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Tyre kicking in the BMW showroom the other day waiting for the car - when I happened on a sight from the past - a car-transporter driver was unloading a couple of Bimmers - nothing unusual in that - but the driver was smoking a pipe ! Real blast from the past - he actually came into the showroom with it - bet that cause some health and safety palpitations !
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They must have been used?
The chances of a driver delivering new BMW's being still in the job an a hour after that delivery is nil, unless a subbie who will have received the mother of all rollickings and the driver banned.
BMW loading securing and delivery practices are QC'd to the nth degree and taken extremely seriously, we had to be 'validated' to be allowed to handle them, every asect of your loading would be watched, inspected and certified or not.
My old company also handled the barely used cars sold to the dealers via auctions closed to the public, so doubt they came from there.
Last edited by: gordonbennet on Sun 29 Apr 12 at 10:22
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Was it a BMW pipe? I was about to digress, but I'd be repeating my self (again).
www.car4play.com/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=7798&m=172835
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Oh yes I remember that now - I think they were second hand, but he was actually in the sales area at one point - May have been a Touratech pipe !
www.touratech.co.uk/
I thought it was a rather quaint thing.
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My first boss, an ex-military type. Always immaculately suited and booted was mostly to be seen with his pipe lit and indeed accompanied even into business meetings by his Border Terrier. I can picture him now, pinstripe suit, Brylcreemed hair, he, the dog on the passenger seat and his pipe lit in his Granada Ghia swinging into the "executive" parking area...
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That's when the country "was something" Humph....H&S and Data Protection put paid to that...
Did the dog have a pipe as welll ?
I used to take my dog to work on occasions if I was office bound all day, he'd sleep under my desk (after checking out all the bins in the building).....he snapped at a colleague once who leaned over him to stroke him.....sort of too risky then, still took him if I was working in the evening or weekends...
Last edited by: R.P. on Sun 29 Apr 12 at 11:13
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It's a whole way of life, isn't it?
My friend is a nuclear scientist who frequently tackles what he calls a 'three-pipe problem'. He's working at home of course...
An editor of mine years ago used to write a sort of comment column which he called 'Over an Evening Pipe'.
When I was a printer's devil nearly 50 years ago, the company accountant, who kept all the ledgers in faultless copperplate script, used to send me up the road for an 'ounce of Parson's Pleasure'.
I've never smoked anything but I don't object to the odd whiff of a pipe now and again.
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Nor me, Mike. Funny how pipe smoke smells sweet and woody, whereas the same leaf rolled into a paper tube never smells anything but foul. And yet, in the days when smoking was allowed on planes, cigarettes were permitted but pipes never were.
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My impression was how much classier a pipe looked clamped in his jaws than a ciggie....
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My father was a pipe man, straight only he never sported a curved pipe that i can recall, can't recall a day without him having to constantly relight the Condor Long Cut, pleasant aroma.
You could locate him on the estate he worked from the puffs of smoke rising over the hedges.
Couldn't then and still can't abide the foul stench of cigarette smoke or indeed smokers themselves.
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Double standards though, isn't it?
Tobacco is tobacco and smoke is smoke whatever it's smoked through.
Pat
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It was just nice to see a truck driver bucking convention Pat ! And it was a curved one !
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My Father smoked a pipe and I do know what you mean, RP
Pat
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I've never understood why so few women smoke pipes.
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Even Molly Windley only smoked cigarettes...
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Well, women used to smoke clay pipes didn't they? Fashion I suppose. I used to enjoy a pipe when I was younger but sort of fell out of the habit. Much easier to smoke a pipe than a cigarette when driving a convertible. Should you ever take the notion to do both at the same time.
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"Tobaccos for smoking in pipes are often carefully treated and blended to achieve flavour nuances not available in other tobacco products. " - Wiki.
