AND THAT IS WHY

Yesterday was cold. Down to the mid-forties (F°). That's 7 or 8 degrees for people who think in Celsius (most of the world). So I didn't leave the house till tea time, to purchase a quantity of fresh ginger and veggies, and to have a cup of milk-tea. Some people walking around were wearing shorts. Which, in this weather, I sneer at and resent. Bloody show-offs.
Them and their comfortable layers of fat!
Animals.

Raynauds phenomenon dictates that the temperature outside should be no lower than fifty seven degrees for comfort and the development of advanced civilization. This is immutable. Anything less, and both culture and human progress come to a screeching halt. Too many days of no developments there and you end up with Alaska and Sarah Palin.

In Valkenswaard and Eindhoven this week it gets up to the mid-fifties by around two or three in the aftenoon. There's Sarah Palins running around all over the place.

No wonder the Dutch drink like Germans.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

To be honest, I should have worn one or two extra layers of clothing myself, even a pair of gloves. It would have improved the experience immensely. Though I did enjoy the pipe afterwards, and the all-round absence of very many people. Normally I have two pipes in my pocket when I leave the house, just in case some bright young thing decides to experiment with a comforting bowl after a frustrating day at the office dealing with twenty-something Mid Westerners yacking on about the damned ball game and their lubricious adulation of Donald Trump, oh look there's a pipesmoker I think I'll smile at him and ask him about pipesmoking, but knowing that I would not have time for a second bowl in any case given the weather and what with reality vis-a-vis bright young things actually being interested in experimenting with tobacco staring me in the face, I didn't bother.

Bright young things never ask me about pipe smoking. They're probably too numb from listening to all that senseless babbling about the ball game and can't even think of speaking to a man by that time of the day anyhow. For fear that the ball game will come up again.

Besides, a pipe is a social distancing tool.

It works very well.



==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================