h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Oh, bob, I feel a passive agressive note coming on. http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

One of the things I like about where I work is that they trust us with a kitchen; it has kettles and coffee machines and microwaves and fridges and everything. T'Bank wouldn't let us near anything as dangerous; trusted us with billions (wrongly, as it turned out) but not a kettle.

Anyhoo, I am fussy about my tea - who'd have guessed? I'm happy enough with tetley, and I've switched to soya milk, but I do find the shape of the mug makes a difference. For tea in the morning, I like the mug large, narrow-bottomed and wide topped, so it cools fast and evenly. Very 18th century. http://tinyurl.com/bum7hpg Afternoon teacups are a different shape and much smaller, but Ben Needs Tea in the morning. Lord knows why the shape makes such a difference and there's an ignobel waiting for anyone who does the right kind of research into cooling rates and changing flavours - presumably it is something to do with dissolved solids and gasses and the human sense of taste.

People do provide their own mugs here, but there are a lot of discarded mugs, so it's hard to tell which ones are "spare" and which ones belong to someone.

You know where this is going.

It's not the money. The mugs (note plural) I have gone out and bought one at a time as the previous one is stolen are a quid or so from Poundstretcher. That's less than an frotholattechino from Starbucks. No. What sets me agley for the day is having something that is almost but not quite entirely unlike tea from a mug designed to drink frothy coffee out of. That hurts. Again.

Z doesn't know it yet, but we're going to the Mug Painting Place this weekend http://www.theceramicexperience.co.uk/branch_dunfermline.htm and I am going to get one of their large flat cups and paint my passive agressive note right there on the mug. I was thinking

"Tea tastes better out of large flat mugs, but please don't take this one to see for yourself. Buy your own from Poundstretcher. This is Ben's. Now feck off".

Or maybe

"Do not get between a Ben and her Tea...."

You know, about an hour ago I found out that peppermint tea doesn't go well with coke flavoured sweets.

I concur on The Importance Of Tea!

Funnily enough I DON'T like wide brimmed mugs, but that's precisely because they do cool down too quickly.

"This mug is alarmed."

"Only a mug would drink out of Ben's china"

"While you're there, make Ben a tea, will you? This mug will do fine."

As a grand master of tea and toast, the large flat mug is a much prefrable to a ordinary mug, but only in the mornings and only before first post

For the busy professional cat herder, mugs need to multi-task.

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r166/swl_album/DUNKMUG.jpg

Last Christmas I saw a mug in a catalogue with a stopper in the side. The idea was that you kept the stopper with you and no one else could use the mug because the tea/coffee would run out of the hole. More of a gag than a practical solution, I suspect.

Sounds to me like there may be some folk at Bens work in danger of wearing the tea rather than drinking it.

This is what TC was referring to. http://funchkins.com/2011/04/02/lock-up-and-go-or-lug/

This one's kind of witty: http://www.zazzle.com/secure_mug-168417492129500613

Think Geek has some interesting ones: http://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/whereisit.cgi?y=0&x=0&t=mug&disppage=1&dispnum=all

A thread about tea?

I'm a coffee addict. I'll even drink decaf, but I prefer the straight caffeinated stuff. But I'm also , as I like to drink my out of teacups.

good god man! Tea is the drink of god's

Oh no, apostrophe error there would have caused me to had I been drinking tea.

Tea is the drink of god's... god's what? Please, let it not be a bodily fluid...

Apologies for abruptly shunting this thread into the gutter.

ahhh! I'm thinking i've got something wrong here



RJR

I find the only way to survive the mug-poaching is to have a horrible mug with a permanent tea-stain in it. And to keep said mug on my desk at all times unless I'm actually washing it and then putting tea in it. I once left a nice-ish mug on the appropriate shelf and it vanished for ever and ever and I strongly suspect someone 'borrowed it' and broke it and, err, buried the evidence in the bin at dead of night. Because I found a tiny china chip in the correct colour near the bin. I hope 'someone' burnt their tongue on the tea they made in that mug before they vanished it.

There's your solution. When you go to the Mug Painting Place, paint lipstick on the rim, several times, and a really nasty stain on the bottom.

I had a slightly idea, but I think it would surely work as a deterrent for me, anyway.

1. Invest in one of those fake plastic puddles of vomit you get in practical joke shops.

2. Use a coping saw to trim to exactly the diameter of the base of the mug.

3. Pop it in the bottom when you aren't using the mug.

Most people should give this mug a wide berth.

All good ideas!

The problem is when I want it washed properly and put it in the dishwasher. That's when they disappear.

I've bought one that says "Hot Tottie"; hopefully most people will not want to use that.

The thought of that phrase, when applied to my own colleagues, is bringing me out in a cold sweat!

Ah, then write this on it.

If the person you see holding this mug isn't Ben, then you're looking at a thieving .

The only thing I have against mugs is that they sit unevenly on saucers. I am a compulsive spiller, so I need the security of a saucer.

I've even started looking at the mugs on people's desks as I walk past.