R.I.P

Some of you may notice that I have deleted a few posts. These in general where some of my more contentious writings with regard to my frustrations being a 'outsider' in the Netherlands. As with most things in life one needs to review and reassess at various stages. Some of these postings generated a healthy amount of comment, but this perhaps is just indicative of how people can more easily relate to critical editorial. The world press is full of such editorial writings. We read such articles on global politics whilst nodding internally in agreement, confirming our belief that we some how understand the complexities of human suffering better than those who actually live in such situations on a daily and all too real bases.

I've decided that should I post a critical comment, then I should always accompany it with a positive one because in reality that is how things are.

In addition, as a man who has worked in advertising for many years I'm all too aware of my 'brand' image, but more importantly as a Buddhist I'm am aware of my karmic footprint. I began blogging and Youtubing in order to grasp an understanding of this new form of global communication - spirited into our lives so rapidly. I read recently on the help menu's of Youtube information about how to close the channel of a deceased member, a shocking moment to ponder that our internet persona is possibly more permanent than our physical self. That our ghosts of the future will haunt the web rather than the granite stoned walls of old castles or houses.

So next time you write a comment somewhere, or have a rant on this new democratic soapbox, remember to end with something nice. Enjoy your day....dub

lets get connected

The facebook and Youtube phenomenon gets bigger everyday. Both are sucking me into their void which results in a neglected blog...what's a blog, doesn't anyone blog anymore? The blog is increasingly being hijacked by businesses. I recently visited one by a major ad agency for whom I have worked in the past. I like to keep an eye on what the big boys are doing.

Of course most posts are heavily censored in that, "we're creative and liberal, but you can't say that" way. Leading advertising agency's pride themselves in their ability to follow trends...most of which are youth based while the worlds population grows older every year. "No problem", they say...everybody wants to stay young and buy things that make them feel young. I'm not so sure.

Overload is everywhere, it's not just in the financial system. The pursuit of more things which are worthless and devoid of real purpose and integrity. We're always searching, moving forward - but frequently it's just more running away.

So we get super connected, connect, connect, connected. With who, for what, half of your friends on Facebook would stab you in the back given half the chance or at least if they're 'professional' relationships! I try to keep my friends as friends, I try to use these network devices with some integrity, some grounding.

My YouTube channel is nearly up to 20,000 views....and I have met so many nice people, really nice people. We send parcels of tobacco samples to each other, all based on trust, the trust of gentlemen spanning the entire world. I should have shares in the post office, I would invest but my post office has been bought by a bank that lost 10 billion. The people are real and we need to keep it real when we're using network websites or a bank...really.

south of France

So long since I've jotted down a few words, my Youtube pipe smoking video's seem to come first on my 'list of things to do' on the web. I guess a pattern is forming, my blog for rants, rave's and frustrations and my video's for communicating in a more optimistic fashion.

The summer is almost ended, it started with a trip to Dublin and ended with a journey to the South of France where H.H. Dalai Lama was inaugurating a new temple. It's been a wet season inbetween, the food in France is surely overrated - at least for a vegetarian, but the French - although easily offended - pale in comparison to the arrogance of the my beloved Dutch brothers, so the respite was enjoyed.

The best meal consumed was a Vegetarian Couscous...quite delicious, no doubt the chef was Algerian! I think French food is not quite a supremest as it once was, the rest of us worldly others having greatly improved our eateries and ingredients on the supermarket shelf. That noted the vegetables where nearly all home grown and tasted accordingly. A good summer all-in-all but still a long way from enlightenment and back in Holland...will it ever change.

buying a pipe

shut your mouth

We journeyed to Muiden on Sunday, glorious weather, quite the surprise. We'd expected it to turn colder but the contary occurred and a heatwave broiled instead. Muiden is a "mouth' or estuary on the Ijsselmeer, the bay of Holland which has been converted to a large freshwater lake. The daytrip is frequently completed. It is an idyllic place, farms, a castle, a fort, a harbour and seaviews of a sea that once was. The town of Muiden and it's sister town of Muidenberg is populated on Sunday's by people sitting on packed terraces, eating apple pie and soaking up the sun as if it will never shine again.

