Steepholm's Dream Diary: 3

[steepholm]

I am in a small shop, and about to go to the counter to get served when someone steps in front of me, and asks the assistant to roll him a large and fancy cigar.* The assistant is unfortunately new to the job, and after what seems an awfully long time the cigar he produces is rather misshapen, with the outer paper peeling away in places (apparently there is no Rizla paper for 9-inch cigars, at least in dreamland). The customer is annoyed, and insists he start all over again.

Sick of not being served, I look at what else is in the shop. It's mostly tobacco pipes,** in a variety of novelty shapes, but there are amaretti biscuits too, and also a rack of cigar-wrapping paper, like the racks of wrapping paper one sees in gift shops. The papers all have names, but I remember only one of them: "Anglo-Saxon Veneer."

* I feel both pleased and embarrassed to have dreamed of cigars so early in my dream diary - for the first time in who knows how many years? It's nice to see my id entering into the spirit of the thing, instead of sulking and being sarcastic as usual.

** Though I intend to refrain from outright interpretation here, I should perhaps add that yesterday I was listening to the wonderful History of the World in 100 Objects, which was devoted to the Warren Cup, an object so notorious for its depictions of gay sex that throughout most of the twentieth century no reputable museum would buy it. Having mused on changing mores regarding homosexuality the narrator, Paul Roberts Neil McGregor, signed off by saying that the next object would be one that used to be commonly seen, but today was banned from most public gatherings. He was referring, of course, to the tobacco pipe.