Tea Three

Quick, Conrad, A Metaphor!
Like the last bits of peanut butter than hide under the rim of the jar, hoping to escape the knife, tormenting you because the jar is made of glass and you can see the errant scrapings and you've just spread the margarine over the toast but the angle is all wrong - that's me again, trying to get mileage out of the old "Tee Hee" title.
     Is that metaphorical enough?
     Okay, we already know that Conrad drinks tea to excess, especially when on leave or at the weekend.  In fact he single-handedly confirms the old stereotype about the British and tea.
     BUT HE WILL NOT TOUCH TEABAGS*!
     No, your humble scribe likes his tea loose, measured by himself, not determined by a third party; in much the same way he will not buy "Greatest Hits" or "The Best Of" CDs, because he's not going to let a suit in an office working on profit margins and market return select anything for him -
     Ahem.  Getting a little off-track.  Art!

Tea three

     "Gosh, really Conrad, can you prove how middle-aged you are in any more convincing fashion?" I hear you say, and you do have a point.  My point is that these teapots either have had a great deal of use or are about to, and that makes them important**.
     We shall dub these three Red, White and Metal.  Red has been around for long enough that it's badly stained with tannin in the parts a scrubber won't reach, there's a big chip out of the spout and the handle grommets leak.  If you put Test Drive Tea - a.k.a. English Breakfast - in the retainer it clogs and takes ages to brew.  So it is going in the bin later.
     White is brand new, never used up to this morning, which is interesting** since the design is over 20 years old. There are no leaky handles, and the retainer is very efficient with Test Drive Tea, even having a collapsible handle for ease of removal.
     Metal I've already posted about.  The retainer is nice and wide, meaning you can actually stir up the leaves placed in it, speeding up the brew process.
     Notably, all three are made of glass, allowing oneself to see how the brew is progressing.
     Tea: the cup that cheers and not inebriates, as someone once said, perhaps Doctor Johnson.  Perhaps not.

Doleful Doggeh
As you surely know by now, your gifted author is ever one for ice cream, and a couple of weeks ago purchased a very nice "Bellissima" from Iceland.  Being absent-minded - plotting to take over the world takes up so much mental acuity - I'd forgotten it until putting the shopping away last night.  Then I had it for supper:

Upper supper.  Having consumed it, I threw it in the nearby bin and thought no more about it until a disgusting slobbering sound could be heard.
     Edna, our dog, had stuck her head in the bin and was licking out the melted ice cream.  When I went to retreive the tub she picked it up and ran off with it.  Luckily the door to the Upstairs Lair had been closed, or she'd have been off and licked it clean.
     And, if her scavenging had been given away to Wonder Wifey, who'd have gotten blamed?  Right.  Me.
     Allow me to illustrate the "Despondent" part of that title:

"Wicked neglectful human!"

     Note the soulful yet accusing look.  Later on it - the soulful look not merely the dog -returned, as nobody was paying attention to her, or not enough attention, which are the same thing to Edna.

"Wicked neglectful humans!"

Meanwhile, Over At Bredbury Lines ...
That's the home-from-home for those chaps who hand out flowers and popcorn, the Special Air Service.  Oh - sorry - did I say popcorn and flowers?  I meant bullets. 
     They have a few odd methods of transportation.  One involves being hauled through the sky on a bungee cord.  Art?

Ignore the "Polish"

   - and some of their support pilots appear to confuse "helicopter" with "submarine":

Who dares?  Someone with no sense of fear, apparently

     Don't worry, it's probably waterproofed.

And For Today's Coincidence -
Well, Thursday's, although I didn't have time to add it to that post or yesterday's.  I took a call concerning a person with the surname "Lambert", which - either because I have the attention span of a lobotomized louse or awesome multi-tasking skills - immediately triggered a recollection of "Lambert and Butler", a brand of cigarette.  Art?

Duh.

     Given that Conrad does not smoke, it's creditable that he recalled this name at all.  I don't recall it impacting my daily life ever before - except a couple of hours later Cathryn, sitting opposite me, mentioned them by name.



* The One True Mark of the tea snob
** YES IT IS AND DOES!