The farmer families who live in Muiden go shopping in Amsterdam on a Sunday (unless they're "Reformed") standing out in burly bodies and healthy skins amongst the less healthy looking wad of tourists most of whom have partaken a little too much and paled as a result.

The urbanites of Amsterdam find this all rather annoying, so instead of sitting on their favorite terrace on the Rembrandt Plein they ride their €1000 touring bikes to Muiden and sit amongst packed terrace's watching each other looking indifferent and eating apple pie. We go walking and do our best to avoid the vulgarity of the Dutch bourgeois.

how much for water!

I'm just back from a short break in Flevoland, an area of Holland that is 1.5hrs journey away from Amsterdam. It is a polder, a parcel of land reclaimed from the sea, waters kept at bay with the building of dykes. It's amazing to sit in a forest and ponder, "this place was an ocean 40 years ago". More bizarrely, we stayed at a Center Parks resort famous for its indoor swimming arena's, where once waves rippled a full on effects theme park of water slides and wake boarding rooms now presides.

We returned homeward on friday via the local harbor, the ferry to the adjacent town across (yet more water) did not run on that day so I approached the harbor master in the office and asked if there was anybody that would take me across to Spakenburg for €10 or €20. He raised his hands to his head rubbing his hair in a nervous fashion, I said in my bad Dutch, "yes I know it's a bit stupid off me to forget the ferry doesn't go on Friday's, but my idea is a bit creative". Pausing a while, a rest period given while he could come to terms with this major crisis being trust upon him. He asked when did I want to go and said he would drop me over on the speedboat in an hour or so.

The Dutch do not like unexpected things, there were signs clearly stating that the ferry did not go on fridays, who was this 'outsidelander' getting all creative, we have timetables and systems, do they not suffice for all? By the passing of the hour he'd adjusted to the impending drama well and was positively enjoying the spontaneity of the whole situation while not displaying it overtly. "It was good to get away from the harbor office" and a glow spurted on his reddish cheeks as we walked toward the boat. He sped across, the glow shifting to a fresh sigh of relief as the windforce swept through the boat...all said and done the love of water was why he choose this job.

As we disembarked onto the harbor wall, I took two €10 notes from my pocket, I handed him both, one after the other, he looked gob-smacked as if to say, "Really!". In some countries a display of cash on such an occasion would be offensive, an Irishman might babel, "not at'tal at all, would ye go way outta that". In other lands a sparring match might commence, "take it, no I won't, ah go on, no I couldn't, I insist, sure it was only a few minutes, right you are so". Not possible in Holland, I love watching their faces as I tip them too much, you see they 'LOVE' money, they adore it, like a boy presented his first teddybear or a bar of chocolate, so delighted with the gift he clenches it until it has melted between his chubby fingers. It has an innocence to it. They don't even care or ponder on which purchases they might make. They just put it in their pocket, as if it was one of those charcoal winter warmers. The whole experience was worth twice the price...but the harbor master probably still thinks I was just a pleasant but foolish American who tips too big.

i wave a flag

His Holiness the Dalai Lama remains a wonderful inspiration for humanity and our modern times, apart from current issues and politics his personal insights and embodiment of Buddhist principles should inspire just as much as the suffering of Tibetans presently concern us. Tibet will be FREE, it already is...just the details are taking a long time to work-out and unfortunately many Tibetans are enduring unspeakable tortures as this process moves forward...be strong, be a fighter but always be a non-violent one and remember, where were you when Tibet called?

Om Mani Pema Hung

Official Website: Government of Tibet in Exile

waving the finger

Holland is in the news recently, I do not wish to get into politics on my blog but I think I should explain what I believe is going on here. Calvinism, that's what's going on...that famous old Calvinistic finger is being waved again telling anybody in it's narrow minded way what others are doing wrong...and what they must do to be tolerated. Oh the irony! It is hilarious as the Dutch so often are...shame on you Holland, shame on you...I wave my finger back!

happy St.Pats

Plans for St. Pats.

