A dark cloud has been hanging over the Smokingpipes offices for the past week or so. No - fear not. It's not a matter of impending, puritanical legislation, or an outbreak of, say, plague. It's the birds, you see - a dark cloud of birds. One of the first things I noticed after moving to South Carolina several years ago was the seeming ubiquitousness of massive, ancient oak trees. That is to say, that the sort of centuries-old titans that I was used to only seeing either center-stage in a particularly nice park, or holding dominion over some hidden corner of the backwoods, here can be commonly found, for example, at the edge of a parking lot. The Smokingpipes parking lot indeed features several of these looming giants - all of which are presently occupied by vast hordes of seemingly very excited, and raucous, blackbirds.

So it is that each morning we enter the building under the gaze of a thousand of beady little avian eyes, and so it is that each time we open the door to go outside, a cacophony of chirping, calling, and squawking comes flooding in. We are not, as of yet, entirely sure what it is that they want, many of us question the pretense that they are merely idly, innocently loitering in innumerable multitudes amongst the vast bough and branches which loom so expansively over our very heads. If there is one thing we've taken away from all this, however, it's just how grateful we are that here, in the state of South Carolina, we may still legally smoke indoors. There are, to be sure, plenty who would have such activities outlawed for our "own good" - who would see us cast unto the merciless whims of nature, lest we enjoy a pipe or a good cigar anywhere that might possibly cultivate a pleasing "room note". Indeed, they would sooner see Adam and I risk possibly being terribly murdered by birds, than permit us to bask in a properly foggy pipe library, safely behind the Smokingpipes office's reassuringly hurricane-proof windows. They'd pat us on the head, no doubt, and tell us Big Mother knows best, and after our bones were picked clean by sandpipers or loggerhead shrikes or the like whilst we were stepping outside for a smoke break, proclaim that it had all been just another example of the inevitable dangers of tobacco. So it goes. Or, would go, that is.

As things stand, however, we're all still alive and well, and therefore able to bring you another update, laden with a wide variety of offerings to assist you in your own enjoyment. Featured today you'll find briars from Vauen, Peterson, Savinelli, Brigham, Johs, and Chacom - not to mention a full four-dozen more from Tsuge, and a neat little selection from Grechukhin's PS Studio workshop. Joining these, there are as well some new additions to our accessories line-up, new cigars from Partagas, a new blend from Altadis, and two dozen more estates.

Eric Squires: Copywriter