My Sonnet

Fourteen lines to make up a sonnet 
To fill it with something worthwhile to say 
You all know that Shakespeare and Milton have done it 
So somehow; somewhere; there must be a way. 
Let's make it a statement of true love and passion 
A lovesong so tender like no one before 
Or let's do a poem in everyday fashion 
Of dreariness, hopelessness, and even more 
Of these times of depression and all getting worse 
Of large unemployment and hardships and sorrow 
Of poor people looking down their empty purse 
And finding no signs of a brighter tomorrow. 
   Or let's make a poem of beauty and wit 
    And forget that most things in life are shit. 

© Kerstin Bengtsson

She is a middle-aged woman, sitting quietly in an armchair reading a book. The afternoon sun shines mildly on her bent head. The scene is peaceful, you can tell it must be a Sunday.

But if you look at her carefully, you will notice that she hasn't turned a page in her book for a long time. 

Is she asleep? No, she is just staring blindly into her book. What is she thinking?  Let's find out.  

"I am so very angry with you! I am so very, very angry, and disappointed. You scared me out of my sleep. You promised to call the moment you arrived, and I said I would stay
awake for your call. And you did not call." 

What is this? 

"I phoned you at a quarter past midnight, and at half past one, then I had to try to get some sleep, but I can tell you I did not get any rest. Then again this morning I phoned, no reply. No one answered the telephone except the answering machine: ' Hallo, I'm sorry I
can't answer your call right now, but please leave your name and number and I will call you back later.'  So I left my name, and number, every time, but you did not call back." 

This woman is definitely worrying about someone. Well, we can understand that and it must be a wretch to let this poor woman suffer like this.  

"Where are you? Whom are you with? Did you arrive all right?" 

I wish we could help her, but we don't know either. 

"I wandered about in the house. There was nothing I could settle down to do. I only thought of you. I know there was no plane crash. I checked the news carefully, both on TV and in the newspaper, and if there had been a plane crash, they would surely have reported it. So no plane crash. Car accident? Maybe you are lying unconscious in some hospital.
Nobody would knew you belonged to me, so nobody would notify me. When they looked in your wallet they would find your address, but that is not my address. That is not even your address any longer, and if you were unable to speak there could be days before I got to
know anything. This uncertainty is killing me." 

Now, what is this turmoil of thoughts and anxieties? Do they belong in the head of this composed woman? No of course not. All day we have seen her performing her household chores and now in the late afternoon she sits down  with thoughts like these! Impossible.  

"Or perhaps you are with somebody else, someone I do not know of, and whose telephone number I do not have. What are you doing there? Why don't you call me? You promised. The last thing you said to me when I saw you off was: 'I'll call you when I've arrived.' Whathas happened to you? It must be something terrible, otherwise you wouldn't do this to me. Would you? I know we have had our quarrels, we all do, but this last time we were together everything was just fine. Wasn't it? We had a good time. Didn't we? Oh, how will I cope if something's happened to you?" 

Aha! It's a man. She's been let down by a man. He promised he would call and he didn't. Well, these things do happen. She'll get over it. Wait! There's the telephone.  

She rushes out of her chair and runs to the phone. 

- Hallo! 
- Hallo, mother, I'm sorry I didn't call last night, I plain forgot. You didn't worry, did you? 

                       Speech given on the subject  TEA 1991
 

You may think that Britain is a country of tea drinkers and that tea has been the national beverage since the druids, and it has, but not in Britain but in 
China. Like so many other essential inventions, like dynamite, fireworks and kites; tea also originates from China.

One of the legends about tea is about A Chinese Emperor called Shen Nung, who lived around 2737 BC. He sat under a tree as he boild water for drinking. A leaf from Camellia sinensis fell inte the boiling water and gave the Emperor his first cup of tea.

The tea bush was growing wild in China some 5000 years ago. Tea is mentioned in a Chineese dictionary dated AD 350.The cultivating of tea spread rapidly to countries bording to China and in the middle of the ninth 
century tea drinking was adopted by the Arabs and via the Dutch and their effective and successful trading companies tea was first brought to Europe in about 1610.
The first advertisment for tea in Britain appeared in 1658.
" That exellent and by all physicians approved China drink, called by the Chinese "Tcha" and by other nations "Tay" alias "Tee" is sold at the Sultaness Head Cophe House in Sweetings Rents by the Royal Exchange 
London.

A few years later in 1662 Charles ll married a Portuguese princess Catharina of Braganza who happened to be an avid tea drinker. She brought with 
her as part of her dowry some chests of tea, and quickly introduced tea drinking to her friends at court.

Tea in those days was a very expensive drink. It was taxed at 119 per cent which led to a lot of smuggling and eventually the tax was lowered to 12.5 per cent and by the 1750s tea was the most popular drink in England.

Since tea was so expensive some unscrupulous dealers took the opportunity to adulterate good tea by mixing it with mouldy or poor quality tea. There were even reports of "smouch" being added to black tea - this unpleasant addition was produced from ash trees soaked in copperas and sheep's dung!
In 1826 a grocer by the name of John Horniman started selling unadultered good quality tea in sealed packets of consistent weight and with a uaranteed price. 
This became very popular and soon other grocers followed suit and their names are still known today.

