UP PICKED PIECES

It's probably time that they make another Lord Of The Rings movie. Which will stimulate the youth and persuade them to acquire long churchwarden pipes, usually crappy smokers made of fruitwoods from Eastern Europe. In which they will "enjoy" something called Hobbits Weed, which per the ancient recipe from a pipe store in Denver was one quarter Danish Vanilla, one quarter Very Cherry, and half Black Cavendish Aromatic. Which I have never sampled, but I've heard from people with simplistic taste and sensibilities that it was exquisite and assuredly what everyone huffed in Middle Earth back during the Renaissance.
Gandalf himself. Yessiree.

The most Gandalfian pipe I own is a Plainsman, made by the Civic Company, which sticks out a bit, and looks somewhat like the 'Bing's Favourite' that Savinelli makes. Smooth natural finish with a canted egg bowl, elegant, of indeterminate age. It does not require me to have a third hand when reading, unlike the true Gandalf style pipe, which is a silly affectation for people who enjoy their pipe performatively.

Plainsman pipes were decent pieces. The brand is now no longer available. They had been made in London till the late sixties, when manufacturing was moved to Wessex, and they sort of disappeared from the horizon.

Wessex, as everyone knows, is a jungly region next to Middle Earth.
Orcs and various species of corpse eaters live there.

The local pipe club met yesterday. Not a large number this time, as Bernard was attending a wedding on the East Coast -- which is a horrible excuse, because those are a dime a dozen, most marriages don't even last a decade and statistically there must be at least two or three of those linkages for every man, woman, and child, in the country, why just look at Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, so there will be plenty more for him to attend -- and the bridge troll had something going on lord only knows what probably art or food related and connected to his wife. Calvin didn't show up either.

But Neil was there. He's making an effort to be active again after his medical events of the past few months, and it was good to see him up and kicking. He did not have much energy, though, and he's still down over the passing of his cat, who had been a long-time companion with whom he'd sit out in the garden in the morning having a cup of tea and a smoke while keeping a wary eye on the coyote on the other side of the stream. The coyote has been absent lately too, obviously because the prospect of breakfast (the cat) is no longer there.

Even though I never met the cat, I feel sorry for Neil. When you've known an animal for so many years, you fold around its personality as it does yours, and its a close part of your life. A companion. A friend. An agent of familiar chaos.

Neil was smoking a lovely Dunhill bent bulldog from way back before the war. Excellent tobacco. Certainly not anything like Hobbits Weed. Which was shite.



You know, after every work week I am more deranged than usual. Not enough sleep, achy twitchy burning legs, and too much caffeine for cold sober sanity. It's probably good that I spend quite time offending no one but myself afterwards.



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