SteamPugs (Paul ‘Pugs’ Foster) Chats With E-CigClick – A Larger Than Life Award Winning Written Vape Reviewer

If you think the written vape review scene can be a little too serious or even ‘up its own arse‘- you probably haven’t read any of the reviews from Paul ‘Pugs’ Foster over at his website – SteamPugs Vapeology.

Saying that it looks like very many of you have given he placed in the top three in our EcigClick 2018 vape awards as the Best Blogger/Writer. He almost doubled my votes – me bitter? Naw – though I did throw a major temperamental writers hissy fit when our Jonny suggested I interviewed him…salt into wounds or what!!!

Indeed I even threw a sicky for two weeks hoping Jonny would ‘forget’ and I could interview myself to gain the sympathy vote next year…

Sadly Jonny has a memory like a elephant and begrudgingly I agreed to review one of my writing reviewer nemesis’ and do you know what? I absolutely bloody loved it – this guy is on fire! So please take those last few paragraphs in the spirit they’re meant…honest 😉

I said the guy’s on fire and trust me his writing style is unique to say the least. I mean who else can bring in themes of incest and dolphins to a vape review? Maybe unique is too soft a word…how about genius! Trust me it works and his reviews have left me roaring with laughter and spitting coffee down my nose on many occasions!

This is a massive interview so you’ll need your vape and a drink to get through it as we touch on ‘the teenager inside him’ ooer – his early days as a party animal – his wondrous writing style – his ambition to design a vape mod – his love for his beautiful family and the truth behind the rumour he’s a Brian Harvey tribute act!

So ‘stay now‘ and enjoy…because I did 😉

Let’s start with a bit about yourself…how old are you – where do you live/are you married/do you have any kids/ are you single/looking/available?

Why?…are you interested?….is this flirting?…it’s been a while….C’mon Neil…you should never ask a gentleman his age….wait…that might be ladies…OK fine, I’m 48 which makes me practically dead, fortunately I have a teenage boy inside me….wait….that…sounds wrong…you’ll edit this right..??…

 

What I mean is…I’m painfully immature, and I definitely don’t have anyone ‘in me’….just so’s we’re clear on that…..moving on….I grew up in a place called Hale, in South Manchester, posh AF….we weren’t, put Hale definitely is, I was blessed with an amazing childhood there, I grew up with a group of friends that made life like the Goonies every day, best times ever, they were a funny bunch of fuckers too, we lived on a steady diet of comedy, music and mischief.

 

Then in my early twenties I moved out as you do, I was pretty heavily into the whole club scene that had kicked off, so being at home was….’testing’….for everyone shall we say…After that I lived with a few different girls, had a son, he’s 24 now and is basically me when I was his age….so….obviously he’s awesome (ahem).

 

I got married and divorced within 6 months to someone else, lived with a group of mates for ten years in ten different houses…I was basically a fucking Gypsy man seriously, then…my mum got real sick, so I moved back home to Hale to look after her, then pretty soon after that I got with my current girlfriend….sorry…Fiance 😉 …

(Insert rather sickening picture of the lovely couple against a sunset Turkish beach….I’m not even sorry…)

 

And even sooner after that she got pregnant to our first daughter who’s now 6….this whole period of my life was just…incredible, Jo is my best friend, she’s amazing, and bearing in mind that a few months after we got together I was in for constructive spinal surgery which put me out for a long time, and on top of that I was smoking a LOT of weed….(blamed it on ‘self medication’ but in reality I was just a massive stoner…always had been)….

 

How she stayed with me through that period is a fucking mystery to me…still….she moved in with us, we sold my mum’s house and moved her next door to my sister, had another daughter who’s now 17 months old, so now the we’re all together in both sides of the same semi detached house in Altrincham….and I fucking love it, it’s all about family, you just don’t appreciate that when you’re younger, in the summer we take the fence panels out and have big BBQ parties…

 

I’m in a really good place right now..sometimes I have to pinch myself just because my life is so incredible now compared to the dirty dark place I was in before…..Jesus…I can go on with myself can’t I……hey it’s your fault Neil…you chose to interview a writer….(smarmy grin)…so that’s basically me in a long drawn out massive nutshell….omg this is like therapy….

