More OW's.

Question: What do you not want the cat to do when you're trying to get something done?

The something done was trying to get some more info about the opium wars put together. Am amazed at how little I actually know about Chinese history. Got sidetracked into religion and then was brought to my senses...

Answer: Throw up on the bed!

After sorting that little lot out, I put some figures together in a chronology. Very difficult to assess as the figures are reported differently by different observers and there's no way of gauging the similarity between different measures. However if the increase in the movement of tea and silk is anything to go by, there was a whole lot of opium making it's way into China via western merchants.

Even though they are subject to interpretation, I think the figures speak for themselves...

1729 Foreign import 200 chests; first anti opium edict

1730 British exports to China 15 tons (400 chests by calculation)

1767 British East India company import 2000 chests of opium into China

1773 British exports to China 75 tons (2000 chests with 140lbs in each)

1790 4000 chests annually

1796 opium smoking again declared illegal

1800 importation of foreign opium again made illegal

1820 300 tonnes, 5000 chests, British exporting 900 tons of Bengali opium to China (24,000 chests by calculation)

1830 2,000 tonnes, 16,000 chests

1838, 20,000 chests

1839 First Opium War

1842 Treaty of Nanking, reparations to the British, surrender to British commercial interests

1843 Exports leaving China: Tea... 7,500,000kg, Silk... 2000 bales

1852 opium imports doubled (? 4,000 tonnes ? 32,000 chests)

1855 Exports leaving China: Tea... 42,000,000kg, Silk... 56,000 bales (Increases from 1843 of: Tea... 34,500,000kg 560%, Silk... 54,000bales 2700%).

1856 Second opium war begins. Opium imports grow again.

1858 70,000 chests

1860 Second opium war ends.

1882 Estimates of addiction in China: 6million, 15 million, several tens of millions, 30 to 40 percent of the male population smoking (not necessarily addicts) opium.

With that I'm off to get ready. Out to see Mogwai. (Added a link so you can go in and listen if you want to. Would have posted a video but seems as though the cats have managed to disconnect my speakers again. Temporarily without sound. Irritating little beggars, but they do make me smile).

PS Other news, the amplifier saga seems as though it's about to resolve - at least the first part anyway. After I poked the courier on Tuesday, they seemed to find it and instantaneously delivered it to Coventry. Apparently I'm now entitled to a refund... Will leave the claim until I've had it checked for damage in transit though.