TEATIME

Charles de Gaulle

I have been making much of de Gaulle's comment about the British when he turned down their (and our) application to join the EEC in 1967. He said of the British that they drank tea.

To a British person at the time, this would have been an unremarkable remark. Of course they drank tea, what was he on about?

However, de Gaulle's remark was not a throwaway one, nor was it simply stating the obvious. He was pointing out that the British were different from the Continentals in many ways and this was just one of them.

Continentals drank coffee.

Certainly when I was young, in Ireland, we didn't really have coffee. Like the British we drank tea. The only coffee I remember was Irel coffee in a bottle. Awful tack.

Me (back left) & including three of my four boys

Not only did the Continentals not drink tea, they didn't really know how to make it either.

I was an au pair boy with a relatively well off family in France in the summer of 1963.

One of the first things Maman wanted to impress on me was that they knew how to make tea, and make it right. She proudly told me that first you boil the water in a pot. Then you turn off the heat and wait for the bubbles to disappear. Only then do you pour the water on the tea.

I hadn't the heart to tell her that that was not how we made tea. The water had to be boiling when it hit the tea.

And elsewhere on the Continent in tourist resorts you used to see signs in the windows of restaurants/cafés for "tea like mother makes it", a clear indication that the local default standard was not up to scratch.

Sad to say, in opting for the insane brexit option, the British have proven de Gaulle right.

A very perceptive and far-seeing man was mon Général in his day.

Out, out, out.