I smoke a pipe, a dying breed, but keeping the flame alight.
My tobacco of choice is Condor- remember the advertisement: that Condor moment. I prefer to make my purchases from a tobacconist, but said shops are slowly disappearing. You may pay a little bit more than at a supermarket, but that is made up for by the opportunity to purchase from a wide range of pipe tobaccos. A little gem is to be found in Ashford (Kent), another in Holborn.
Until today I could buy Condor at Tesco in Tunbridge Wells for £9.79 or at Sainsbury for £9.99. Today, the price at Tesco was £10.10!! I purchased St Bruno retailing at £9.79. The reason given for the whopping price increase was that Tesco did not sell much Condor. Putting the price up is unlikely to increase sales. When I purchase my tobacco at Tesco I usually buy other items whilst at the store. Not any more - down to Sainsbury from now on.
The Tesco slogan: Every little helps. Cobblers.
You have taken me down memory land John - I remember a lovely Indian man who ran a tobacconist in my home town - he housed tobaccos from all over the world and you could chose what you wanted for your pleasure. Another fine tobacconist was in a neighbouring town called Hitchin - these tobacconist also sold snuff - which I often bought for my father and he put it in a little tin. As a very young woman I often took a little pinch and would put my finger and thumb with a little pinch of snuff to my nose and sniff stoutly. Remembering back a little further into childhood, I sometimes took a little pinch from the tin. When all the other children had snot round their noses, I had a little brown powdery stain. Today this would cause alarm I am sure but as a child I enjoyed a little sniff of snuff. Makes me sound like a Dickensian child - lol. The various tabaccos that could be bought in larger retailers, pre-packaged, were quite diverse but the big companies bought out the small companies and discontinued the smaller companies tobaccos, leaving people with little choice. Todays teenagers are often given anti-depressants to get through their passage - my little pinch of snuff now and then did the trick for me.
ReplyDeleteAnd the aroma......Used to be a big tobacconists on the corner of Slab Squsre in Nottingham and there was one close to the market place in Norwich last time I visited. You could spend hours selecting a new pipe (I always went for 'seconds').
ReplyDelete