Not getting drunk...call me alternative! Avoiding the center of Amsterdam where there is said to be an estimated 25 to 45,000 Irish descending for the weekend. Maybe wearing my kilt if I'm in the mood, but it does take a long time to get dressed, failing that - some green will be worn! Do go for dinner in a posh local restaurant with some friends and my wife. And..of course I will smoke some University Flake in my St.Pats 105.

I'm often asked what is THE thing for the Irish to do on St.Pats...answer... fly to New York! No city in the world celebrates St.Pats like New York. Paddy's day is a celebration of all things Irish with a strong emphasis on getting completely pissed. I sometimes call it Alcoholics Quilt-Free Day. But on a deeper level it is very much a time for the Irish to connect with home while they're overseas. A phone call will be made, a greeting card received, church attended and if you're in an Irish Regiment anywhere in the world a march around the barrack square with some Brigadier asking you silly questions at the end and then getting very, very drunk!

Ironically people in Ireland don't have to go to mass on Monday, word-up is Sunday's attendance will do for both. The main reasons for this are the Irish are too busy and stressed making money to pay for their over priced homes (no it's not just the USA!) and there aren't enough priests to go around, the latter possibly caused by the fact that there are better prospects of power, wealth and corruption in business and politics these days...and being gay and Irish no longer forces you to move to England or join the priesthood.

Happy Saint Pat's...and just for the record...he was Welsh!

iCroon

Just a quick YouTube link to a nice 'newish' young talent I enjoy very much on the music scene these days...Michael Bublé. I love my crooners, Frank, Dean, Sammy and of course Tony, I also like the new kids on the block like Jamie Cullem. But Bublé (Boo-blay) is IMO one of the best, a boyband without the band! Still young and finding his way he's off to a great start. He has a gorgeoeus style that is all his own without trying to overly impersonate any of the 'masters'.

We all enjoy the odd 'Westlife' song now and then - but usually if we're not sixteen year old High School girls - it's because we enjoy a good melody sang well. MB does this without too much cheesy flirting to such a potential and obvious market. I think and hope he will mature and grow over the next few years...enjoy dub.


Michael's website

a p.c. pipe

My W.O. Larsen's black sandblast and a Mark Tinsky's Clubstogie forum pipe. Photo by Richard Cordero.

I do like the two-fingers a pipe gives to people's concept of what smoking is. The pipe says smoking 'actually' is pretty cool and health issue's are being thrown around without any broad-minded bases.

There are two studies done that found pipe-smokers live longer than NON-smokers. The studies concluded that although there is still a risk of throat and mouth cancers from pipe-smoking, the pipe smoker in general was a meditative kind of person who spent a lot of time relaxing and was not prone to fast or dangerous lifestyles. Hence the end result with the statistics.

With the globalism, inter-connectedness and saturation of mass media and communications today, there is a much bigger pressure and tendency on us to conform to generic and politically correct opinions on all sorts of subjects and issues. We are 'informed' what is cool and not cool, what is to be 'middle-class', what is 'good' and 'bad'. As a man who has worked many years in media and advertising - it's all about selling bullshit.

I think the old saying, "It's not what you do, but how you do it that counts" applies very much to the pipe smoker.

To conclude, I think we could make the comparison with smoking today and the days of prohibition in the 1920's. Drinking was bad for people's health and the nations prosperity - so they banned it, but as time went by they realized it wasn't going to eradicate its consumption. Today the drinking of a fine glass of vintage wine is considered both good for your health and the height of cultural pursuit. Who knows how pipe smoking will be regarded in 50 years time...but I do know one thing...50 years on it will be the least of our problems on planet earth.

don't you just hate those video bloggers

I blog as I like to write, but I also blog because I like to blog, but above all its charm for me is to connect and communicate with the wider world. That said I should warn you, once I start talking I'm almost impossible to shut-up.

