Once again Anthony J Corniche III (Tom) – the award-winning director who filmed the presentations at the last four ICMIs – filmed Elizabeth Hobson (our estimable Director of Communications) and I reviewing the past year in the smoking lounge of James J Fox, the oldest cigar merchant in the world, near the Ritz Hotel in London. Winston Churchill bought his cigars there, and there’s a small Churchill museum downstairs, including the chair in which he sat while sampling cigars (he was particularly fond of Cuban Romeo y Julieta cigars). It’s permitted to smoke cigars and pipes (but not cigarettes) in the smoking lounge and the museum, an exceptional thing in the UK today.
Cultural historians recently established a causal link between the decline of pipe smoking in the UK over the past 50 years, and the rise of feminism. In response, I launched the J4MB Pipe Smokers Club.
Elizabeth and I would like to take this opportunity to wish Paul Elam and everyone associated with the AVfM website, along with its legions of followers, a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. Onwards and upwards!
