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The rapid increase in cigar use in the US has taken place together with the rise in promotional activities surrounding cigar smoking. Cigar makers began promoting smokers evenings and upscale cigar dinners in expensive hotels and restaurants. Such cigar parties at non-public clubs, restaurants and bars are now very popular. Smoke and Cigar aficionado, two popular cigar mags dedicated to cigar smoking, were introduced in the early 90’s and have rapidly gained acceptance. Many cigar mags have featured on their covers and in profile stories, many cigar smoking sports figures, actors and actresses and celebrity models. Recently, cigars have appeared in plot lines and as props of numerous Television shows and movies. Cigar makers advertising and promotional expenditures have been broken down into sixteen promotional and advertising categories. There has been a significant increase in the amount spent in pretty much every class of promotional and advertising category. By miles, the industry’s biggest expenditures were on promotional allowances. This allowance or repayments and other inducements are given to cigar shops to help cigar sales. These expenses made up roughly 40% of the full amount expended for promotion and advertising. Other categories that have a break down by the cigar manufacturers are, magazine advertising as well as, point of sale advertising, public entertainment, promotional items, newspaper advertisements, celebrity endorsements, paid product placement and web advertising. Expenditures for public entertainment events, such as cigar dinners and cigar tasting, have increase drastically as well as spending on promotional items other than dutch master cigars. The greatest increase in spending was on newspaper advertising. Expenditures on celebrity endorsements and appearances, and payments for product placements in movies and TV, more than doubled. The makers report indicate that certain firms paid endorsement fees to sports personalities and made payments to movie studios and third party promoters for the appearance of their cigars in popular TV shows and pictures.

I am really looking forward to this years World Cup in South Africa it is probably England’s best chance of winning 1966 when they beat Germany in the final in the their home country.

This years World Cup has been questioned over the safety of South Africa.  It has for years been a very unstable country and there could be a risk of violence for the spectators who will be travelling from all over the world. I personally believe that this World Cup could be one of the greatest events that we have seen in recent years.  The facilities look excellent and no expense has been spared, the training facilities and stadia look amazing.  The country has also catered exceptionally well for the spectator and toruist with lots of events planned, new bars opening and they have even provided stations where drinking fountains and water coolers can be found at certain supporter areas within the cities.

I thnk all football pundits are ear marking both Spain and Brazil as the favourites for the tournament and I think that they could be correct.  The strength in depth that Spain have is just phenominal.  The combination of Villa and Torres takes some beating.  Brazil on the hand have history and rarely fail to live up to expectations in the major tournaments.  One country that I feel that pundits have wrongly failed to mention is Germany, yes their league may not be of the best standard at the moment, but like Brazil they never fail to make it through to the final stages of major tournaments.

The issue is frequently asked if any US resident or permanent resident alien of the US may legally acquire Cuban origin products, including alcohol and tobacco products, from a third country for personal usage outside the U.S. No, is the answer. Certain laws restrict people of the US from importing, buying, transporting, or otherwise dealing in or entering into any transactions with respect to any products outside the U.S. If such product is of Cuban origin; or is or has been found in or transported from or through Cuba; or is made or derived in whole or in part of any aspect which is the expansion or produce of Cuba. Therefore, In the case of cigars, the prohibition reaches to cigars manufactured in Cuba and sold in a 3rd country and to cigars manufactured in a third country from tobacco grown In Cuba. Black and milds produced with Cuban Tobacco or from tobacco grown and harvested in a 3rd country from Cuban seeds to constitute a growth or product of Cuba. The regulations do not forestall dealings or transactions in those products by individuals subject to the jurisdiction of the US, so long as there isn’t any interest of Cuba or the Cuban state, indirect or direct, in the sale of such cigars. Criminal penalties for violation of the laws range up to 1 million dollars in fines for companies, $250,000 for private estates and up to ten years in jail. Civil penalties of at least $65,000 per infraction could be upheld.

