You may recall last week's Battle of Britain item in PostScript featured two English ladies' who came across a German pilot who had crashed in a field. Their first reaction was to offer him a cup of tea, an indication of just how "having a cuppa" is ingrained in British culture. Admittedly that was 85 years ago but even these days most Brits wouldn't turn down a "cuppa".
For people around the globe tea is a multi-purpose beverage, providing not only sustenance, but also therapy. As 19th century British statesman William Gladstone noted: "If you are cold, tea will warm you; If you are too heated, it will cool you; If you are depressed, it will cheer you; If you are excited, it will calm you." Now that sounds like a pretty useful beverage to have in the house.
The Beatles were big tea drinkers especially John Lennon who was said to enjoy 20 cups a day. Paul McCartney even wrote a song English Tea which begins "Would you like to sit with me, for an English cup of tea?" Author Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson) loved hosting tea parties which may have inspired the hilarious Mad Hatter's Tea Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Another tea drinker is Harry Potter author JK Rowling who reportedly manages to get through nine mugs a day when she is writing.
Perhaps summing up the role of tea most succinctly is the following graffiti: "If tea can't fix it, it's probably a serious problem."
Tea at the palace
Author George Orwell was also partial to a cuppa and in 1946 he wrote a passionate article for the Evening Standard entitled "A Nice Cup of Tea'' noting "one strong cup of tea is better than 20 weak ones." He referred to the drink as "one of the mainstays of civilisation in this country''.
Another mainstay for Britain was the late Queen Elizabeth II who was a regular tea-drinker and particularly partial to Earl Grey and Darjeeling. It seemed only fitting that just three months before her passing in 2022 she took part in the delightful "tea at the palace" sketch where she indulged in tea and marmalade sandwiches with Paddington Bear, although the bear did briefly let himself down by drinking from the spout of the teapot.
Teabag turmoil
In Britain the 1950's witnessed something of a revolution in tea drinking with the introduction of teabags, although they had appeared across the Pond in the US some years earlier.
My mum was a traditional teapot person and initially was most uncom- fortable at the arrival of teabags which she found rather vulgar. But after a while she realised they were much more convenient than battling away with messy tea leaves. However, I still recall her apologising to visitors to our house when she served them teabags, as if it was some kind of social lapse.
A final word on teabags from Nancy Reagan when she was First Lady. In a quote which she may have pinched from Eleanor Roosevelt she observed: "A woman is like a tea bag, you cannot tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water."
Cheeky monkeys
In Britain during the 1960/70s in we were bombarded with tea advertisements on television. "Brook Bond, the tea you can really taste'' was perhaps the most memorable as it used chimpanzees, helped by funny voices from the likes of Peter Sellers and actors from the Carry On films.
In one ad, to the sound of 007 music, a chimpanzee wearing a smart white jacket and a black bow tie enters a room and announces in sophisticated fashion "My name is Bond, Brook Bond.'' Another features a weary British chimpanzee cycling in the Tour de France who asks spectators in a strong northern English accent: "Avez-vous un cuppa?''
Typhoo tea joined the fun in the 1980s with "You only get an 'OO' with Typhoo", a daft series of ads featuring Frankie Howerd and Cilla Black.
Maybe it was the monkeys who were responsible for the graffiti in London which read "Coffee is not my cup of tea.''
Lucky dip
Following last week's item about house lizards (jing-joks) my thanks to a reader for relating his own lizard experience. He was relaxing with a beer but when he took a swig something didn't feel quite right. So he had a closer look at the beer only to discover a jing-jok doing the breast stroke in his drink. It had apparently plunged from the ceiling. At least the lizard made an excellent choice of where to crash-land.
Seeing red
Last week I forgot to mention the jing-joks' finest hour when they made front-page news. In what was arguably their biggest claim to fame they were blamed for one of Bangkok's worst traffic jams in history, which is saying something.
After a day of appalling gridlock in Bangkok in 1997 an investigation was ordered into who or what was responsible for the traffic mayhem. The culprit was eventually found -- the wretched jing-jok.
According to the report, jing-joks had been partying in the computerised controlling apparatus of the traffic lights and messed everything up, prompting green lights to turn red and so on.
Motorists were relieved to hear that the gridlock was in no way the fault of the traffic police who were in charge of the lights.
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