On July 1st 2007, England introduced a new law to make virtually all enclosed public places and workplaces in England smokefree. While this is presumably good news for many, one side-effect is the prohibition of cigar smoking in (say) hotel lobbies or restaurant lounges following a meal. I can't help feeling that a country where it is now illegal to round-off a meal with a Havana is a little less civilised than before, and that the change represents a minor victory for those who would reduce us all to a level of bland, safe social utility.

In the country's best hotels, clubs and restaurants there are humidors harbouring valuable stocks of fine cigars. How sad they will fall into disuse. And what will happen to those cigars I wonder?

Anyway, as a small token of defiance from the cigar counter-culture, I offer here some notes on five of the best, ranging in size from small to large. The curious might be well advised to try these beauties before future laws, perhaps, outlaw them entirely ...

All the cigars here are hand-made Cubans. There are many fine non-Cuban cigars, and in my experience the premium non-Cubans are more consistently constructed and - of course - much cheaper. But somehow only Cubans have that extra 'kick' and depth of flavour. Quite why this is is anybody's guess - maybe it's the very lack of sophistication in farming methods and manufacturing process which contributes (though with the downside that the quality can vary hugely from box to box).

One suspects that the eventual demise of Fidel Castro and possible normalisation of trade relations with the vast US market, will see cigar making in Cuba being completely overhauled, and that then 'Castro era' cigars will enjoy the same cachet and inflated prices that pre-revolution cigars do right now.

Cuban cigars can be bought in the UK either mail order (from companies like C.Gars Ltd), or from specialist shops (like the wonderful Davidoff shop on St James' Street, London). Buying from a shop has the advantage that one can inspect the product, compare boxes, indulge in some sniffing, etc. before buying - but is generally rather more expensive than the mail order option.

Punch Petit Punch

The PPP is a small cigar, just 4" long with a ring gauge of 40. It's difficult to find a good small cigar - there is so much that needs to be done right (and smaller cigars are hand made by the least experienced). This little wonder, though, presses all the right buttons: good draw (and they are consistently well-made, in my experience), nice strong taste, a surprisingly large volume of smoke, and a very pronounced nicotine hit.

Because it's only a half-hour smoke this makes an excellent morning cigar. A triple-espresso and one of these babies for breakfast, and you can be cutting code at rate of knots shortly thereafter.

Bolivar Petit Corona

Petit corona (“mareva” sized) and robusto are the two most popular cigar sizes in the UK. Petit coronas as still small cigars, at 5" and ring gauge 42, but I find them characterful enough to satisfy after all but the heaviest meals. Maybe this proves the old maxim that one should smoke a cigar whose ring gauge matches one's age...

Characterful. Yes, this is a Bolivar cigar, and in common with the whole range has the highly distinctive Bolivar flavour, which is the deepest and most pronounced of all Cubans. This is in part due to the maker's use of some of the woodier parts of the tobacco plant - Bolivar smoke sometimes has a yellowish tinge to it evoking, every so slightly, the bonfire.

Despite the very full flavour this is not an immensely strong (i.e. nicotiney) cigar - though both taste and strength seem to intensify as one nears the end.

These cigars also age well. I found a ancient box languishing at the bottom of a walk-in humidor in a Paris shop once. The cigars were white with bloom. After cleaning them up though, they smoked beautifully - the ageing making them very mellow.

Partagas Series D No 4

Robustos are classic mid-sized cigars, at 4 7/8" with a 50 ring gauge. At this ring gauge and above, there is scope for a slower burning, cooler smoke and cigar flavours tend to become more complex.

This is a “classic” cigar and the staple of many a humidor. Unlike some other robustos (the Cohiba Robusto for example), this is a strong smoke with a powerful no-nonsense tobacco flavour, considerable nicotine heft and huge clouds of smoke, qualifying it very much as a suitable evening and after-dinner choice.

Bolivar Belicoso Fino

Moving up slightly in size (5 1/2" - 52 ring gauge), this is a “campana” format cigar with a tapered point and dark wrapper.

