Good, honest, decent-minded people do not do things like this to their friends, to the people they love and care about. Believe me, if any of my friends ever did anything like this to me to make a point, they would not be my friend after. Making your friends look stupid and ignorant, and subsequently embarrassing them publicly on Twitter, is not friendship. If, however, a friend first made it known that we would be taste-testing wines as part of an experiment, that would be a different thing. The deception would be part of the game, the experiment would be fun.
The Root of All Evil needn't have bothered deceiving his friends. There have been studies that show that most wine drinkers are unable to discern any taste differences between expensive and inexpensive wines. And as I have said before, the more expensive something is, the more satisfaction we derive from it. I do know a little about wines -- body, finish, nose ... all of that good stuff -- and yet I've had table wines that tasted absolutely fantastic and expensive wines that I found unsatisfactory. But let's face it, by the the time you get to second or third bottles over the course of an evening, generally you are not particularly concerned about the finish of a wine. None of this proves a thing about plain packs for cigarettes, though. It is merely a further insight into the mad minds of zealots.
I suppose my point is this: If Simon Chapman can do crappy things like this to his dinner guests and friends, just imagine what he does to people who aren't his friends, all of the deceptions he uses endlessly for nefarious Public Health purposes. This man cannot be trusted. Ever. I don't call him The Root of All Evil for nothing, you know.
