Britain's Leading TV Actress

Podcast Bellydance is probably the UK's current most in-demand TV actress. From last year's surprise hit, the 1960s-set, police procedural Get us a Cup of Tea, Luv, to the turn of the Twentieth Century great house drama, set in Poshgits Hall, Time for Afternoon Tea. She has served tea to some of Britain's best-loved character actors and actresses.

Of course, serving tea, either on stage or the TV set or location, is one of the most demanding roles an actor can undertake. Especially if they have to take a cup of tea across the set or stage and hand it to another actor or actress, sometimes when saying some lines at the same time.

As Bellydance herself says: 'acting is of course just dressing up and playing pretend like we all used to do as children. However, it is of course much harder than that. We do have to remember the lines given to us by the writer and try to same them at the right time and in the right order. Sometimes we have to do this whilst doing something else as well, like walking – or even carrying a cup of tea.'

Several critics have claimed it is especially brave of Bellydance to perform her own tea-carrying stunts. Mostly without calling for a stuntman and or a body double to take over these arduous and exacting tasks, while she does the hard work of both remembering her lines and remembering to say them at the appropriate points.

'I also have to remember to blink occasionally,' Bellydance said in a recent interview where she spent most of her time learning her lines for her next scene. All while reminding herself where to breathe and – most importantly - blink. 'Luckily, I've always been cast in these demanding roles,' Bellydance added. 'Sometimes my characters have to blink several times a scene. Having to remember to breathe, blink and say the right words is demanding enough, of course. But I also think it adds depth to my portrayals of these characters if I actually carry a cup of tea in the way these characters would in real life.

Bellydance is very excited about her forthcoming role in a new film. The title of which is yet to be released. However, rumour has it she will be seen on the screen performing a full-frontal biscuit-dunking scene. We can only admire the courage she has, when saying she'll perform such a demanding scene herself without the aid of a stunt stand-in.

 

[Books by David Hadley are available here (UK) or here (US).]

A Nice Cup of Tea and its Geographical Implications

Eventually it was all sorted out. Unusually, in nowadays, it needed very few boxes ticked, the completion of almost no Impact Assessment Statements and caused little or no debate on the various social networks.

However, it did result in some slight bruising to an elbow and the total annihilation of several small countries. This – as none of us still alive here (by definition) do not live in any of those (former) countries, does mean that it counts as a success – more or less.

That is the nature of such experiments; certain drawbacks are always possible and must always be counted alongside the benefits. Obviously, the fact we managed to produce a very nice cup of tea from the whole enterprise does go someway towards its overall success. Making the loss of a handful of the smaller countries pale into insignificance when compared with the increased biscuit-dunking opportunities such a nice cup of tea offers to us all.

After all, geography has of late become far too complex. There are an increasing number of countries, appearing faster than we can reprint the maps, even with modern technology. Consequently, the loss of a few of them does make things a lot easier. If some of the side effects discovered afterwards are confirmed it will enable us to print over quite a large expanse of what are – for now – the blank areas on our maps with that good old stand-by of: Here Be Dragons.

We do have some idea of why such a nice cup of tea necessitated destroying a mere handful of the smaller counties. However, theorists have yet to explain just how the dragons manifested themselves in those selfsame areas.

Obviously, much more work needs to be done on the nature of reality. Especially how it all relates back to there central importance of making a nice cup of tea for the integrity of this universe (and – it now seems - a few other nearby universes as well).

Faced with the Forces of Doom

Don’t think about it. Just do it.

Excellent advice, no doubt, but when you are faced with the Forces of Doom a little bit of trepidation is probably not that uncommon. I suppose it depends, though, on just how often the Forces of Doom have a habit of turning up in the course of your life.

All in a day’s work for the crime-fighting superhero, you would imagine; maybe not quite so much if you are an insurance loss adjuster, or if you work in a cake shop.

Although, on the other hand you would expect that the rampaging hordes of doom would have some effect on the insurance premiums; a bit like those houses that always seem to end up flooded and on the news when it rains a bit. Although, this being Britain, you’d think people would have worked out how the rain works by now, what with all the experience we get.

You could, perhaps, understand someone in the Gobi or the Sahara being more than a little surprised to see his kitchen under two feet of water one morning, but in Britain?

Anyway….

I suppose the same must apply to the cake shop assistant too. Most people, I imagine, would assume that even rampaging hordes of doom fancy a cake, or maybe a sandwich, or a hot sausage roll every now and then.

