volleyball

heya

indeed this is (yet) another post on the subject of cigarettes, look you see, despite the title not making too much of what one may call immediate sense. but it shall, i think. for some reason i feel compelled to put a warning of sorts when addressing this subject, perhaps from a sense of the imaginary pressure of society. so, on that note, smoking cigarettes is quite bad for you, you should not do it, if you do smoke then it would be wise to seek assistance in quitting, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah. 

for non-smokers i imagine (if not presume) it's the case they take as a given that a "cigarette is a cigarette" and thus do not trouble themselves with how one may be different from another. there are, as it happens, significant (or "cignificant" for fun) differences, with of course Marlboro being the finest of the best, in particular my most beloved "red". over the years i have tried many different types, some of which have been documented here and are with thanks to my mate Spiros getting them as he travelled around the world. 

rare has it been that i have wished to try one specific type of cigarette, with my longing forever being just to be in a position where i could smoke Marlboro red all day every day. but there was one cigarette that i always craved to try and had - up to now - eluded me. the desire for them was based purely on the name of them, and so at last (and to make sense of the title here) i managed to get some Top Gun cigarettes.

over the last few years i had seen, with great interest, discarded, empty packets of them, dropped like litter. well, not like, i suppose, actual. mostly this was down in that there London (innit). obviously the name intrigued me and i was determined to find some. i made discrete (discreet?) enquires in shops down in London that looked like they may have been able to supply them, but alas none either had them or were simply not prepared to sell them to me. with respect to the latter, that would be of course because they are bootleg, counterfeit or what have you. essentially "illegal", and as a seller of such i would imagine you have to be cautious in business on the off chance the buyer is trying to catch you out. 

most happy day, then, when i had an encounter with a young lady who(m) happened to be smoking some of them. this was closer to home, and certain elements of the encounter are most decidedly not appropriate to share here. the important thing is that she was able to take me to the place where she procured them, and so yes i (very much) was able to get some for myself. 

how are they? unexpectedly good. as in really good. sometimes these "not official" cigarettes are a rough or bad experience, but not the case with these Top Gun ones. all of the packaging and styling suggested they would be "light" and indeed they are, but pleasantly so. very satisfactory indeed. so much so that i have noted when i am "on" these i appear to be smoking less (or "fewer") a day than would be the normal, if yes you allow that i should possibly not be smoking any at all. presumably these have something or other in them that leave my system sate and not craving so many. 

time, of course, for the usual what you will call it here. cost of these is £5 a packet, which is roughly, or somewhere around, a third (33%) of the cost of "legal" cigarettes here in the UK. a price which is not so far off what "legal" cigarettes should cost, except for the ludicrous increased taxes over the last ten or so years. more on that, if interested, can be found here. 

some time around when this is getting "published" online we will have the joys of a budget being issued by our much beloved government. it is widely expected to be one which shall "tank" or otherwise destroy the economy, but all the same we are stood around just watching it, with some apologists claiming that "at least it is not the previous government", as if that in itself makes it all better. one can have little doubt that "legal" cigarettes will get absolutely hammered with an even higher tax. as things stand a journalist who(m) smokes recently did an article where they worked out people purchasing these legal cigarettes are paying over £9,000 a year for doing so. 

you will never, ever stop the supply of anything "illegal", illicit or bootleg. there shall forever exist people all too eager to profit from such a market, for it is the kind of thing which has created and stimulated "economic activity" ever since the time humans foolishly opted for this way of structuring how the world works. what you can do, though, is significantly curtail the demand for such. of late the BBC has been going large on the "illegal cigarette" trade, with articles such as this one. they are determined to focus just on the one side, which is the supply. in that article they explicitly show the cause of the demand - the cost of "legal" cigarettes - but decline to comment on that, never mind suggest that might be the problem. 

no, i am not (as has been commented before) particularly happy, thrilled or delighted to be in some way or another "funding" criminal activity. but also i am not going to allow the implication of this being highlighted stop me. should the government of the day (any day) be all that bothered about the presumed lost tax revenue (which is reasonably all they care for) or the trade in so-called "illegal" cigarettes then it is entirely within their remit and/or power to quell the demand for such, all simply by returning to a "punitive but sensible" level of taxation on cigarettes they sell in shops. it's not that hard for them to say "we made an error" (or "we f****d up") thinking we could exploit smokers in this way, to acknowledge they have created the market for illicit cigarettes and address it in a sensible way. the somewhat token, arbitrary measures being taken to "stop illegal cigarette sales" are just a huge waste of resources; both the "war on drugs" and "war on terror" will be "won" first, and we know precisely how well they are going. 

far be it from me to argue with the idea (or suggestion) that i should "just" quit. i am, after all, partially educated, and thus (or so) know that smoking is not good for me. however, i happen to enjoy it. there's also the fear (or concern) of what i would do to fill the void left, and what psychological, if not physiological, ch-ch-ch-changes would come. psychosomatic, i think is the word i was looking for there. anyway, yes i finally got some Top Gun cigarettes and they are totes ace. 

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