Is the Steampugs website your full time job if not what do you do for a living and what have you done before?

Fuck no, jeez I wish, if I could get paid for doing Steampugs I’d give up my job tomorrow, no…I work full time for an events company, we basically do lighting and Audio for festivals, concerts, corporate gigs, we do stuff like The Warehouse Project, Park Life Festival, Snowbombing etc….it’s a really good place to work, interesting, and sometimes really fucking hard..especially during festival season, but it’s rewarding.

 

I manage one of the departments there and have done for the last 14 years, one of the guys that owns it is someone I used to know from my clubbing days, and the other was the Lighting director of the Hacienda…so they know there stuff, and we’ve recently merged with an Audio company too, so now we’re kind of a one stop shop for all kinds of events.

Before that I was a photographer….well…technically I wasn’t, I started as a lab technician for a makeover company, you know…the ones where girls go and get all dolled up, have their pictures taken in a studio and then get fleeced in the sales-room during the viewing?…

 

Yep that, I was there for ten years and by the end I was the Manager and a photographer, I loved it, it was more like a social life than a job, and funny enough it’s where I met Jo my now Fiance, she was one of the make up artists there, but it was a dying trade…I jumped ship to where I am now and it unfortunately went under shortly after.

So how long had you smoked and when/why did you start vaping?

Ahh man I was a heavy smoker, It went with the territory, I was always part of a big group of people so most people smoked, drank, messed about with drugs etc…it was all part of growing up in them days, my parents smoked, my sister smoked, everyone fucking smoked back then, it was inevitable, and I was always a very ‘excessive’ person, never did things in halves, I dare say I was a 2 pack a day smoker in my twenties and thirties PLUS all the weed.

But Jo and the kids were the reason I needed to sort my life out, I wanted to be around for a bit, so she ‘fixed’ me, she was as good a reason as I was ever gonna get to get straight, stop doing all the shit I shouldn’t do, her moral compass is ‘bob on’….whereas at the time…mine was more like Jack Sparrow’s compass in Pirates of the Caribbean…

 

It only pointed to what I wanted whether it was a good idea or not…Jo and the kids were my reason, and vaping was the solution….took a bit to get there though, I stalled a fair few times has to be said….and I do still go on the odd ‘mad one’ with my mates where I may just…(ahem)…partake….so to speak…but i’m getting old now, I can’t be arsed with the weeks it takes to recover afterwards, there’s a lot to be said for the immortality of youth.

What was your first kit / can you remember the juice and nic strength?

You know, it’s one of those things you wish you could look back on with rose-tinted nostalgia…but man they were fucking shite, it was the usual…C4 clearomizer on top of a black pen battery, I can’t even remember the make, but I’d constantly break em, if you had one in your pocket and sat down it would just snap in two.

 

I hate to think how many I went through, then I upgraded to a Totally Wicked tank, the name escapes me, it was the first one I had to buy coils for and it had a flat drip tip…you know…like a flute, I actually really liked that, and it was then that I fell in love with my first liquid too, it was from Stockport E-Cigs, one of their own, it was named after a cigar or some shit but I can’t remember it….Panama maybe?…..look…like I said…I smoked a lot of weed OK…my brain is basically Swiss cheese, It’s a wonder how I remember to breathe sometimes…

 

Anyway…it was twenty fucking four milligram…..twenty four!?!….I’m on 1mg now….I can’t even handle 3mg….still…not only do I remember to breathe…but now it’s really fucking easy….which is nice…

How long did it take to actually stop smoking?

