In defence of Lunting and Tippling

Now then, that's a touch excessive.

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a lunter. In fact, I will go off lunting in search of a tipple and quite happily lunt away until I reach my tipple and maybe even finish my lunt on the way back. I do it because it is ruminative, stimulating and it matches my lunting hat. I haven't lunted in a few weeks, so am due for a bit of lunting this weekend on the way to cricket I think. Lunting is the act of walking while smoking a pipe. Pipe smoking is now seen as the preserve of the old or the eccentric and in this age of the smoking nazi, it is seen as fraught with health risks such as lung, tongue and throat cancer. Graham Chapman of Monty Python fame died of throat cancer as he was an inveterate pipe smoker. Eric Morecambe died of a serious heart condition possibly exacerbated by his pipe smoking habit but I would argue that the risk of me keeling over clutching at my chest would not be raised much higher by my predilection for going for a lunt every month of so. It isn't as if I light up several times a day or smoke cigarettes at all (although once upon a time I used to). In fact, I find having a pipe to be almost entirely beneficial if you discount the obvious snide mutterings about the smell from Attila the Wife. It gives me a moment of thought to myself, I rather like the smell and it gives me a pleasant reminder of my Grandfather who liked a pipe now and then. Get a good pipe tobacco or cigar and it will smell almost perfumy and aromatic, cigarette smoke smells like bottom (apart from Port Royal tobacco, which I think almost sits in the same class as matured pipe tobacco. It has a rather pleasing rumminess to it). I would also argue that it has more social value than cigarette smoking because a pipe smoker will only leave a bit of ash behind, not a butt that will take years to biodegrade. You also don't see clusters of pipe smokers blocking doorways, breathing all over people as they go past. Rest assured that in the BArSTewARD's mancave, it will be a smoking area and there will be a bottle of port or a bottle of whisky to accompany the experience.

Join us. Start your lunting journey here and explore a range of pipes made from briar, meerschaum and corn cob. Taste and smell the wonderful differences of tobacco matured with rum, black cherry, vanilla or cognac, ignore the approbation of your significant other and society in general. A pipe is defiant, elegant and engaging and you ought to be too.