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Sunday
Dec102023

Heart of the matter

Two weeks ago I mentioned that I had been invited to have an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening:

The purpose, I was told, was to 'help find an aneurysm' in the main blood vessel that supplies blood to the body.

What they were looking for was any swelling – which can be serious – but they couldn't find anything so I passed that test and we move on.

Yesterday I received an email from an old friend telling recipients that he is due to have open heart surgery before Christmas to repair an aneurysm.

I have known him since university. We met at a cheese and wine party (!) in our first week at Aberdeen in 1976 and have remained good friends ever since, although it’s a few years since I last saw him.

The irony is that I have always thought of him as much fitter than I have ever been.

He has never been overweight and has always looked after himself, so news of his impending operation adds fuel to my belief that, while it’s sensible to take precautions to lower the risks in later years, there is a Russian roulette aspect to health that limits what we can do.

Perhaps it’s hereditary or just bad luck, but some things are beyond our control.

My father, for example, was never overweight and enjoyed far more exercise as an adult than I ever have, yet he suffered heart problems from his early fifties and ended up having two heart by-pass operations and a heart transplant.

According to my mother - and this was news to me until yesterday - he also had aortic aneurysm surgery.

My grandfather died of angina in 1972 before heart by-passes were common procedure, so perhaps my father inherited some of his problems from his father.

The good news is that my friend’s issue has been identified - perhaps through a similar screening to the one I had last month - and is being dealt with.

I wish him all the very best.

Saturday
Dec092023

Ugly? That's my uncle Roy's old house!!

My mother, 93 last Sunday, has been staying with us for the past few days.

Yesterday I took her to see her brother Roy in West Mersea in Essex where he lives with his wife Sarah.

I’ve written about Uncle Roy before. Like my grandfather before him, he was a GP with a keen interest in boxing that led, eventually, to him becoming chairman of the British Olympic Association Medical Committee.

In his younger days he was also an amateur racing driving whose luck eventually ran out when he rolled his Mk1 Lola-Climax once too often and my aunt ‘suggested’ he quit for the sake of his young family.

Anyway, back in the Sixties, before my family moved to Scotland, we would visit them in Colchester, where Roy and Sarah had moved shortly after getting married.

It helped that my grandparents on my mother’s side had also moved to Colchester, following my grandfather's retirement a few years later, because that enabled us to see them at the same time.

In fact, we could see the back of Roy and Sarah’s house from my grandparents’ house, which brings me to the point of this post.

I was chatting to Sarah over lunch yesterday when she mentioned that their old architect-designed house (above) had featured in a Channel 4 TV programme a few years ago, and not in a good way.

Ugly House to Lovely House with George Clarke features leading architects transforming ‘some of Britain's most unloved homes’.

Ugly house? Unloved homes?!!

It’s true, says Sarah (who wasn’t the least bit bothered by their old home being traduced in this way), that the house looked dated and had a slightly strange layout, but that was because it was designed in 1962 as a family home and doctor’s surgery, with two rooms being allocated for use as a surgery and waiting room.

I imagine there was also a separate entrance for patients.

By today’s standards, the original house certainly looks ‘of its time’ but when it was built it was considered extremely modern, and I remember it reasonably well.

Thanks to the large windows it was very bright. The sitting room, on the first floor above what I think must have been the surgery, seemed enormous, and there was a modern, open plan feel to the place.

Subsequent owners seem to have built a two-storey extension at the side of the house and knocked down an internal wall creating an even larger kitchen/diner/living room.

The major crime, however, was adding a horrible boxed porch to the front of the house.

I remember going there for Christmas lunch one year and that was an eye-opener because it was the first year I discovered that other families have different traditions on Christmas Day.

I was surprised, for example, that we had to wait until late afternoon for ‘lunch’. (I believe it was because Roy had to visit patients on Christmas Day. Can you imagine GPs doing that today?)

At home Christmas lunch was normally done and dusted in time for the Queen’s Speech at 3.00.

But the bigger surprise was that my cousins weren’t allowed to open their presents until 5.00pm because my sister and I always opened our presents at 7.00am sharp.

But I digress.

