Healthy living and elegant living.

[storeynicholas]

Do members feel that there is a link or a conflict between healthy and elegant living? For example, even having one generous aperitif or cocktail and a glass of appropriate wine with each course, followed by a generous digestif for luncheon and dinner every day woud take us well over the number of units of alcohol approved by government agencies as 'safe' but might be regarded by some men as perfectly normal. On the other hand, I can hear some members saying that the elegant life should be one of balance and moderation and such levels of consumption will land us in the cart, without sympathy. Of course, when we add tobacco into the occasion - whether pipe, cigar, cigarette or snuff and ouf the gloves will be off...
NJS

[masterfred]

Such things contribute to the relaxed life, which seems most healthful of all. I have lost all appetite for tobacco, and so don't indulge in any form, but my sojourns in France and Italy convinced me (not that I needed much convincing) that regular intake of red and white wines, with the occasional digestif, contribute greatly to the relaxed enjoyment of life's simpler pleasures. I think with great satisfaction of the leisured lunch or dinner, with good food, drink, and agreeable companions, and does this not help unravel the tensions of the day? Such an approach surely means more to healthy living than an obsession with carbohydrates or studied measurement of alcoholic units.

[Gruto]

Do members feel that there is a link or a conflict between healthy and elegant living?

I think there's a link. After all, a slim healthy frame is easier to dress with elegance than a large guy.

[Cufflink79]

Do members feel that there is a link or a conflict between healthy and elegant living?

I think there's a link. After all, a slim healthy frame is easier to dress with elegance than a large guy.

Healthy living is very important, but if you're fighting the battle of bulge one must enlist the help of a good tailor to conceal it.

Best Regards,

Cufflink79

[koolhistorian]

Gentlemen,
Frankly, speaking of health, I think that the question we should ask ourselves is that about the quality of our food, rather than the intake of some quantities of alcohol! How many of us (except N.S., who lives in Brasil) eat open range raised beef or chicken, bread made from wheat not treated extremely with chemicals, and the list could go on for pages!
We expect to live for 80 years at least, in the conditions of a very urban (read pollution), active (read stressed and overworked) with limited outdoors activities (not competition sports, but a certain exposure to the nature). And we want the comforts of our hyper-urban life to be translated also in the outdoors - look at the evolution of "comfort" in the yachting industry, and compare it with a classic 30's boat. Now we want to have a floating condo rather than a sail or motor boat on which you can enjoy the scenery, the sea and the fresh air.
On the other hand comes the pressure from employers - they want healthier and more workable people - insurance companies - lesser risk - and combine that with what I call the 'american culture of the prohibition' and you have the "health culture" of our years!
P.S. BTW, I am one that lost "the battle of the bulge", but I had discovered for that reason the pleasures of bespoke. So every thing has its price!

[storeynicholas]

Koolhistorian - yes, it is true that Brazilian free range beef is excellent and, more to the point, it is properly kept after slaughter (even though the EU have banned it, to 'protect' their own inferior product from competition) and if you want a fillet steak, you have to buy the whole fillet!!. Similarly, the fruit and vegetables are plainly grown without too much interference and intervention. I have heard that chickens are injected with growth hormones but, generally speaking, the quality of the raw materials here is very good. The fish and shellfish are superb However, the wines available (at least for a reasonable price) are few and far between - the best value are the Argentinian and Chilean wines; spirits and tobacco are very middle of the road and, although there is ruby and tawny port, sherry is just about unobtainable At least in Rio de Janeiro the coffee maybe plentiful but it seems that they export the best stuff! I entirely agree with your description of the 'culture of prohibitionm' although I am not sure that it is confined to the USA - it is certainly prevalent in the UK - when governments lose control of the real criminals (knife crime is plainly on the rise in London) they proscribe relatively innocent pleasures in order to give the semblance of keeping control over the law-abiding majority and thus beguile us all into believing that they are performing their function.
NJS

[koolhistorian]

Dear SN,
Well, I fondly remember very good shellfish in Rio, and rather large quantities of Picana in some good charrusquerias. Wine is the main problem that you have in every tropical country (that is why everyone invented rather palatable cocktails, like the caipirina). Now in Europe we have a total aberrant situation - you can freely smoke pot in "coffe-shops" (green ones) in the Netherlands, but no tobacco .
One of my major concerns is that we tend to live more and more in a very controlled society (and frankly, after living my first 25 years in communist Romania, I know a little bit about controlled society), in which we are stripped by the 'nanny state" of more and more of our liberties!

