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| Hugh
Page-Taylor has been my great friend for over 35 years. He’s 200% English
(just look how he dressed for an informal evening) and has lived in Melbourne
for the past few years, but manages to get back to Italy quite often.
Although he gave up smoking at midnight, 31 December 1973 (you’ll note that he’s also rather fussy about detail), his thankless and unpaid task is control of the use to which his beloved English language is put on the site. He must thus try and understand what I write about pipes, which doubtless has increased his aversion to smoking ... |
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| When he e-mails back to me the
work he has corrected the kindest comment he manages to write is: “Caio
Franco, here are your crappy corrections!” but I wish him well for it and
look on his help as absolutely indispensable to the site’s smooth running.
He may well be returning to live in Milan again for a few more years. |
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I'm
pleased to introduce another friend who, for some time, has worked with
our Team. His name is John Fleming, he lives in the Great Apple in front
to the Central Park, works in Banking and, most important, is an experienced
pipe smoker well known in the New York City pipe community. John is a 100%
New Yorker, but his Spanish and Irish bloods, even if diluted by time,
frequently appear in his thoughts.
Our first contact occurred in January 2001, just a few months after the site was launched and, on that occasion, he was intrigued by a Dunhill DR 5 Stars (a prestigious beginning indeed) I offered for sale at that time. |
| That was the first pipe he got
from me; a second one followed soon, then a third, a fourth, a fifth and
so on. I cannot reveal the final number as Alicia probably will read these
notes and I will not be held responsible of their divorce!
John's intelligent suggestions and observations in revising my notes on pipes offered at the site make my work easier. I do hope in a near future to meet him and Alicia in person so I can express to them personally my sincerest appreciation and friendship. Here is a picture of John and Princess, his playful Lhasa Apso ... |
| Graziano
Ros is not only a good friend, but also one of Milan’s leading Dunhill
pipe collectors. He gave up pipe smoking some time ago and so decided to
live without a part of his exceptional collection. That’s why some of the
pipes I offer come from Graziano.
He owns one of the top professional laboratories in Italy for digital image processing for advertising and his contribution to the site was particularly important when I was relying on traditional photography. |
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| Digital
photography has brought me greater autonomy, but Graziano's great knowledge
of photographic enhancement programmes and his advice are always
of considerable assistance for optimum photographic presentation on the
site.
We support Milan’s two rival soccer teams (Graziano roots for Milan and I for Inter) which always gives us something to argue about. |
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Gianni
Nadotti is Project Manager of E.R.P. products for a computer company.
His greatest misfortune is that he is my next door neighbour, so he has to suffer my cries for help whenever anything goes wrong with my pc, which is all too often. Gianni’s working day is devoted to computer problems and so, when he gets home at night, he would rather get on with something else and forget about them. |
| As I often lie in wait for his
return home he has taken to removing his shoes before climbing the stairs
to his apartment (which is directly opposite mine), to try and escape yet
another session with me.
Gianni has taken up pipe smoking since knowing me: he must decide whether this was a good idea or not! |
| The
Team's latest acquisition is Maurizio Demarchi of Turin, soon to qualify
as a veterinary surgeon, whose important task is to transfer Hugh's work
and mine on to the web and whose greatest mistake was to reveal when buying
a pipe from my site that he is a Web Engineer.
Maurizio is a bachelor who has diversified interests, all of which he persues in great depth. Despite his tender age, he has been raising York breed canaries professionally for no less than 28 years, in accordance with the strict English rules and successfully participating at the most important international exhibitions. |
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| He also breeds the very special
Cornish Rex cat and a number of his "champions" now live in the USA where
they take part with great success in the leading shows.
He is a mountain bike enthusiast and a great supporter of Juventus, one of Turin's two soccer teams, for whom he played some twenty years ago, even reaching the Italian A Series, before his professional career was cut short by a serious knee injury. He smokes both Dunhill and Castello and shares with many from his hometown of Turin a liking for really large pipes: he'd probably appreciate one with wheels. |
| Now that I've presented the members of the external Team, let me introduce my organization's internal Staff who, in their turn, play a fundamental role in the running of the site ... |
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Here our President faces one of his most difficult decisions: choosing from the cabinet a pipe to smoke amongst his 96 favourites ... |
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here we have our Pipe Expert, preparing the technical description of pipes
to offer on the site.
Two clocks on the desk show local Italian and U.S. Central time. |
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And here we have the artistic member of the team, our Photographer, immortalized here in his highly sophisticated still life studio. Like all "creators" he is a bizarre and fanciful character, as can be seen from his way-out folk clothing, which is in such contrast to the uniform and possibly monotonous and rather sad garb worn by his colleagues. |
| Our
Financial Director at work on the day’s receipts.
He is very fussy as he has been urged to take particular care with cheques, but perhaps checking with a magnifying glass is a little o.t.t. as our fellow pipe collectors are generally honest. |
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Let’s
not forget our Pipe and Mouthpiece Polisher, shown here about his duties,
in our impressive high-tech workshop.
To ease the burden of this stressful and demanding work, Management has exceptionally authorised him to smoke a pipe while on duty. Fire fighting equipment has naturally been up-graded to face this hazardous practice. |
| And
here’s another member of the Staff: the Packaging Manager, hard at his
delicate work in the vast open spaces of our 21st century fully automated
warehouse, equipped with the latest robot technology (not visible in this
photograph).
At this location, where huge quantities of paper and cardboard are always available to meet demand, Management have not seen fit to allow him to actually light his pipe, which he likes nonetheless to keep in his mouth unlit. |
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