Belgium: another one bites the dust

On Thursday night I joined a dozen colleagues for dinner in a restaurant in Brussels.

The evening began with pre-dinner drinks in a designated smoking room that felt more like the drawing room of a small country house. Guests lit up, staff wandered in and out serving drinks, and all was well with the world.

From July this little oasis will be lost when Belgium extends its smoking ban to remove most of the exemptions that were included in the 2007 legislation.

The decision to introduce a comprehensive ban immediately (instead of waiting for the exemptions to be phased out by January 2014) was made in March when Constitutional Court judges ruled that "drawing distinctions between establishments was actually harmful to competition".

In other words, the exemptions that allowed bars and restaurants to have separate smoking rooms are being removed not to 'protect' public health but to create a level playing field. Choice, it seems, is anti-competitive.

Unlike Britain, though, smoking will still be permitted in restaurants and other public buildings (including offices) with special smoking rooms equipped with decent ventilation. Nothing to celebrate, but better than here where even that tiny exemption is outlawed.

See also: Belgium expands smoking ban to all cafes, casinos (Independent), Belgian barkeepers demonstrate against smoking ban (Yahoo) and Reflections on a 'non-country' (Dick Puddlecote)

Hungary 'fell' earlier this week. See here.

Bad news for republicans

Wall-to-wall coverage of the Royal Wedding on US and European TV.

From my hotel in Brussels I can report that it is currently featuring on CNN, BBC World, France 24, La Une, EEN, Ned 1 (Netherlands), ZDF (Germany), ERT (Spain) and Al Jazeera to name a few.

Everyone is talking about it.

"So sorry that you had to miss the wedding" several people said to me this morning.

Our meeting broke up at midday (11.00am UK time) with the chairman saying she wanted to see what the bride was wearing. Others expressed similar sentiments. Not one of them was British. In fact, I was the only native English speaker there.

A few minutes ago a taxi driver taking me to Midi station said, in broken English: "You're late."

"Late?" I said. "I don't think so. The train doesn't leave until 2.30."

"Not the train," he said. "The wedding!"

Royal wedding fever

I shall miss the Royal Wedding because I'll be in Brussels for a meeting.

When I get back tomorrow evening however I hope to join friends and family for the tail end of a party to mark the occasion.

How different it was 30 years ago when Charles married Diana. I was 22 and I had been living in London for less than a year.

For the first month I stayed in a hostel near Paddington. After that I moved to a flat in West Ealing. But it was so cold (there was no central heating) I didn't need persuading to move to a better flat in another area.

My new address was a short walk from Marble Arch and Hyde Park and an even shorter walk to the Edgware Road and the No 6 bus that, conveniently, took me to within a few yards of my office in Fleet Lane.

I mention this not because it's interesting (it's not!) but because the locations are central to my recollection of the 1981 royal wedding.

As its name suggests, Fleet Lane was close to Fleet Street, and as anyone with any knowledge of London will tell you, Fleet Street leads directly on to Ludgate Hill and at the top of Ludgate Hill is St Paul's Cathedral.

In the days preceding the wedding we therefore had a grandstand view as hundreds of visitors bagged their places on Ludgate Hill.

When we left the office for a lunchtime drink (or sandwich) there were bodies everywhere. We were literally tripping over them. It was an extraordinary sight and it was hard not to be impressed by the atmosphere and people's determination to get a front row seat, even if it was only sitting on the pavement.

The night before the wedding there was a free open air concert in Hyde Park and because I lived close to the park my flat became a magnet for friends (and friends of friends) who wanted to go.

It finished with a firework display set to music (except that no-one could hear the music because the fireworks were so loud). Afterwards we walked back to the flat and had a party that lasted well into the night.

Dawn was breaking when the last person left so I don't remember much about the wedding itself, which we watched on TV, but I do remember this. Away from the route of the procession the streets of London were almost totally deserted. If you weren't in the crowds lining the route between Buckingham Palace and St Paul's, you were almost certainly watching the event on television.

I know this because after the wedding ceremony we decided to walk to the Palace and join the crowds outside and I don't remember seeing anyone until we got to Constitution Hill where the roars told us that Charles and Di had returned from St Paul's and were on the balcony with other members of the royal family.

But what I remember most is the extraordinary atmosphere. And coming across a gang of punks. On any other day we would have ignored one another. But on that day something (excitement, national pride?) drew us together. We left them waving and wreathed in smiles.