From Ugly House to Lovely House is available on the Channel 4 app and I have to say it’s extraordinarily rude about the original building which is described as looking like a ‘block of flats’.

The original architect is invited to comment and he is remarkably gracious - on screen at least - about the criticism of his work.

According to the programme (first broadcast in 2017), the budget for modernising the house was £150,000, but the final cost of reburbishment, which included an impressive new extension at the back, was nearer £250,000.

The irony is that while the re-fashioned house does look better and more practical to modern eyes, from the front it could easily pass for a small modern office and my guess is that in another 50 or 60 years it will look just as dated as the original building does now.

Below: Trailer for Ugly House to Lovely House: 60s house transformed into modern home. The full progamme, Colchester Revisit – is on the Channel 4 app.

Thursday
Dec072023

Hollywood’s burning issue

Enjoyable piece in the Telegraph by Alexander Larman:

Why Hollywood stars have started smoking again

Surprisingly, perhaps, it includes one or two quotes by me, but I’m in good company because there are also quotes from ‘film scholar’ Lucy Bolton and ‘lifestyle and cultural journalist’ Kara Kennedy.

To be honest, it was one of the more enjoyable exercises I’ve been asked to do recently, and a welcome respite from thinking about government consultations.

Alex sent me half a dozen questions and these were my replies, from which he took a few comments:

Do you believe that the contemporary portrayal of smoking in cinema is more pervasive – and more positive – than it has been for many years?
I’m not a regular cinema goer but I would be very surprised if the portrayal of smoking in films has become more pervasive, and more positive, in recent years. I may be wrong but in my experience you would be hard-pressed to find many leading characters who smoke in any top 10 box office movie. Nevertheless, if directors of more adult orientated movies are pushing back against attempts to censor their work by denying them the creative freedom to portray smoking on screen, I would welcome it. Smoking in films should never be gratuitous, but if it’s character or plot driven, and reflects the real world, what’s the problem?

Why do you think that so many major 2022-2023 films contain scenes of nicotine and tobacco use?
I haven’t watched enough films during that period so I’m not qualified to comment, but is this true? It sounds like the sort of claim the anti-smoking lobby would make to justify a crackdown on smoking in movies. If it is true, and I remain sceptical, perhaps there have been more major films in that period featuring adult themes. Smoking, lest we forget, is still a perfectly normal habit for millions of people, and art, including commercial cinema, has a right to reflect real life and the world around us, not some utopian smoke free world forced upon us by politicians and public health activists. There are 1.3 billion smokers worldwide so why not represent some of them on screen?

Cinema used to be associated with portraying smoking as glamorous and exciting. When do you believe that this ended?
Was smoking ever portrayed as glamorous and exciting? You’ve got to remember that in the mid 20th century, in the heyday of Hollywood, smoking was completely normal. At one point 80% of men smoked, and almost 50% of women. It’s only now that we look back and think that smoking, as portrayed on film at that time, was glamorous, or exciting, or even a bit rebellious, because we compare it with our own more censorious and risk averse age. Back then, however, smoking was embraced by every generation and every social class. In fact, it was arguably one of the most egalitarian habits the world has ever witnessed.

Do you think that major stars being associated with smoking makes it seem more exciting for impressionable audiences?
Not really. Most people are clever enough to distinguish between an actor and the role they are playing on screen, so talk of “impressionable audiences” is rather patronising. And if the major star is a smoker in real life, it has nothing to do with anyone else. They’re actors working in what I imagine can be very stressful industry. They didn’t ask to be role models, nor should they be, so leave them alone!

Which actors do you believe could bring back smoking into the mainstream if they were to be associated with it onscreen?
I don’t believe any actor has the power to bring smoking back into the mainstream. Audiences aren’t stupid. They know about the health risks of smoking. They also know that actors are playing a role, not themselves. The idea that a significant number of cinema goers might be persuaded to start smoking by the sight of an actor playing a character who smokes is laughable. There are many reasons why a dwindling number of people choose to smoke. Watching an actor, even a well-known one, light up on screen is unlikely to be one of them.