Probably….about 2 years in total, from when I bought my first vape kit to actually never smoking again, maybe 3, the last time I stalled I was on holiday in Turkey with Jo and our first daughter, she was around 2 then, I was sat on the balcony at night, I was pissed, and the thought of …’you know what would be really nice now’ …just came out of nowhere, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Turkey…but it’s almost compulsory to smoke there, even the pets fucking smoke in Turkey…

So that was that, bought ‘just one packet coz I’m on me jollies’….and that was me for another few months, but then I went big, bought myself the Kanger sub ohm tank, a Vamo V8 tube…at least I think that’s what it was….a bottle of Mothers Milk, and I was off…never looked back….I was so in love with that liquid I can’t even begin to tell you, It was a real eye opener for me….and a wallet opener….which is why I got into mixing my own liquids…something else I’ve never looked back on.

Your writing style is very unique – have you always been a writer? If so who have you written for and on what subjects?

Ha….shit no, I’ve always been a dick if that counts…

Steampugs was my first attempt at actually being a serious ‘writer’……if you can call it ‘serious’…..although the label….calling myself a ‘writer’…still sounds ridiculous to me, I was always writing funny posts on Facebook, or talking complete bollocks on whatever social media platform I was on, from Faceparty (remember that shit) through to Myspace and then onto Facebook.

I see those ‘memory’ posts come up on Facebook now and I just cringe and think ‘fuck…did I really write that shit in public?’….I mean I got some laughs, and someone once said ‘Pugs..you should totally write a book’….but it was just me bein a dick…I’m gifted at two things…being an utter cock womble and getting myself into trouble…it’s a skill….I just transferred that into writing, what you read when you read one of my reviews is just me being me, the best advice I ever got when I started this thing was ‘just be yourself’…

 

I don’t think they thought I was going to take that quite so literally lol, I was actually talking to Anthony Vapes recently, the guy who designed the Mjolnir RDA, and he said “Pugs…I don’t always agree with what you say, but I always enjoy what you say”…..and I dig that, every reviewer will have a different experience with whatever they’re reviewing and it’s cool to get a lot of different people’s perspectives, but even if they don’t completely agree with me, the fact that they can still get some enjoyment out of the review regardless, makes me feel like I have done what I intended to do.

How did you get into vape reviews and why?

Well…I guess this goes back to me joining the ELR forum, I mean hardly any of my friends outside of the internet vaped at the time, and those that did weren’t as ‘into it’ as I was, and if you did vape in my social circle…I was the man, if they wanted liquid, or had problem with their setup, or just needed advice on what to buy…then I was the one they went to, so for me to want advice, or just to chat about vape stuff to anyone I had to jump on the forums, and ELR became my second home, I was always on there, and It’s where I met everyone involved in Steampugs.

 

…and it was also on ELR that I won an RDA from Heavengifts, they asked me to do a little review on ELR for it, so I did, I was just being myself….so…a bit of a knob, and low and behold…people really dug it, one of my friends on there put a comment up saying ‘Pugs…you should think about becoming a reviewer’…..I mean the review was short compared to what I churn out now and it was really raw, but I guess I did a good enough job, I put a few memes in there and made it entertaining just because no one else was doing that kind of thing and it just kinda worked.

 

I did used to read other peoples reviews and even watch a few of the better known YouTube reviewers, but to be honest…they all just seemed a bit ‘serious’….to me vaping was comparable to a bag of sweets for your lungs, it was fun to me, so I tried to inject some of my ‘cockwombleness’ into the review to lighten up the usual run of the mill stuff that was out there, and it just snowballed from there.

One renowned writer reviewer called SirRisc took me under his wing, let me post some pieces on his review site ‘Urban Darkness’, showed me the ropes, what to look out for, pitfalls etc and I’ll always be grateful to him for that, he’s retired now to spend time with his family but he changed my perspective on being a reviewer, at first it was like ‘So you’re just gonna GIVE me free shit and I just have to write about it?….I must make it sound really good then’ …to…”Yeah sure, I’ll take a look for you, but if it’s shit then don’t come complaining to me when I tell people it’s shit’……honesty is everything in this game, if you blag, people will call you on it, if you sell out, people will call you on it, and you’ll be gone before you know it.

