I find it fascinating that kompoloi and tobacco pipes share a number of attributes. Certain pipes are regarded as suitable for smoking in public, while others are regarded as too showy or too ugly, even though they smoke. I suppose we use similar rules for clothing.If you play it in a Cafe it's a little bit ''show-off" job
The temperature dropped to 50°F late yesterday evening, so I found myself sequestered in my study as I worked, smoking a pipe again for the first time in a week or more. Since my pipe "rotation" was no longer applicable, I selected my most comfortable briar pipe, a Stanwell Lovat, and my strongest cigar antidote--Angry Alligator (43.5% Latakia). When in my 20s, I would have been mortified to be seen with such a stodgy pipe as a straight-shanked, unsculpted bowl Lovat. That time period was the height of the craziest "freehand" pipes, and when 3/4-bent and full-bent pipes were also "acceptable." Now, I prefer the easiest to hold, easiest smoking, easiest cleaning briars--and they mostly are shaped like corncobs!
Bob