THEY'RE FILLED WITH NUTS!

One of my earliest grammar school memories naturally involves chocolate. Of which I was fonder than many of my classmates, who preferred Dutch licorice and hard sugar candies. Dutch licorice is excellent, American licorice humps bollocks. Dutch chocolate is also quite excellent, but here in San Francisco we know chocolate. As regards hot chocolate I distinctly recall my intense disappointment when faced with American commercial packets, which are weak, flavourless because they use crappy chocolate, and overly sweet because sugar is addictive and manufacturers know that if you feed addiction you win converts.

That addictive bit, by the way, is why people watch Fox News.
It satisfies the addictions of the country's idiots.
Conspiracies, paranoia, xenophobia.

There's no actual content there, just an endless stream of nuts.


Our landlady returned from a trip abroad recently; England and Spain. The latter introduced Europe to cacao, so you'd think they would be absolutely afloat in a sea of chocolate. Yet for historic reasons, they prefer their sweets made with fruit and nuts. Mostly nuts (no idea how they are on newsblathering).

She gifted us with candy (Spain) and soap (England).

For some reason I now have an urge to take a cold shower and eat hard sweets afterward.


Not only do I have a somewhat addictive personality, but I'm also susceptible to suggestion. Which is why I just ate a dozen chocolates (they were in the corner of my right eye), and am determined to smoke a Dunhill Shellbriar, a bent with Canadian Patents 20984 / 21 & 197365 / 209 on the underside of the shank. A pretty old piece. Lovingly restored by yours truly.
It's in the corner of my left eye.

What I'm actually smoking is a 大重九 ('taai jung kau'; "big heavy nine"), a long thin luxury cigarette made in China, from a pack given to me by a friend whose English abilities are sadly severely limited but whose skill at getting tobacco products not allowed for sale in America into the hands of avid consumers is unsurpassed. Good man.

Although the burning season here in California has started, it is considerably cooler in San Francisco than where he is from. Far Northern China. There do not appear to be any luxury chocolate products there, the Chinese have largely not developed a taste for that, but they've gone into cigarettes big time. Possibly they remember that Napoleon funded the conquest of Europe with a monopoly of that. It's also a state-owned branch of commerce in China.

Russia, largely empty though filled with nuts, is the back door to Europe.
That's probably nothing more than a disturbing coincidence.


大重九

Great red nines are made by the Hongyun Honghe Group. 紅雲紅河集團，總部及地址位於雲南省昆明市五華區紅錦路181號，董事長為姚慶艷。Located at no. 181 Red Brocade Road, Wuhua District, Kunming, Yunnan. The chairman is Mr. Yao. Excellent cigarette.
All your favourite animal manga characters smoke them.


You know, I've never really developed a taste for chocolate with nuts.
That's probably why I don't touch energy bars. Nasty stuff.
Smooth rich taste is what I crave instead.
Slim Chinese luxury coffin nails.
Fine Virginia flake.
Chocolate.



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