Pipe Smoking 2010

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What a pipe means to you?

A question frequently asked by strangers on a street. There are many answers and reasons which attracted and combined us together.

In my country the word pipe is feminine so I like to refer to it as if to a beloved woman. I love her shape and gently warmth felt when touching her. A thin trail of smoke drifting from her gives me a peace of mind. Aroma accompanying the burning of tobacco soothes all the senses.

Thanks to the pipe I got to know most faithful friends in Poland and in the world. Symbol of a pipe in my calendar points the next world event and this time it leads me to Estoril in Portugal. I look forward to meeting wonderful hosts of Portugal World Championship 2010 dear friends and whole pipe enthusiasts’ elite.

To my short text I attach pictures of regional pipes used not so long ago by Polish highlanders from Zakopane.

See you in Casino Estoril

Henryk Rogalski
President of the Polish Pipe Clubs Council

Hope to see you in Estoril

I really look forward to the international pipe smoking jamborees that CIPC sponsors in October each year. They are well organized and always take place at locations that are attractions on their own. This year I anticipate another enjoyable get together with good friends from across the globe at the World Championship to be held in Estoril, Portugal on October 9/10, 2010. I am confident that this will be as memorable as the past such events.

I have been fortunate enough to attend most CIPC World Competitions since 2000 when Alain Letulier, then President of the Pipe Club of France, invited Bob Page from Philadelphia and me to observe that year’s competition in Dijon. That experience opened our eyes to a whole new world of pipe smoking and led us to form the United Pipe Clubs of America (UPCA) to permit American smokers to participate officially. My only regret is that we have not yet been able to attract more American pipe smokers to these events. However, we are doing our best to spread the word – UPCA promoted the Estoril World Championship at the recent Chicago Pipe Show – and I hope that several of our compatriots will come with us to Portugal.

There had been no tradition of slow smoking competitions in the US and it therefore has taken a while to build interest - and to develop at least a base level of competence. UPCA has done this by organizing the US National Championship each year at the Chicago Show and sponsoring a number of regional and local competitions around the country. More and more American smokers have come to realize that it’s fun to compete – and that slow smoking requires real skill. When people express frustration, I remind them with the old joke about the tourist in New York who asks “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” and is told “Practice, practice, practice…”

Of course the real attraction of these CIPC events is the opportunity to visit with pipe smoking friends from other countries and to make new ones. My wife, Susan, was hesitant at first about going to “a pipe smoking convention”. She consented to accompany me to Barcelona a few years ago only because she wanted to visit Barcelona. She then was so impressed by the people she met that she now begs me to go along each year. She plans to come to Estoril and looks forward to visiting Portugal as much as I do! (Good Lord, I haven’t been to Lisbon since 1970!)

I know that the Portuguese host team has been working hard during the past year and that they will treat us to a very special and very enjoyable weekend. I therefore enthusiastically urge all to come to Estoril and join in the fun. I look forward to seeing you there.

Vernon Vig

President of UPCA

Discovering Portugal

Many years ago the French Ambassador accredited in Lisbon Jean Nicot discovered tobacco which soon France started to import and afterward all Europe and the rest of the world. However, besides discovering tobacco he also found out the pace of time and the beauty of Portugal.

In fact, my dear friends, Portugal is much more than its Oporto wine and Football. There are two words that best define Portugal and those words are: TIME and BEAUTY.

TIME in Portugal is different, everything stops, everything is slow, life proceeds slowly, and you have time to enjoy it. You can enjoy a good wine, not only those from Oporto but also those from Douro, Bairrada or Alentejo regions. Wines that require time to be tasted, alone or with a tasty Azeitão or Serra cheese, or with a “cataplana” dish or a very fresh barbecued fish. That is Portugal that mixes time with pleasure.

The BEAUTY of Portugal is another highlight which must be noted. A beauty of light and color, of the sea touching its coast, of planes and valleys, of historical cities such as the Roman Évora where Venus has her most beautiful temple, of the Renaissance Coimbra, or the spectacular Sintra where Lord Byron succumbed to its charm and where he live for a long time.

The beauty of Portugal is also present in its jewels in gold filigree which cannot be found anywhere in the world, in its china and textiles, and certainly in the CHINA PIPES OF FÁBRICA DA VISTA ALEGRE which are pipes made with the most fine china, comparable to those of Meissen.
It is truth that everything in this country reminds us of our dear pipe, which with its ritual and symbolism agrees with our personality in general and most of all with our PHILOSOPHY of life, in which beauty and time are indissolubly together. This is the reason why I insist that you must discover Portugal!

Toni Pascual
Pipe Clubs Federation of Spain

The pleasure of participating

It is almost thirty years now that I have been participating in championships of slow smoke and I already accepted the fact that others consider bizarre this passion of mine. It it difficult to explain why it is so good to participate in these meetings but I try to explain it to those who have the patience to listen.
I participated in my first contest in 1983: then I thought that to participate smoking my own pipe was a strange if not weird activity. Today, after so many years, I remember very well the emotions of that day: it was quite enthusiastic to see all these people making an effort to have the best result but with a fair play that I thought existed only in Pierre de Coubertin dreams. I was touched to see how the more experienced smokers try to help me with theirs advises, it was good to be among such nice people. They could put together commitment and joy.

