Rules and regulations regarding tobacco and water.

When I was a child it was possible to buy packets of sweet “cigarettes”, sticks of white candy with a pink tip, meant to look as of the cigarette was lit. Children would pretend to be sophisticated smokers, Nowadays they can’t call them sweet cigarettes; they’re just ‘candy sticks’. I also remember the rather sweet smell of virginia tobacco in the packets of five cigarettes. 

I don’t have a personal memory of this but I am told that corner shops, back in the day, would sell individual cigarettes. I do remember being told when I was a student in Spain in 1968 that a tobacconist in the plaza mayor was selling Gold Leaf cigarettes - he was selling them individually! 

 

Back then the predominant tobacco smell in Spain was the black tobacco in Ducados cigarettes. In France it was the smell of Gauloises Disque Bleu. The smell of virginia cigarettes was, as with the tobacco, vaguely sweet in comparison. 

Those were the days. Now that “national” tobacco odour has disappeared. 

And now a bill banning anyone born after 2008 from buying tobacco in the UK has completed its progress through parliament in a move that ministers hope will create a “smoke-free generation”. It will become law once it receives royal assent next week. Yes, I can see Charles approving of that; he seems to be generally in favour of making the world a better place.

I do wonder about the policing of such a law. Presumably there will be a mechanism similar to what happens with the sale of alcohol and a cashier has to verify that the purchaser is over 18.

What will be next? Age restrictions on buying chewing gum, chocolate bars, sweets in general? Cans of soft drinks? It could be one way to tackle the obesity crisis.

On the subject of improving the world, I read about an anomaly regarding Henley, home of the eponymous regatta. The residents and the businessmen of Henley on Thames are concerned about the quality of water in their bit of the river. That stretch of the river has been denied bathing status because people who use the river for organised swimming events, rowing, kayaking, paddleboarding or sailing were excluded from being considered as river users by Defra when the town council submitted its application in 2024 because they are not classed as “bathers” under the legislation. In a catch-22 situation, people won’t bathe in the river because it hasn’t got official bathing status which it doesn’t have because too few people actually bathe there. I’m not sure why don’t just go ahead and clean up their patch of river. Maybe it’s a funding issue. Here’s a link to an article about it.

Hey ho!

Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!