I've just been making myself a cup of tea in the staff canteen. The teabags of choice for the canteen are Tetley's. I noticed on the packet that Tetley's are proclaiming the healthy aspects of tea due to the 'antioxidants' they contain? I mean, excuse me? I drink - well, far too much tea - and I know it's not good for you. This seems to me to be like the whole hair conditioner thing claiming to bring your hair back to life or the Retinox-A (or whatever it's called) in moisturiser doing anything than helping the skin in your face retain water (hello? It's caled MOISTUREiser for a reason) thus making the wrinkles disappear magically... I.E. Complete bollocks.

Now, as I said, I love tea. It's my drink of choice. At a party, when everyone else is drowning themselves in beer, wine and spirits, I tend to be searching out the kettle.

And then, there is the small point that Tetley's Tea tastes like stale horse piss. Really, it's not good. PG Tips is worse, though. I once got a trial packet of the PG Tips pyramid bag. I tried it because, hey! Free stuff! And had to pour it away. It was that hideous. Of course, neither of these compares to the abomination that is Lipton Yellow, but I am reasonably confident that you can't get that in this country. Oh you poor foreigners who think that that stuff is tea. There is a reason we had an Empire, you see? It's because we knew how to make tea. And that includes boiling rather than lukewarm water.

Yes, I do bring my own teabags to work. I drink Yorkshire Tea.

I am not alone in this, by the way. Neil Gaiman has words to say about this very subject, here and here. And I agree with what he says about Earl Grey tea as well. You may as well be drinking boiled Chanel No.5, except for the price, of course.