Hoi-Tea Toi-Tea

A good miniature is a sugar-plum, you say? I beg to differ. There's nothing worse than an over-sized grape soaked in chashni so long that it bloats up and threatens to explode and plaster you with a gummy, viscous envelope that would take days of scrubbing behind the ears just to eliminate the purple patches. A gulab jamun, on the other hand, now that's something to be proud of. Well, yes, it's true. We do call them gjams. I am ashamed.

Thank you for the upper berth, by the way. I intend to sleep lots. Just the end-of-term doze. Four times daily, on a full stomach. And you are from Britain? Liverpool? Wonderful. You're traveling alone? Ah, of course, you folks will never walk alone. This is your family, I take it? The Fab Four on holiday! You took a wrong turn at Greenland, I see. Cal is not so bad, though. Just desserts for someone like me.

Tea? No thank you. I'm a tea-totaler myself. Coffee's always bean my stuff. It's a hit with the chicory, I'm told! You Teabodies, think you're the bee's knees. Jeez! Pretend you can't wake up without a dozen or so cups of the insipid stuff - luke-warm, milky, sickly sweet. Those Bostonians had the right idea. Chuck the whole ruddy lot into the sea, if you ask me. And then throw the tea in as well.

---------- An Apology ------------

Peccavi! I have sinned. Three paragraphs down and no illustrations. Mea culpa, mea culpa, me a mexican cowboy! The bed of nails for me tonight.

For starters, a wonderful piece from the early Kautilya school of art. Note the bold brush strokes, the clever interplay of light and shadow, the imaginative use of the BRAIN at the bottom of the coffee mug!

And then there's the Art Nouveau. This one is called "Nude in Hot Water For Three Whistles, Just a Dash of Milk and No Sugar Please, The Missus is Watching".

--------------Where were we?-----------------

Ah yes, of course. Tea. The instrument of the Devil. The poison of the masses. The matter of sores. The findings of ear-cleaners. The bane of my life.

I'm done.