 

So to answer the second part of your question…I do it because I like the fact that people seem to like my material, good or bad, it’s a really nice feeling to know that people appreciate what you do, it keeps you interested and makes you enjoy doing it more, and I’ve always been kind of artsy fartsy and creative, so this gives me that outlet, I can be creative with writing and Photoshop just as much as I used to with a pad and pencil…keeps the old brain pan ticking over…and at the end of the day, I just fucking love everything about the vaping universe, it’s a win win for me.

 

I never intended to be a vape reviewer, but then again, I never ‘intended’ to fall into the vaping ‘rabbit hole’ as far as I did, I just wanted to quit smoking…but before I knew it I was making my own coils, mixing my own liquids, wearing predominantly black clothing and a snap back….Unfortunately I can’t grow a beard though,which is basically the law in Vapingdom as everyone knows… I’m follically challenged on most of my face….so I have to make do with my ‘Jazz shadow’…..but I do have a few tattoos…so I’m not a complete vaping outcast…….🤔

What was your first ever review and was it shall we say ‘mainstream’ [lol] compared to the style you write now?

Haha!….well…like I mentioned, the first one was the RDA I won, Rips Pharaoh RDA a few years ago, compared to the later stuff it was tame AF, I mean a year later I was writing reviews with themes about being raped by Dolphins and Incest…I mean WTF is that all about?….who does that??…

 

I think I took the ridiculousness as far as I could, because that’s what I do, I take being a dick to the next level, but I got some flak a few times, I even got run out of one forum by a pitchfork wielding mob…..straight up ousted, so I pulled on the ‘WTF’ reins a bit, now they’ve kind of settled into a more level ‘sane-ish’ format whilst still keeping them different from anything else out there…

I’ve managed to upset quite a few people over the last few years by taking things too far…story of my life, but I like drama free, it’s the reason me and my mate Grubby….the super gifted guy that constructed the whole Steampugs website, started our own vape forum, it’s a safe drama free place that has a lot of my old ELR friends on there, they’re a cool bunch who are well educated in vaping, it’s a small forum with it only being a year old, but it’s steadily growing.

 

Grubby did a really good job on it, as he does with everything, top bloke, without him and my Proofreader Lolly, another ELR legend, Steampugs simply wouldn’t exist, they say you can’t have true internet friends, but that’s complete bollocks, I consider Grubby and Lolly 2 of my very best mates, and I’ve never met either of them in person.

How do you go about writing a vape review – in other words what’s the process?

Hmm…this question reminds me about a story of a troll I got once, he was being all bitter with the whole #teamfreeshit thing, basically accusing me of free loading because I didn’t pay for any of the vape gear I got, I just said to him ‘oh I’ve got loads, do you want some?’ ….he quickly replied ‘erm…yeah sure thanks’ to which I replied:

 

‘OK cool, all you gotta do is grab an item of vape gear, buy it or win it-it doesn’t really matter, then do a photo shoot with it, take a couple of hundred pictures of it, takes a couple of hours…then edit the pictures, pick 10 or 20 of your favorite ones and do some tidy up work on them with Photoshop, takes another couple of hours, then once you are happy with your final images you need to think about writing your review, this is the longest process and will take you anything between 6 and 12 hours to complete.

 

Once you have your review then post it somewhere like on a forum, now…your next job will be to find a supplier or manufacturer that likes your review and is willing to supply you with some ‘free shit’…so set about emailing pretty much everyone within the industry that you can think of, out of the 50 emails you send out you will probably get a reply from around 4 of them, and if you’re really lucky…one of them might give you a shot, this will obviously take you a few weeks to complete all in all, but if this one company takes a chance on you and sends you say..an RDA for example, then you have to repeat the whole process again, only this time, you need to post your review in a whole lot of other places for exposure, for this..you will need to get in touch with the Admin of any forum or social media group you choose to post on for them to grant you permission, some will, some won’t.

But in the case of forums you will also need to re edit your review, you can’t just copy and paste, you need to upload your images onto an image hosting site like Imgur, then copy the image links into your review…this takes another hour or 2, plus the same for re edits and posting out to everywhere that you’re allowed to, personally I post on 7 forums, around 20 Facebook groups and after I have spent about an hour creating a Photoshop image to go with the review I also post on Instagram…..BUT…and this is the really cool bit…once you have done ALL that work…you ACTUALLY get to keep that £25 RDA all for your damn self!…isn’t that just the coolest!’

