h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am disliking cheap lighters (*). They cost 50 to 60p each and they don't work very well. In every case the flint runs out well before the gas has gone, and to throw it away is a waste.

My solution is to carry around with me an alternative ignition for my flintless lighter. This is the top section of a cheap lighter that I smashed in half one day (I was bored, I wanted to see what would happen. It blew up.) This has got its flint intact, so I can hold it up to the other lighter and blow gas from one onto the spark from the other, and I've got something to light my fags. Sorted



(*) Sadly the Belgian fag shops have stopped giving out handfuls of cheap lighters for free to UK shoppers who drop in to buy a couple of thousand Lambert & Butler King Size. I was liking those lighters: they worked and they were free!

Could I draw your attention to this:

F63554?thread=634158

Learn!

B

Get a Zippo Much more than any cheap plastic lighter and almost indestructible.

http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=932&src_t=sbk&src_id=lighter

I use one of those. You can actually use it as a soldering iron, a cutting torch, and to cook really awful butane flavoured bacon.

Are you still smoking? Would have thought the last encounter with a lighter would have put you off..

Zippos aren't indestructable you know. The hinges go, the wheel wears down, and if you drop them too frequently the petrol cannister doesn't fit the the body properly leading to leakages.

As for the flame thrower lighters, and this also applies to zippos as well: they aren't good for lighting roll-ups as the end of the cigarette is a lot closer to your face than it is with a regular king size. Regularly if I'm relighting a roll-up, I can't actually see the end of the cigarette as I can't squint that much. So in effect I'm lighting it blind, and that wouldn't be a good idea with a major flame source.

Actually this afternoon I did buy a new disposable lighter; with flint gas and everything. This one has even got an ISO number, so hopefully nothing untoward should happen with it

Traveller in Time with disposable lighters
"I always buy Djeep they are not cheap, they can explode and the flint can be used before the gas.
Though in twenty years time only two suffered these defects, after swimming in sea with them.

Most last for two Dandas or more. "

In that case mate, Swan Vestas

You know. I think there has in the UK at least, been a steady decline in the quality of 'cheap'* disposable lighters over, say that I've noticed, the last seven or eight years . *Cheap; as in oer the same time they've doubled in price just about Having said which; the 'cheap' lighters from my local newsagents are useless and hopeeless, and you never get to use more than half the fuel in it. Yet, and I find this odd as generally it is a pretty awful shop, the cheapo (and a lot cheaper than the newsagents ones), lighters my lodger gets from ASDA (when He is forced to go there to buy cigars), are great ~== *strikes one zippo no fuel... *trys the next zippo

I gave a light to a couple of birds in Camden High Street the ot0her day. Initially my Clipper was having none of it but I took out the wotsit, tightened the screw, and it lit. The birds seemed totally amazed by this and it made me wonder how many Clippers the'd thrown away because they didn't know how to tighten the screw, replace the flint or refill the lighter.

Having said which, I've a couple of clippers, that don't seem to refil with gas anymore : Is it just me or does the 'hole' that one applies the gas canister to to get gas into the clipper get naffed up with time/multiple refilling events?