The Salmon of Doubt is a must read if you are a fan of Douglas Adams. It contains interviews with, and articles written by Douglas Adams, and it gives you quite some personal background about Douglas Adams as a person. It’s difficult to base your opinion on books only, but I think it is safe to assume that Douglas Adams was a very witty man to be around. And how weird to read his half finished last Dirk Gently chapters, knowing the book will never be finished. And to read that he was actually considering writing a 6th Hitchhiker book, which will never see the light of day either.
Here is a bit about tea, I especially like his remark about social (in)correctness.
Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk then it’s probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea.(1) If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea you will scald the milk. If you think you will prefer it with a slice of lemon then, well, add a slice of lemon.
Drink it. After a few moments you will begin to think that the place you’ve come to isn’t maybe quite so strange and crazy after all.
1 This is socially incorrect. The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting.
The whole Tea article is available on h2g2 (the website h2g2 was once started by Douglas, but is now run by the BBC) which is a good source for all kind of Douglas Adams and Hitchhikery related articles.
Tea-time again…
Just yesterday we had a a canadian professor eremitus (with english origins) visiting us. Of course he preferred a cup of tea with milk (poured after the tea) instead of the obiquitus danish coffee. -So i asked him about the teabags without strings, and he said it’s a question of which brand you buy. Incidentially, on his last visit to the UK, some friends introduced him to a new invention in tea-bags: Tea-bags with a squeeze-string to get the last drops out of the bag. He reports that they were quite excited “like it was the biggest invention of the century”. -He actually thinks they might be right if you only consider UK inventions… ;-)
He’s been living all over the world and has a deep insight in tea-drinking, i.e. he reported that chinese people often dring their tea with the saucer over the cup to strain the tea from the green tea-leaves wich tends to float on top of the tea – might work for tea-bags without strings as well thoug it might be even less socially acceptable?
It’s the third book in my book case, although it could have easily been the first (alphabetic by author, not by title.) The first place is for “The deeper meaning of Liff”, followed by “Last chance to see”. DA firmly in the lead.
I need to checkup on that squeeze-string thing! :)