What are your personal views on smoking?
I don’t smoke but I have known many people who do, or did, and the overwhelming majority enjoyed the habit, which I respect. Other people smoking never bothered me. If adults make an informed choice to smoke, knowing the health risks, good luck to them. It’s their life, not mine, so I wouldn’t presume to comment, or lecture them, just as I wouldn’t expect them to comment on the fact that I am significantly overweight and risking my own health by eating too much of the ‘wrong’ food.

Do you believe that smoking will ever return to its previous popularity or have we passed that stage forever?
Smoking will never be history, but unless we invent a completely ‘safe’ cigarette I can’t imagine it will ever return to its previous popularity. There are two reasons for this. One, there are too many restrictions on the sale and consumption of combustible tobacco, most of which are unlikely to be reversed. Two, we know so much more about the health risks associated with smoking than we did 50 or 60 years ago, and that has obviously influenced recent generations not to start smoking. I can’t see that changing.

Smoking, I added, will never go away completely because it remains an enjoyable habit for many people. Also, given that it’s human nature to experiment, some people will always be drawn to forbidden fruit. That’s just a fact. Get over it.

Wednesday
Dec062023

You’re an adult at 18 and should be allowed to purchase tobacco

Today is the closing date for submissions to the Government consultation, 'Creating a smokefree generation and tackling youth vaping'.

A new poll has found that almost three-fifths (58%) of people in Britain say that when people are 18 and legally an adult they should be allowed to purchase cigarettes and other tobacco products.

The survey, conducted by Yonder Consulting for Forest, found that 58% of respondents think that if a person can vote, drive a car, buy alcohol, or possess a credit card at 18, they should also be allowed to purchase tobacco.

Fewer than a third (32%) said they should not be allowed to purchase tobacco products when they are legally an adult at 18, while 10% said 'don't know'.

The Government will ignore it, of course, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't share it as widely as possible.

If, however, you're in any doubt about the Government's plans, this press release (Plans progressed to create a smokefree generation), issued today, makes clear their partisan position.

It includes quotes from ASH, Cancer Research UK, and Asthma + Lung UK.

It's almost as if, since the PM's announcement of a tobacco sales ban at the Conservative conference in Manchester in October, Downing Street and the DHSC have decided they no longer have to even pretend to remain neutral during a 'public' consultation.

Plans to introduce the most significant public health intervention in a generation and phase out smoking are progressing at pace, as the government’s consultation closes today.

It must be extremely liberating, but what a joke.

PS. The Telegraph is reporting that 'Vapes could be prescription-only under Labour government'.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire …

Saturday
Dec022023

Killing comedy

"Forest has just been mentioned on The Now Show," said my wife, who was listening to Radio 4.

"And not in a good way," she added.

The long-running BBC programme, broadcast on Friday evenings and repeated on Saturdays, has become a by-word for unfunny, woke 'comedy'.

Nevertheless, I was flattered that Forest had been mentioned so I clicked on iPlayer to listen to it myself.

Introduced by Hugh Dennis, the item begins at 18:00 (episode 5, series 63) and features a monologue by guest Jessica Fostekew about the generational smoking ban.

Sounding more like a genuine BBC newsreader, Fostekew said:

"New Zealand's new government has shocked the world this week by repealing Jacinda Ardern's epic new smoking ban, despite the fact that smoking kills more people than anything else in New Zealand ...

"The new law would have come into force next year and would have banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. And they've unbanned it! How rock 'n' roll is that ...?"

"I'm particularly stunned by this repeal, of course I am," added this self-confessed "smug ex-smoker" before launching into a mercifully short but still unfunny anecdote about her toddler son and his wish for her to give up her "adult blowing".

Returning to what felt more like propaganda than comedy, she declared: "The smoking ban we've had in the UK since 2007 has worked.

"Since then it's been illegal to smoke in enclosed spaces, or workplaces. Studies have shown that following these original bans hospital admissions for directly smoking-related diseases reduced, including marked reductions in premature births, and childhood asthma, and over £800m every single year of savings for the NHS.

"For the love of facts," she shouted, "surely that's a good thing?"

"Jacinda's mighty ban," she insisted, "had been internationally applauded. Other countries, including the UK, had said they liked its prospects so much they were going to be following suit. It was set to be New Zealand's new, most famous, export ...