It was then that I understood that I wanted to be part of that group with such fun people, but as years went by that I understood that the slow smoke contests would change me into a wiser person.

I had the opportunity to meet smokers from all over the world, so enlarging my horizons about the differences that exist in people habits and opinions. I could appreciate the value of tolerance and the importance to make a effort to understand people with different opinions.
But above all I learned how to be patient. When I started I was quite an impatient young man, I would not go to the movies because I could not stand to be seated for a couple of hours. Slow smoke taught me that no matter which activity we engage into, it is necessary to learn how to wait, knowing that commitment and attention will be awarded.

Slow smoke taught me that passion is the prize by itself and that dispenses the results: several times in my life my pipe went off a few minutes after I light it, but I learned that mistakes are the way that life has to teach us its lessons. Passion, tenacity and hope: these are the ingredients of slow smoke that are also the ingredients of life.

To be honest luck also helped me in obtaining a few good results. I can not forget the emotion of my first international victory, the World Cup of 2003 in Barcelona. At the end we were just two smokers (me and my friend and rival Mauro Cosmo) and those last minutes never ended. Our heart beats faster, but you must play a role like an actor of Hollywod and pretend you are very calm. Tic-tac, tic-tac. second after second,minutes went by. In our head we feel a kind of emptiness, our thoughts stop, spectators are silent… Afterward the applause, the glances of your team mates, the smile of everybody. Mauro gets up, comes toward me, hugs me and sportingly congratulates me. So it should be, rivals in pipe contests but friends for life, ready to the next competition.

That is why I am looking forward to the next contest in Estoril. I know that I am going to meet 400 friends that wait for me and that we will be together to discuss about pipes and about life and we will celebrate the simple fact of being together.

I wish everybody a good smoke!

Gianfranco Ruscalla

HOMAGE to PORTUGAL

In 1550, the first Portuguese commercial ship arrived in Japan. It was the start of regular calls by Portuguese merchants, and some of the sailors smoked rolled tobacco even when smoking was not yet popular in their mother country. In about 1585, a Dutch metal pipe seems to have been introduced to Japan, which became the origin of traditional Japanese smoking pipe ‘kiseru’.

The name of ‘kiseru‘ was originated from the Portuguese words “que sorver” meaning ‘with which to suck’. The stem of kiseru is called ‘rao’ which is also originated from a Portuguese word ‘rabo’ meaning an axis. Majority of Europeans in Japan those days were Portuguese merchants and Jesuit missionaries, until Dutch traders started to be stationed in Japan in 1609.

Thus, Japan became the third pipe smoking country in the Old World after England and the Netherlands. However, clay pipes never gained popularity in Japan. Until cigarettes became popular, tobacco was smoked only by kiseru (metal pipes).

For Japanese pipe smokers, to participate in the World Pipe Smoking Championship in Portugal is just like to pay homage to the country who introduced tobacco smoking almost 450 years ago.

The writer started to attend the CIPC meetings in 1976 when the 3rd World Pipe Smoking Championship was held in Tokyo. It is a great honor and pleasure that many Japanese pipe smokers will participate in the competition in Portugal.

We must keep in mind that the most important thing is to exchange friendship with fellow pipe smokers from all over the world and to appeal to the world for the freedom of pipe smoking; much more important than to win simply in the game.

Relax with your pipe!

Barnabas T. Suzuki
President Emeritus, The Pipe Club of Japan
Vice President, CIPC (since 1984)
(Researcher of smoking history of the world)

BTS, Feb. 27, 2010

World Pipesmoking Championship

Alain_Letulier Welcome!

IT WILL BE A GREAT WEEKEND!

3000 Kilometres to smoke for 5 minutes! You must be crazy to do so. That’s true, there are people like that, pipe smokers without any chance to be champion, but that would by no means miss the annual meeting organized by the Pipe Club of a country, under the patronage of CIPC.

Every year, more than 400 meet for a friendly competition and for social contact. They come from several European countries, but also from Mexico, the U.S.A. and even from Japan. They are the International of pipe smokers.

From the beginning, these meetings are the occasion to meet again friends, make tourist trips, admire the manufactures of pipe constructors discovered in the Internet, discuss exhaustively with them, the way pipe smokers enjoy to do, to improve their knowledge
about this extraordinary object.

But these meetings are more and more a demonstration of pipe smokers support that are criticised and harassed everywhere by the health ayatollahs that know nothing about the way we smoke. In these meetings, pipe smokers feel the solidarity of their small world and share their joys. They show that they are alive, looking for moments of true small pleasures given by their pipes.

But the competitions, the summit of these meetings, are also extraordinary moments. I will always remember Pierre Muller, in 1984, in Copenhagen. He was the last smoker, alone in the centre of a huge room. Around him there were 400 people, completely silent, holding their breaths and looking at the chronometer. Every one was conscious of what was happening: Pierre would beat the world record, and he has done it, being the first to exceed 3 hours! It was quite an extraordinary atmosphere.

Knowing those in charge at the CIPC, I have no doubt that the 2010 event will be a great moment accordingly to Portugal’s image.