Blowing Smoke Up Your Arse

I believe I've found out where the saying to 'blow smoke up your arse', which is commonly used to tell someone that they're being fooled, originated.

We were watching Tony Robinson on one of his walks on TV where he was doing the Thames. He'd called in at the Guild of Apothecaries where he was shown several historical implements, one of which was a smoke enema. It was used to administer enemas of tobacco smoke in a time when tobacco was considered beneficial.

And here it is in all its glory. "Oooer," says I  to Hay; "obviously its use became known as byword for quackery and thus was born the saying." At least that's my theory and it makes sense.

Given the latest news on the airport hotel isolation policy, it would seem Boris' government is back to its usual, incompetent form after the single and unique success of the vaccine rollout, demonstrating it probably placed an order for hundreds of thousands of these smoke enemas to administer to the public a while ago, probably placing the contract with Jacob Rees-Mogg.