Hi Tea!

Dear Yorkshire Tea

Would you mind terribly refraining from pairing up your teabags?

The inevitable activity of unpairing that I so frequently have to negotiate has an approximately 4% error rate which causes me to break the teabag.

I needn't tell you of the unpleasantness which follows, but I have been late for work on at least three occasions this week.

There seems to be no reason why bags would need to be paired. 

They are not sausages.

As a single man without a wife to function for me, it has been taking up a good deal of my working day to separate these paired drink units. 

First thing on the morning is a particularly treacherous time to have to negotiate such activity. I can barely walk in a straight line at that time and the potential for a pretty awful start the day is sky high.

I have taken to separating the pairs of teabags on a Sunday evening in a sufficient quantity that will get me through the week. Then if something does go wrong, I only miss a few minutes of Poldark.

But it would be much appreciated if I could avoid the risk of this action when decanting my teabags from the cardboard box to my terracotta tea caddy.

Perhaps you can explain to me why historically this has been done? I'd be very interested to find out why.

Anything that your tech team can do to mitigate or perhaps eliminate this situation from here on in would be much appreciated.

I enjoy your tea leaves but I would rather not see them all over the Formica.

Many thanks

Stood Up

Magic is an interesting thing. It delivers an experience that is hopefully well...magical. But because it is likely presented in a way that is abstract from normal life. It appears as a separate magical event.... a trick.

But what is really interesting about the process of magic is how we might use it in life.

What if you use the same time-consuming process, of practice-failure-more practice, of method after rejected method, of incremental improvement, of polish, performance and sheen, and of brevity and compassion to deliver into the hands of another individual a single brief moment of wonder.

Using the premise of magic, to gift somebody an experience.

That's even more perfect, isn't it? More perfect than a trick.

But there's a problem, isn't there?

There is no rabbit. 

There is no top hat. 

There is no deck of cards.

They don't even know to suspect a double lift or Aronson stack.

They don't speak the language. But they think they do. Because you presented it so perfectly in their language.

There is effectively, in simplistic terms, nothing signalling the amount of effort it takes to make something look invisible. 

There can't be. 

There mustn't be. 

And yet...

This is perhaps why most magicians introduce themselves with a phrase such as "Can I show you something..." It allows a little time for you to prick up your ears, and wonder what....

In Magic, your audience knows they don't speak the language because they recognise that the language is Magic. They're not going to ask you for the deck of cards in order to try to duplicate what you've just done. It would be preposterous. 

But perform a little magic in real life and it will likely go unnoticed. 

You've misdirected perfectly. 

There's no round of applause. No recognition. Your personal magic is so perfectly invisible that it becomes almost perfectly worthless.

It is, ladies and gentlemen, and I don't use this overthrashed word lightly, a paradox.

The Old Enemy

The Feed

"Who told you about us?" she screamed "Who told you about us?"

She looked menacing at first and then reached for an object which from
the corner of my eye looked like hot tongs.

"Give me the money".

"I've given you the money".

"So you have". Again though "Who told you about us?"

"Look, should you really be talking to me like…… " I started but I
barely had enough breath…

"Who the fuck are you and who told you about us?"

"I suppose you found us on the Internet, did you? Is that what you're
going to claim? You are not leaving here until you tell me. It would
be easier on you if you do". She drew breath, slowed down a little.
"Look, just who told you about us?" Calmer now but I knew what follows
calm.

"Just tell me. Why wouldn't you?" Then the thunderclap. "Why wouldn't
you tell me? You'll feel a lot better, Fuckbreath"

"I didn't feel bad before … until you started…." Oh no.. she was on
the move, approaching slowly. She was between me and the door.
Shutting down the exits.

"Look, we're all just trying to get on with each other, aren't we? We
all have a job to do", she smiled a scary smile. I preferred her
without the smile.

"All I'm asking you is who told you about us?"