I doubt if they’d form much of an orderly queue though. It would be death and destruction, rape and pillage if the shop ran out of chocolate éclairs while half the horde were still waiting to be served. Let alone what would happen if they all wanted change for a tenner or something, or they didn’t think much of the watery coffee.

So, yes – in the end – maybe it is not just superheroes, after all.

In the Kitchen Holding a Spoon

Still, though, eh?

I mean... well, come on.

Y'know?

As they say, a needle in the hand is worth all the frying pans in the bush before they hatch.

There was a time... well, there were quite a few times, at least in my younger days. But we won't go into that... which wasn't the case at the time, either.

Oh, no....

Back then it was very different indeed, even though some of our fashion choices would seem a bit odd to those who pay attention to such things, we did have quite a time... or – as I said – quite a few times.

However, time happens to us all and it leaves us standing here, usually in the kitchen holding a spoon, and wondering how we got here, where all the time has gone and – most importantly – what did we want the spoon for?

Somewhere at the back of the mind is the sneaking feeling that we may have made a cup of tea at some point and can't remember where we left it.

Or was that yesterday...?

The days seem to slip by so fast, often without even stopping to say hello or make some other mark of their passing. There was a time, way back in childhood when the long summer school holiday seemed to last for years, now it seems the kids are back in uniform only a day or two after those first few days of the holiday. Christmas seems to come every few months and we seem to have more birthdays than the Queen.

Time – who the fuck keeps stealing it all?

Thursday Poem: Unfolding

Unfolding

There were always ghosts in her eyes.
She lived in a room packed full
Of memories, movement and voices.

She would sit, still, in her chair.
A vague wistful smile just touching
The edges of her lips, watching

Her past days unfolding before her.
All she needed was her memory,
That room and a cup of tea.

 

Plans for World Domination

 

Of course, it is not always easy to fully extend the taxiing area for your fleet of ground attack forces without drawing some undue attention to your surreptitious plans for world domination. This is why the average criminal mastermind with megalomaniac desires to control the planet does tend to undertake operations from a remote volcanic island, usually one especially prepared for such a purpose.

Although, one does wonder how he does manage to get the builders in and get the base completed without any spy satellite – for example – picking up the scaffolding and so on from space, or any intelligence agency noticing how a supposedly uninhabited island is getting through so much tea... and sugar.

Then there is the horde of minions that running such a base necessarily entails, after all you can't really advertise the job in the local press, can you? The people applying for those jobs too must realise that thy are basically just cannon fodder and that their long-term job prospects are not very good with career advancement lasting only until the secret agent from some western power shows up and blows them all to buggery in the concluding climax of explosions, destructions and mayhem before he goes off to shag the girl.

Then, of course there is getting the local authority planning permission for a secret base... how would you go about that?

The British Weather – A Survivor’s Guide

Of course, if you are buttering your baguette in a force-nine gale or having to bale out your shoes with your teacup, in between having to fetch your book or newspaper back from across the other side of the garden, then you must have been tempted outside. However briefly you were tempted out by the appearance of that yellow thing in the sky for the first time in what seems like decades, you will have forgotten one of the basic rules of life in Britain.

The rule is: no matter how nice it looks outside – it isn’t.

It is either – on those few days when the drizzle stops long enough for the clouds to part – sunny but cold, or – unbelievably – sunny and hot. Such is the cunning nature of the British weather; neither of these conditions can be detected from indoors. Only when you get out there, do you realise those two things that you can see rolling towards the kitchen drain used to live – quite happily - in your underpants, or that rivulet of dampness also heading towards the kitchen drain is you… melting.

Occasionally, on about 3 days out of the 365 the temperature outside is just right – that is if the wind has temporarily dropped below gale force – for sitting outside. Unfortunately, if it is nice enough for you it will be nice enough for your neighbours to get out their power mower, their radio and their barbecue too… oh, and their drink. So they will be singing crazily at the tops of their voices to the latest Eurovision hits while one manically and drunkenly mows everything on a vaguely horizontal surface while the other sets fire to a wide variety of foodstuff. All right by the fence where you placed your garden chair to keep out of the gale… and the rain… or, if it is summer, the snow.

If you are British, if you grew up here – oddly enough during a childhood of eternal summers – then you will - by instinct – know not to trust the outside. It is a dangerous, insidious and mendacious con-trick perpetuated by a cruel alliance between the weather system and the insect population in order to make everyone’s life a misery.