[Costi]

I see no link between elegance and smoking in public or confined spaces. The elegant man is considerate towards others and doesn't place his own pleasures before others' comfort. He will therefore not WANT to smoke in a place where others might have no choice but to inhale second hand smoke. The rules are needed for those who have neither benefitted of the education nor have the sense of appropriateness with which the elegant man is endowed
I only realized how fastidious smoke can be in a restaurant, bar or theatre foyer when I quit after 12 years of heavy smoking. The so-called smoking area in restaurants is not a great solution, either; I most often end up in one of those when eating out with friends because at least one of them smokes. And smoking can make otherwise genteel persons quite inconsiderate as they won't even think their friends might feel better if they didn't have to inhale smoke for the pleasure of their company. But, as long as the possibility is there, a smoker would go crazy at the idea that in the neighbouring smoking area others can have a cigarette at their table while chatting between courses.
However, if one can refrain from smoking for two hours at a concert or on an airplane, I
am quite convinced the same could successfully apply to eating out.
I am sorry if my stalinist and opressive views on the matter are inelegant, but I believe smoking "free style" is not much of an elegant habit, either.

[RWS]

I completely agree with Costi. Acted-upon empathy (or, at the very least, consideration for others) is at the heart of gentlemanliness, without which elegance in dress and presentation is naught but a charade.

[storeynicholas]

koolhistorian - It is good to have an authentic comparison between the extent of control exerted in the former Soviet Union and that now being exercised in modern western Europe. I think that it is a crazy state of affairs and ironic too. The west, which has largely lost its religion(s) - the centre of any society's values - and always rejected the keystone principle of communism 'From each according to his means and unto each according to his needs' now finds itself in impending social and economic crisis: there is a group of the super-rich, whose riches are so vast that even taxation has no impact and there is a growing under-class of uneducated, ignorant, disgruntled paupers. Meanwhile governments exert control over the easily controlled at home, while the hooligans run amok - so, to balance the books, these governments become the policemen of the world. I also appreciate the irony in the fact that, in Holland anyway, wacky backy is 'right on' in public but mere tobacco is banned. The news on the tobacco ban in the UK seems to be mixed: on the one hand, we are told that a record number of smokers have quit (bully for them - but watch out NHS budget) and, on the other, that a record number of pubs have closed in the period since the introduction of the ban. I am all for courtesy in relation to smoking but I never, in England, smoked in public in any space so confined that it was remotely likely to upset anyone. Now of course, many places are struggling to accommodate the needs of inveterate smokers - by top-covering open air spaces to enable smokers to get their blast - so instead of dying of lung cancer, smokers will now be dying of hypothermia - even in July in England!! Thanks for your all your consideration and tolerance, all you non-smokers!!! You know who you are
NJS

[Costi]

Solution: keep a thick velvet smoking jacket and fez at your favourite restaurant's wardrobe. What can be more elegant than an inveterate smoker dressed for the occasion?

[Costi]

PS: death by lung cancer is slow and painful compared to death by hypothermia (a few days at most), so the open-air smoking areas are actually a considerate thought towards smokers.
Actually I don't see the point in covering them - rain AND cold would surely do the job better and quicker.

[storeynicholas]

I have been feasting my eyes on photographs of the Boros collection of the Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III Flying Spur (H J Mulliner) - only 54 RR versions of the Flying Spur (first evolved for the S1 Continental Bentleys) ever made - and said, by some, to be the greatest post WWII road car made and, by some others, to be the overall pinnacle of the Rolls Royce motor car achievement - and so upbeat and cheerful am I as a result that I am simply unable to protest against Costi's latest. However, this mellow magnanimity might wear off towards the end of the day......In the meantime, just so that we are quite clear what I am talking about, here is the creature - or one of them and it takes my breath away more than anything that I have ever smoked......
NJS

[img][img]http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg55 ... ngSpur.jpg[/img]

[Costi]

More inebriating than red wine!
Well, they say it is easier to obtain forgiveness than permission (a principle which smokers often (ab)use), so I can only hope I can benefit of it, too, as an ex-smoker

[storeynicholas]

Costi - hee hee - they say (and it does appear to be true) that the most vehement in the anti-smoking lobby are heavy ex-smokers. Maybe this is because they fear the temptation of being surrounded by opportunity to indulge in a habit which is so deeply ingrained that they can never truly escape!!!
In overall fairness on the smoking issue, I should say that I smoke only after sun down and, so far as home is concerned, only on the verandahs. Nearly all the restaurants around here are either outside or have open sides, so the problem of annoying people does not arise. At first it felt odd to see a fishmonger, with a fag in her mouth, gutting a fish but, she didn't drop any ash on the fish - and so what? However, I think that preventing groups of people, who all smoke, from clubbing together partly to do it and banning it in casinos is just insane. Pubs have, apparently, been hit hard and possibly clubs and casinos have been hit even worse. I don't think that many would argue that smoking need be allowed in restaurants, as they often have bars where one could smoke before and after a meal - but for many people still, an aperitif or a digestif and a cigarette or cigar or pipe go hand in hand and I can't really see anyone getting much annoyed by smoke - let alone emphysema - from secondhand smoke in, say, the bar at Dukes Hotel. Finally, why is it that non-smokers always assume that the balance of convenience should lie in their favour - forget the law - I mean moral balance of convenience?
NJS