For years myself and my wife have been toying with the idea of opening a small boutique restaurant offering excellent Thai cuisine. This has all stemmed from when we visited Thailand for our wedding. We flew to Bangkok in the February and although my wife had visited before it was my first trip there. When we arrived it was a huge culture shock,azs  but one that was very endearing. Thailand’s main religion is Bhudism and I must say that the people are some of the nicest and most gentle that i have ever met in my life. There were so many sites to take in and as a result for five days non stop we visited numerous tourist attractions across the large highly populated city. Amongst other things it was the food that we fell in love with most, whether it was a side street restaurant that the locals would frequent or a 5 star hotel the food was exquisite. the one day we visited the Grand Palace in the centre of Bangkok and what a sight it was to behold with thousands of visitors per day. After this visited we thought we would walk back to the hotel through the Chinese quarter taking in the sights, sounds and odours. It was here that we came across a small restaurant that was packed to the door and thought that we would give it a try. We couldn’t believe the cost with the average meal costing approximately 60p. I had a Beef Massaman curry and my wife Tom Yun Gung and oh my god it was out of this world. The food was cooked from fresh without any preservatives and compared to the equivalent in England it was way ahead in terms of quality. After Bangkok we moved on to Krabi on the south coast of Thailand and when I thought that the food could not get any better I was so wrong. This whole experience has inspired my wife and I to set up a small high quality authentic Thai restaurant in Sutton Coldfield and one day I hope this dream will come true. When we arrived back from Thailand we had a taste for the food and thought that we would be a great position to compare the so called Thai restaurants in the UK to their authentic counterparts and what a contrast we found. Nothing compared to the food encountered on our trip other than one restaurant we ate at whereby the chef spoke no English and must have arrived from Thailand very recently and no doibt uninfluenced by the west. This restaurant has since closed down, but I wish I could get my hands on the chef. Overall the Thai experience has left a lasting impression on both my wife and only spoilt by the water coolers that we observed in the hotel and the only reason for this was that in a country thousands of miles away I still could not escape the thought of work and this machine reminded me of my job in sales whereby I sell the odd drinking fountain and water coolers. Coincidently if for any reason you would like a water cooler or drinking fountain please visit www.horizondrinks.net or go straight to http://www.horizondrinks.net/uk2ecommerce/department/plumbed_in_water_coolers to view water coolers or www.horizondrinks.net/uk2ecommerce/department/drinking_water_fountains/ to view drinking fountains.

The online purchase market has risen over the past few years and this is just an example of the companies expansion, diversifying from the rental market into the online market. With this type of market it is essential to be at the top of the search engines to encourage customers on to the company website www.horizondrinks.net from there it is important to offer high quality products at a competitive price. This is something that the company has got just right and the rewards are proof of this. Don’t get me wrong there has been a lot of effort, time and hard work put into this area of the business as well as large investment, but I can see a lot of industry moving into the online market in the future. You only have to look at high street sales compared to internet sales to see this.

There are various pages of the site that relate to different products. For example the page http://www.horizondrinks.net/uk2ecommerce/department/plumbed_in_water_coolers relates specifically to an excellent high quality water cooler at a very competive price. This machine is of superb build quality and provides high volumes of chilled filtered water whilst also being very aesthetically pleasing. The machine is available in both a freestanding and table top version. These machines have been supplied to numerous councils, national organisations and educational institutions over the past few years with fantastic feedback. If you visit www.horizondrinks.net/uk2ecommerce/department/drinking_water_fountains you can purchase drinking fountains which again are of fantastic build quality from a reputable company that manufacturers the specific machines in both a wall mounted and a freestanding version. Both of these models are available on line at the above page. These are a powder coated seel cased machine and provide in excess of 25 litres per hour of chilled, filtered water. The machines are manufactured in Italy and italians are reknowned for their eye to detail and their style. This particular machine emphasises this point and we have installed them in numerous national gym chains and schools across the UK.

It will be very interesting to see how this market progresses over the coming months as I anticipate that this will become the most valuable market in the water coolers industry. It is also very important to offer a service on the back of your site and if possible to avoid sub contractors which we certainly do.

I woke up this morning very late I think it was a combination of yesterdays exercise and the fact that I went out on the night and had a few too may drinks. I trained with my local football club on the Saturday, it had been snowing so I thought it would have been postponed, but no it was certainly on. We started training at 1.00pm on a smowy pitch, but all in all it seemed to increase the team spirit, there were snow balls flying everywhere. It was a relatively hard session comprising of small sided games and a number of shuttle runs. As mentioned earlier it is very important whilst exercising to maintain your levels of hydration and my water cooler is doing te trick. I once went to watch Manchester United train at the state of the art training ground and I was very impressed the equipment and facilities were out of this world. I watched the training and noticed that there are players from all over the world inlcuing Italy, Spain, Germaby, France, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Holland. There was one player who particularly stood out and that was Wayne Rooney his level of skill and fitness were that much greater than the rest of the team it was incredible. After their long and hard training session I noticed that the players first port of call was the drinking fountain situated in an area of their training ground, they filled their sports bottles with fluids in order to maintain optimum performance for their next game on Saturday. This just goes to show that whole education system does work, it is a minor example, but the players at Manchester United will be educated with similar qualifications to those that I have obtained and the sylabus’s are pretty similar across universities. A lot of the information that was taught within my degree in particular would have been obtained through years of lab work and experimental testing on athletes. It bis amazing how information passes between different industries and from individual to individual.