speak to me

Just had to post this charming Youtuber, Jes, a refreshing gentle breeze amongst the young ladies that adorn YouTube these days, no, not dancing scantily in her finest 'smalls' in her bedroom of a semi-detatched but teaching us a little 'Irish" or Gaelic as it is more correctly known. I disliked the subject immensely as a young boy, this made worse by the fact that my mother would continually repeat everything I'd say in Irish, she being from an Irish speaking area of Donegal. The funny thing is as I grew older and increasingly lived abroad, I frequently felt that the language I spoke was not my real or natural tongue. As if I was blighted with a way of conversing that seemed alien to me. My mother's father always encouraged 'English' in the house on Aranmore as he considered it a progressive step. And he was right, as history dictates. But I still have this feeling I'm not speaking in the manner I was supposed to, this is more an intuitive feeling rather than a conceptual one. Well, what the hell, now we have YouTube, I can learn how to smoke a pipe or speak Irish, just like my grandad. "Viva la Web".

podge and rodge

The BBC has Jonathan Ross, RTE (Irish TV) has Podge and Rodge. No contest there then...enjoy.

but I'm not on my island

Braveheart
This is an edited post. One of the very few, I had previously blogged a piece on the "I'm not on my island" scene from the film. However that link has been removed from you tube so I re-post with this one instead. The soundtrack in all it's glorious majestic splendor. I love 'Braveheart' but above all I can't even begin to describe how magnificent I find the soundtrack...enjoy...dub

i won't dance

I love 1930's and 40's movies. As a young boy I would lay in front of the television, transported to a cosy dreamworld, washing over me, a soothing smothering feeling. Me and Fred Astaire, alone in the study room, while it drizzled grey outside on a Saturday morning. Sadly the BBC doesn't show so many classics on a Saturday or Sunday mornings these days, another flaw that highlights it's sad decline in recent years.

I started to buy 1930/40's records when in my early twenties, by then I was old enough to realize that 'cool' music was what you liked, so when most of my peers and mates were into The Cure or Prince, I would croon to Al Bowly, or scat along with Satchmo.

Almost 30 years later, after those misspent days watching Bing or Fred as a boy, I still get a warming glow inside every time they show an old musical on Turner Classic Movies. It still gives me a feeling of coming home, a feeling of a world that is real, a world where I am not alone, where I am understood...a place where sentiment is a good thing. I stopped trying to find a reason for this perversion along time ago. I just know it's part of me, one of the very best parts. I found this beautiful tribute to Fred and Ginger while watching them on Youtube...Enjoy.

a white Christmas..almost

We're having a quiet Xmas this year, we usually do. Tomorrow, dinner in my mother-in-law's home for demented people, which isn't as bad as it sounds. It's the sane people I worry about - not the crazy ones. A white Christmas was almost had, the frost now melted and a more conducive climate returned that favors a pipe smoker on his balcony. Makes a good greeting card though...Merry Xmas from Dub in the Dam.

we're great traders!

Well the name of my blog is 'THE DIFFICULTIES OF AN IRISHMAN' and as you may have gathered by now a difficulty that is frequent in my mind is - the beloved Dutch. My hobbie of pipe smoking and increasingly pipe collecting highlights one such difficulty in shiny dazzling hues. Dutch shop owner's charge outrageous prices for their pipes, while often telling me, "we don't sell many pipes these days". Well surprise surprise, when they're charging 3-4 times the price they can be had for on the internet, what do you expect! Would this encourage them to bring or bargain their prices down? Hell no. "That would mean we would loose a €150 profit?". Such mind boggling inability to grasp the concept of business is truly, well, boggle minded!

Never to be beaten by the system, be it all pervasive, provincial or overwhelming, I took my modest finances to the distance shores of Ebay. And quite a victorious campaign was had. Ebay is amazing, ignore it at your peril, real market forces, in real time at the click of a mouse. It assists in sustainability (most products are second hand or unwanted). It places, at your monitored finger tips, all that you could desire, free of salesmen, shop overheads, advertising hype and rude service from people behind a counter who obsessively try to rip you off and generally just insulting to your meager intelligence.

