THE CHATTERACTS

Given how much I talked yesterday, one might almost think me a social person. But left to my own devices I would have had just as much tea, smoked less, and spent most of the day reading, before heading out for bitter melon omelette over rice with hot sauce. And hardly spoken at all.

Work forces conversations upon one. Subjects included the Dutch East Indies Company, international relations, the Middle East, Machiavelli, Ibn Ezra and the Ramban, translations from Aramaic (about which I do not know enough), the Psalters of Peter Datheen and Marnix van Sint Aldegonde, the Synod of Dordrecht and the State Bible, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theology and Art of Christ's Passion, and monsoon patterns in South and South-East Asia. Plus briar pipes; the companies manufacturing these, the decline of the pipe trade, and restoration/rehabilitation of old pipes.


That last set of subjects would likely bore most people.
It's a rather narrow and obsessive field.


There are six pipes in my bin to work on over the next few days. Danes and Petersons. They belonged to someone's father and have memories attached. When he sees them again they will be clean and smokeable, and in some ways seem new again.

We will then discuss suitable tobaccos.

I look forward to this.





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