Teenager smoking habits are a matter of concern across the U. S. and much of the world. The explanation isn’t too difficult to create. Over 80% of adults who smoke today started as kids. Studies show smokers who start as kids have a very troublesome time trying to give up smoking. The downsides of smoking cigars are well known especially in the developed world. This smoking information continues to filter through to teens courtesy of across the nation teen smoking education programs in schools and communities. Despite of this growing information, dissemination teen smoking statistics indicate a worrying turn of events. Typically most teenagers are opting for smokeless tobacco use which would include chewing tobacco and snuff. A rising number of younger people are turning towards cigar smoking under the illusion that it is safer than cigarettes. A cigar is a tobacco product made from differently processed tobacco apropos fermentation. It further differs greatly from cigarettes as it is wrapped up in whole-leaf tobacco. What is misleading amongst the kids to a mistaken belief that cigars are safe and healthier is that cigar smokers don’t breathe in the smoke. In contrast to this thinking, cigars are in fact as damaging as cigarettes. Although it has been shown they are doing as much leading to lung cancer if smokers do not inhale, frequent consumption exposes one to lip, mouth and throat cancer. Backwoods cigars also contain nicotine which is addictive. It is therefore possible and often is the case that heavy cigar smokers finish up in nicotine dependency quite as much as cigarette smokers. Most cigarette smoking alternatives that kids are opting for are barely healthy, nor safe. The end in, smoking or gnawing tobacco is nicotine delivery. So as long as tobacco is employed it delivers nicotine and nicotine is addictive and associated with cardiovascular illnesses. More teenager anti-smoking teaching schemes must be rapidly rolled out to crush the teen smoking hear-say which appears to influence most teenager smoking trends. Weaker tobacco controls against cigars compared to cigarettes are also not helping the trend. Further, cigars are generally cheaper than cigarettes in most nations because they’ve a different tax regime from cigarettes. There are several loop-holes that must be energetically plugged to stop teenage cigar smoking; chief among them being proper education targeted at destroying the misinformation about aftermath of smoking cigars.

Continuing tradition in the Senate chamber is the maintenance of two small snuffboxes, adorned with Japanese figures. In the early 19th century, a large snuff urn was kept in the Old Senate Chamber on the vice president’s desk, and senators could help themselves unreservedly to a pinch of snuff. During the duration of vice chairman Millard Fillmore, this snuff urn got replaced with the 2 Japanese snuff boxes. According to the assistant Doorkeeper Isaac Bassett, the frequent interruptions due to members approaching his desk for snuff so troubled Fillmore that he asked Bassett to remove the urn. Bassett subsequently placed the two lacquered snuff boxes at opposite sides of the room. Today, these boxes are joined to a ledge flanking the soapbox in the current Senate chamber. While the custom of taking snuff in the chamber has vanished, the boxes still contain snuff, as per this Senate tradition. The snuff box is not resorted to in nowadays as in olden times. In olden times it was trendy for senators to take snuff. Martin Van Buren was very keen on a dash of snuff, and sometimes even used chewing tobacco. The VP had a gold snuff box filled and placed on the desk each morning the Senate was in session. It only took fifty cents to refill back in those days. When the vice presidency was over, Van Buren left his chair, grabbed the box and put it into his pocket. Among many signs of change in the country and the Senate, one in particular appeared to hold attention, the taking of snuff. As gentlemen’s fashion move in snuff to dutch master cigars, and recognized as a aspect of change in the institution. To this day, a remnant of this earlier tobacco fashion remains, the 2 snuff boxes in the Senate Chamber.

Today I visited one of our main  customers facilities manager to discuss our current water cooler contract with them at their office in Birmingham.  They have had a new office since I last visited and it is state of the art to say the least.  I was surprised to hear that the current England manager Fabio Capello officially opened the premises last year.

We have quite a large quantity of both water coolers and drinking fountains through various premises that the company occupy.  The new facilities manager is more than happy with our current provision, but as with all businesses they are constantly receiving quotations rival competitors and it is up to us as a company to ensure that this business is not lost to one of these competitors.  As a result because the contract has just expired I have got to provide them with a new quotation relating to various styles and types of machine at varying prices from budget range to a higher specification of product.

I don’t think this decision will by any means be down to just price as service is one of the most important issues along with company safeguards and certifications.  Where the provision of water is concerned it is important that all areas of health and safety are covered and there are certifications in relation to this provision for example the European Point of Use Drinking Water Association membership and audit certification and Contractors Health and Safety Certification.  In addition to this there is Constructionline certification and ISO 9000 and ISO14001.

I woke up this morning full of beans looking forward to the day ahead.  It appeared to be a snowy and cold, yet sunny day outside so I thought I would start the day with some breakfast as I usually skip it.  I proceeded to the kitchen for some toast and freshly squeezed orange juice,  I like the light fluffy toast, but my toaster seems to have a problem with it and it always seems to burn.  I end up using six slices and end up eating 2.  I also really enjoy the orange juice with the bits, but it is always really expensive.

After breakfast I started my journey into work expecting the traffic and roads to be really bad as a result of the weather conditions.  What I didn’t expect was my work day to start off as badly as it did.  Within 5 minutes of my journey I had received my first water cooler breakdown of the day and this one was in London.  As a national company with all Engineers based in the Midlands you can find that very quickly they are all allocated on jobs as the distance takes most of the time.  In order to make this effective all other installs and sanitisations have to be booked around the breakdowns and vice versa.  As the company is growing this situation is becoming worse and worse with it taking up the majority of my day, when it is not even part of my official job.  It wouldn’t be so bad if I could think of a solution to the issue.