Fancy a Cuppa?

By bitingmylip

Apparently tea isn’t that good for you after all.

Recently the Advertising Standards Authority criticised a UK Tea Council poster which exaggerated the benefits of drinking four cups of the good stuff a day. It seems that claims of beneficial oxidants also found in fruit and veg could not be “firmly substantiated.”

Well, it might be true that four cups of tea isn’t as healthy as five portions of fruit and veg, but an exaggeration of tea’s benefits? I beg to differ. It’s impossible to exaggerate the benefits of a cup of tea.

If you can name me another liquid that can wake you up, calm you down, provide welcome, help heal heartbreak, be the perfect cake-or-biscuit accompaniment AND not give you a stinking hangover in the morning, I’ll have a thermos flask full please.

Starbucks might not like it, but tea is pretty much the national (non-alcoholic) drink of this country. Having earned its place at the top over thousands of years, who are we to deny a cuppa is as beneficial as fruit and vegetables? Whatever its health benefits, nobody can deny tea reigns supreme when it comes to comfort. It might be me, but offering a cup of coffee just doesn’t have the same comforting sound…

And more importantly, if it weren’t for tea, there would be much less swapping of office gossip. Real social interaction in the work place owes a lot to the humble cup of tea (ok and maybe that upstart coffee.) Without it we’d have nothing more than Facebook to distract us. Imagine a world without that welcome phrase “fancy a cuppa?” to break up your working day. Face-to-face conversation with our colleagues would crumble. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Of course, everyone has their own idea of the perfect cup of tea. Personally I prefer the water followed by milk approach – and the teabag must be taken out of the cup before the milk is added. But tea-making should not be treated as an exact science. It’s about freedom of expression. Just a splash of milk? Fine. 4 sugars? OK. No milk at all and a slice of lemon? You’re probably American.

So the Advertising Standards Authority can disagree all they want but as far as I’m concerned, tea is an essential dietary requirement. Beneficial oxidants aside, tea can make you feel calmer, less hungover, a better conversationalist. What fruit offers those kinds of benefits? In fact, four cups a day might not be enough. Put the kettle on, quick.

Amphetamine Child

by itchingmyknee

Why is it always the people who know least about drug culture that end up leading the debate. So-called liberal 35-pluses who write for the Times and refer to the rampant use of pharmaceuticals as an "epidemic", as though it is a disease that can be cured, or a new threat to society.

It is neither. Drugs have been a cornerstone of civilisation for decades*. As i see it, you had the rise of weed in the 60's, moving on to psychedelics in the 70's. The 80's saw the rise of cocaine. Whereas the 90's brought about the birth of the amphetamine child. You had speed, you had pills. The naughties saw nothing new in its own right, just endless combinations of the above, cut with enough glucose and powdered glass to make your eyes water and your nose bleed.

Drugs are a great leveller. If you're out on a saturday night, the buzz of a thousand whizzing brains and dilated pupils surround you like a cocoon. A cocaine cocoon. It's the trifid that has us all in it's grasp. I don't even like the white stuff. It revolts me. But i feel it as tangibly as though i'd streaked a line up my nose. A comradeship of arseholes who think their conversation brighter and lighter than everyone else's. One is only witty among the witless.

At a primary school reunion recently, seven disjointed individuals were brought together after 15 years apart and discovered they had little in common except a love of speed and nitrous oxide. We stayed out till 7am, and knew just a little of oneanother as before.

There's no cure for this one, middle-aged liberal. Only age itself can tackle the ravages of excess. Have you forgotten how you once indulged?

* For my purposes. If you want an indication of the true impact of drugs on the human race, think of the Sybils of ancient Greece, inhaling noxious gases from a hole in the earth and predicting the future.