SOTD : Saturday 1st - Friday 7th December. 2018.

Thur 6th Dec.
Omega 11126 boar
OSP Bay Rum
ATT SE1 / Windrose Handle
Schick Proline [ 7 ]
Pitralon Polar A/S Lotion

Todays Shave confirms to me that heavier AC/SE Razors are definitely the choice for me. With a great lather the ATT SE1 delivered a startling quick but effortless Shave, with a superbly close all round finish.
I just hope that as I get older I am still able to wield a Razor such as this, which really deals with my heavy growth very nicely.

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Thursday AM 2018-12-06

Moss Anniversary Slate scuttle
Rooney Emillion 1 Porcelain Finest (24/51)
Crabtree & Evelyn for Men shaving soap (vintage)
Weber ARC/Triad Polished-Satin Diamond Titanium
Gillette Platinum 'Swede' (22)
Lagerfeld Classic aftershave (vintage)
Floris Rose Geranium EdT (vintage)
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Battle of Wardonia is joined. Both 1931 issue, both terrific. Winner of hearts and minds has to be the New Edge proprietary design, for while the Old Type clone shaves exactly as expected, the New Edge, with its total lack of bottom blade support,, always surprises with its smoothness and efficiency.
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Sotd - Saturday the 1st of December and yesterday - the 4th

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Napoleon on Saint Helena - Franz Josef Sandmann - 1820.

Saturday the 1st -

Razor - Mergress (1.5)
blade - Aussie Spoiler vintage (23)
brush - Yaqi 24mm white silver tip
soap - Squadron Group Captain's Blend - tallow
post - witch hazel
a/s - Extro Tabacco
balm - Floid
scent - Creed Tabarome edp.

Yesterday -

Razor - Mergress (1.5)
blade - Aussie Spoiler vintage (24)
brush - Semogue 1305 boar
soap - Stirling Nag Champa - tallow
post - witch hazel
a/s - Vitos Tabacco
balm - none.

Result - job done - very nice indeed.

Saturday - I had to go - to borrow a phrase from R - @Blackmass - 'out out,' - full fig required - the birthday party of a close work colleague - I needed to be well shaved - smelling nice - and find a shirt not made by Rohan. A crucial shave - no time to cut yourself up a treat - if you had told me a year ago - that I would confidently pick up the razor - with a blade on 23 uses - I might have suggested you were mental. Paint me purple and call me Susan - the blade is still going a treat. Slight dragging against the grain under the nose - but still better than a Feather on first use. I hate Feather blades actually - if you fancy that sort of thing - then try the Kai option - better - but not by much. I wanted to use the Nag Champa again on Saturday - but it is quite strongly scented - I didn't think that turning up smelling like Jerry Garcia's back pocket was a good option. I will try to track down the matching balm though - the Stirling soap base for me - is exceptional. It's the castor oil included - I think - my skin just loves it - the Extro and Vitos after shaves mentioned above - also contain it. Happy face - happy me. No such constraints with the last shave - Nag Champa ahoy! There you go - a tale of two shaves - how long will the blade last? Who knows - enjoy your shaves gentlemen - yours - I.

The picture?

Yes, well - I seem to remember a long time ago - in a galaxy far far away - mentioning civet coffee - probably the most expensive beans you can buy - properly wild-sourced ones will set you back at least £500 a kilo - I have had the pleasure of drinking it - it is an exceptional cup of coffee. A close second - in terms of value - and scarcity are those that come from Saint Helena - the island - most famously - where Napoleon was exiled after Waterloo. If you are not familiar with the place - it is a seriously remote island in the Southern Atlantic - the tip of an extinct super volcano - a result of plate tectonics. In the middle of nothing - seriously - the dot above the letter 'i' in the word shit. Nearest land masses? Four thousand miles east of Rio - and two thousand miles west of Africa. First discovered by the navigator Joao da Nova - in 1502 - despite his name - he was actually Galician - it was fairly common at this period for captains to sail under an assumed flag - not the one of their birth - see - Magellan, Columbus and Cabot for comparison. Drake bumped into San Helena during his - accidental - circumnavigation of 1577 - 1580. Initially the Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish sniffed around the place - but it fell to the English. Why was this isolated rock important? Simple - if you were rounding the southern tip of Africa - the trade winds would carry you - roughly - towards it - the first chance to take on fresh water - before the long loop up towards the northern Atlantic. Initially unpopulated - animals were introduced - for food - sick sailors were left there to recuperate. A population developed. Named for Saint Helena - found on the anniversary of her discovery of the 'true cross' in Jerusalem - most famously Helena - was the mother of Constantine the Great - the Roman emperor who brought Christianity into the empire. Debatable as a point - not her being his mother - the cross bit - but this is the position of church orthodoxy. Amazing what travel souvenirs you can find if you are the mother of the emperor? Quality. So - San Helena - if any of you have heard of it - that's probably because - that was where Napoleon was exiled after Waterloo - 1815 - his final exile. Previously - stupidly - they sent him to Elba - in the Mediterranean - just next to Corsica - where he came from. An elementary error - my dear Watson. It did on the other hand give us one of the most satisfactory - palindromes in English - 'Able was I ere I saw Elba.' So - coffee from San Helena - remember that? It was once stated - that all the beans from there came from plants that Napoleon brought with him - a Bourbon varietal. Regrettably not true - it was introduced some time before by the British East India Company - volcanic soil being the best environment for growing a quality crop. In fact - about the only thing Napoleon - had to say about the island - positively - was the quality of the coffee. So - I get to the point of this narrative - a friend of mine - a fellow photographer - was working for Greenpeace - the boat put into San Helena - to pick up fuel and water - before heading further south to fuck with - and annoy - the Japanese whaling fleet in the far southern ocean - Antarctica. He's a big history buff - particularly Napoleon - a once in a life time chance to visit Longwood House - where the emperor died. Saint Helena is not the sort of place you visit everyday? He pitches up - a fair distance from the port - at the door of Longwood House - now technically owned by the French government - I shall shift to imagined dialogue - based on his narrative -

'I'd like to see the place Napoleon died.'

'We're shut - it's Tuesday - we're always shut on a Tuesday - come back tomorrow.'

'I can't come back tomorrow - my ship sails at midnight'

My mate - adopting his finest educated Glaswegian passive aggressive tone of voice - 'you are fucking shut? Shut? How many tourists do you get on this god forsaken rock each year? Can you tell me?'

Much arsing about - then he was given the keys - to have a look around. Keys to be returned to the French custodian when he had finished.

I couldn't help not put shit on his strawberries - as he told me this - the actual house Napoleon lived in fell down shortly after he died - what you will see today is a reconstruction - the only original part is the steps leading up the front door. Such is tourism.

@TomG @Barry Giddens
Excellent Iain, very informative and very well written.
Cheers.
 
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