There are gadgets, and then there are gadgets. There are ideas that prove so useful that, having been adopted, they come to be viewed as indispensable; the shoe, for example, or a screwdriver. And then there are those that just leave us wondering, "What kind of idiot would I have to be to need that?" (The latter sort, of course, are typically marketed via infomercials, wherein the direction actors receive appears to be, "Imagine, for this scene, that you have the forethought of a six-inch tall monkey and the coordination and dexterity of a penguin with a bad case of the delirium tremens.")

Fortunately, we don't have to be damaged goods to find this little pipe accessory worth having. The permanently affixed windscreen cap has been around for ages, and all this gizmo does is offer one that isn't integral to the pipe itself. You can use it one pipe one day, and another on another, as you please - or take it off altogether when you don't need it. I won't claim it's "one size fits all", but the paired leaf-springs it uses to clasp the inner walls of a pipe's bowl do make it pretty adaptable. I easily managed to get onto little old French pipes, a Dunhill Group 5, and a big Luciano bent Egg alike.