Now, you know the scenario. Christmas lunch has finished and you've definitely overdone it. Perhaps that second portion of Christmas pudding was a portion too far. And the brandy sauce is sitting heavily in your stomach.

This is precisely the moment for a Bolivar Belicoso Fino (known in some quarters as “the widow maker”) as this cigar – arguably the most powerful in the world – has the wherewithal to knit together all that food and restore equilibrium. With one of these under your belt, and maybe a little snooze, you might even be up for champagne and Christmas cake at tea time.

Not one for an empty stomach.

Cohiba Sublime

Now, I don't usually go in for much description of cigar flavours. Cigar tasters claim to find the following things in cigars: spice, cocoa, chocolate, peat, coffee, nut, wood etc., and in the case of this cigar this is justified.

At a mighty 6 1/2" x 54 ring gauge, this is a huge smoke - good for a couple of hours or so. It represents an ultimate expression of the cigar maker's art offering wave after wave of amazing mellow taste without deteriorating even as one nears the end.

This is unfortunate, as this cigar is very expensive. One for very special occasions only!

The standardisation of OOXML is moving into a new phase. Most countries have now reached the end of their public comment gathering period, and are beginning to formulate their vote for the DIS 29500 ballot which closes on September 2.

Lobbying

Here in the UK there has been much lobbying and petitioning from all sides, and there is a stack of (mostly identical) letters for BSI to sift through, both for and against OOXML. In general, the pro-OOXML camp seems to have been more effective at mobilising support from politicians, public figures and captains of industry; the anti-OOXML camp has, in contrast, the support of the “blog collective” as exemplified by the noooxml campaign — though here, as so often in the blogosphere, there is something of an echo-chamber effect as the same self-convinced arguments re-echo from site to site, without achieving wider penetration in the real world. If the standardisation of OOXML was an exercise in lobbying (which, thankfully, it is not – at least not in the UK), then the OOXML proponents would have won with a knockout blow.

Internationally, is it interesting to note the influx of new members to SC34, the ISO sub-committee administering much of the standardisation process. Last week alone saw the announcement of three new P-members to the committee: Bulgaria, Côte-d’Ivoire and Sweden, as well as three new O-members: Greece, Mexico and Sri Lanka. As Ken Holman, our esteemed SC34 committee secretary wrote, “we warmly welcome their input”.

The UK Vote

Although public comments are no longer being taken, BSI’s technical panel will continue to scrutinise and comment on the DIS 29500 text until 24 July. The panel itself will not decide the UK’s position (though members will have a chance to express their views), but will pass the mass of accumulated evidence up to the standing technical committee IST/41, whose task, in turn, is to recommend a UK position. This recommendation (or, if consensus cannot be reached, a bunch of disparate views) will be passed up to the topmost ICT/-/1 committee, and it is here that the UK’s voting position is finally decided. As is apparent, BSI is a deeply hierarchical bureaucracy though – to its credit – one which appears well fortified against undue influence from interested parties. Evidence, not interests, will determine the UK vote.

While the UK position is undecided, and it would be foolish to try and second guess it, it seems to me personally that one position is ruled-out: a straight unqualified “yes”. This is because, leaving aside wider considerations, the text is often simply so poorly written. My colleague, and fellow BSI panellist, Andrew Sales, singled out this paragraph from page 1912 of the spreadsheetML specification as a particularly telling example:


Such gobbledegook has no place in an ISO standard; seeing this, one can only wonder at the rigour of Ecma’s standards process, and conclude that something is wrong that needs fixing.

The End Game ...

When the votes are in and counted, the standardisation process moves into a phase known as “ballot resolution”. I have been diligently attempting to keep the standardisation section of the Wikipedia OOXML entry accurate in describing this, though what I do not do there is ask the many unanswered questions there are about the precise sequence of events.

The process is governed by the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Directives. On the surface this reads like a thorough and detailed legalistic document, but on closer reading it – like a poor standard – admits questions and ambiguities which are difficult to resolve. Maybe I need to study it more, but I’m not alone in my puzzlement and have been engaged in email exchanges with several ISO standards veterans who are unsure of some of the implications of the text.