The Gods of the Supermarket

However, while we hold our re-usable shopping bags of destiny at such angles as to demonstrate our devout yearnings, we will never again enter the most holy supermarket of our deepest desires, at least not whilst wearing such unfortunate trouserings as we now habitually don for our adventures into what the poets and the sages call ‘the outside world’. Out there, there are streets aplenty, some of which contain the shops that will sell us all we could ever desire, sometimes at the astounding rate of Two for the Price of One, whilst our very chins tremble with deep joy we have not afore known the wot of amongst such splendid profusion.

Unfortunately, though, the gods of the supermarket looked down with anger upon our attempt to do the traditional naked tango of thanks for such munificence on their part. Therefore, they send down their wrath in the form of the supermarket security guards to remove us from the premises, despite the fact that we have about our persons the store loyalty cards that should prove our devout holiness beyond all doubt.

Such is life though, and as we gather our scattered garments, including the unfortunate trouserings, from the car park where the security guards scattered them, we are left to ponder upon what a cruel religion this can sometimes be. Even as the posters advertising such splendid savings that we could not believe existed, even in this earthly paradise, taunt us with pictures of the goods we will never now possess, so, instead we wander forlornly away and search for somewhere where we can get a nice cup of tea.

These Things Happen

And so these things happen as though the world is stuck inside some kind of loop, not one where the same day happens day after day, each day is different. However, each day is the same in too many ways for it to be entirely coincidental. From the moment you wake up in confusion at the sound of the alarm, convinced it should be a weekend and wondering where your Sunday lie-in went. Then, standing in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to start your day and noticing the calendar has slipped through spring and summer without you even noticing….

And just when did all those other years happen?

Now those kids, who you had to bend down to take their hands, are almost as big as you are are, and have lives that run at tangents to yours – just when did they do all this growing up?

Your hair is grey and there is less of it to comb, as you stare into a mirror that seems haunted by the faces of your parents, while each day starts with a sigh.

It was not supposed to be like this. In the days when you dreamed of what you wanted your life to be, instead of looking back wondering what happened to it all, you used to never see yourself growing old. You used to be living on some Gauguin island with dusky tropical beauties sitting in awe at your feet on bright warm sand as you enthralled them with your tales of bravery and the wisdom learnt from a full life. A life where you kept all your hair and a sexy charm that followed you into the wisdom of dignified old age and not this one, where you can’t ever remember why you came into the kitchen in the first place, or even why you are still holding that spoon.

Tools of the Secret Services: A Brief History

It is a little known fact that the teasmade was first used by British secret agents working undercover in hostile foreign countries. Obviously enough, as they were working undercover, the secret service teasmade had no alarm clock, but the timed device they used to deliver secret cups of essential tea to British agents was a basic part of their kit, along with the suitcase radio and toasting fork disguised as a fountain pen.

These vital items of kit enabled a British spy to have the essential nice cup of tea and hot buttered crumpets they needed to survive deep in enemy territory, while the radio was vital for keeping in touch with the latest football and cricket scores. The football results were – of course - often sent in code so that the enemy forces had no chance of using the signal to check their pools coupons.

Other, now common, household devices first invented by the secret service boffins were of course initially kept secret. Such things as the carpet slipper, invented as a way of sneaking around well-guarded areas such as secret military bases, ports, missile facilities and so forth, were classified military secrets well into the days of the cold war. That it until they were rendered useless by a Soviet counter-measure based on designs they had stolen from a western factory that produced Lego bricks.

The cardigan too, was first developed by the Secret Intelligence Service both to keep its spies warm while they were out observing enemy troop movements and so forth, and as a rudimentary form of stab vest. The wool of the undercover cardigan had a steel mesh woven into it that could stop a small bladed weapon from penetrating it and even low-calibre bullets, providing they were not fired from point blank range.

Most notorious however was – of course – the tobacco pipe. Not only could this – in a moment – be converted into an extremely accurate blowpipe, firing poison darts (providing the operator remembered to blow and not to suck), the highly trained operative could also kill using the pipe stem to poke at an enemy in the precise spot that would stop the heart in an instant. The pipe could also be used to provide a smoke screen to aid in evasion and escape as well as leave enemy guards confused if the spy asked them if they had a light, enabling the spy to overcome the guard as he searched his greatcoat pockets for an elusive match.

All in all then, all these secret weapons provided the British spies of the period from the outbreak of WWII right up to near the end of the Cold War with a formidable array of tools with which to help defeat the enemy and should be regarded as a credit to this country’s great tradition of undercover intelligence gathering.

