22 August 06

To the Smoke

“Smoking is not a crime,” said the bumper sticker on the car parked on the levee as I was biking home tonight. “Still smoking” was the afterthought.

It’s so rare, now, in Davis, to even run across anyone smoking. We are insulated from tobacco to an almost absurd degree—I have some sympathy for the defiant few. But next week it will be everywhere: between courses at restaurants in Madrid; inside, outside, everywhere. Black tobacco or blond. We’ll not escape it. I’m trying to get myself used to the idea.

Posted by at 08:47 PM in Miscellaneous | Link |
  1. I can´t imagine Spain without smoke…
    — Jennifer    22. August 2006, 22:58    Link
  2. JOYEUX ANNIVERSAIRE TOI!

    When I was still in my yucky first marriage, I got a postcard from my then-buddy now-husband Mike from Spain saying something like “Infernal country, everyone insisting on being nice, treating us to enormous meals and tapas, can’t understand how women so beautiful can smoke so much.” It was actually a birthday card too, come to think of it.
    — Nicole    23. August 2006, 11:27    Link
  3. Does the tobacco over there smell any better than the (usual cigarette) tobacco over here? back when he smoked, I used to get Joe a pack of Shermans for his Xmas stocking. I liked their smell better than the Winstons’.

    Why am I going on about smells this week? (Yeah that’s rhetorical.)

    BTW, I’m so envious about your trip I could just plotz.
    — Ron Sullivan    23. August 2006, 21:54    Link
  4. Ron: it’s worse, because it’s a mixture of black tobacco and Winstons. So you get it all. (And guys smoking huge stogies all the way through a soccer match and pretty much anywhere they feel like it.) Few pipes, which is the smell of tobacco I really like.
    — Pica    24. August 2006, 05:03    Link
  5. Pica,
    If I am not mistaken Spain have implemented a smoking ban, perhaps with more exceptions than have been allowed in Ireland and Scotland. Here in Scotland it has been accepted everywhere, though I do not think your trip brings you up here?

    I am taking the opportunity of this posting to give belated reply to earlier request for good places to check out in London. My godson, a true Londoner, and his family introduced me to Maison Bertaux on Greek Street round the corner from Old Compton Street in Soho. Its a cafe /theatre where you get as good a croissant or cake as you will find in London, in the great company of theatre folk who seem to have been hanging around for decades. A great place to sit and have a think.

    Hope not too much a suprise after not hearing from me for quite a while! Just wanted to get this recommendation to you, and the last e-mail address I have for you is not working right now.

    Joe
    — Joe McElholm    24. August 2006, 14:41    Link

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