pumpkinstrokemarrow

The establishment which I used to use on Derby Day, in the days when my smoking was very occasional and social, to buy 40 Gitaines, a special treat for a special day. The shop still sells cigarettes but I rather doubt whether they still sell Gitaines. And in these days of cover up the only way to find out whether they do at Waitrose is to ask.

I wonder how the new rules apply to the smokers' shop at Harrods, as I recall a small shop within a shop with much old fashioned shop furniture, in particular shallow glass fronted hardwood cupboards lining the inside walls and filled with assorted smokers' products? How do you remove them from the sight of susceptible minors while retaining retail competence?

I am also becoming acquainted with various related products which do not incur the wrath of the regulations, the relevant sentence of which reads 'smoking includes being in possession of lit tobacco or of anything lit which contains tobacco, or being in possession of any other lit substance in a form in which it could be smoked'. One still legal nicotine delivery system looks rather like an asthma inhaler and is intended to be used to supply a quick fix after the meal when one is gasping for a fag. Another actually looks like a fag, glows like a fag and delivers both smoke and nicotine - but cunningly avoids the test of 'lit substance'. And for those who do not keep up with the times, there is always chew. Not sure where one might get the stuff in Epsom.

Another recent acquaintance is a modern mobile phone. The pictures you can take with them are vastly superior than those which I take with my elderly Nokia (such as this one) and they even do flash although I don't think they are yet into zoom. There is still something left for a real camera to do - although it is hard to see how one could make a living out of a high street photographic shop any more. Bring on the podiatrists!

I notice in passing that the regulations also empower the appropriate authorities, whoever they might be, to enact all kinds of variations, so what you see in the act might well not be the whole story. The appropriate authorities can spend long and entertaining Friday lunch times dreaming up all kinds of new wheezes and have them enacted before departing for the 1608 for Surbiton.

The place to the rear left of the picture used to be a notable watering hole, especially on Derby Day. Sadly fallen just before we arrived in town and now home to a gentlemen's outfitter. A gentlemen's outfitter which has fallen so low as to have a ladies' department.