Modern Sporting Stars

Underwire Treelicker has often been credited with bringing the sport of professional tea-drinking to a wider audience through her use of the sometimes-tricky over-arm teapot technique while pouring from the biscuit end of the tea-pitch. Most people in the UK – of course – have a keen interest in amateur tea drinking with up to seven amateur tea-drinking teams in many of the local leagues.

However, maybe because of this keen amateur involvement, professional tea drinking as a spectator sport has never realty taken off in this country. This is despite the fact that many tea rooms in picturesque tourist locations often have audiences numbering in their hundreds crowded around the front display windows of the tea rooms peering in hoping for a glimpse of some exiting competitive tea drinking.

The women’s sport of competitive tea drinking has – of course – a long history in the UK. It shadowed the development of the tearoom from a place to where men gathered to discuss politics, sport and other such completely pointless bollocks, to a place where women could – almost exclusively – gather. There, they would criticise those of their group who were not there that day, make false compliments about each other’s hairstyles and latest dieting successes, all while engaging in a few rounds of competitive tea drinking.

For those that are not familiar with the sport, the whole idea of competitive tea drinking revolves around appearing to drink the tea with enthusiasm - if not gusto – without leaving any appreciable difference in the level of the tea in the cup. However, at the same time, managing to finish the tea without the other person at the table noticing, and thereby wining that round, and on to win the set and forcing the other person to pay for the next round of tea, until one player admits defeat by claiming to be late for some appointment or other.

Underwire Treelicker, of course, has done more than anyone to bring tea drinking from a participatory sport into the wildly popular spectator sport it now is. Many say it is her exotic Wild North Grimsby-esque good looks, her impressively deep cleavage – often shown in ultra slow motion in replay to its best advantage when pouring the last cup from the pot - rather than her - albeit remarkable tea-drinking abilities that have brought this about. However, as well as a mouth that suggests to most men, and many, many women, that she is well-practiced in several debauched arts that they have only ever read about on some very specialist websites, she does have a deep and profound tactical awareness of the subtleties of competitive tea drinking.

Consequently, many now regard Underwire Treelicker and the rest of the UK’s tea-drinking squad as the country’s best hope for gold medal success in the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The Very Lupins Of Our Ineptitude

The very lupins of our ineptitude haunt the highways and byways of our stumbling through this rather damper than expected world as we make our way to the Great Discount Sales of all our hopes dreams and sudden sharp desires for hot-buttered toast and the ever-elusive Nice Cup Of Tea that always seems to lie just beyond our outstretched fingers.

Still, though, there are always our dreams of those more than willing to entertain the possibility of our own nudity without too much undignified giggling or the hasty reach for the sick bag, that we deep down feel is our real lot in life. The fear that we do not so much have a date with destiny as a rather tedious meeting with some disinterested Human Resources manager of the soul who will merely drag us through yet another futile box-ticking exercise of failed dreams and thwarted hopes, while we stare forlornly at a plastic cup of machine vended Tea-style tepid watery drinking liquid (with a subtle hint of powdered oxtail soup) and a semi-stale rich tea biscuit.

Still, though, no matter how much this life seems to take savage glee in diverting us away from the life we once dared to dream of, there is still the vague chance that tonight – for once – there may be something good on TV.

Never The Right Time

Sometimes, it seems that there is not much to say about anything, but she goes ahead and says something anyway, usually when you have just got everything lined up nicely and you are ready to start your run up towards the day’s first slice of toast.

It is always a time of ominous foreboding when mere reality intrudes itself between a man and his first slice of toast of the day. Deep down, the woman knows this, and she knows it well. It is down there almost at the level of instinct, a woman knows that she should always keep the man slightly off-balance, never quite sure if he is on solid ground, or about to tread off the path into one of those womanly traps that lie so cunningly hidden from the unwary and oblivious male.

Of course, what he should do is put the toast down and make one of those spontaneous romantic gestures - take her hand across the marmalade and kiss it – the hand, not the marmalade – that she always complains that he does not do, and then complains about it ‘being the wrong time’ when he does.

Although, when ‘The Right Time’ actually is, is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the womanly sect, and for any woman to actually give out any hint as to when ‘The Right Time’ may actually be, runs the risk of being thrown out of the sect and being shunned by the rest of the women for the remainder of her life.