The Math
These pipes cost me $13, $29, $51 and $89, the latter would cost $450 in a shop here. So including shipping costs and import taxes - $70, I spent a total of: $252 = €172. In Amsterdam, they would've cost in total at least €620, so a saving of €448 or $657. Yes that's right, I saved $657 on the purchase of 4 pipes on Ebay, and the dutch call themselves great 'traders'. They don't own ABN-AMRO anymore, I wonder why? Great traders, my arse. The taste of victory is like a pipe, so very sweet. Call me bitter and twisted.

PIPES ON EBAY

call me sicko

I went to see Micheal Moore's sicko yesterday. It was my wife's birthday and as it was her day, I said, "We shall do whatever you wish". Sicko was no.2 on the wish list, strange perhaps, but granted all the same. A great documentary, he gets better all the time, apart from subject matter, his films improve on all levels with each production. He highlights many things, mainly the 'undemocratic' nature of health care in the USA, but also the fear many Americans are subjected to when it comes to anything that maybe considered, in the slightest way; 'socialist'. I love Michael Moore, as a person and a spirit even more than his politics and concerns. He gives me hope in humanity when so many disappoint.

There was a women to our left who cried throughout the entire film, I assume affected in some way by a friend or relatives' illness or death in a health care system, in the USA or somewhere, that had failed. I wanted to hit the dutch that scoffed and laughed all too heartily every time Micheal spoke to a Cuban, Canadian, Frenchman or English gent who highlighted the advantages of their social systems.

The 'cloggies' laughed so much and too easily, intoxicated by a feeling of superiority every time the American way of life was exposed. They paid their €7.50 so they could get their fix of smugness and comfort, conveniently forgetting that the generous pension funds they possess are powered by their huge investments in industry and stocks. Investments that rate them the second biggest foreign investors in the the US. Investors in the very companies who's practices Moore's film was highlighting as immoral. They went home to to give their St. Nicholas presents and poems to each other...thanking God or Jung that they lived in Holland...and the woman on the left went home to cry, until she feel asleep. Call me 'Sicko', but I am not a blind man.

MICHEAL MOORE

coffee time

It's about time for a YouTube blog. A web forum member directed me to Denis Leary the American comedian, a like minded non-conformist rebel of fight'n Irish spirit. This sketch, entitled 'Coffee', speaks volumes to me. We now have 'branded' coffee, sold for crazy prices in designed coffee shops in which you can WiFi all you want, but not smoke. My pipe and its trusty companion, Strong Americano, are the few remaining vices in my sad life. I drink two big mugs in the morning, the purchased coffee displaying that FAIR TRADE label on the packet. I don't use a percolator or any other 'machine' in this ritual, just a coffee filter in a plastic holder placed over my beloved XL container. Now how ecco can you get. Enjoy the rants of the professional...

idesigned

a pipe tobacco tin label for my pipe smokers forum in a recently held competition. It came second place, so as a professional graphic designer by trade, "am I bothered"? Hell no, I'm at an age when I see my career as a success primarily because it is not an overly brilliant one. I have made so much 'shit' to sell 'shit' over the past 20 years, some of it good - some of it not so good, learning not to take it so seriously has been a major achievement, more so than the winning of any prestidious design award.

You see design has become a bad word, I feel this has been a gradual process since the 1980's, I dislike the word design, the word 'style'. I can appreciate Bauhaus as much as anyone else but design itself is increasingly becoming a brand rather than a tool to assist good branding. Anti-design is an ever growing movement in the creative industries and artistic circles. Questions on sustainable design, eco-friendly design have grown louder but we're still trying to grasp it's true meaning and place in the increasingly corporate business world. Looking back over my modest career, I can say all the best work I have done is to help the small businessman sell a few units more, the projects that didn't pay so much or dare I say, "nothing at all".

old folks

Nothing so specific to write on, I was away in Dublin catching up with my parents. I had planned, for sometime, a major spring clean on their appartment in Dun Laoghaire, they're just getting too old for the scrubbing work. I got most of what was needed to be done. My mother was chuffed to pieces. I picked-up a new fridge and cooker. I pre-warned her just before it arrived, once over the shock she couldn't stop saying how beautiful the kitchen looked.