Moments like that I will never forget.

Will we look back on tomorrow's events with equally fond memories? I've no idea, but if you are in London tomorrow I hope you have as good a day as we did 30 years ago.

Government cuts tobacco guidelines

A few weeks ago there was a lively discussion on this blog concerning cross-Channel shopping.

Today the Government will publish Tackling Tobacco Smuggling – building on our success (a renewed strategy for HM Revenue & Customs and the UK Border Agency) and what I feared might happen has been confirmed – the Government is set to reduce the guidelines on the amount of tobacco you can bring into the country for your own personal use.

The Guardian has the story here – Treasury to cut duty-free tobacco guidelines in £2bn tax clawback effort.

I understand the Government's position. They want to reduce the £2.2bn lost to tobacco smugglers each year. But this isn't the way to do it. The people they should be targetting are the criminals who smuggle millions of cigarettes into Britain each year.

Reducing the guidelines won't stop some of our more determined friends who know the law, can prove that the tobacco is for their own use, and aren't afraid to argue with Customs officials. But many more people will have their luggage and their cars searched and I won't be surprised if a lot more law-abiding shoppers have their goods seized in the months and years ahead.

To put the 'new' strategy in perspective, it threatens to take us back to the days when thousands of cross-Channel shoppers were victims, we felt, of over-zealous officials whose heavy-handed attempts to crack down on genuine smugglers caused a great deal of anger among ordinary, law-abiding consumers.

The Government can't have it both ways. Having only recently increased tobacco taxation above the rate of inflation, it is only natural that more people will take the opportunity to buy their tobacco, quite legally, abroad.

I understand that cigarettes will keep for at least 12 months. A 20-a-day smoker will consume 3,200 cigarettes in 160 days; the same person will consume 800 cigarettes in just 40 days. The current guideline (3,200) is a reasonable compromise that most people can live with. The new guideline is unreasonable and, if history is a guide, will cause more problems than it solves.

Politicians never learn, do they?

My Olympic marathon

I am doing my best to get tickets for the Olympic Games and failing miserably.

It's 23:20 and the deadline is 23:59. I have been sitting at my computer for a good two and a half hours but every time I try to create an account to register my interest in athletics, boxing, cycling (track), equestrian, gymnastics, rowing and volleyball (without which I can't even begin to apply for tickets), I get a message that reads:

We're experiencing high demand. You will be automatically directed to the page requested as soon as it becomes available. Thank you for your patience.

Patience? I ran out of that when I started to write this. (I've just checked and the registration page is still 'processing', which to me means 'frozen' because it hasn't changed for 45 minutes.)

In hindsight I should have applied earlier but I've been away and the organisers must have anticipated a last minute surge of interest, surely?

I imagine there must be thousands of people, just like me, staring at their computer screens, too scared to go to bed and tell their wives or partners that they have, er, missed the deadline but it really wasn't their fault because, well, the server couldn't cope with the amount of traffic and ...

The least they could do is extend the deadline.

Oh well, I guess we won't be going to the 2012 Olympic Games, after all. Perhaps I'll use the money for a holiday, somewhere far, far away from the Olympic Stadium.

I'll give it one more go ....

23:43 ... I'm in! Message on my screen now reads:

You're almost done!
A message has been sent to the email address you provided so you can activate your account. Please click on the link to activate your account. If you don't activate your account, we won't be able to send you any information.

23:47 ... Where the hell is that email?!

BREAKING NEWS: Olympic 2012 ticket website deadline extended until 1am GMT after site experienced delays (Guardian website).

23:55 ... Still waiting for the email that will allow me to activate my account and apply for tickets. Where is it?

23:59 ... It's arrived!

Update on Wednesday, April 27, 2011 at 0:54 by Simon Clark

00:55 ... "Your London 2012 Olympic ticket application has been successfully submitted".

Well, that was a close call. I beat the extended deadline by five minutes but it was mighty confusing for a while. If I'd had more time I'd have done things differently but I didn't so I applied without really thinking for a total of 22 tickets for six events: gymnastics (artistic), equestrian (jumping), boxing, athletics, rowing and cycling (track).

How many tickets will come our way I have no idea. Mindful of the cost (some of the tickets are mind-boggling expensive), I applied for the cheapest (or second cheapest) available. That will almost certainly condemn my application to be entered into a ballot for most if not all of the events I applied for, but you never know.

