "Smoking Cessation Co-Ordinator" at his local Jobcentre.

Salary?

£27.5K

Nice work if you can get it.

Fjjub2 said...

Isn't it the same with nearly all of them? Piece put up during the night and within half an hour, a dozen anti comments. Meanwhile, the rest of us didn't know it was even up until we'd read it in normal time. 

Unknown said...

Legiron, is completely right. An electronic cigarette is completely healthy, and talking about the lithium battery is another way of making e cigs look bad.

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