Spread Over The Toast Of Our Day

Even when the moments of our lives are like the double-glazing salesmen of doom, hanging around our azalea beds of despondency there is still time for those first buds of the spring to take our marshmallows far from these forgotten TV schedules of the heart and turn them into the teacakes of a new dawn, whilst also providing a new pot of tea.

A nice cup of tea is all that is needed to take the day away from such forlorn despondency and to awaken us all to the joys of the toast that is yet to come.

The marmalade of possibility stands on the breakfast table of our hopes and dreams, to make the toast of our mornings glow with the delights of a thousand chunky orange suns.

The butter of times yet to come stands waiting too for the knife of all our longings to spread it out over the toast of our day. The dark uncertainties of night have faded and gone, like the burnt toast of all our secret nightmares.

We have a day waiting for us and it can only contain more toast and further nice cups of tea, and how could life ever get any better than this?

We have seen the future and it tastes of toast.

Lost In France

Due to some volcano or other I'm currently stuck in the hell of the French Riviera at a comfortable apartment in glorious weather and with excellent food.
I may be back sometime soon-ish.
(from a internet cafe - Antibes).

Pottering About

[Hopalong Gravelpath]

Hopalong Gravelpath is – quite rightly – well known throughout these islands as one of the leading exponents of Premier Division Pottering About, and is all set to be the captain of the UK’s Olympic Pottering About team for the 2012 Olympics.

It is always a stirring sight to any freeborn English person to see a Pottering About team take the field, eventually wandering on to the pitch in their ill-matched tatty cardigans and down-at-heel slippers, ready for the vital pre-match sit down and the traditional start to every game of Pottering About, the Nice Cup Of Tea.

Then once the Nice Cup Of Tea has been finished and the official words of approval have been made by each side to the umpire, it is time for the fans to concentrate closely on the tactical finesse of each team. For those new to the sport here are a few things to watch out for at the begging of any Pottering About match. It is important to study just how long and how convincing is the deep sigh made by each player as they contemplate the recently quaffed Nice Cup Of Tea. It is at this point that the more skilful players will attempt the sometimes tricky ‘see if there’s another one in the pot’ gambit to outfox the opposing team. Other players will drum the fingers on the arm of their match armchair, while some will unbutton, then slowly re-button their cardigans whilst the crowd grows tense, waiting for someone, anyone, to make the first decisive move towards considering making some attempt towards contemplating thinking about getting on with it.

As we all know the real skill in professional top-flight Pottering About is to be always on the verge of actually getting on with it without apparently seeming to do anything, then – with no clear idea of how it happened - the opposition are suddenly One-nil down, with the scoring team back in their armchairs as if nothing had happened, ready for the umpire to restart the match.

Sometimes it is only through the slow motion replay that you can see how the goal was scored, but not always then. For example, with a really great Pottering About squad like the legendary European Cup winning Littlehampton Dawdlers team of 2001, who could sometimes be 6-0 up without seemingly leaving their armchairs or even without taking the sleeping cat from their laps, it is impossible to see – even in slow motion – any of them moving towards the opposition half at all.

Space Exploration News

NASA announced yesterday that their latest unmanned lunar probe, Steve III, has discovered significant deposits of what appears to be warm toast near the Moon's South Pole.

A NASA spokesperson said, to an astonished press corps:

Adding this to last year's discovery of significant thick-cut marmalade deposits by the earlier lunar probe, Steve II, just slightly to the left of the Sea of Tranquillity, brings much closer the prospect of a manned Lunar base by the end of the decade.

The spokesperson later went on to say:

We have reason to believe that the quantities of both toast and marmalade are more than adequate enough to support a self-sustaining moonbase. However, if our initial estimates of the extent of these deposits are correct, then there could be enough of both toast and marmalade to support manned missions to Mars, or even further afield in the solar system. Especially if the early indications of there being a 24-hour supermarket orbiting in one of Saturn’s rings are confirmed by our latest probe Nigel VII when it does a fly-by survey early next year.

With the discovery, three years ago, by the Mars probe, Doris VI, of the massive milky tea lake near the Martian equator, the addition of these newly-discovered lunar deposits means that there are enough resources now available - without the prohibitively huge payload costs of uplifting them from Earth - for many manned missions to explore much more of the solar system. That is, of course, providing NASA can either find enough astronauts who like their tea quite milky, or - failing that - if NASA can get the necessary funding to finalise refinement of its currently very crude tea-demilkifying technology enough to provide a decent space-worthy nice cup of tea suitable for deep space exploration.