Through the ages to tea-pots.

Through the ages to tea-pots




Chapter One.



Tea-pots came to prominence in the early days of Presbyterianism, Catholics preferring to just brew nettles in their cupped hands, behind a hedge, so oppressed were they by the evil British Empire.

When the famine really hit home, and there were no potatoes to be had at any price, Iris Robinson famously announced, “Let them eat tea-pots.”

Telling them to spray the tubers with Dithane 945 might have been more helpful advice, but it must be borne in mind that these were the ould days, when people were stupid in the ways of science, believing that the world was only 6000 years old, and that gay people were wicked in some way.

While tea was invented in China or Japan (I can’t remember which, look it up in the World Book if you want to know) the tea-pot was invented in Swaziland, which despite sounding like a made up name, is actually a real country.

Early tea-pots were primitive affairs, nothing more than crudely fashioned clay pots with a handle and a spout.

Through time the tea-pot evolved into a highly sophisticated pot with a handle and a spout that dripped tea all over the table at a motorway service station.

Motorway service stations in the evil British Empire refuse to accept Isle of Man 5p coins, which seems petty and is rather annoying when you are parched and gasping for a cup of tea, mid-journey on the National Express from Manchester to Stranraer. The tea is inexplicably priced at £1.05p

Where do they get the people to work in these service stations? They are in the middle of nowhere. So these minimum-wage-niks must have to travel a long way to get to their mundane and unappreciated employment. This probably explains their belligerent stance vis a vis Isle of Man 5p coins.

Despite his various fanciful designs for war machines and a helicopter that didn’t work, Leonardo Da Vinci Code never invented a design for a tea-pot that didn’t drip all over the table. Who knows why? He was probably a Catholic or something.

Some people “collect” tea-pots, despite there being no reason for any sane person to own more than two. One for general, everyday personal use, and a larger more ostentatious model for when guests arrive unexpectedly, and require something hot and wet to counter-balance the dry, cold blandness of the plate of Marie biscuits you are obliged, as a hospitable host, to proffer on one of those ridiculous three tier plate thingies, complete with paper doilies, and perhaps the odd Nice biscuit, and a custard cream or two thrown in to suggest an ambience of opulence.

Americans, when in cafes or restaurants, or even in your own house, if you are unfortunate enough to have one of them as a guest, will stipulate that they want “hot” tea, as if you would otherwise serve them up with a cup of a two-day-old, stone-cold version of the beverage. This strange categorisation perhaps originates from the American predeliction for drinking tea cold, with ice. This, along with a fondness for nuclear weaponry and an inability to put an s on the end of the word “towards” are just several of the things we are forced to put up with when dealing with this insufferable and tedious race of people.

Tea-pots have fallen into decline in recent years, not least due to the tea-bag in general, and the “One-Cup” tea-bag in particular. This pernicious, some would say radical, development in tea technology, sparked the student riots in China, culminating in one young man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, saying, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.” But in Chinese. Obviously. Otherwise the tank driver wouldn’t have understood him. Unless he spoke fluent English, of course, in which case he would probably have gone for a job as a translator in the offices of the Chinese Ambassador to English speaking countries, rather than driving a tank.

Picture the scene over cups of vile green tea and whatever the Chinese use that passes for biscuits:

So Mrs. Chinese woman, what does your son do?

He drives a tank.

How horridly, ghastlyly common!

Or:

So Mrs. Chinese woman, what does your son do?

Well, actually, he is a translator in the offices of the Chinese Ambassador to English speaking countries, by the way, don’t you know?

How impressively impressive. I am visibly impressed, and not a little envious, as my own son only works in a light-bulb factory.



The “One-Cup” is a miniature tea-bag with a string attached to a small piece of paper, usually emblazoned with an advertisement for the tea in question. The tea drinker is invited to “dunk” the bag in a cup of hot water, thereby foregoing the forlorn tea-pot altogether. Purists resent this practice to the point that a Buddhist monk set fire to himself in Saigon during the Vietnam War, in protest.

Autopsy reports suggest that the monk was wearing underwear whose cleanliness was “beyond reproach” adding yet more dignity, if any were needed, to the cause he wished to high-light.

Today, it is to be noted, that President Obama uses a tea-pot on a day-to-day basis, and this policy is at the heart of his commitment to depose despots the world over, and to restore the economy.

Osama-Bin-Laden wouldn’t know a tea-pot if it fell on his turbaned, long-bearded head, in his luxury three bedroom cave, with an AK47 in the background. He drinks coffee.

Out-takes from Osama Bin Laden’s last tape (like anyone uses tapes anymore. The guy is so obviously biccies).



Where’s the tea-pot?

What are you looking for?

The tea-pot.

What are you looking for?

The tea-pot. It’s like a little clay pot with a handle and a spout they give to waitresses.

Well you’re never going to find it in this mess. I told you to tidy this cave up months ago. Why don’t you keep it in a place where you know where it is?

I don’t know. Stop bothering me.

Well you’re never going to find it now, and while you’re looking, that girl is going to die on our carpet.

We don’t have a carpet.

That girl is going to die on our sand.



...



OK. You’re giving her a cup of tea. She’s English, so she might want milk and sugar.

Does it have to be exact?

Yes! You’re giving her a cup of tea, and she’s English, so I think it has to be pretty f***ing exact!

You pour the milk.

I’m not pouring the milk.

You’re pouring the milk. I’ve never done this before.

I’ve never done this before either. You’re pouring the milk. The time I bring some pooped up bitch to your house, I’m pouring the milk. You’re pouring the milk.

Is that enough?

I don’t know. I don’t know how milky she likes it.

That’s enough, just pop a couple of lumps of sugar in there and get on with it. We’re losing her.

What’s going to happen?

I don’t know. I’m kind of curious myself.

What? Am I going to kill her?

No. She’s supposed to come out of it just like that...

OK. Count to three.

ONE..

TWO..

THREE!



...



Oh, I say old stick, this tea is rather ghastly. Don’t you have any Earl Grey?

If you’re OK, say ,”Jolly hockey-sticks.”

“Jolly hockey-sticks!”

That was trippy!