Enough. It's one o'clock and it's time for bed.

Why I'm supporting Rally Against Debt

I support radical public spending cuts. There, I've said it.

I'm no economist but even I can see that Britain is borrowing far more than it can afford and something has to be done to reduce public expenditure and the size of the public sector in general. As Mrs T once said, "There is no alternative".

Personally, I believe that excessive debt is a serious threat to 'freedom' in the sense that it leads to greater taxation (higher VAT, higher National Insurance, and an extended period of higher rate income tax) and other controls with the result that more power is placed in the hands of government and unelected civil servants at the expense of ordinary people.

The longer it takes to tackle the debt problem the longer we are subservient to government, in much the same way as people who have a long-term mortgage or other debts are subservient to banks, building societies, loan sharks etc etc.

If there is a problem it lies in the fact that public spending is not being cut as much or as quickly as many of us believe it should. (As for the NHS and overseas aid being ring-fenced from public spending cuts, the only question is – why???)

As I wrote a few weeks ago ('Cuts in public spending are something to celebrate', The Free Society):

I want to see less not more government. That means a leaner, more efficient public sector and fewer public sector workers. The Government shouldn’t need an excuse to reduce public spending because it is the right thing to do ...

Clearly there is a huge amount of waste and inefficiency in the public sector which is staffed by hundreds of thousands of unelected mandarins (the same mandarins who draft tobacco control regulations) ...

The economic crisis has given Britain an unexpected but wonderful opportunity to cut public expenditure and reduce inefficiency in the public sector.

Long term the benefits should include lower income tax and less government interference in our lives. Demonstrate? We ought to be celebrating.

Other reasons to support Rally Against Debt:

The TUC's March for the Alternative was supported by Labour leader Ed Miliband who, unbelievably, seemed to compare anti-cuts protestors with the suffragette movement, the anti-apartheid movement, and the civil rights movement in America.

Opponents of the cuts, including members of UK Uncut, a direct action group, staged a sit-in at what one columnist called the "upmarket food emporium Fortnum & Mason", while a group of black-clad activists in masks smashed some of the windows at the neighbouring Ritz Hotel.

For further information about the Rally Against Debt in London on Saturday May 14, click here.

Is 'vaping' the new smoking?

Interesting to read that e-cigarettes are to be regulated as tobacco products in the USA.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has agreed to regulate smokeless electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and won’t try to regulate them under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices.

The news is said to be a victory for the makers and distributors of e-cigs, one or two of whom have been quick to respond, recognising a good marketing opportunity.

According to the manufacturer of Vapestick, for example, 'vaping' is the new smoking. "Why smoke when you can vape?" it asks.

The issue of smokeless tobacco products is a very interesting one. I have heard it said that cigarettes – the overwhelmingly dominant tobacco product of the last hundred years – will gradually lose that dominance in the 21st century as consumers graduate to a wide range of smokeless tobacco products. These will include e-cigs, snus (if it is legalised) and products that have yet to be developed.

I don't have a problem with that – or the FDA's announcement about e-cigs (which I welcome) – but I worry that the manufacturers of e-cigarettes are far too keen to jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon. It's understandable, I suppose – they have a smokeless product to sell – but annoying nevertheless.

Last year I was contacted by a journalist working for an internet marketing company that was promoting an electronic cigarette company. I was asked if Forest would like an article about e-cigarettes for our website.

I replied as follows:

Dear xxx

Thanks for your email. Funnily enough, it is a subject we would like to address because I am conscious that an increasing number of cigarette smokers are using e-cigarettes.

I did mention the subject on my blog last year and that attracted quite a lot of comment, which opened my eyes a bit. It was interesting, to me, how strongly people felt about e-cigarettes and I was impressed that that there is quite a community of consumers that is quite active on blogs and forums.

What I noticed was there are three distinct groups:

1. Consumers of e-cigarettes who have given up tobacco and regard tobacco consumers as "unhealthy" or "losers"

2. Hard core cigarette smokers who consider consumers of e-cigarettes to have "sold out"

3. Cigarette smokers who find e-cigarettes a useful alternative in situations (eg pubs, public transport) where they are not allowed to light up

No 3 appears to be largest group and it's that group that interests Forest.