"I don't have to answer". But my voice shook even as I replied.

She rifled through some papers as though busy and picked up the
handset of a phone that hadn't rung.
"Annnnnyway", she said as though she was about to drastically change
the subject "I am just asking you who told you about us"

That had been apparent.

"Maybe… oh I don't know, Silly, maybe you got an anonymous text" she
suggested with a barely disguised smirk of contempt. I was now Silly.
Mr Silly. It was an improvement over Fuckbreath.

"Maybe… I don't know… somebody put a letter through your door and you
never knew who it was?" "That's all you need to say. If that's the
truth. If that's the truth then that's all you need to say", she
repeated with a disconcerting level of clarity and reassurance.

"Just tell us what you know, and everything will be fine. So.." now
scarily upbeat.."now we understand each other. FULLY. I'm going to ask
you one more time. Are you ready?

Oh Lord.

"Who…, are you paying attention?… WHO. Told you. About us?

I was sweating now and I knew that she knew she could see me sweating.

"Come on. It's a simple question".

I made a decision there and then.

I'm not a huge fan of retail feedback surveys but I'm definitely not
going to that hairdresser again.

R and R

Do you have any regrets?

You're not allowed to regret the Second World War or 911. The question
is one of personal regret

Regret is a personal feeling of sadness, disappointment - something
done or not done. Are you disappointed with yourself, and sad as a
result, over things that you've done or things that you've not done.


Because if you were to undergo a brain scan, that regret wouldn't show
up. So unless you qualify for some artificial illness criteria which
allow people to speculate on what is going on at a cellular level and
call you a diagnosis, people will credit your regrets to the process
best anonymously described as "functional". And functional is probably
best described as "part of the human condition". You might even go as
far as to the N word.
Normal.

Real on the other hand is an actual thing occurring in fact not
imagined or supposed.
Actual.
Existent.

Regrets - imagined
Reality - actual.
Opposites, in fact.

Regret aren't real.

Try not to waste too much time on them.

Modern Plastics

Plastics are fluid.
Plastic is throwaway.
We prefix it with the word 'cheap'.
You don't really hear of 'fine plastics'.

That's OK because change needs to be cheap. It needs to be renewable.
Sometimes it even needs to be artificial.

There is an analogy in snooker.
Sometimes the shot isn't really "on". You have to 'make' the pocket be on. That might mean  pinching a bit from the edges or the boundaries. It might mean using a  little top spin or drag. Putting on a bit of side.

It's OK for plastic  to be common, cheap. (Let's not go as far as nasty). Because it needs to be 'everyday'.

Because you have to make the shots everyday.

Plastic isn't a bottle. It's a concept.
It's fluid. Because we have to be.

I, Musical

"Anything you can do I can do better.

I can do anything better than you.

Yes you can.

Yes I can.

Yes you can

Yes I can.

Yes you can.

Yes I can, Yes I caaaan".

You know...

I've never fully understood where the conflict in that song is.

The Perils of Sharing a Hairdresser

 
​

Flying High With a Fly Pie High Five

I haven't seen a "fly pie" on the menu for a while.

It is an entity so rare you have to go all the way to the 5th page of your Google searches to identify what it is. 

OK that is not exactly a tireless hundred hours in the vaults of the British library, but clicking on that Next several times seemed both tedious and exhausting. It's lucky I was sitting down.

In the end I relented to qualifying the search term with the word " Yorkshire"

And guess what? Those swine from Lancashire seem to be claiming it is a nickname for the Eccles cake. Unbelievable!.

But we know it to be the currant square.

I didn't know it had other nicknames .... Dead Fly Pie, Flies Graveyard, Flies Cemetery.

Perhaps you know of similarly morbidly named confections?

Why not write in and tell us!

Actually. Don't bother.

This isn't a democracy.

All equal now.

Grey hair is maturity's gift to gingers.

A cosmic "sorry fellas" from the conscience of evolution.