Reply to Rebecca #22

Notes from jail, how to make tea, and other stuff

Dear Rebecca

Thank you for your recent letter. Or should I say “Thanks a bunch”? Why? Because your letter was picked up by the police on social media, and to cut a long story short, I am writing this from HMP Brixton¹, where I am on remand, having been arrested on suspicion of bumping off King Duncan. This is all because you reproduced my drawing (below), but with the comma removed from the caption. Someone reported this to the police on X, saying that I had dispatched someone called Duncan King. 

I find myself in this plight because you took my cartoon, which I reproduce here complete with the original caption:

Duncan about to be stabbed, by Terry Freedman

and replaced it with a version which, despite my magnanimity in allowing you to use it without the usual licence fee, you decided to present in such a way as to incriminate me. To be specific, you removed the comma:

Duncan about to be stabbed by Terry Freedman

This is not the first time that a comma, or rather the lack of one, has got someone into trouble. There’s an interesting article about how a contract without a comma in a certain place cost the company a lot of money:

Never underestimate the price of a comma!

All I can say is: cheers, mate.

How to make tea

Of much greater importance is the fact that you think tea is something that can be made with a teabag (yeucccchhh!!) in one minute. Stand by for the correct procedure.

1. You need loose tea, of a decent brand. The local supermarket’s floor sweepings in a packet labelled Assam or English Breakfast doesn’t quite cut the mustard.

2. Take a slightly heaped teaspoon of tea, using a special measuring spoon as shown in the photo.

   

3. Gently shake the spoon from side to side, in order to release the aroma, before putting the carefully measured tea into a tea net, as shown.

4. Getting the temperature of the water right is crucial, so purchase a decent kettle with temperature settings, as shown:

   

5. Unfortunately, the ideal temperature is not shown, so you have to select the highest setting (100 degrees, which is boiling point, unless you happen to be on the top of Mount Everest).

6. When the water has boiled, wait precisely 2 minutes and 14 seconds. This will bring the temperature down to 98.6. Lest you get confused about the similarity of this number to the average temperature of the human body, bear in mind that the latter is 98.6 Fahrenheit. If your temperature was 98.6 Centigrade you’d be dead, and if your tea was made with water heated to 98.6 Fahrenheit it would be disgusting, which is worse. To help you remember the difference, I’ve written a little song, sung to the tune of the “Riding through the snow” bit of Jingle Bells:

   

   I suggest you sing that to yourself several times a day to help you remember it, and to drive Jim mad. That will get him out of the house, guaranteed.

7. Pour the tea and let it stand for exactly seven minutes, then sit back and slurp your perfect cup of tea while you’re reading the item I came across in the paper, The Daily Foghorn, on Monday, in a minute. At the moment, all this talk of tea has reminded me of this song:

   News flash

Heaps of fodder

I enjoyed reading your extracts from the Letters page of the Daily Telegraph, about men who think nothing of buying a hundred bread rolls when there are only two or three people (presumably) living in the house. It reminded me of the time my mother-in-law was boiling 60 eggs, as she’d secretly planned a surprise party, and my father-in-law just sailed past them without so much as a double-take. I showed your article to Elaine:

Elaine: Don’t men think?

Me: We do, but we’re not thinking about rolls or eggs or mushrooms. We’re thinking of how to solve the world’s problems.

Elaine: 🙄

My writing plan

Finally, inspired by your photos of your article planning in your recent article, I thought you’d be interested in mine:

Well, that’s it from me, for now. Peeps, to see Rebecca’s reply, and all her fabulous scribblings, subscribe to hers right now.

And mine!

1. His Majesty’s Prison at Brixton, Sarf London