纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 037北美水獭烟(5)（在线收听）

Smoking was not only sophisticated, it was intellectual and meditative, and Sherlock Holmes famously described one particularly testing case as "quite a three-pipe problem".

抽烟不仅能展现成熟魅力，还能帮助思考，展现智慧。福尔摩斯曾有句名言来形容一个案子十分棘手：这得花三斗烟的时间。

And there was, of course, also the intensely enjoyable personal engagement with the physical object. Here's the politician Tony Benn:

当然，烟斗本身也能给抽烟者带来愉悦。政治家托尼本因是个著名的老烟枪，他愉快地回忆起往昔：

"It's a beautiful object. I've never seen it before, and I do find it quite hard to imagine how you would smoke anything like that, but still I'm sure if you had to,you would…

这真是一个美极了的小物件。我之前从未见过,我发现它很难想象你会像那样吸烟,但我相信如果你会,你会…

Stanley Baldwin smoked a pipe, Harold Wilson smoked a pipe-it was a very normal thing to do, and of course the pipe of peace, and sitting round together, and friendship pipes associated with friendship, and so on. So they do have a meaning over and above the satisfaction of smoking. It's a sort of hobby in a way-you scrape it, and clean it and fill it and tap it and light it, and it goes out and you light it again, and if you are asked a question at a meeting-not that you can smoke in meetings any more-but if you were asked a question, light your pipe and say 'that's a very good question'-it gives you a little bit of time to think of the answer. But I wouldn't recommend anybody else to start smoking."

斯坦利鲍德温抽烟斗，哈罗德威尔逊也抽烟斗：抽烟是件极平常的事。当然还有和平烟，让大家坐拢到一起的友谊烟，等等。抽烟除了给人满足感之外，还有别的意义。它可以说是种嗜好：清理烟斗，放入烟丝，轻敲一下，然后点燃，如果熄灭就再点一次。而如果在会议上有人问你问题，你可以点燃烟斗说：“这真是个好问题。”这样便有时间思考。我也不建议任何人开始学抽烟。