"Making smoking easier again does feel like a bizarrely regressive thing to do. All out bans can be impractical and in some cases tough to enforce. I don't fancy being the police officer whose job it would be to arrest illegal smokers in the act, but at least they'd be quite easy to beat in a chase.

"There were some logistical worries over the ban because it would stop anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes and it meant there would come a time when a 40-year-old might have to ask a 41-year-old to buy their fags for them.

"It sounds strange but, let me tell you, I would love that. As someone who has very recently turned 40, the sheer human thrill I just get at once more being ID'd.

"It begs the question, who could possibly have been against this ban? We spoke to Forest, the UK's smokers' rights group, largely funded by the tobacco industry. And their spokesperson said, "We think ... [noise of persistent coughing] ... we think smoking is delicious."

"In actuality," she added, “the only group who had been vocally against the ban had been owners of coroner shops and newsagents who, I should add, were going to be given subsidies ...

"But to end on a positive note, Sunak has said he does still intend to bring the extended ban here in the UK, with the very noble aim of putting an end to smoking forever. Unfortunately, he said he will have to make up the tobacco tax financial shortfall by instead taxing vapes.

"Whaaaat? That's just jumping out of the frying pan and into the watermelon plume. Rishi, ideally we'd like the government not to be financially reliant on tax income from any kind of adult blowing.”

Needless to say, much of this was accompanied by raucous audience laughter, but I've been in those audiences and I can tell you ... you're conditioned to laugh, if only out of politeness.

But my more serious point is this.

While the depiction of a fictional Forest spokesman was amusing (I did smile), it was also completely predictable.

Equally predictable was a comedian on The Now Show aligning herself with our anti-smoking Establishment that includes both the BBC and all mainstream political parties, not to mention our 'Conservative' government.

Mainstream comedians were once mocked for being conservative (or even Conservative). Then came left wing 'alternative' comedians led by Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle who were seemingly anti-Establishment.

Many of today's 'progressive' comedians like to think they follow in the footsteps of those 'alternative' comedians, but there's nothing radical about them at all.

As far as smoking is concerned, someone like Jessica Fostekew not only supports and parrots the Establishment line, she appears happy to foster and promote anti-smoking propaganda, not even for laughs but as genuine 'information'.

As for "Jacinda's mighty ban", how rock 'n' roll is that?

The point is, Fostekew is clearly not alone. I don't doubt for one second that her view – even allowing for the fact that this was a 'comedy' sketch – is also held by most of those working for The Now Show, and of course the wider BBC.

It isn't an accident that she was given a platform to promote "Jacinda's mighty ban" and mock opponents of a generational ban.

However, any comedy programme with an ounce of self-respect would surely want to put the boot into the prohibitionists and overweening regulators, or the middle-class do-gooders who can't wait to dictate how others live their lives.

But no. The Now Show and their guests are the Establishment, and completely predictable. How (un)funny is that?

Saturday
Dec022023

A pint and a fag with Farage 

Nigel Farage is rumoured to have been paid £1.5m for appearing on the current series of I’m A Celebrity.

Only ITV executives will know whether they are getting value for money, but this observation by the Telegraph’s arts and entertainment editor is quite telling:

The nicer he appears, the less he stands out from the crowd and the further ratings plummet.

If true, what a horrible indictment of modern life.

I haven’t watched the current series, so I can’t really comment, but Farage’s appearance on the programme is a reminder that ten years ago the former Ukip and Brexit party leader took part in a fringe event organised by Forest at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester.

We had heard that he was coming to speak at another fringe event so we invited him to be interviewed by Mark Littlewood, director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs, at the Comedy Store where we were already hosting a reception and comedy event, Stand Up for Liberty.

‘A Pint and a Fag with Farage’ was scheduled for 6.15pm on the second day of the conference.

Unknown to us, however, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was the star guest at another event taking place at exactly the same time, which led to the BBC comparing the two, right down to the venue, crowd, atmosphere, funniest gag, surprising revelation, and so on.

Naturally we couldn’t compete with Boris on numbers, or excitement, but ‘A Pint and a Fag with Farage’ received reasonably favourable reviews. Here’s a snippet from a BBC News report.

