AN UNPLEASANT REEK OF RANCID VANILLIN

Badger puttered around with pipes and cigars today, much like he does three other days of the week while at work. And got zipped to the eyebrows on Pu-Erh tea. Which is also a regular occurrence.
Work involves fine cheroots, pipe restoration, and a selection of choice smokeables. There were no degenerate Habsburgs in the vicinity, and the man with an imaginary wife and fifteen year old daughter was also absent.
I suspect that he will be avoiding us rather much for a while.
Someone asked him questions about his "family".
A person who has known him for years.
And never knew of those two.
This upset him.

Consequently, he's off his game.


THE PHANTASMATIST

He's harmless, but a bit of a burden. In his slightly over forty years on this planet he's been a marine, a jet fighter pilot, a green beret, a doctor of comparative religion, a podiatrist, a brain surgeon, a nuclear physicist, a research chemist, a computer engineer, a martial artist, a neurologist, a prize winning photographer, and several other highly impressive things.
It is only in the last half year that he has started mentioning his darling wife and teenage daughter.

The sad thing is that those two entirely imaginary people obviously love him very much.

There are times when I envy him his rich inner life.


TEA, BLONDE LEAF, AND CHEAP CANDY

Badger had several cups of tea throughout the day, and also discovered the bowl of cheap chocolates. Selectively raiding said bowl provided a nice boost of sugar and theobromine. Plus, one might argue, valuable anti-oxidants. So it was a healthy time, despite the nicotine and caffeine coursing through the system.
Badger only smoked three pipes, however, rather than the four he had planned.

Badger considers that he might wander around Nob Hill after dinner enjoying the fog which rolled in, while having a final bowl.
Perhaps there will be raccoons.


The Badger enjoys clean tobacco, not the horrid stuff popularly known as Hobbit Weed, which consists of two parts BCA, one part Lane's Very Cherry, and one part Sutliff 1M. Both the first and the last of those components are Vanilla concoctions, so you can imagine how it smells, and also what Mr. Badger thinks of such an abysmal cocktail.

Sutliff's 1M is made from Virginia, Burley, and Green River Black Cavendish (which is a cooked Burley tobacco), with the addition of what is unbelievably described as a "subtle hint" of Vanilla.

There's nothing subtle about it.


Mr. Badger's present favourite blend consists of Virginias and a little air-cured leaf etcetera, discretely jazzed up with a dose of Perique, quite unsuitable for Hobbits; it lacks 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde.

An old-fashioned blend, no added goop.
With a natural room note.
And good taste.


Tolkien, in case you were wondering, smoked mostly Capstan Medium Navy Cut (a flake, now made by MacBaren's, and though no longer the same, it is an altogether respectable product), sometimes Ogden's Gold Block (Virginia with a minor amount of Burley, and a mildly perfumy top-dressing, pressed together), possibly Dutch-style Burley broken flakes, possibly Three Nuns (spun-cut mostly Virginia discs with a little Perique, now also made by MacBaren's, but without any Perique as far as I can tell), and probably quite a few other things as the mood struck. Almost any decent medium flake would have been plenty Tolkienesque. What he did NOT smoke was Black Cavendish Aromatic, or any of the tooty frooty spagnum that appeals to Hobbit and Gandalf wannabees.

Why DO so many people smoke ghastly perfumed dreck?
Is it just stupidity and bad taste?
Or perversion?

TOBACCO INDEX


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