I heard a buddhist teacher once say, "Don't worry about the children, it's the old people you need to take care of." How true, but what a shame that this mantra is so little heard today, drowned out by the media and advertising reminding us of our gorgeous children and their all important needs. Old people just get that slot at the end of the news, where they show some local scout's group doing their good deed for the day, helping the 'oldies' cross the street or doing their shopping...and we can all sigh with relief, resuming discussions once more about where little Johnnie will go to school next year.

On the same note, there is this increasing trend in recent decades to discuss - and deal with - the 'damage' our parents have caused us, as if we're teenagers who never grew-up. We see Doctor Phil 'working' with couples and their martial problem or family problems, or "you're not showing your kids enough love". How often do these ever popular shelf-help programmes cover the topic; "I'm eigthy and my children are still sad jerks".

Being old is sometimes sad, but I wish old people really knew how cool and ahead of their times they often are.

don't you just love

the web. It's not all about tacky adult websites, despite what some might think. Two really nice things happened yesterday. I stumbled across a blog by a young lady in the states, just pressing the next blog button. JUST FIVE WORDS She had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and decided to title her blog 'Just Five Words', the five words being what her doctor had said to her, "You have a brain tumor". Not surprisingly she's been through a lot and like many of us uses her blog to communicate her feelings and frustrations about this mysterious thing we call life. Well for me it put things in perspective, my wife had a brain hemorrhage earlier in the year, and although she is well on the mend it was a real wake-up call. Well anyway my point is; isn't it great that we can connect and inspire each other across continents and cultures. That we can connect for a fleeting moment in this dreamlike existence.



Similarly and secondly, I had done a pipe tobacco trade with a fellow webclub member in the states a few weeks back. Yesterday I saw a tin that I had sent to him amongst the photos taken of parcels of another member who had been 'hit' by forum members with a large and copious birthday gift. CLUB STOGIE PIPE FORUM Share the love in this ever decreasing world of ours. To me these tales are real proof that humans can use any technology to harness and adapt their abundant capacity to do good and altruistic things. Long live people and the web they surf.

solex, so !*#?

I'm on the lookout for a new scooter these days, 'hell' I'm always on the lookout for a new scooter. Anyway a solex is/was a possible option, they're just so cool. They've recently been brought back into production. Whilst surfing I came across this Mr.Bean video...enjoy.

NEW SOLEX

jump, how high?

Over 3000m to be exact. Last weekend I had a couple of old friends from the reserves over. They were participating in a parachute course on Texel, the biggest of Holland's islands in the north. Just to get into the spirit of things I booked myself in for a tandem jump. The quick and easy way to do a free fall or skydiving jump, no pre-training or medical certificate required. Well, what a great experience. I had jumped before, static line (automatic opening dome/round parachute), but this was a totally different experience. Free fall for 30 seconds and 5 minutes in the air...amazing. Highly recommended. What more can I say, surprisingly enough it was as much a very meditative experience as it was an adrenalin rush, both falling from the aircraft and the glide down is a gentle and floating feeling, rather than a speed rush.

The funniest part was when I landed an Italian couple approached me. The man asked me if I could assure his girlfriend how safe and easy the experience was, she being extremely nervous about it. This I did and sometime later I spoke with them after they had both jumped. She was; "wow amazing", beaming with joyous delight, he on the other hand looked pale and nervous and complained he felt sick and dizzy. Men, how sad are we?

The photo and video isn't of me by-the-way, that would've cost an extra €80, the memory is in the heart, don't you know.



