THESE are the drear months of personal deprival. I am driven to practise one of my vices (there aren’t that many) indoors, in private.
But, in the high period of the year, when the Clerk of the Weather is in affable mood, and Old King Sol may even be beaming down, I can take an outside table at a coffee shop, pack the bowl of my pipe and, as the World and his Wife pass by, summon up a cappuccino from the serving vassal or wench.
But who is that spectral figure hovering at my shoulder, his crown slightly askew? Why, it’s King James VI of Scotland and I of England.
And, blast him, he’s still Counterblasting against Tobacco: “Have you not reason then to bee ashamed, and to forbeare this flithie noveltie, so basely grounded, so foolishly received and so grossely mistaken in the right use thereof? A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse.”
Will no one rid me of this turbulent double-barrelled, multi-tasking monarch? Listen, Jimbo, I regularly get unknown women smiling at me, which is more than you ever did. “Oh, I love the smell of your pipe!” they exclaim. Beaming men, clutching pipes, have approached me outside coffee shops and in shopping centres, and conversations along the lines of “There aren’t many of us left!” and “We’re a dying breed, hahaha” have ensued.
Well, as far as I can tell, we’re not a dying breed, at least not from “this filthie noveltie”. We are a demographically contracting, but surviving and even flourishing, breed.
Churchwardens are associated with our pious pastime. In fact, we have become a cénacle, a camarilla, a cabal, a coterie (how odd that there doesn’t seem to be an English term for us). We have websites devoted to us, dozens of them. “Should You Dedicate a Pipe for Each Type of Tobacco?” “The Right Pipe Cleaner for the Job”. “Which is Cooler, Sandblasted or Smooth Pipes?” “How Many Pipes Should be in Your Rotation?” “Fixing an Improperly Drilled Airway”. “A Stem Primer”. You’ll look
for a Marlboro Light website in vain.
My researches (a possible PhD is not out of the question) tell me there is even a “Dublin” type of pipe. Not a brand or a make, but a type; although (and I quote) “The reason for the name is quite obscure, and no satisfactory explanation has been found.”
So in case you’re asked at a table quiz, know that the Dublin pipe boasts a straight shank, and the bowl leans forward slightly and flares out at the top. It’s said its shape derives from the clay pipe, which makes sense, given the heritage of the oul’ duidín in this culture.
I don’t know if any medical research has been done on the potential harmful effects of pipe-smoking, as distinct from cigarette-smoking.
If there has it hasn’t been widely publicised, and it should be, because it might just save the lives of a few cigarette addicts. I have smoked a pipe for about four decades, with no apparent harmful effects. My father and both my grandfathers were lifelong pipe-smokers, and all died of old age. A 30-year pipe-smoking friend once had an internal investigation done in connection with another ailment. The doctor told him (was that disappointment in his voice?) his lungs were as clean as a whistle.
I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but it’s all I have.
“In your abuse thereof sinning against God, harming your selves both in persons and goods, and raking also thereby the markes and notes of vanitie upon you: by the custome thereof making your selves to be wondered at by all forraine civil Nations, and by all strangers that come among you, to be scorned and contemned.”
Hearken to me, Jamesy.
Once, as I sat at a pavement table, a woman standing nearby said: “You’ll think I’m mad, but can I ask what brand of
tobacco you smoke?” I told
her, and she smiled reminiscently.
“That’s what my late father used to smoke, and the smell of your pipe reminded me of him. Thank you.” That lady stranger, coming among me, King Seamus, neither scorned nor contemned me. And the encounter warmed both our hearts a little.
Lookit, Jemser, your majesty. I know this will get up your Jacobean nose, but I mean to go on enjoying your Stigian smoke for the rest of my natural span. So put that in your pipe and smoke it, James VI of Scotland and I of England. And, by the way, you’re lousy spellers, both of you.