Ships belonging to the East India Company transported tea from China to Britain, but from 1832 other ships as well were allowed to ship tea from India and China. 
By 1905 India had become the biggest tea supplier in the world.

THE PLEASURE GARDENS

As early as 1661 gardens were created in London and they were developed further during the 18th century and were very popular among both the poor and the rich. The attractions included dancing and fireworks and during these evening festivities tea was served. The gardens were later opened on Saturdays and Sundays to give whole families a chance to enjoy them. 
On these days tea was served during the afternoon. A lot of people had their first cup of tea in these gardens frequently referred to as Tea Gardens.

Tea Clippers

Every year up to 1866 there was a race between the big sailing ships to get the first load of tea to Britain. Seven or eight clippers would leave Foochow on the same tide, and begin their long journey back to England. A generous cash reward was bestowed on the captain and crew of the winning vessel. Famous names of the clippers were Ariel, Cutty Sark and the record 
holder Nightinggale which travelled from China to London in 91 days. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the introduction of steam ships put an end to these races.

Tea Dances

were an opportunity for the idle rich to pass the time between lunch and dinner, showing off their new robes and dance and enjoy tea for hours before going home to change for dinner. WWll ended this popular custom but tea dances are now being revived.

Today

The most famous tea parties in the world take place each year in London and in Scotland. Her Majesty the Queen gives three garden parties at Buckingham Palace and one at Holyrood House in Edinburgh. Thousands of 
distinguished people enjoy a delicious afternoon tea. The first recorded garden party was held at Buckingham palace in 1868. Elizabeth ll reintroduced these in 1958.
 

So much for the history of tea in Britain. Now for the tea itself.
The Latin name of the tea bush is Camellia Sinensis and although you can buy hundreds of different kinds of teas they all come from the same bush.

All tea is picked when two leaves and a bud have formed.

Different countries and different regions produce different tasting teas. The flavour depends on the soil, the climate, the altitude, the cultivaion 
methods , the plucking of the leaves and the processing.
Different processes produce three different types of 
tea: black - oolong tea and green tea.

Black tea

The leaves are dried, machine rolled and oxidized to a bright coppery colour, then further dried out in hot air chambers during which time they turn black and the sugers in the tea are caramelized giving the leaves their familiar slightly burnt aroma.

Oolong tea

Processed in the same way but the fermentation period is much shorter so the leaves do not become quite so dark. The resulting flavour is mid-way between black tea and green tea.

Green tea

is picked at the beginning of the season. After plucking the leaves are steamed to destroy the enzymes that would cause fermentation then they are rolled and fired. The resulting liquor is a pale yellow.

Tea leaves are sorted by leaf size and type. 

leaf tea - mainly large, unbroken leaves
broken - larger leaf particles that have been broken during the initial process
fannings   - smaller, whole leaves
dust       - broken, smaller leaves

Within these leaf categories the tea is further graded according to particular leaf characteristics. The names can be very misleading - Orange Pekoe, for 
example, is a tern referring only to the leaf grade and has nothing at all to do with flavour.

Some black teas are Assam, Darjeeling and Ceylon Oolong teas Pose Pouchong and Formosa and Green teas  Gunpowder and Jasmine. Some famous blended teas are Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast.

In Britain Tea is no longer only a drink; it is a meal. 

Afternoon tea was originally known as low tea since it was taken in low armchairs, as opposed to high tea that was, and still is eaten while seated around the dining-table. Low tea was an aristocratic and upper middle-class ritual - a time for exchanghing gossip, catching up on news of the latest fashions, a chance to meet with one's friends in an elegant refined 
drawing-room atmosphere to drink tea from the best china or porcelain and nibble dainty sandwiches and pastries. As Henry Fielding 1707-1754 so aptly put it: 
Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea...
 

High tea on the other hand is a name for supper served as a full meal with often meat or fish and chips as well as bread, biscuits and cakes and numerous cups of tea. It was the last meal of the day and eaten by the 
whole family as soon as the workers arrived home at around 6 o'clock.
 

Books:

Tea with Mrs Beeton, Teatime Treats
The Complete Book of Teas, Marguerite Patten

And finally some words of wisdom.

Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue, English & How It Got That Way
 

.....to the somewhat paradoxical observation that we speak with remarkable laxness and imprecision and yet manage to express ourselves with wondrous subtlety - and simply breathtaking speed. In normal conversation we speak at a rate of about 300 syllables a minute. To do this we force air up through the larynx - or supralaryngeal vocal tract, to be technical about it - and, by variously pursing our lips and flapping our tongue around in our mouth, rather in the manner of a freshly landed fish, we shape each passing puff of air into a series of loosely differentiated plosives, fricatives, gutturals, and other minor atmospheric disturbances. These emerge as a more or less continuous blur of sound. People don’t talk like this, theytalklikethis. syllables, words, sentences run together like a water-colour left in the rain. To understand what anyone is saying to us we must separate these noises into words and the words into sentences so that we might in our turn issue a stream of mixed sounds in response. If what we say is suitably apt and amusing, the listener will show his delight by emitting a series of uncontrolled high-pitched noises, accompanied by sharp intakes of breath of the sort normally associated with a seizure or heart failure. And by these means we converse. Talking, when you think about it, is a very strange business indeed.