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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 19:35:20 GMT -5
C.H. SPURGEON Charles Haddon Spurgeon has been a controversial, yet universally-loved institution since he began preaching in his youth. He is known by many titles, including the Prince of Preachers, the Duke of Awesomeness, and the Protestant Patron Saint of Puffing. Yes, we suppose it’s ironic that a Baptist preacher is the most well-known cigar smoker in Christian history, seeing as how Baptist preachers stereotypically eschew all creeds except “We don’t smoke, we don’t chew, we don’t go with girls who do” But Spurgeon, who was mastered by nothing save Christ, understood what a good cigar could do, when properly enjoyed.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 19:35:38 GMT -5
RALPH ERSKINE As a Calvinist clergyman, I’m often annoyed at the way Puritans are portrayed in our culture as pleasure-haters and kill-joys. Historically, Puritans have been neither. They loved good food and good alcohol (in moderation), and celebrated good sex. While they were split about tobacco smoking (some associated it with idleness), at least one great Puritan—the Scottish churchman Ralph Erskine—wrote a poem about pipe smoking.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 19:39:13 GMT -5
RALPH ERSKINE's poem.
This Indian weed now wither ´ d quite, Though green at noon, cut down at night, Shows thy decay; All flesh is hay. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The pipe so lily-like and weak, Does thus thy mortal state bespeak. Thou are ev ´ n such, Gone with a touch. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. All when the smoke ascends on high, Then thou behold ´ st the vanity Of worldly stuff, Gone with a puff. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. And when the pipe grows foul within, Think on thy soul defil ´ d with sin; For then the fire, It does require. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. And seest the ashes cast away; Then to thyself thou mayest say, That to the dust Return thou must. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. Part II Was this small plant for thee cut down? So was the Plant of great renown; Which mercy sends For nobler ends. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. Doth juice medicinal proceed From such a naughty foreign weed? Then what ´ s the pow ´ r Of Jesse ´ s flow ´ r? Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The promise, like the pipe inlays, And by the mouth of faith conveys What virtue flows From Sharon ´ s rose. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. In vain the ´ unlighted pipe you blow; Your pains in outward means are so, Till heav ´ nly fire The heart inspire. Thus think, and smoke tobacco. The smoke, like burning incense, tow ´ rs; So should a praying heart of yours, With ardent cries, Surmont the skies. Thus think, and smoke tobacco.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 19:42:39 GMT -5
C.S. LEWIS Lewis is the reason most seminarians go through a “pipe phase.” They see how thoughtful the pipe made Lewis look and they’re convinced they can pull it off . . . if they can just keep the thing lit. Lewis did love his pipe, but he was at least as fond of cigarettes (there’s no accounting for taste). And, while he may have sort of been a universalist and held to some questionable views on the afterlife, Lewis was undeniably a gifted and challenging Christian thinker worth reading and wrestling with.
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Post by herbinedave on Apr 21, 2016 19:57:52 GMT -5
Me. I am the only pipe and cigar smoker that I need to be concerned with on a daily basis!