 

He didn’t reply…I know….I’m a bitch…..But I fucking despise the whole ‘#teamfreeshit’ thing, I mean at first sure..it’s cool that you’re getting all this free vape gear, but believe me that feeling soon fades when you come to realise just how much work you have to do to earn it, it is graft, I have the utmost respect for anyone who chooses to be a written reviewer, because you have to be dedicated, and above all else you HAVE to enjoy it, otherwise you’ll just give up, And of course on top of that, because of the style I chose to write in, I also have to think of a theme for the review then spend hours trawling the internet for gifs and memes that fit the bill, I can literally stare at a blank screen for a few hours trying to come up with a hook to start the review that might be entertaining for people…I now know what writers block is, and it sucks major balls believe me.

 

So for me, it takes a few days to create the finished review, plus at least a week of testing. I don’t get to churn them out as much as I used to purely because of the fact that I have a full time job, plus Jo works when I don’t, so I have to look after the girls, which only really leaves me one day a week I can write on, so yeah…lately it’s been tough, I’ve gone from one review every week (sometimes 2) to about 1 or 2 a month, but once the kids have gotten a bit older I’ll get back on track again, I’m in it for the long haul.

Have you considered vape reviews on camera? If not why not?

Pffft…with this face?…are you kidding?…I’m far too beautiful for camera work, I couldn’t possibly deal with the thousands of screaming girls camping outside my house just for a glimpse if I ever went public…. 😎….what are you laughing at…?.. OK….maybe I could deal with that….but in the real world that doesn’t include sordid unbelievable fantasies…..I can’t do what I appear to do best on camera, it just doesn’t work, it will only ever work in a written format, I have seen people do it on TV, include funny gifs and video clips in between them talking, but man…that would be tough to do, especially with me being as technological as a potato, I’d need a team of pro editors for that shit…..

It’s funny though, because being a writer no one ever really knows who you are, but now, if anyone who reads my stuff see’s this interview, they’ll realise that actually…I look like a slightly retarded fatter Brian Harvey from East17……you lucky lucky people you….😘

Steampugs is both a review site and vape shop – why did you start selling vape gear?

Well…the vape shop is kinda on the back burner for now, we’re giving it a complete overhaul, it was an experiment to begin with, I mean I don’t actually sell anything it’s just a heap of really good hand picked vape deals from my suppliers, it’s an affiliate shop that I can give discounted rates in, and the idea was to just make enough from it to pay for the site and the forum, which at first it did, but then my site was hit by the Yoast bug, a mistake that the company that deals with my SEO made on the plug in, and man…it killed it.

 

It caused Google to drop my ranking considerably which in turn crippled the shop traffic, so we’re working on that, Grubby is currently busy with other stuff but as soon as he gets time we’re gonna get cracking on it, we intend to offer 3 different options for UK, US and China, where as before everything came from China, which is cool if you want to save a heap of cash, but not so good if you want it quickly, so all being well, people will be able to find deals based in the UK and the US too, but we’ll see, it’s in the early stages of development.

Do you own a pug dog? If not where did the name of the website come from – could it be from your nickname?

I love Pug dogs, I’m a huge dog person, but I’ve never actually owned one, I think most people make that connection when they see the name and the Pug picture, but I actually own the most feminine dog in the world, a teacup Chihuahua called Bebe, she’s basically a Rottweiler in the body of a Gerbil….ferocious thing, and I recently lost my long time best friend Beau, a cross breed, she was truly awesome, it was just me and her for the longest time, but at 17 she did well bless her.

 

But no…the whole Steampugs thing came about when I used to sell my own liquids to my mates, I’ve been called Pugs since I was at school, well…Pugsley…and it came about because the ‘cock’ of the school, basically the hardest lad there, thought I looked like Pugsley from the Adam’s family…..I mean what was I gonna say?….”Fine by me you raging psychopath!!” …..and it just stuck, I’ve been ‘Pugs’ ever since, that many people call me Pugs now that when someone shouts “Paul!”..I don’t always react, so that’s the Pugs bit….