My father and grandfather smoked pipes. A lovely smell at a distance, as the aroma lingers and wafts in still air. But disgusting to live with. Pipes gradually block up with accumulated sticky tar, which has to be reemed out with special equipment like miniature drain cleaning rods, and then wiped on old newspaper and disposed of. My father carried a toolkit of rods, scrapers, special curved bowl-reeming knife and bendy pipe cleaners. He used to blow and spit through the dismantled sections until cleaned to his satisfaction.
Sometimes when overdue for a service a pipe makes horrible bubbly noises in use.
He did say though that a pipe smoker can get pleasure just from sucking an unlit pipe or one that had recently gone out. Presumably that would not be an offence indoors, and a successful prosecution would depend on proving that a pipe was actually alight, rather than merely hot from recent combustion.
I have never smoked, but I do occasionally take snuff.
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...special curved bowl-reeming knife...
Is that what the 'reamer' that sticks out at 90 degrees from the underside of a Swiss Army knife is for? I've got one and never really found a use for it; if you use it to make a hole in something it just folds up on your fingers. That might not be a problem if it was tucked inside the bowl of a pipe.
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I have a couple of "smokers" penknife type tools that was owned by by a pipe smoking neighbour.
Both have a long thin spike which I guess is for reaming out the pipe stem, both have a an oval fixed foot on the end of the case, which I guess is for tamping down the bowl contents. One has a conventional blade but the other has blade shaped blunt iten that I guess is for reaming out the bowl.
I am not familiar with the routines. My father was a pipe smoker but I do not recall much of proceedures beyond the furry pipe cleaners.
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On one level, yes
And if you are habituated to the scent of either, you don't realise how overpowering and intrusive they are to others.
But the range of pipe smoke aromas (when not overpowering) is varied and entertaining, whereas the smell of fag smoke is just the smell of fag smoke
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There is no way of taking tobacco that isn't disgusting or anti-social in some way. I've tried them all and I know.
We used to be brought up to it so we became a bit insensitive to that side. These days a lot of people aren't, so they think their bodies are temples and often adopt a tiresomely sanctimonious line on smoking. Makes you want to chew a huge wad of Bull Durham and spit it on their feet.
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OK Perro, sack of Bull Durham and papers, roll one with one hand in the saddle closing the drawstring with yr teeth... not chewin bacca.
In my days working for a huge tobacco company the chewing products were called plug and twist I seem to remember. They were never seen at HQ and sold in small quantities in odd provincial backwaters. Their very marketing managers were embarrassed by them. But such people were mostly idiots and philistines. They had all sorts of good old brand names and images to play with but they were rigid and stiff, didn't understand the market research and tended to waste very large sums of the company's money on uptight idiots' 'hunches'. Not that the company gave a damn. It made huge profits whatever happened by importing tobacco and processing it, giving a grateful government its tax cut. From the industry's point of view in those days brand marketing was still rather daring, frivolous, modern stuff.
By the way: chewing tobacco is a pleasant way of getting your nicotine hit and doesn't imperil your lungs. But long-term use can be associated with mouth cancers. Sigmund Freud had a terrible one from chewing on those stogies for years. The other problem with chewing is you have to spit it out at some point. Not a good idea to just swallow it.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sun 29 Apr 12 at 21:58
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>> In my days working for a huge tobacco company the chewing products were called plug
>> and twist I seem to remember.
>> By the way: chewing tobacco is a pleasant way of getting your nicotine hit and
>> doesn't imperil your lungs. But long-term use can be associated with mouth cancers. Sigmund Freud
>> had a terrible one from chewing on those stogies for years. The other problem with
>> chewing is you have to spit it out at some point. Not a good idea
>> to just swallow it.
>>
Coming from Nottinghamshire I knew quite a few miners who chewed tobacco or took snuff, as smoking of any kind was of course absolutely forbidden underground. I'm quite partial to the odd pinch of snuff even now, but I only tried chewing twist once.... never again!
ISTR a product called Skoal Bandits which achieved brief popularity in this country before it was banned. Still sold in Sweden and America apparently.
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>> Skoal Bandits which achieved brief popularity in this country before it was banned. Still sold in Sweden and America apparently.
