WE'RE GENERALLY BENEFICIAL

At an hour when Adrian in England was observing the depredations of a small barking deer on his shrubbery while smoking the first pipe of the day, Jerome was presumably somewhere outside huffing a post lunch Latakia blend in the vicinity of durian (it's camouflage!), and Tim was staring at the late night window frogs in Florida, this blogger was enjoying Elizabethan Mixture in a Dunhill shell acquired three decades ago.
Last smoke of the day.

After early dinner, after tea, after a snackipoo, and after a nap.


"Sai m-sai tai menu maa?" "M-sai. Siu ngaap faan, m-koi."

[使唔使睇菜單嗎？ 唔使。燒鴨飯唔該。]


No need to see the menu, I'll just have the roast duck over rice.

The small barking deer is a muntjac, which originated in southern China and South East Asia, the durian is a frightening fruit which once smelled is never forgotten, and the frogs are the natives of Florida, fiercely competing with the Retirees who have escaped and gone feral there.

Chinesischer Muntjak, Muntiacus reevesi, Zoo Augsburg, from Wikipedia

By Rufus46 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, 

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=43040129

That muntjac had become an invasive species in the British Isles and on the continent was completely new to me. In Ireland, it is seen as just one more example of British imperialism, mainland Europeans regard them as an unfortunate infestation along the same lines as the raccoon and the giant hogweed ("reuzenberenklauw", heracleum mantegazzianum).
Of these it is least likely to raid your liquor cabinet.


Perhaps I should now point out that pipesmokers, of any type and where ever they may occur, are far less damaging to the environment and almost certainly won't leave nasty welts and burning purple scars on your dermis. We also don't rearrange your garbage in creative ways, devour your shrubbery, and brutalize your pets.

Your persecution of us is ridiculous and unwarranted.

We respond nicely to offerings of food.

Crispy roast duck over rice.

Or porkchops.


Because my schedule got rearranged temporarily, I shall be heading over to Chinatown for lunch in a couple of hours. Twelve thirty or so. After which I shall lurk in alleyways with my pipe for a bit. Little children will look at me in awe, why heavens, they've never seen anything like it! Because men with facial fur and a piece of wood between their teeth are rare nowadays, almost like superheroes or fairies.

There are no health clubs in Chinatown, so no spluttering fitness freaks will be 'triggered'. The tourists and suburbanites are carefull not to ire the local fauna. The colony of rats at the end of one passageway do not mind.
Pipesmokers are remarkably beneficial to the environment.


Elizabethan Mixture: a lovely compound of Virginias with Perique, and perhaps the merest touch of other leaves. It can be stout, even peppery.
But smoked slowly it will stimulate contemplation.

Great with Hong Kong milk tea.
Before and after.

TOBACCO INDEX


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