VENTILATION IS REQUIRED

What with being an anti-social old blister, my e-mail inbox seldom receives bugger all. Most of the time. Excluding stuff which isn't quite spam, but is impersonal. Two notable exceptions in recent weeks have both been from pipe-smokers with whom I have a lot more in common than just pipes. One of them is a Dutch American, one of them a Talmudic European linguist. It is quite likely that all three of us would get along famously if, perchance, we were in the same room, whether or not smoking was permitted.

It would indeed be miraculous were that to happen, because one of us is in New England, one of us is in the German speaking part of the world, and one of us is here.

The whisky would likely be Scotch, the tea sub-continental.

And the walls would have to be book covered.

Either that or there would laptops.

So we could find stuff.

Citations, data.

Sources.


Quite likely such a meeting would drive our significant others (if and where applicable) and nearests and dearests (also where applicable) up the wall. Which, necessarily, means they would climb up the bookshelves and sit at the top, hissing and spitting.

I relish that mental picture.



Today little white nipple man visited my place of work again. I am blessed. If that is the right word. On the other hand, a gentleman from Shanghai was also in town, and we had quite a discussion about traditional characters versus simplified forms, as well as seal script variations.

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