ONE LUMP OR TWO?

In a story by H. H. Munro (Saki, 18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916), the protagonist realizes that it's just about tea time. And he dreads the prospect of dealing with his aunts and mother, ensconced behind small tables, futsing with porcelains and tinkling cheerfully "one lump or two?" So he heads over to the apartment of a bohemianish friend, where they have caviar on toast and tea out of mugs in the kitchen. They end up married, because she's such a refreshingly different person than all the upper class women he knows. Some months after their honeymoon, he wanders into the living room at tea-time one day, and there she is, futsing with porcelains and chirping "one lump or two?"

The point of it all is that dreadful drang nach mediokrität enforced by polite cultured society. Which probably explains why there are so few women pipesmokers. If they exist, sadly they indulge in private. Understandable, because they don't really want an old sweaty fat man leaning over them asking patronizingly "why you cute little thang, do you actually know what you're doing?" And then offering them unsolicited advice about Captain Black.

Because of course what she actually wanted to do was read her chemistry textbook quietly while smoking a bowlful of a nice civilized tobacco. Without bloaty shmo breathing at her.

THE FULL MOON AS SEEN FROM THE BUS WHEN RETURNING TO THE CITY AFTER EIGHT
HOURS OF DEALING WITH BLOATY SHMOES AT WORK, WHEN ALL THIS CAME TO MIND

I'm all in favour of that.

A pipeful should both assist in concentration, and help one relax. Benefits the memory (it's a bio-chemical thing) as well as improves mental clarity. Not attract the unwanted attentions of someone who is being a man, and wishes to mansplain manly things, mannishly.

[When I was a teenager, older men kindly informed me, on numerous occasions, of the tobacco I should smoke to improve my social life and have many more friends. Clan. Clan pipe tobacco. They knew. What I was smoking was antisocial inhuman tobacco. No one civilized, they averred, smoked stuff like Balkan Sobranie Original, Dunhill 965, Dunhill Standard Mixture, or any of those other Balkan Blends. No one. They knew.]

Yeah um. I was too polite as a young fellow to tell them all to go hump a camel.


Nowadays I tend toward Virginias and Virginia Flakes, as well as Virginia mixtures with a modicum of Perique. Good choices in that regard are PS Luxury Navy, PS Luxury Bullseye (sold by many tobacconists), as well as Orlik Golden Sliced and Rattray's Marlin Flake. Rattray's Hal O'The Wynd is also an excellent choice, so are Brown Clunee and Old Gowrie. Many of the Samuel Gawith products are also good, albeit hard to find, and Cornell & Diehl put out some excellent products too.

I drink a lot of tea. Excellent with a book and a pipe. Don't need anyone to ask me how many lumps, and probably the only thing I want to hear around tea time is not inane social chatter, but "what's a synonym for such and such a word?" Followed, perhaps, by the sound of scribbling. Or whatever the equivalent is when using a laptop.

Presumably she wandered in with her pipe already lit.
Chemistry textbook in hand, finger at the page.
It being, you understand, time for tea.



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