 

The Steam bit just came from a play on words, I dig the whole Steampunk thing, and seeing as Steam is a word widely used in vaping terminology it just kinda came together, I chose a Steampunk theme to add to my labels and it just went from there, Grubby even got an artist to design the new steampunk ‘Pug’ on the site, it was all kinda organic.

What vape device would you most like to review and why?

Ah man I tried to get the SXmini G-class for the longest time, but because of the price no one would give one up, I got over it though, the time has been and gone to review that now, apart from that I don’t think there is anything I’ve really ‘got my eye on’ that’s unattainable to me, my demographic is pretty much made up of vapers who want to know about mainstream devices, affordable kits you know, so anything high end might look great on the photos but not many people would be looking for it.

 

I really dig doing stuff from people like Wotofo who really go out of their way to endorse reviewers gear, it’s rare for a reviewer to design a duff product purely because of the knowledge they gain from testing so many different devices.

 

I’m sitting on an RDA design myself, it’s a 25mm leak proof (ish) bottom airflow RDA, but being a mere writer means I probably don’t have enough ‘clout’ to get it picked up by a manufacturer, could be killer though, I’ve shown the design to a few of my forum buds and the feedback was really positive so who knows, I’d love to put my own stamp on the vape industry, time will tell.

What’s your current vape set-up?

Depends, I could have 15 or 20 rigs on the go at any one time, I try not to carry them around with me so much so I keep around 5 kits in the car, 5 or 6 on my desk at work, same on my bedside table and a few in the studio where I do all the Steampugs stuff.

 

Then I have my custom Whiterose Lipo PWM rigs which never leave the house, they always have a 30mm top and sit on the shelf for those moments when I feel like tearing it up, they’ve been my biggest expense by far so I look after them….. I haven’t really answered your question have I lol….well…while I’m writing this I’m vaping on the Aleader Funky with a 28.5mm Sherman RDA, The Vaporesso Revenger with the Drop RDA, the Revenger is the original, it’s getting on a bit now but I fucking love it, it’s been everywhere with me including abroad, and never skipped a beat, I have a real soft spot for it.

The Topside squonk with a Drop dead RDA and something that I pulled out of the drawer last night that I haven’t used for a while..the Vaptio N1 Pro with a triple coil 30mm Buddha V4, fancied the extra battery life, running triple coils is a stretch for a dual device but that handles it like a….well….like a Pro…as it should.

What’s your dream vape set-up?

I’d have to say….one that doesn’t exist, it’s in my head, I love classy looking devices, brushed stainless with stabwood inlays, leather grip, and a 30mm version of the RDA I designed, I picture it all the time, the mod would be Yihi or DNA powered probably, dual 21700, with a fire button that I have designed in my head, and as robust as the Aegis.

I’ve never actually drawn the mod up, but it would be fucking killer if it ever got made believe me….are you listening all you manufacturers out there?…..killer….K.I.L.L.E.R……with a capital FUCK YEAH!…I dare say even Jai Haze would give it a solid 6/6.5…..pffft……you’d be so lucky, people think that if I ever designed a mod it would have a massive pair of tits etched into the side of it and when you pressed the fire button a flag would shoot out of the drip tip with the word BANG on it just for shit’s and giggles…

 

But no…I could design some fucking epic devices if anyone was stupid enough to give me the chance…..maybe I should get in front of a camera….once they saw this ruggedly handsome face they’d be clambering over themselves to get my designs…….(silence)……hello?……you still there..?

What’s next for Pugs and Steampugs?