Sachets of snuff like small teabags. Banned in some countries because suspected of causing mouth cancers in those who stuck them in the same corner of their mouth year after year.
In Algeria and I suppose elsewhere in North Africa you have to ask for gummed cigarette papers if you want them, because ungummed ones are sold. Snuff addicts wrap the very coarse greenish snuff you can get there in one of those papers and stick them in their cheeks like Skoal Bandits.
Plug and twist tobaccos, sold as you say in mining (but also maritime) areas, were I seem to remember dense, dark and sweet in some way. Plenty of molasses used in the tobacco industry. If I didn't think it would be impossible to find even in Brighton I'd look for some tomorrow. Better than damn tipped snouts any day. Except for the need for a brimming cuspidor with drowned rats in it.
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>> chewing tobacco is a pleasant way of getting your nicotine hit and doesn't imperil your lungs<<
I've probably chewed quite a bit of tobacco over the years as I rolled my own fags for 25 years and y'all always end up with a 'phew' strands of the stuff in your North n' South.
Its obviously an acquired taste, one which thankfully I've never acquired.
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I smoked a pipe intermittently for several years; mainly because I found it relaxing in the days when a pipe of baccy was synonmous with a pub, a log fire, good beer and interesting conversation. It does involve a lot of faffing about though. "Plum Cut" was my particular choice of baccy, not a common brand so one had the extra pleasure of visiting a real tobacconist to buy some; this gave one the opportunity to experiment with various blends, or you could have him make one up for you. A lost pleasure in this sterile age of pre-packed everything.
As most of you know I was involved with preserved railways and a lot of the older drivers smoked pipes; the mess-room was an old coach body and on a cold winter's day it could get distinctly fuggy in there for the pathological non-smokers. The latter tended by their very nature to be more anally retentive and less inclined to amusing anecdotes and banter than the pipe-smokers, so the residual smog had the added benefit of keeping them at bay.
On an occasional working visit to the Midland Railway Trust at Butterley I fell for one of the classic pipe-smokers' stings. Sitting in the mess-room with a large mug of tea and the pipe going nicely, I was joined by the site electrician, Ernie Lamb, one of the MRT's great characters. He pulled out a very small briar pipe, poked and prodded at it with a match, made several attempts to light it and then inspected the bowl forlornly. Taking this as a hint that he was short of baccy, I proffered my tin.
With a sleight of hand that would have credited Paul Daniels, the tiny briar disappeared and was replaced by something that looked like a beer barrel with a broom handle stuck in it. He upended the contents of my tin into it, tamped it down, lit it with the Zippo concealed in his other palm, nodded his thanks, got up and went back in the workshop. I just sat there speechless (for once) as the whole room erupted; needless to say I was nowhere near being the first victim.
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Brilliant tale HM - I was there for a moment !
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>>And if you are habituated to the scent of either, you don't realise how overpowering and intrusive they are to others.
>>
Gone are the days when I used to arrive home and immediately disrobe of my outer garments in our shower room prior to "contact " with SWMO just to get rid of the fag smoke smell.
We are a non smoking household and I sometimes have to step back from the bod in front of me at a supermarket checkout due to the pong of fags.
Still cannot avoid the pong of fellow pedestrians.
Overall it is just so much more pleasant for us fag free folks.
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>> Overall it is just so much more pleasant for us fag free folks.
>>
Which sort of fag? tinyurl.com/zmhx9
;-)
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My father smoked a pipe for years. Mainly Condor, but sometimes Balkan Sobranie, or Four Square.
When he was a bombardier in the Royal Artillery during the war, he went through countless pipes - the stems used to break in his pocket when he had to lean against the breech of the 25 pounder. Ended up by having a pipe made which had a really thick stem and mouthpiece. The pipe survived until the late 1980's.
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Both grandfathers smoked a pipe.One also liked to chew tobacco.ugh.>:)
I have seen women in Sweden smoke sigars.Viking power.