The small basement auditorium is just over half full, with a mix of refugees from the Tory conference, UKIP supporters, newspaper hacks and curious members of the public. A slightly younger crowd than the average Tory conference gathering. The event is sponsored by smokers' rights campaign Forest - but no one flouts the law by lighting up …

The evening may be billed as a "pint and a fag with Nigel Farage" but it is far from a raucous boys' night out. Farage happily slurps down a pint of Guinness as host Mark Littlewood, of the Institute of Economic Affairs, probes him about his attitude to personal freedom and whether he is trying to turn UKIP into the 19th Century Liberal party.

The report summarised each event as follows:

Johnson: Most politicians' best hope is polite applause, and, if their luck is in, a standing ovation. Few can expect whoops and cheers, but that is what Boris Johnson managed here, as well as applause and a standing ovation. People expected to be entertained, and quite a few Conservative activists are willing to entertain the idea of Boris Johnson as party leader, one day.

Farage: It was no stand-up routine - there was much earnest talk about the evils of the EU - but this being Farage there was still plenty of self-mocking humour and eye-rolling pretend outrage at his outlaw status at the Tory conference. His stance on immigration and free enterprise went down well with the Tories in the audience, his pops at Tory politicians less so, but everyone seemed to go away happy as Farage headed outside for that fag.

See - Tory conference: Boris Johnson versus Nigel Farage (BBC News)

Funnily enough, on the two previous occasions Farage spoke at Forest events he wasn’t strictly invited.

In June 2009, when we launched the Save Our Pubs & Clubs: Amend The Smoking Ban campaign at a pub in Westminster, the advertised speakers were Forest patron Antony Worrall Thompson, Conservative MP Greg Knight, and Labour MP David Clelland.

If I remember, Nigel wasn’t even on the guest list, but his press officer got wind of the event and asked if they could attend, and one thing led to another.

The previous year (2008) he made a similar ‘surprise appearance’ at another Forest event - this time at Boisdale of Belgravia - to mark the first anniversary of the public smoking ban.

Again, I’m not sure he was formally invited but that didn’t stop him coming and giving a rousing address to our 200+ audience!

That, I suspect, is the Nigel Farage the producers of I’m A Celebrity thought they were getting - an outspoken, slightly belligerent disruptor happy to gatecrash the party.

Like many people, though, they have probably underestimated the former MEP because Farage will know that polarising the television audience into two camps - those that like him, and those that hate him - is not going to get him far.

With rare exceptions, the winners are usually the most likeable characters. Tony Blackburn, Stacey Solomon and Jill Scott come to mind. Likewise Shaun Ryder who didn’t win but made the final.

As it happens, Farage has arguably dialled things down too much, with the result that his impact on the programme has been fairly muted so far.

We’ll find out in the next few days whether his ‘plan’ (if he has one) is working.

Tuesday
Nov282023

Billion dollar smoke-free foundation severs ties with Philip Morris

I didn’t see that coming. Or perhaps I did.

Launched in 2017 in a blaze of publicity, it was reported yesterday (by Reuters no less) that the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has cut all ties with the nicotine industry.

All ties?

To the best of my knowledge there was only one significant tie, and that was with the global tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) whose tireless (and often tedious) advocacy for a smoke-free world somehow convinced the company to commit $1bn to fund the Foundation over a twelve year period.

That’s right. One billion dollars.

Now, just six years on, we’re told the Foundation will ‘rebrand and find new funders from outside of the industry'.

To which I can only say, good luck with that!!

But, first, let's rewind to September 2017.

As a participant at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in New York, I had a ringside seat when the Foundation was launched, noting:

While delegates were still bleary-eyed from the previous night's 'Welcome Reception' at the Rockefeller Center, the Financial Times (five hours ahead of us) was reporting that Philip Morris International had pledged to give $1 billion to a new organisation called – wait for it – the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

The money will be donated over twelve years - $83 million annually.

Head of the foundation is former WHO official Derek Yach who helped create the global Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and is now a leading advocate of e-cigarettes.

Yach and PMI's Marc Firestone both addressed the conference so you couldn’t fault the impressive stage-management.

I was never convinced, though, that the Foundation had a long or successful future because the relationship with PMI was always going to be an albatross around its neck, and so it proved.