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:01:56 GMT -5
Me. I am the only pipe and cigar smoker that I need to be concerned with on a daily basis! I'll raise my cup to that and have a whiff of my two cigarillo's. Cheers, Slainte, Iechyd da. |
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:04:50 GMT -5
WINSTON CHURCHILL Throughout his long life, Churchill nourished England with his battlefield bravery, political courage and prolific writing, and nourished himself with the best food, drink and cigars he could find. The man for whom the imposing Churchill cigar size is named smoked eight to 10 cigars a day, primarily Cuban brands. Not even the necessity of wearing an oxygen mask for a high-altitude flight in a nonpressurized cabin could prevent Churchill from smoking. As the story goes, the prime minister requested that a special mask be created that would allow him to smoke while airborne. Naturally, the request was fulfilled. On another occasion, Churchill hosted a luncheon for King Ibn Sa'ud of Saudi Arabia, who did not allow smoking or drinking in his presence. Rather than submit to the king's wishes, Churchill pointed out that "my rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol before, after and if need be during all meals and in the intervals between them." The king was convinced. Favorite cigar: Romeo y Julieta
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:07:06 GMT -5
JOHN F. KENNEDY When you're the president of the United States, you can get just about anything you'd like. What the 35th president wanted in early 1962 was a bunch of Cuban cigars, 1,000 Petit Upmanns to be exact. He gave his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, less than 24 hours to round them up. Short notice for such a big request, but then JFK had a pressing reason for procuring the stash in such a timely fashion. He was about to sign an embargo prohibiting any Cuban products from entering the country, including his beloved cigars. The embargo was born of a nasty spat that the United States was having with Cuba and its fears that Fidel Castro represented a growing threat to America's security. But before Kennedy could act, he needed Salinger to complete his assignment. The press secretary didn't let him down, as he managed to scrounge up 1,200 cigars. Kennedy then signed the embargo, and Cuban tobacco has been off-limits to Americans ever since. Favorite cigar: Petit Upmann
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:09:28 GMT -5
MARK TWAIN The author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn smoked at least 22 cigars a day, maybe as many as 40. Twain, née Samuel Clemens, supposedly once declared, "If smoking is not allowed in heaven, I shall not go." Twain's penchant for cigars didn't necessarily mean he smoked the best cigars. He knew that even his closest acquaintances were reviled by his stogie selections. Once, as he would later relate in his essay "Concerning Tobacco," he pilfered a handful of costly and elegant cigars from a friend's house, removed the labels, and placed the smokes in a box identified by his favorite brand. He then invited the man and 11 other friends over for dinner, offering each a cigar afterward. Everyone shortly excused themselves, and the next morning Twain found the cigars sprawled outside--except for the one left on the plate of the man from whom the cigars had been filched. "He told me afterward that some day I would get shot for giving people that kind of cigars to smoke." Favorite cigar: Anything except a Havana
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:11:10 GMT -5
JACK NICHOLSON The three-time Academy Award winner had been a longtime cigarette smoker when he took up golf in the early 1990s. He found himself smoking half a pack during a round to calm his nerves, so he decided to switch to cigars from around the fifth hole on. The change helped relax him, and eventually Nicholson got down to a 12 handicap. The actor first became enamored of Cuban cigars in 1973, when he was making The Last Detail, insisting that the petty officer character he played be a cigar smoker. The picture was shot in Canada, affording easy access to Havanas. When he resumed cigar smoking in the '90s, one of Nicholson's favorite haunts was the Forum in Los Angeles, where he would attend most of the Lakers' home games. At one time he was able to light up right on the arena floor, but as California antismoking laws got tougher, he found himself relegated to a hallway and, eventually, outside the building itself. "But I get around it," he said in 1995. "I sneak into the men's room at halftime, like when I was in high school, and take my drags there." Favorite cigar: Montecristo
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:13:31 GMT -5
CHARLIE CHAPLIN The perceived connection between cigars and wealth was one that actor-director Chaplin used to great effect in his films. Having survived a poverty-stricken childhood, Chaplin's sympathies were always with the underdog, famously symbolized in his character, the Tramp. Although the Tramp was not above picking up the cast-off cigar butts of the rich, in City Lights Chaplin used a big cigar both as a symbol of the upper class, with its wealth and power, and as a spear to harpoon it.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:14:07 GMT -5
KING EDWARD VII "Gentlemen, you may smoke." With those simple words, spoken shortly after his coronation in 1901, Britain's Edward VII ended the tobacco intolerance that had marked Queen Victoria's reign. Yet Edward's pro-cigar stance was nothing new. In 1866, as the high-living Prince of Wales, he had quit his London gentlemen's club over its no-smoking policy (the final straw was when a servant admonished him for lighting up). He took 20 percent of the membership with him, and they soon established a club where smoking was heartily encouraged.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:15:00 GMT -5
THOMAS EDISON Best known for bringing electric light and recorded sound into the world, Edison was also a prodigious cigar smoker. He liked to celebrate an invention with a stogie (preferably one he had won from a luckless lab assistant who had bet him he couldn't perform whatever feat of technological sorcery he was attempting). "The Wizard of Menlo Park" also had a sense of humor: to tweak associates who pilfered his cigars, he once planted phony smokes rolled from sawdust in his desk drawer.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:18:51 GMT -5
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The irony is palpable. Attempting to understand British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created one of literature’s most enduring characters—the great detective Sherlock Holmes—one must become something of a sleuth himself.