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The ban on smoking in pubs, restaurants and other public places is the best bit of legislation any government has introduced for donkeys years.
The ability to got out for the evening and come back without stinking of tobacco is wonderful!
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Pubs (real pubs) should be for drinking good ale and smoking tobacco, if you want to eat out, go to a restaurant or cafe.
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Pubs (real pubs) should be for drinking good ale and smoking tobacco
There wouldn't be many left. 90% of pubs are dependant on their food trade.
I'm quite happy to come to a compromise. Smoking has been allowed in pubs for 500 years. It's only fair that the next 500 years are non smoking.
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I'm quite happy to compromise too, we could have a bar for smokers and a bar for non-smokers,
and call them something like Public bars and Saloon bars.
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That would have been a solution.....
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>> That would have been a solution.....
>>
I always thought that Weatherspoons, for all their other sins, got it about right when they started out, by offering a smoke-free area in every pub; spoilt of course by them taking advantage of the relaxed opening hours and turning almost every one of their establishments into a kind of McDonalds with beer. I blame them largely for it being virtually impossible to find a reasonably priced pub eatery in a town centre that isn't overrun with screaming kids, pushchairs and the kind of all-day drinkers who used to stay at home with a bottle of cheap cider.
I shall be enjoying my trip to Holland later this year where I shall spend a couple of evenings sitting in a small wood-panelled bar in good company, with a pint and a smoke or three. Only spoilt by the lack of anything approaching a decent pint of real ale.
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HM,
Some colleagues and I (3 in total) walked into the Wetherspoons in Llanelly a few years ago.....wow.....tumbleweed or what ?
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>> HM,
>>
>> Some colleagues and I (3 in total) walked into the Wetherspoons in Llanelly a few
>> years ago.....wow.....tumbleweed or what ?
>>
Well, it's the favourite haunt of non-smokers..... go figure! ;-)
They're the pubs equivalent of a supermarket; all do the same stuff, same prices and same format. They even seem to persist with every branch of having the bogs on a different floor no matter how inconvenient it might be; my theory being that it enables the spent beer to return to the cellar by gravity! ;-)
Everybody liked them when they started out, it was seen as a breath of fresh air and it guaranteed a half-decent pint of real ale at a sensible price, together with the facility for conversation without the distraction of jukeboxes; I avoid them like the plague now, soul-less dumps by and large.
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>>Only spoilt by the lack of anything approaching a decent pint of real ale<<
Ah! - a business opportunity, open a micro-brewery in Amsterdam.
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>> >>Only spoilt by the lack of anything approaching a decent pint of real ale<<
>>
>> Ah! - a business opportunity, open a micro-brewery in Amsterdam.
>>
Amsterdam's not so bad; unfortunately in Holland, Heineken is as ubiquitous there as Fosters and Carling are over here, but unlike the UK there's little other choice of draught beer unless you're prepared to search around. And it's the same Heineken you'd get in the UK as well, at least it tastes like it. Bottled beers are available but as over here they're considerably pricier.
Belgium offers a far more varied selection but (drifting back to topic) you can't smoke in the pubs there; ah well, can't have everything I suppose.
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Well UK Heineken is imported from Holland ! Cracking beer in Belgium..
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I don't mind a drop of Heineken actually, as for Fosters I'd rather acquire a taste for urinotherapy (same difference!)
My favorite €urobrew is Warsteiner.
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I like a drop of Heineken
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>> I like a drop of Heineken
>>
It's far more drinkable than some of the others, I'll grant you that, but if like me you prefer cask ale then any lager gets a bit much after a few days, not so much because of the taste but more because it's so damned gassy. The size of the heads is alien to my kind of drinking as well; more than half an inch of froth in some real ale pubs and there'd be a riot! :-)
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>> or Four
>> Square.
>>
It comes back to me now. Four Square yellow was my father's regular smoke, but for special occasions Four Square red.
I remember Balkan Sobrani too - it had a romantic sounding name and came in lovely tins.
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A flashback to the old days.... - -