Oh world domination, and nothing short of that….I’ll never be satisfied until I’ve beaten Mooch in a landslide victory for the ‘Clearly best writer in the known universe for anything’ category, I’ve considered hiring a hit-man to just take him out of the equation but apparently that’s ‘illegal’ and frowned upon in some countries …or some bullshit, so I’ll have to do it the hard way…..and pay him to disappear…..I mean who really needs to know about ‘battery safety’ anyways….tut…

But for me personally, I intend to get married…again….only for longer this time, I mean…shouldn’t be a hard record to beat let’s be honest, but as for me and Steampugs well….we’re working on stuff you know, the site is currently getting some much needed TLC so once that’s all tickedy boo we’ll concentrate on the Forum side of things, we’ve got some good ideas floating about, we’ve just included a juice mixing calculator on there which is awesome..I say ‘we’….I mean Grubby…..

 

I just sit there looking all pretty whilst telling him how awesome he is, him and the other moderator on the site ‘Woftam’ speak a language that is incomprehensible unless you’re weird…or Neo from the Matrix….I am fairly certain that Grubby is actually Neo….only with phenomenal anger management issues…don’t tell him I said that…(shudders)

Congratulations on placing third in the EcigClick Awards – what did that mean to you?

Failure…that’s what it meant, I mean why exactly did I pay you that fat bundle of cash anyways??……I clearly got the wrong end of that stick didn’t I Neil hmm?…….obviously I’m not in the least bit bitter towards Pooch and Granny Vapes…..whoever they are…probably you and Jonny pretending to be someone else you charlatans, whatevz…next time I’m taking them/you down, and I won’t be taking any prisoners…mainly because…I live in a small semi detached house, and I keep having children…so space is an issue….

OBVIOUSLY I was completely blown away with it….I mean…to make the final 10 which came as an utter surprise to me as I didn’t even know I’d been nominated was incredible….but to come third?…wow…I mean I had to sleep with a LOT of people to get those votes in, I say people….some animals were also included but a votes a vote at the end of the day you know, and hats off to Franny Vapes and Mooch, I mean let’s be really honest here, you ain’t winning any category that Mooch is nominated in and rightly so, the man’s a true legend of epic proportions…so if you could leave him out next time…that’d be great ta…

There’s been three times in my reviewing ‘career’ that have utterly blown me away, I once got a message on Facebook from one of my ELR buddies congratulating me on the ‘Vaping with Vic’ thing…I didn’t have the slightest clue what he was talking about, but he gave me a link, and there was Vic talking about me, bigging me up for a good 10 or 15 minutes, it was a weird thing to watch, I sat there on the bed next the Mrs and said…’Babe….check this out!’…I had a hot flush and everything, got all sweaty like, I’d never experienced that feeling before, it was almost like a fucking panic attack, there was this guy that was watched by thousands…talking about how much respect he had for ME?…and what I do?….it sounds ridiculous I know…but to a vape reviewer these are the big dogs, these are the people at the top of YOUR game, so to see that was a pretty big moment for me.

The same thing happened again with Mr TVC himself on The Vape Team channel, although I kinda knew that was going to happen because I speak to Brian Herb from time to time and I’ve reviewed for him personally, but still, that show is my favorite vape channel…and I had a mention on it, it was so cool, Brian is a top bloke and super humble with it, I’ve got a lot of time for him, and the guy sure knows how to design vape gear I’ll tell you that much.

 

 

And then of course there was this award, truly unexpected, as a writer you really don’t expect to get any recognition in a world that’s dominated by YouTube reviewers as well as whole host of writers, but when you find out that the guys you look up to, not only know about you, but read your stuff AND like it, and then the public go out of their way to vote for you to get an award…well….it doesn’t really get much better than that…so yeah….it means a lot.

What do you think is the future of vaping worldwide?

Vaping is an ever evolving thing, it’s too hard to tell what direction it’s going to go in, In the grand scheme of things it’s still very much in its infancy and we’ve seen so much innovation already, there’s just too many variables and too many institutes that want to stop us having fun for their own monetary gain….

I guess you can say that about a lot of things in life though, money talks unfortunately, one thing is for sure, Rip’s tagline of ‘smoking is dead, vaping is the future’ is bang on the nail, smoking has quickly become socially unacceptable, no one wants it around anymore, have you seen those videos of that guy that goes round snatching cigs out of people’s hands and starts to rant at them?..it’s funny AF..I totally feel like doing that to anyone I see smoking now, however…he’s totally intimidating and built like a tank, I’m 48 and completely out of shape…I’d probably get taken out by a teenager if I got brave enough to try it……and I just don’t think I’d get over that ….(sigh)

Where can people find you on social media?

