Strange But True Cigar Story

Will and Guy's True Stories about Cigars and Smoking

• Strange Story but True Story of the Cigars
• Smoker tried to open plane door
• An Amusing Account of An Attempted Insurance Scam
• Chinese convert cigarettes to medicine

1) Only in America - Strange Story but True Story of the Cigars

A man from Charlotte, North Carolina, having purchased a case of very expensive cigars, insured them against, among other things, fire. Within a month, having smoked his entire stockpile, the man filed a claim against the insurance company, stating that the cigars were lost 'in a series of small fires'.

The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The man sued - and won.

In delivering the ruling the judge, agreeing that the claim was frivolous, stated nevertheless that the man held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure against fire, without defining what it considered to be 'unacceptable fire' , and was obliged to pay the claim. Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid the man $15,000 for the rare cigars he had lost 'in the fires'.

After he cashed the cheque, however, the company had him arrested on 24 counts of arson. With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the man was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000 fine.

Just in case you think Will and I make up this stuff, here below is the source.

Another Strange Smoking Story

2) Smoker tried to open plane door

The woman was arrested when the plane landed in Australia A French woman has admitted attempting to open an aeroplane door mid-flight so that she could smoke a cigarette.

Sandrine Helene Sellies, 34, who has a fear of flying, had drunk alcohol and taken sleeping tablets ahead of the flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane.  She was seen on the Cathay Pacific plane walking towards a door with an unlit cigarette and a lighter.  She then began tampering with the emergency exit until she was stopped by a flight attendant. 

Defence lawyer Helen Shilton said her client had no memory of what had happened on the flight on Saturday, and that she had a history of sleepwalking.  She pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft at Brisbane Magistrates Court and was given a 12-month A$1,000 (£429) good behaviour bond - she will forfeit the money if she commits another offence.  The French tourist was at the start of a three-week holiday in Australia with her husband.

As reported by the BBC

3) An Amusing Account of An Attempted Insurance Scam [as told to Will]:

When Will lived in Hersham, Surrey, he had a particular acquaintance, whom we shall call Henry, who he regularly met in the local hostelry.  Now Henry was a bit of a wide boy ,[wide boy is a British term for a man who lives by his wits, wheeling and dealing] and he was employed as a clerk in a post office where he was required each day to wear a suit to work.  As a friend he always appeared to be reliable and honest.  This tale suggests otherwise.

The story starts when Henry decided that he wanted to buy a new suit and discovered that the particular outfit he wanted was too expensive for his modest salary.  Now, many people may have cut down on their visits to the pub in order to save the money.  Not Henry. He came up with a plan to cheat the insurance company out of the money.

Henry phoned his insurance company and explained that his suit had been damaged in an accident: in fact, it had a number of cigar burns on the jacket which prevented it being worn as a suit.  [This, of course, was a lie; a complete fabrication].  The insurance company promised to look into it and dispatched an assessor to see Henry personally. The assessor arrive done evening and took down all the details of the damage and the cost of a replacement.  While the insurance man was completing the paper work, Henry, who was terrified of being caught committing an offence such as insurance fraud, sprinted upstairs, lit a cigar and burned several large holes in the jacket of his favourite suit.

Returning downstairs, Henry was just in time to see the assessor off the premises and was told that the money for a new suit would be sent to him immediately.

'Don't you want to see the suit?' asked Henry.

'Oh no,' replied the assessor, 'we trust you.'

4) Chinese convert cigarettes to medicine

Xian in China, is crushing fake cigarettes to make medicine, Xinhua news agency said on Sunday.

The north-western city of Xian is using the counterfeit cigarettes to extract solanesol, a compound found in tobacco which is used to treat cardiovascular disease, it said.

'We used to incinerate the fake cigarettes, which is wasteful and causes air pollution, 'Xinhua quoted Zhou Yaqing, vice director of the provincial tobacco monopoly, as saying.

A kilo of solanesol is worth about $200, and 30 tons of tobacco leaf can produce up to 120 kilos, Xinhua added.

China is the world's largest cigarette producer, with a growing market of about 320 million. Chinese cigarettes are also among the cheapest in the world -- a packet can cost as little as 8 U.S. cents -- and smoking kills 1.2 million people a year in China, according to the World Health Organisation.

Fake cigarettes, made of poor quality tobacco and often topped up with wood chips, are commonly sold on Chinese streets.

As reported by Reuters

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