FIRST CUP OF TEA

I'm headed up North

where tea tastes much better

but why, I don't know, 🤔 

it's not that it's wetter. ☕

TRUE PARTNERS IN RHYME

Liberace - Fibonacci 

Brian Lara - Kate O'Mara 

Peter Cook told Barry Took

Paul Weller's a tall fella

Wayne Rooney - all the Moonies

Rusty Lee and Kiki Dee

Houdini - Mussolini

The Dalai Llama - Sir Keir Starmer

Michael Jackson - Toni Braxton

Robert Plant's a supplicant 

Martin Clunes is farting tunes

Foo Fighters - Sue Ryder's

Doris Speed in Harris Tweed

Vincent Van Gogh - Tony Han Cock

New York is True North

Mick Jagger - Merle Haggard

Eddie Wareing - steady bearing

Billie Eilish fights the Irish.

Celebrity indemnity

Pay no attention

To this invention.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Cognition's nutrition. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Lady Macbeth never could get this tea-making malarkey completely right and thought she could merely command the liquid into the cup- "Out, out damned pot, out I say!" 🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where every day is Thirstday. ☕

TO SPEND OR NOT TO SPEND

I'm not sure where or when I'm gonna spend my extra hour

I'm not sure if I have the right to exercise such power

For Time is a museum and we're all briefly curators

But let's be honest most of all we're just procrastinators.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Much like meeting an old friend after an absence, no words need to be exchanged, just the knowledge that you're back in safe and reliable company. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Liquidating my assets. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I dunk the teabag tentatively in the mug as if I'm a painter looking for that perfect colour on their palette. We're all searching for that perfect shade of tea. You know it when you see it. ☕😊

FIRST CUP OF TEA

The tour guide of the soul. ☕

HOPE IN HIBERNATION

Applaud the curtain call of summer 

As winter waits in silence in the wings

Autumn speaks the lines of fallen colour

In hibernation, hope eternal springs.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Coffee may be the brash usurper

but tea is the drink for the consummate slurper. ☕

THE LOST SONG

living between

the tick

and 

the tock

we never get time

to stop and take stock

before we arrive

and after we've gone

Time's the great orchestra

Now's the lost song.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

One cup fits all. ☕

COMMON PARLANCE

Innit, though, I can't keep pace,

Is 'wicked' now so out of place? 

I hear the kids all now say 'bless'

This parlance lark, such a mess

But stop to think what all this means

Our language and its fading genes

Fashions rising-fashions sinking

'Right-on, man'-'blue-sky thinking'.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Every day this simple cuppa makes it feel like I've discovered a new secret. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I ponder then I contemplate

I reckon and I muse

Tea's the drink

It makes you think

We even leave reviews! 🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

I've already found my pot of gold. 🫖🌈☕

AM I A PATRIOT?

Do I love my country? I mean, there are parts of it that I actively dislike, but on the whole I love the people, the humour, the scenery, the cities, the cultures, the tenacity and the determination of the UK to get on with things. Does that make me a patriot? That's a trickier question to answer.

I've had my face painted with the cross of St. George and flown flags from my car windows during international football tournaments. I mourn along with the nation every Remembrance Sunday but rarely visit a church unless it's to lay someone to rest or to see someone get christened or married. I guess I'm like the vast majority of Brits. I'm happy for people to do whatever they want, pray to who they want, dress as they want, even behave as they want, as long as it doesn't impinge too much on my life.

Despite the Tweets we may read or the headlines that are made, most of us are a tolerant lot. I'll agree that it seems we're becoming more intolerant as time goes by but we'll put up with a lot before we complain. But am I a patriot? I think that word has been co-opted by a certain demographic which I, myself, could quite easily be mistaken for. The white, middle-aged man, much maligned recently by Gary Neville in a video that has split opinion. I'm on Gary's side. Apologies if you find yourself on the other side. I'll explain why I am.

If you profess to love your country then what does that actually mean? It's OK hanging a few flags from lamp posts and painting a few roundabouts but how is that loving your country? If the act of patriotism is tinged with a 'Love it or leave it' attitude to others then you're arguing that only those who love their country should be allowed to stay. Samuel Johnson famously said that 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' People left with nothing else can resort to patriotism and use it for dubious means. Whether that's frustrations at politicians or frustrations at how your own life has turned out, the resurrection of patriotism (surely something reserved for the Last Night Of The Proms?) feels distinctly un-British. We don't normally like to express ourselves. We don't tend to argue or make a fuss. Aren't we supposed to 'Keep Calm And Carry On'?

So no, I'm not a patriot. I have a certain love for this country built on the people I know and who live in it, although not necessarily because of all of its institutions. 

Patriotism, much like our nations flags, should not be wielded like a weapon. If it is, it ceases to be the thing in which we believe. If you've got this far then you'll have your own opinion on patriotism and the flag. Maybe you served? Maybe it means more to you than me? That's fine, because tolerance and freedom of speech is definitely something I love and can get behind.

I might even fly the flag for that!

---

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Achingly simple, the cuppa we simply ache to take. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Superlative supping, poured to perfection.🫖☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Like a simile for a smile. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Where memories play. ☕

FIRST CUP OF TEA

Steam-powered imagination. ☕

MEMORY BANKS

Memories are the cheques we once wrote to our former selves.

That's why we keep them in a memory bank.

FIRST CUP OF TEA

This would be the cup Goldilocks would choose. ☕