If you look hard enough probably in some places I’d rather you didn’t, I wasn’t always this angelic pillar of the community that you see before you today….😳….however, now that I’ve settled into old age you can find me on Facebook here..Paul Pugs Foster

I didn’t split my personal page from my vaping life, which in hindsight probably would of been a good idea, I have like 5k friends on there now since I started the whole reviewer thing, so I literally miss everyone’s birthday now…because let’s face it, I’m a man, so FB is the only way I’m gonna know that shit…..

You can also catch the Facebook group here too, it’s not that active purely because I don’t have the time, I could really do with a few admin to deal with that, anyone fancies that job give me a shout…SteamPugs Vapeology On Facebook

Then we have the Steampugs Instagram….Which is purely for the vaping stuff.

And of course you can find me on a plethora of vape forums, ELR, Planet of the Vapes, UK Vapers, Vaping Insider, Vaping Underground, The Vapin Rat and last but by no means least, our very own forum, which you are all more than welcome to come and join, we promise a warm and drama free experience by a group of really sound like minded vape enthusiasts (oooh..plug much?)…find that here…The Vaping Community

Anything else you’d like to add!

Oh is this the bit where I’m supposed to say something really profound to make myself seem really interesting?

…well…I think that might be stretching my literate abilities, however, I will say this, to anyone who is starting to peer into the vaping rabbit hole, just jump the fuck in, build your own coils, mix your own liquids, make it as personal as possible, because that first time you taste something good that you made yourself, from coils that you built with your own fat arthritic fingers (prob just me)…is a good feeling, find your own way, but be safe, do your research, learn Ohm’s law and take care of your batteries,..you’ll never eliminate the risks completely but it’s your job to make it as safe as you can, and when you do that…spread the word, convert as many smokers as you can, you are literally saving lives by doing so…..wow…where the fuck did that come from, I almost sounded like I knew wtf I was talking about there……that won’t do my reputation any good at all….

 

And of course I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me in the awards, I don’t know who you are but you are truly awesome to me, thank you so much! I throw my love in all your general directions….which is probably why I have so many children…I really need to stop doing that….

I’d also like to thank the Steam team, for all the work and support they do for very little reward, I couldn’t ask for better set of reprobates to call my friends, you all know who you are….except you…I’ve never really liked you very much (points)

And generally….I’d like to thank everyone that’s supported us over the years, we wouldn’t do what we do if it wasn’t for you doing what you do so do that so we can do what we do for you….do….too….??…(what)

 

And finally….thank you to you Neil and Jonny, for thinking I’m interesting enough to do this, I mean I don’t blame you in the slightest, we’re fucking awesome, especially me, in fact you both should thank us really….I think it’s the least you could do…..I’ll go now….

Epic Interview Or What?!?

I did say to Paul that was an epic interview when I got his answers and I’m pretty sure you’ll agree!

The guy is a true genuine character in this crazy vape world we live in and as you can see a truly down to earth – if a little bonkers – family man.

His writing review style in particular is refreshing – hilarious – always bang on point and definitely shall we say ‘out there’ – and that for me makes a refreshing change to say the least!

On behalf of both myself and Jonny and indeed all the EcigClick team I’d like to thank him very much for taking the time to take part and definitely for making me snort coffee down my nose many times whilst putting this awesome interview together.

We all wish him all the best on his quest for world vape domination and really really hope the rumours that he’s about to launch an E17 Brian Harvey tribute act is true…I think our Jonny is a massive fan mate 😉

Don’t forget to visit and bookmark the SteamPugs Vapeolgy review website and if you’re new or an old hand at mixing your own e-liquid do checkout his forum and that very clever E-Liquid calculator.

And do stay tuned for more interviews with the EcigClick Award winners over the coming months.