No Pipes
SIR,—I am delighted to learn that when Mr. Quoodle, Mrs. Quoodle and friends dined at 'one of London's best restaurants' the .head waiter refused to allow pipe-smoking; I wish that more restaurants would do the same. I am a non-smoker, and I care what 1 eat and drink, and I can assure Mr. Quoodle that the ban was neither because pipes arc 'non-U' nor (necessarily) because 'the restaurant hopes to sell cigars and cigarettes, but not pipe tobacco.' No doubt if pipe-smoking were tolerable the restaurant would sell pipe tobacco. Contrary to Mr. Quoodle's belief, the smoke from a normal pipe is not 'less offensive than either cigar smoke or cigarette smoke'; it is much more offensive. I do not' particularly like cigarette or cigar smoke from a neighbouring table in a restaurant, but I can stand them, whereas pipe smoke has more than once driven me to another table, or even to another restaurant. There seems to be more of it per smoker; it is heavier; and it affects the smell and taste of food and wine much more immediately and much more disagreeably, perhaps because the smoke is not merely that of the tobacco itself, as is that from cigars and cigarettes, but also carries with it the smell of the oily and other deposits, some of them very old, from the bowl and stem of the pipe through which it is drawn. Not only restaurant head waiters, but also airline stewardesses, know this; Mr. Quoodle's friend would have been asked to put his pipe out in an aircraft, too, and quite rightly.
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