My first Porsche…

This year I’ve become middle-aged and as I am a man who has money in greater measure than sense I’ve decided to treat myself to a Porsche… Design pipe, model 909 in black to be precise.

Porsche Design 909 Pipe in Black

It really is a lovely piece of work. The “fins” on the bowl are (by design) reminescent of the fins on an air-cooled engine, which as all petrol-heads know is what Porsche really built its reputation on.

Don’t its ultra-modern exterior fool you into thinking that this is made of some experimental material: Porsche design pipes are made of good, tried-and-true briar. It’s a fairly large and heavy pipe; I really don’t feel comfortable holding it with my teeth alone while I smoke, for fear of cracking the stem. It’s definitely a pipe made more for a pipe smoker of experience; smoke this too quickly and the bottom of the bowl will get quite warm, although not enough to burn you of course. In that sense I guess I could see it as a pipe which reinforces slower and calmer smoking habits. Besides that, well, just look at it. I am pleased as Punch with my purchase.

Porsche Design makes four models of pipe, two straight-stems  (one with a round bottom and the other square) and two curved-stems. The sticker price on all models in the range is in the mid-400s, although you will find new ones on Ebay for a lot less. They are available in two wood tones, two titanium schemes, and two black versions (the Spirit version has gold metal rings at the stem instead of silver). It’s definitely an excellent addition to one’s pipe-rack.

Whatever you thought you knew about the 2008 bank bailout is wrong…

…because the reality is over 10 times worse than what was made public at the time. In fact a total of $7.7 trillion in loan guarantees and lending limits were issued by the Fed, which makes TARP seem like a trifle in comparison.

All you need to know about American cops.

Pepper Spray Cop

Pepper Spray Cop

That is all.

A note to the people at Microbytes…

Y U NO Y U NO CALL CUSTOMER WHEN ORDER IS READY?

The birds, they’re angry!

Angry Birds is a fun little game, but effectively what you have are a bunch of birds that successively commit terroristic suicide attacks on the pigs who have stolen their eggs.

Currently reading…

Mao’s Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals. An extremely interesting book that focuses on Mao’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976.

Currently reading…

The Private Life of Chairman Mao By Dr. Li Zhisui, who was the Chairman’s personal doctor from 1954 all the way to his death in 1976. A fascinating insider’s view into the Mao the man and into the politics that ruled China during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Currently reading…

Back from the Brink, a political memoir by Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling. It’s a bit of a break from reading about events in which millions perish and millions more are horribly tortured…

Currently reading…

Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor, whom some of you may remember as the actor who played journalist Dith Pran in The Killing Fields. A vivid first-person account of what it was like to live in Cambodia before and during the infamous era of the Khmer Rouge, during which some 25% of the country’s population was killed.

Currently reading…

Mao’s Great Famine by Frank Dikotter. This is not the first time I’ve read about the effects of China’s Great Leap Forward in the late 50s and early 60s, but this certainly has highlighted not only the direct effects of the famine itself but also its origins and also the secondary effects by which the GLF had such a devastating impact on the Chinese countryside.