It's not an area I know much about so any information/articles etc would be useful and I would be happy to link to your site, although we have to be careful not to promote any particular brand.

I have also seen some e-cigs marketed in a way that seems designed to denigrate cigarettes (for health or other reasons) and for most of our supporters that is not particularly helpful because it reinforces some people's prejudice towards tobacco users.

In response I received the following 'article' that, until now, I have chosen not to publish, prefering to file it away in a folder marked 'E-Cigarettes: PR and Marketing':

Electronic nicotine imitation cigarettes could "help save the lives of millions of smokers", that's according to Elaine Keller, Vice President of the Consumer Advocates for Smoke Free Alternatives Association.

"I believe e-cigarettes will prove to be a very important tool in an arsenal of Smoking Replacement Products that can be used to save the lives of millions of smokers who cannot or will not stop using nicotine,” she said.

“Nicotine does not cause lung disease, heart disease or cancer. There are people who are never going to be able to stop smoking nicotine and there are safer ways than smoking to take nicotine in," she added.

Elaine Keller stopped smoking 'traditional' cigarettes in 2009 and she firmly believes that her health has since improved. 

"I smoked for decades and I tried everything you could imagine to stop but every time I stopped using nicotine I became very ill. For me this[the e-cigarette] is a life safer, it's an answer to a prayer."

"Like a lot of folks who smoked for decades and tried dozens of times to quit without success, using every method imaginable, I see this invention as a life-saver.

“I used to be kept awake at night by the sound of my own wheezing. I used to cough up nasty stuff every morning. Now, the wheezing is gone and so is the cough.

“The best part is that I can laugh out loud without going into a fit of coughing," she added.
Some medical experts have called for the products to be regulated but Elaine Keller does not agree.

"They're not treating nicotine addiction. What they're doing is being used as a substitute for smoking which is obviously less harmful if you just look at what's happened with my own health."

I have nothing against e-cigarettes or any other smokeless tobacco product. Far from it. I believe in consumer choice and the more choice the better as long as it's informed and, in respect of tobacco, restricted to adults.

I want to learn more about smokeless tobacco products and Forest will, I hope, lead the way in providing consumers with as much information as possible so you can make an informed choice.

But I guarantee this. We will not turn our backs on smokers nor will we defend one group of tobacco consumers at the expense of another.

Homeward bound

We left Switzerland this morning, heading west via Basle.

Currently taking a pit stop in northern France en route to Calais where we will board a Eurotunnel train. After that it should take a couple of hours to drive home.

Normal service will be resumed shortly. (Lots to report, and announce.) In the meantime, and further to my previous post, I can reveal that:

Largely unknown by British skiers, Engelberg is one of Switzerland’s best kept secrets. At the end of an open sunny valley and dominated by the impressive 3,200m Mount Titlis, it is a large and friendly traditional village. The world’s first revolving cable car provides a unique way to view the varied terrain as you travel to the guaranteed snow on the glacier 2kms above the village. (Source: ski-direct.co.uk)

We didn't experience "the world's first revolving cable car", which was near the top of the mountain, but we did reach 6,000 feet via a more traditional cable car that appeared, during one stage, to be travelling almost vertically – at which point I shut my eyes, clung to the edge of the seat and swore quietly, much to the amusement of the woman sitting opposite.

That experience was followed by lunch on the sun terrace of an alpine lodge and a relaxing walk around a frozen lake that was just beginning to thaw. With thick snow on one side and acres of grass on the other, it offered a striking contrast.

The return journey down the mountainside was even more spectacular - and this time I kept my eyes open from start to finish.

Above: view from Mount Rigi which we visited on Thursday. We reached the summit via the mountain railway you can see in the picture.

Update on Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 22:17 by Simon Clark

Congratulations to an old school friend who recently climbed ten unchartered peaks in Greenland. (The BBC has the story here.)

I have mentioned Bill's exploits before but they're worth repeating. Last year he climbed the Eiger. Before that it was Mt Blanc and he has also reached the summits of Mts Kenya and Kilimanjaro. Oh, and there was also the little matter of reaching the South Pole, on foot.

More recently I posted a picture of the pair of us, with two friends, taken in the Lake District in 1975. Clearly, that experience inspired his subsequent exploits.

Curiously, it had the opposite effect on me. After a week roughing it in the Lake District I developed an incurable addiction to hot water, soapy baths and comfortable beds. Funny, that.