frenchkiwi

This is an artistic depiction of the fine female form, and almost prudish compared to say, a nude... and i'm all in favour of that kind of thing. Totally platonic appreciation of course. 🧐 There is the question of relevance, the dame needs a cigar in her mouth, or is she the logo or personalisation of New Orleans or something? Nothing to do with a strip club but great marketing... p.s. i can think of La Gloria Cubana but what other marcas have ladies as the main emblem of their logo?

This reminds me - are we resigned to this co-equal treatment with cigarettes or should we crowdsource or somehow lobby for a study into the different health outcomes between cigarette and cigar smoking? Governments are already being forced to re-evaluate the whole picture to some degree due to vaping. Basically high tobacco duties due to collateral damage from the push to eradicate cigarette smoking impacts on the price/enjoyment side of things more than Habanos luxury pricing strategies (although Habanos are catching up haha)

Excellent work. Great that your boys could be involved. I feel like taking up fly fishing just as an excuse to use one

Sometimes simple is best! Having said that i still think of you as Czars but i am a bit slow to adapt - did that change happen 10 years ago or ?

as some journo pointed out, Russia became an oligarchy in the 90s (after they took western advice to privatise all their big energy companies and give shares to people who were more in need of basic necessities, so a few rich guys hoovered'em up) but slowly ceased to be one in the last two decades, as Vlad used his state power as quasi-dictator to become the biggest richest oligarch and then get rid of most of all the others. this war is pretty much the final coup so i suppose no surprise he's using it as cover to take out remaining threats, and killing off any remnants of independent media in the process...

my dad gave me this one as a bday card in my teens - and wrote in it that he reckoned it summed me up - i've had to live with it imprinted on my psyche ever since 😑 😅

You are making way too much sense ... so you sound like a weekday economist, should you even be participating in this thread??? 😉 As far as I've read, and that's not very far, inflation seems to be driven by supply chain issues as demand spikes in the wake of nations worldwide recovering from covid recessions, particularly in oil. So I suppose it's too early to tell how structural the issues are until the recovery period is over. After all US crude oil fell into negative value for the first time ever just a year ago so... Even the known structural issues are hard to time e.g. for every China going off the manufacturing boil as their employment costs catch up, there's a Vietnam, Mexico and perhaps increasingly a nationalistic substitute. The main medium term issue as far as i could tell is asset bubbles from all of this cheap stimulus money looking for a home. E.g. real estate in my country. So interest rates will eventually be raised but presumably not fast, and they are at such a low rate relative to the average over last couple of decades that it's hard to see this being too big a problem. Unless someone goes wild with the raise button too far too fast.

someone gave me one of those old refillable table lighters ... not as novelty as this though ... free fisting and light a fire up your arse? what do they run on naphta? i've never actually bothered to check. off topic but how can you tell the difference between old butane and naphta lighters?

wow ok there's a specialist market for everything i guess! I would love to hear from someone how well the translator thing works in real life. C3PO minus the whining. I have nothing to contribute to this thread which is exactly why i'm here ... clueless bloke ... alcohol my go-to gift for everyone... keep'em coming.

Sancho Panza no.2, light whisky in the afternoon sun, I concur sir (and have finished a box that way, also the odd one on my annual hack around the golf course). I've found the Punch Punch to be competent (but different - cedar and cloves) in the same context.

I'll be interested to hear other people and follow up with a purchase, as i currently don't have anything in my humidor which is out of the ordinary in terms of flavours... Czars have sent me some crackers recently including some Monte 4s with meaty cocoa, and Quai d'Orsay full of cedar with gingerbread and cinnamon touches, but these are "just" great examples of the respective marca as opposed to unique / out of the ordinary flavours? (not sure if that's what you mean Rob). In the past decade or so I remember very unique Vegas Robaina Clasicos with an amazing ligero kick, colorado claro El Rey del Mundo robustos with lemon and honey, very young Trinidad Reyes with thick viscous sweet smoke then aging into graham cracker cedary delight, and young Juan Lopez no.1s full of vanilla, decade old La Gloria Cubana no.1s with citrus and gingerbread, etc etc ... but right now, nothing unique or surprising!! Help me out people 😉

Well that just about does it, beautiful elegy, I will pray for his family despite not knowing him and will have to crack into a M#4. Here's to Ricky and may we all enjoy our M4s and life while we still have it, a good reminder to do so, God bless you all. p.s. I had a friend who died of pancreatic cancer in his early 50s, a few years ago, he was told he had potentially 6 months to live, quit work but did well in chemo and managed to live 2 more years enjoying his kids, even went back to work... until boom it came back and took him within a few months. It's a strange thing.

Ah interesting. That would explain the reaction to plugged cigars on review sites. Mind you when you're smoking a 4" by 64rg cigar, what do you expect!?!

... in halfwheel / NC reviewing? do you mean to say wind tunnel cigars get A++ marks for smoke delivery on these websites? or just that NCs have a large proportion of wind tunnels

There is a game called Tropico - you get to be the dictator and choose how to rip the people off, take the bribes from overseas multinationals, and imprison activists etc...