Quote of the Day

That ukele king, and my personal hero, Tom Hodgkinson, has titled the ninth chapter in his great book How to be Idle: "4 p.m.: Time for Tea."

"The calming ritual of tea is another of those idle pleasures that have been sacrificed to productivity and profit in recent years. Whoever first conceived the idea of taking it at four o'clock was a genius. This is because 4 p.m. marks the point in the day at which one's energies are turning. The long, listless, flat hours between two and four, when it is impossible to do much and when the sensible idler has taken to his bed, have come to a close, and our brains are once again stirring. It's time not to do, but to think about doing."

And later...

"An early apologist for tea was Dr. Johnson. There was none of the oriental refinement in the way he drank it, and the custom of tea at four or five o'clock had not yet been invented. Dr. Johnson's attitude to tea seems to have had more in common with an inner-city crackhead than a Zen Buddhist. Here is how Johnson describes his habit:

[I am] a hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for many years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool, who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.

Johnson became renowned for the sheer quantity he drank and the graceless speed at which he drank it."

Speaking of which... I haven't decided what we'll have at tea time today. Sunday afternoons... Mmmmmmmmm.