warning sign

hi there

apologies for the lack of updates, blah blah blah, etc.

this idea of needing to end a relationship with smoking in the not too distant, as point of fact imminent, future (as opposed to in the past) is not going all that well as of yet.  i shall, i believe need to buy some of them gadgets, devices, pills, thrills and bellyaches to do it. yes, yes, i am weak in character and will and all of that, guilty. as guilty as, say, as if i were stood in front of a door ripped apart by cigarettes and the person behind the door was totally knacked, to stomach churning levels apparently, by the mentioned cigarettes. or, indeed, similar.

anyway, this simple fault allows me, briefly, to expand my collection of exciting warning stickers. or at least it should. sadly, to get the disappointment out of the way now, none of the rest of the set of collectable cards have been as sensational as that one of open heart or open lung (if there is such a thing) surgery. the rest are extraordinarily dull, but if you must look anyway, here.

here's the front of one of the more modestly priced packets. yeah, that's basically the most scary and effective sticker you can put on a packet. due to the stupid fat bald one keeping a low profile ever since (i kid you not) "Satanists" booed him, the exchange rate has improved somewhat, so this translates, friends and family in SA, as R107.22 a packet. it might get even cheaper if the stupid fat bald one simply sits by his pool eating things out of his personal tuck shop for a few more weeks.

still, i do rather like the "seriously harms" part on display at the front. seriously harms? as opposed to what? partially? fully? totally? the "others around you" is class too. if they left it a bit vague, perhaps even ambivalent, saying just "others", that would be interesting. what if you lighting a cigarette in, i don't know, Grantham or somewhere like that meant that harm - serious harm - would befall some chap in Darwin or Bern or something like that? the philosophical duel one could have with their own mind before lighting up could bring about an entire new age of enlightenment or age of reason. or maybe not, and people just carried on doing it anyway.

it was a packet of Chesterfield Red that had the ace, initial free surgery collector card on it. quite disappointing, then, that Chesterfield do not carry on with the range across different colours. well, i have only tried Red (OK) and Blue (not really as OK as they could be), but the card that came free with Blue lacks any imagination. it lacks, in truth, any picture.

i mean yes, there is some artistic merit to the font and colour scheme, but "you can do it we can help" is not exactly as an enchanting or as collectible thing as the surgery one. it on the whole feels rather like that "we are ready to believe you" advert out of Ghostbusters for some reason.

that said, i shall test the mettle of this statement and consult a pharmacist about this business. "bring me", i shall say, "things that kill the desire and wish to smoke, bring them now so they may please me and save me money".

a lot of it is, of course, down to you, me, whoever it is that wishes to stop. so i will somehow be required to meet the things that they bring me half way, i suppose. i do not relish it, but hey ho.

this was a rather splendid pie i had, with an equally splendid cup of coffee, recently. people for some reason like posting their meals on the internet, so to see if i could grasp just what it is and what it is like to be people i thought i would have a go at it, see what happens.

the contents of the pie were, in truth, nothing short of spectacular. somehow into the above pastry was crammed a generous amount of bacon, eggs that had been scrambled, baked beans, a hashbrown and some other stuff that i could not quite work out. took some work, that one did.

and no, i feel no more people. onwards, then, to  the point.

this is indeed a packet of what they in the trade call Benson & Hedges gold, or if you like Gold. for years i had informed Spiros that these were strictly the preserve of the more homosexual members of the East End gangland fraternity. i further suggested to Spiros that it was, then, on the whole unlikely that i would ever dabble with them.

i am still not at all sure why i did, really. i had intended to try an entirely different brand, but somehow found myself asking for them when i got to the counter. perhaps the nice lady in the shop did some sort of conjuring trick or something, enough for me to be oblivious and yet distracted.

as it turned out, if for some bizarre reason you wished for a review of the actual product, they turned out to be as decent as they were expensive; which is to say very. them gay East End gangsters have good taste, it seems. and if they really do only kill their own sort, well, then perhaps Roger Daltrey and his peers have a point that they should not be sent to prison for things like that. leave your doors unlocked, Chas and Dave, all that sort of stuff if you like.

so yeah, i would agree with you that the vomit stuff was probably all some sort of strange and twisted variant on "if the glove doesn't fit". i would be pretty sure the in-no-way-unreasonably-priced and spectacular thus far defence team said "jaah, bud. just do a lekker kotch in court and they will be like you are totally sorry, bru, then they will let you go".

should it turn out to be genuine vomit from genuine distress caused by learning of the consequence of his actions - and just who would know that bullets would shatter bones and make organs explode - then he needs to either stop being a nancy boy and man up, or otherwise stick to the more elaborate form of hard man actions, like for instance shooting out of car windows and shooting in wine bars. you have to ask would he be so distressed and throwing up if he had shot, ahem, a "real" intruder. the answer to that is where the truth lies.

the people who make Benson & Hedges do at the least beautify their packet with a picture, but - alas - it is not one as class or as impressive as the surgery one. quite a disturbing one.

smoking near anyone is a bad idea and near children is a very bad idea. i can understand them wishing to stress this, but going ahead and taking a picture of someone blowing smoke at a child is an unusual way of stating the case. it is like "always make sure you know who is behind the door before you start shooting, here hold my legs for a moment and let me show you". rather deranged, i think, to have a child breathe in smoke just so you can take a picture and say "do not make children breathe smoke". in this case a worded warning would have been sufficient.

then they could have done a class picture on the other one, i guess. an image of a nurse, or one of them doctor types, looking friendly and happy, giving you confidence that they would indeed help you stop smoking. if they had success with that one then there would be no need for this one, surely?

out of three packets, then, one has had a decent collectible sticker of surgery on it, whereas two have been just dire. i would probably swap these two for practically any other card. even that one from India or Egypt, or wherever, that has John Terry on it.

yes, like you, i hope the next blog post is more interesting that this one. but this is this, and it will do for now.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!