A change of scene
It’s strange how the mood changes.
Normally I smoke my Elie’s Ekool Curved pipe.
It comes in several parts, where each part is functional and has its little part to play.
The bowl is interchangeable [and I have a fine collection]. That screws into the metal body using a hollow bolt. The little plug on the left unscrews to let the goo out, and the mouthpiece is attached to a finned yoke which forces the smoke to spiral up the metal body which acts as a condenser. Because of all this arrangement, it gives a very cool dry smoke, and the tobacco burns right to the bottom as it doesn’t get wet.
Stick the whole lot together and that’s my normal pipe.
lt looks a little strange, and does tend to get noticed in public. Quite a few times i have been asked about it [usually by women, for some reason]. I have also had a few wisecracks as to what I’m smoking in it.
Yesterday I suddenly got tired of it and decided to go for a change.
Now there’s a pipe! It’s another one of Elie’s masterpieces. I haven’t used it in quite a while and it has been lying in pride of place on display. It’s lovely – nicely balanced in the hand and also gives a nice cool puff, though the goo does tend to dampen the tobacco at the bottom of the bowl.
As well as being a nice smoke it is a great crowd puller, and I have featured in more than one photograph when I have been relaxing down at the coffee shop.
I’ll give my Curved a break for a while and then go back to it.
A change is as good as a rest.
Or so they say.
I got into pipe smoking last year when Arno of Dutchsmokers sent me an Orlik Billard to use to test smoke some tobacco. I found it rather enjoyable to sit outside of a summer evening (when the snow ploughs had finished making such a noise, this is Norfolk after all) on the door step and smoke my pipe. Mind you, I very quickly had to get me a larger more manly pipe than that Orlik, which made me look like far too sophisticated. So I got me a couple of antique boer war Oom Pauls. Both of which take the better part of a week to smoke and will hold enough tobacco a piece that even my caffeine stream will feel so nicotinated after that I don’t then need a cigarette for at least 30 minutes (and yes I inhale the pipe…deeply). But SAD and Norfolk winter and lack of decent tobacco (I can’t smoke that tonka bean rosewater shit brits do) have meant I haven’t smoked a pipe all winter.
Strangely enough people looked shocked when I replied to their question, about if the pipe was to help me give up cigarettes, that the pipe was in addition….I’m a professional smoker….if I wanted a hobby I’d get me a pack of Silk Cut.
It’s eaten my pic!
Please do not feed the web site.
OK here a ‘normal’ linky then: https://s24.postimg.org/svki04ff9/boerpfeife.jpg
That is one hell of a pipe! It looks more like a carburettor than a smoking device. [*jealous*].
The ‘Oom Paul’ (‘Uncle Paul’- named after Paul Kruger who famously felt undressed without one) was a pipe developed by the boers to allow them to kill Rooinecks (‘red necks’ -Brits) holding their rifle with one hand and the reins and a bible in the other. To prevent the pipes going out mid-slaughter (always a bummer that) they made them large enough to have a portrait of Kruger on the front and to hold enough narcotic strength Boertabak tobacco to last any reasonable skirmish length…or sermon length….you have admire any volk of that sort of practical yet pious turn of mind.
Of course our own ‘brave boys’/’murdering scumbags’ saw the advantages of the Oom Paul straightaway and so the few Boers they didn’t murder on the fields as they lay wounded, where transported to concentration camps and set to work whittling pipes for their captors…who didn’t require from them a song I believe but intricate coats of arms and battle standards.
I find the very act of smoking a pipe to be relaxing, not only for myself but for others around me. Of course they love the aroma too and frequently I’m told that I remind someone of their father or grandfather who smoked one.
I started off the the usual run of the mill pipes, but then got a Ronson which was my first metal, and the first with a cooling system. They don’t make ’em any more which is sad. Some years ago I found Elie’s place [searching for a Ronson!] and have graduated to his finest. I tend to use small bowls so they don’t smoke for very long but enough for me. I have larger bowls in my collection but rarely use them.
I took up the pipe purely for the flavour and the whole atmosphere and for no other reason. Once I started, I never touched another cigarette, and wouldn’t smoke one now even if stuck on a desert island with a crate of fags and no pipe tobacco.
and frequently I’m told that I remind someone of their father or grandfather who smoked one.
Yep, know that one. Almost every person who passed would say something similar…the ones that didn’t risk a punch in the face by ‘pseudo coughing’. Which might explain why I seem to be the only pipe smoker left in a town of several thousand souls or at least I thought i was until a few people confessed to still enjoying a pipe of an evening.
Also got quite a few whistful glances and questions from people who themselves used to smoke a pipe…like my landlord, the butcher , the baker, the candlestick fondl…NO let’s not go there, this IS Norfolk.
One particularly poignant encounter was an ‘old Bor’ who recounted he’d been told by his dentist to give up the pipe for the sake of his health. He went home and threw his entire, rather impressive, collection of pipes and tobacco in the bin! I would have liked to have chatted more with him but the sunlight glinting off his shiny “Be Patient With Me I Have Alzheimers” metal badge was irritating.
I have had loads of comments passed by strangers and all of them [bar one] were very positive. Sometimes they’ll approach me and sometimes I will overhear someone at another table commenting about the lovely aroma and the memories it brings back.
The only negative comment I ever got [that I remember] was around forty five years ago when I was smoking in a pub. An old fella came up to me and snarled. “Young Man” says he, “you’re not old enough to be smoking a pipe!” To this day, I don’t know if he was serious or not.
I’ve always liked the smell of a pipe. Nice looking ones you have there, are there others? maybe put up a photo collection.
Hah! If I could find ’em all. They are somewhat scattered around the house in various drawers. I must collect them all together, and maybe post a gallery of images.
I think that’s Gandalf in the photograph!
http://www.noblecollection.com/Item–i-PRP-HB-1233
It has been said. Elie actually calls them his Shire range. Each one is unique, and I see I got mine back in 2013 [The Shire 04 is mine].
Elie clearly knows his market. Are beards mandatory for the enjoyment of pipe-weed?
No, as you can see from the pic I posted. However those of us with Isengard Stubble (like Miami Vice stubble but works when policing smooth shaven Nosdrools) may attract some nasty looks from older more experienced Hobbitses.