In March 2018 Yach, a South African, was even refused entry to the 17th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town, and that, you could argue, set the tone for an organisation that from day one was ostracised by the global public health community.

Then came the Foundation’s Smoke-Free Index (later rebranded the Tobacco Transformation Index), a vainglorious exercise designed to monitor the tobacco industry’s progress towards a ‘smoke-free’ world.

Writing about it in September 2018, I mused:

I do wonder what PMI’s competitors think of the company funding a body that intends to hold their feet to the fire, forever monitoring their activities in the name of some ‘smoke-free’ utopia.

For example, if their public statements are anything to go by, senior PMI executives clearly think their company is leading the race towards a ‘better’, smoke-free future.

They boast that they are disrupting not just the industry but their own company.

But what happens if and when PMI lags behind some of its rivals? (Talk is cheap and actions speak louder than words.) Will the Foundation’s Smoke-Free Index point the finger at the company that is bankrolling it?

Thereafter, one thing that struck me about the Foundation was the seemingly high turnover of staff.

And then, in 2021, Derek Yach himself was gone and I don’t believe the Foundation has ever fully recovered from his unexplained departure.

His eventual successor (it took the Foundation two years to appoint a permanent one) has presumably been tasked with giving the Foundation the leadership and direction it desperately needs, and a final grant of $122.5m from PMI should tide them over for a bit.

It may even pay for a rebrand, although it will take a lot more than a new name and logo to get this particular show back on the road.

The frustrating thing is that the Foundation will almost certainly be remembered as a lost opportunity. The former director of ASH, Clive Bates, hinted as much when he tweeted, in February 2020:

Idea: somehow find a billion dollar foundation to set up a system to meticulously track and challenge the false and misleading statements of WHO, CDC, Bloomberg-funded proxies, and call out the junk science and press releases of influential academics and medical society chancers.

I commented on Clive’s tweet here (Wanted: billion dollar foundation to challenge global health industry’s lies), noting, as I’m sure he intended:

There already exists a ‘billion dollar foundation’ that could do the work outlined by Clive … It’s called the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World and it was launched in New York in September 2017.

That said, I’m sure the Foundation has done some good work. For example, Prof Marewa Glover, a New Zealand-based tobacco control campaigner and someone I greatly respect, yesterday tweeted:

Like many others my research centre has been able to move forward with several research initiatives thanks to the support of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World.

Nevertheless it amuses me that Forest, founded in 1979, has survived for almost 45 years on a fraction of the money the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World has been given by PMI in just six years.

Even if it didn’t reach a billion dollars it was still a significant sum, even for a global tobacco giant, but value for money? Arguably not.

Where the Foundation’s next big grant comes from is hard to predict but, thankfully, that’s not my problem.

So apologies for the schadenfreude, but if this is the beginning of the end for a fabulously funded initiative dedicated to achieving a smoke-free world, you’ll forgive me a wry smile.

See also: Foundation for a Smoke-Free World Names Clifford Douglas CEO as National Voice in Smoking Cessation Work

Below: Yours truly with Derek Yach, founder and president of the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, on Euronews in June 2021

Monday
Nov272023

Nanny state of the nation

Here it is, the video of last week's 'Nanny State of the Nation' discussion at Old Queen Street Cafe in Westminster.

The event was organised in response to Rishi Sunak's plan for a ban on the sale of tobacco to future generations of adults in the UK.

The event also marked the publication of 'Freedom: Up In Smoke?', the latest in a series of Letters on Liberty published by the Academy of Ideas.

Moderated by Ella Whelan (Academy of Ideas), our panel featured me, Claire Fox (Baroness Fox of Buckley), Henry Hill (ConservativeHome), and Reem Ibrahim (Institute of Economic Affairs).

Over the next week we shall be posting a number of soundbites that were filmed after the discussion. They feature both our panelists and members of the audience.

The first one (below) features Claire Fox, founder of the Academy of Ideas, who told us:

"Over a period of time the British state will ban a 25-year-old, a 35-year-old, a 45-year-old, from smoking and treat them as if they're 14 and need the state to protect them. It's mad."

At the time of writing the clip has been viewed 27,000 times on X. That's probably as close to viral as Forest will ever get!

Update: 54,000.