It is a well-known fact, of course, that Sherlock Holmes smoked. Oh, did he ever smoke. In Doyle’s stories, cigarettes were part and parcel of his character, and even though he is most often seen wearing a deerstalker hat and puffing on a calabash pipe, Doyle never put the curved gourd in the detective’s hand or between his lips.
Holmes’ foil and sidekick, Dr. Watson, was a cigar and pipe smoker, while the detective preferred "oily clay pipes" and shag tobacco, the stronger the better. Holmes was known to smoke a variety of pipes, including a cherry wood and even churchwardens.
Doyle’s tobacco favorites, however, are a little more difficult to pin down. There is no doubt that he smoked, and liked his cigar as well as his pipe. But a couple of recent biographies leave a lot to be desired when it comes to finding out just what kind of tobacco and what sort of pipe the venerable doctor and famous author enjoyed.
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:20:02 GMT -5
John Roland Reuel Tolkien .
He wrote one of the most famous openings in literature when he penned this line: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. . . " And those few words launched one of the most amazing careers in literary history.
J.R.R. Tolkien, called "Tollers" or "JRRT" by close friends, and "Ronald" by his family, has been called the greatest writer of the 20th century. That assessment can be argued, perhaps, but the fact is that his books "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" became instant bestsellers read by millions, were turned into movies, and were responsible for wide - spread influence on other writers, such as J. K. Rowling and Kurt Vonnegut.
His books even created an entire industry for churchwarden - style pipes once his movies hit the big screen. The cinematic scenes of hobbits smoking the long curvaceous pipes kick - started a fad about as big as the cigar boom of a few years back.
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Post by Darin on Apr 21, 2016 20:21:45 GMT -5
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:29:15 GMT -5
Thanks for link, cob, I could not open it , I'll try later. I am trying to select my favourites. Anybody have any favourite, smokers ? |
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:31:33 GMT -5
Bertrand William Arthur Russell, grandson of a British Prime Minister, and one of Great Britain’s leading writers and philosophers, claimed to have remembered not only the day but also the very instant that he became a pipe smoker. Talk about your Eureka moment!
"I remember the precise moment," he said in an interview. It took place, he said, "One day in 1894 as I was walking along Trinity Lane, when I saw in a flash that the ontological argument (for the existence of God) is valid. I had gone out to buy a tin of tobacco; on my way back, I suddenly threw it up in the air and exclaimed as I caught it, "Great Scott, the ontological argument is sound. " (It may be noted in passing that in 1894 Russell was just 22 years old.)
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Post by Motto on Apr 21, 2016 20:33:23 GMT -5
Jefferson Davis.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va.- There it was - a priceless relic of the Civil War, displayed in a simple Plexiglas box in a small Virginia museum, its graceful lines accented by a dramatic beam of light, its bowl as scuffed and dark as Black Cavendish.
The pipe itself was beautiful, yes-but it was its provenance that made it so exciting: Its owner had been none other than Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
An avid Civil War buff and pipe smoker myself, I had never known of its existence until a recent trip to Virginia Beach, Va., when I visited the prison at Fort Monroe where Davis had been incarcerated for two years after the defeat of the Confederacy by Union forces.
Davis was a pipe smoker long before he became the leader of the ill-fated breakaway Confederate states in 1861. In fact, there are recorded discussions of his “corncob” when he worked his Mississippi plantation, Brierfield, so named for its tangled woods and forests.
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