PARA CENTRE TEXEL

Fondue Switzerland

I'm really fond of Switzerland, for all so many reasons, we went on vacation in July, it being our second visit. We booked cheap flights to Basel for €64 return and there the budget ends. Switzerland, by no means, could be called a cheap country for vacation, but that is also one of it's hidden charms. Because it is an 'expensive' place, a certain type of holiday traveler is seen there. "Only the best, don't you know". But seriously, the fact that it is not geared towards any 'group' of generic European traveler, means it is not spoiled with taccy chip shops or rip-off venders.

Typically the average tourist is over sixty, retired and not short of a good pension fund. You see a few Italians, french, and eastern Europeans (no discrimination intended, but I can never tell the difference between their accents), always a few English of course who consider themselves too intelligent and cultured to even think of holidaying in Spain!

The end result is a feeling of being a guest in this towering land rather than a mere bringer of foreign currency. And, more importantly, you are treated as a guest. The Swiss could teach us all a lesson or two. Here is a nation of three languages and cultures, with a federal 'Canton' or distict form of government which actually works quite well and which most people are happy with.

It is a land of the Have's, the 'Have a lots' and the 'Have so much it's unbelievable'! Ironically this happy and prosperous land with high wages and low taxes produces loads of heroine junkies, to be seen jacking-up on every street corner in its major cities. Nice junkies though, very civil and friendly. Indeed perfection is always the most flawed of things.

But for me I go for the friendly people who are not derailed by the fact that you speak a 'different' language upon encounter, a people who are happy that you've come to see their majestic land with a rucksack on your back. The mountain water, the village squares with gushing clear spouts of crystal cool, cool, water. The cheese, my God the cheese! The lakes, the belled cows, the buses and trains that come on time...to the second, the villages that always have a bank, a small supermarket, a tourist information center and a clean toilet. But best of all when you tire of hotels you just pull out your sleeping bag and sleep in a farmers field...now that's a holiday.

olden days n' olden ways

Erinmore Mixture. It brings back memories of childhood in my father's pub in Dublin.

I always loved to open the plastic jar of plugs that sat on the shelf, whenever somebody would request it, I would blurt, dashing, "I'll get it". I loved the sweet aroma released from its chamber as soon as you twisted the red lid off, fruit cake and black tea. I would ritually stick my nose in the jar and catch the smell, lingering. The umber black sticky blocks smelling so edible. In a place that reeked human odors of the most unpleasant sort, it was from Shangri la.

They were 5 pence back in those days (about 35 years ago). I would gawk at the old men cutting it, waiting for it to dry, the smell growing stronger as they carried out this startling procedure, and then try to steal a whiff as they lit-up. Their patients during the whole task always amazed me, even at 6 or 7 years old I could see how pipe smokers where 'different', more relaxed and worldly. It's only now that I remember its full name, 'Erinmore Plug'. Let the connoisseurs think they know what they're talking about on www.tobaccoreviews.com, but really, the half of em' haven't got a clue!

The ultimate pipe tobacco review forum

keep it real - the pipe thing - again!

Some of you may not know but if you enjoy the fine art of pipe smoking, one must acquire several pipes to enable them to 'rest' in between smoking them, you also need to dedicate particular pipes to particular types of tobacco. Pipes start at about €50 for anything half decent and can easily go to €200 for really good ones and even into the thousands for collectible 'works of art' in hand-crafting or aesthetic terms.

I smoke 3-5 bowls a day, so now I have 12 really smokable pipes, four of those almost new so still breaking in (pipes don't taste so good for the first 10 bowls, until you've built up a layer of carbon on the inside). I try to smoke a particular pipe once only in a day, sometimes twice. My point here is pipes, of reasonable quality, are expensive. I have spent about the €800 mark ($1150) on pipes alone since beginning this hobby. All my pipes I have hunted down for a 'real' price here in Rip-off Amsterdam. With many pipes I have negotiated up to a 50% reduction in price. Sometimes I have bought a pipe not because I like it so much but because I know it's an o.k. pipe at a good price.