Such questions are:

1. Will there be a ballot resolution meeting under all circumstances? i.e. even if every country votes “no” will the standardisation process continue with a ballot resolution meeting (BRM) which is expected to assess national comments and reach a further, final, conclusion?

2. What changes can be agreed in this stage? Normally a text at the DIS stage must not be subject to any substantive change, as this will trigger a re-ballot. But does the Fast Track differ in being “no holds barred” for the BRM? Could the nations request DIS 29500 to be completely re-drafted during the meeting?

3. How long will the BRM take? Judging by the volume of comments from the UK alone, and the usual pace of decision making in ISO meetings, even a one week meeting is unlikely to scratch the surface of the consolidated comments. Assuming the meeting needs to adjourn and reconvene, then at the natural ISO pace this could end up being a “Crawler Lane”, rather than a Fast Track, standard.

... And Beyond

If DIS 29500 becomes a full International Standard, then the question of its maintenance arises. Interestingly Microsoft have been making public statements (for example at a recent public meeting) which suggest they envisage the maintenance of the standard continuing outside of Microsoft or Ecma, and that it will fall under control of JTC 1. This has been written up by John Scholes, a BSI panellist (I should enter the caveat – and as John makes clear on his site – he is coming very much from his own, anti-Microsoft, position).

If this happens, then it’s likely the current controversies will rumble on in one form or another. But, given that these file formats may find themselves out in the open under ISO control, perhaps ODF proponents would do well to take a longer-term view on document formats than that short-sighted one of the current “noooxml” campaign.

Physically I mean.

The picture here shows Jean Paoli handling the draft as a managable pair of ring-bound folders. Yet when the Czech Standardisation Institute came to print the final text of OOXML, their volumes were somewhat bigger.

Ecma had estimated the final text would be "two to three times" the size of the draft - even so, I'd be interested to see how legible the text was in Ecma's print out ... ;)

- Alex.

To Paris for a flying visit, primarily to give a paper with Francis Cave on our work on OPLE (The ONIX-PL Editor). This seemed to go well enough, though the strong presentations on concurrent tracks (I'd have liked to have heard Jeni Tennison's talk on Creole) meant we had a select audience -- but maybe electronic permissions management with XML is a topic for diehards anyway ...

An important secondary goal of this trip is to mix pleasure with business. Hence I am here with Sarah to continue our periodic sampling of the grandes tables of Paris. Our destination tonight is l'Arpège (caution: French web site: music will play), famous for its one-time removal of all meat from its menu (in France!), and notorious for its provocative pricing (the €56 beetroot had better be good). One for diehards of a different kind, I guess.

- Alex.

This week I have been helping to coordinate the UK effort to scrutinise OOXML (aka Ecma-376, aka ISO/IEC DIS 29500). The aim of this effort is to generate a body of technical commentary that can inform the UK’s response (via BSI) to the ongoing ballot on the acceptability of OOXML as a full ISO standard.

The early stages of this fast tracking effort have been characterised by some rather heated, and not always terribly well-informed debate, whose participants too often seemed to build their positions around an assumption that whatever Microsoft does is (or, more frequently, is not) “a good thing”.

The UK’s technical response, however, is designed to be unclouded by any such irrational pre-disposition. Given the unprecedented size of the text (6,000 pages) and the tight time scale (effectively 2 months for the initial amassing of information) BSI has decided to form an expert panel of approx. 30 members, in order to do justice to the task. Panel members represent (to give a selection): BSI itself, small companies, large companies (including Microsoft and IBM), public sector organisations, other standards bodies, user groups, academia, and government. Collectively, the panel embodies a depth of expertise and experience which gives me heart that DIS 29500 can indeed be properly scrutinised.

To help keep things organised the panel has been given access to a public Wiki where comments and material can be centralised. Because of the potential interest in this activity, the Wiki is open for public viewing (although only panel members may create content). BSI itself remains an open channel for wider public comment …

If anybody in the UK wants to join the panel, can commit the time, and has the necessary technical expertise to help the effort, please contact me via this blog giving an outline of your interests and experience.