If I am to let ALL my pipes rest minimum 5 days as some connoisseurs recommend, I would, 1. have to change my profession to bank robbing or 2. never actually get to smoke any of the expensive tobaccos I have bought, or at least finish the tin before it is totally dried out, so while waiting for the five days for all my pipes to rest, I would spent half my time re-hydrating my tobacco. I think you get my point, keep it real, let it rest 24hr, if you can or longer, if you can.

What the did your great-great granddad do? He smoked crap tobacco in an old crap pipe or two, all day long, and he enjoyed his smoke more than any of us ever will. Keep the perspective gents.

take a look at some pipes and prices

the collection

I had popped into a tobacco shop (McCarthy's on Zeedijk) on Sunday while out for a city walk with my wife. The owner is also an ex-Dubliner, and he tells me that he's selling the shop very, very soon, and if I fancy any of his last few W.O. Larsen's (Danish) he'll do me - for 50% off! An opportunity too good to be missed, "says I". So I pop in at lunch time today, he's normally closed on Tuesday, but he opens the door for me and says, "you're just in time, I just got the phone call to say my shop is sold"! (He's already opened a Licquor store around the corner).

Well if ever there was an omen, So I picked up a Lovet (96), and a Pot (188) with 9mm filter for...wait for it...€115 for the two, now in Amsterdam that's cheap as chips. And then he throws in the nice display stand as well!
(the Black Sandblast (90) on bottom, I already owned)

WO Larsen Danish Pipe Maker

i spit in your sky - MK732

AIN'T SHE A BEAUTY
Wow...wow...oh wow...I've just had one of the most truly amazing once in a lifetime experiences! A WWII spitfire just performed amazing air acrobatics practically right over my apartment for the past 10 minutes! You know, you see them in movies and on the TV...but my God what an inspiring thing, it moves like a falkon, dives like Mark Spits (excuse the pun) and glides like a swallow. The sound is just pure music. Isn't it amazing that such a destructive and devastating war could produce an object of such shear magical beauty...made my day...I am truly blessed, but where can I buy one? Muuusst gooo too air shooow.....soooon...

THE EXACT PLANE I SAW, HISTORY AND ALL

THIS WILL GIVE YOU THE IDEA (turn up volume for full effect...and check-out the spitfire flyover video, on panel..then you really get it!)

for the fight'n irish

Come home soon

For the Irish in Iraq. Come home soon, but until you do, here's a video from YouTube. The regimental RIR tune, how it should be played. Enjoy.

Falun Gong

An interesting thing happened last Sunday. I was in The Hague, and my wife and I decided to walk to a theater near the strand, the intended purpose of our visit. On the way, by shear coincidence, we walked by the Chinese Embassy. We'd been there in past years on a protest for 'Save Tibet'. Suddenly recognizing the street we had stumbled onto, we notice two young ladies sitting in a lotus position on mats outside said embassy.

They were Falun Gong practitioners. One Chinese and the other a East European. Both spoke really good dutch and had resided in Holland some years. Well out of pure solidarity we sat with them and discussed the issues facing Falun Gong. Shocking, truly shocking. It turns out, that despite an increased tolerance in China towards religious practitioners, and an increased interest in religion as a way of maintaining discipline by the government, Falun Gong benefits little from these changes in attitude by Chinese politicians and police. Torture and abduction are common place. Where Christians are often left alone, Falun Gong devotees are systematically surppressed. They seem to be a severe threat to the authorities.

I have had, I suspect, a couple of comments on my blog from Chinese bloggers. Can they see this blog? Will they read it or want to believe it? I suspect so. If there is a will there is a way. Through an interest in Tibetan Buddhism I have learned a great deal about the abuses of Tibetan people and culture in 'THEIR' land by the Chinese government. I have also learn how skillful that government is at suppressing any inquiries by NGO's or foreign governments into their brutalities, and/or limiting and real effects on such human rights abuses. Well I blog, I blog for Tibet, I blog for justice, I blog for human rights and I blog so some people know how shallow the intentions of European governments are on such issues. Well one more to the list, I blog for Falun Gong and I hope you will to, in China or Castlebar!

INFO ON FALUN GONG