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What a great day for a tea party - would you care for a watercress sandwich?
By adamg on Wed, 04/14/2010 - 1:20pm
A group of genteel ladies and gentlemen held their own tea party on Boston Common today - with real tea, watercress and egg-salad sandwiches and cookies.
Gentleman illustrates the correct way to savor a cup of tea. Note the proper pinky extension:
Why, yes, I would most appreciate you topping off my cup:
Almost as fun as the party itself was the reaction from passersby. Some just could not believe there wasn't a hidden agenda behind the free tea and cookies (as opposed to the nearby LaRouchies, who got their token black member to put on a Hitler mustache and stand there, looking evil).
At one point, a woman leading what seemed to be a class of Spanish speakers learning English attempted to explain the joke, which, of course, first required explaining the original Boston Tea Party. As her students stood there, confused, she finally gave up. "It's very difficult to explain, but it's very funny," she said.
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Comments
Is finger extension guy the
Is finger extension guy the kid from Beauty and the Geek?
Looks like it
Looks like it is:
http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/somerville/2007/11/16...
Yep, sure is
Local guy I see around Davis Square from time to time.
I think the guy in the last pic
Is Blues Traveler's John Popper, and I ain't tellin' you no lie...
Well, that's news to me,
Well, that's news to me, given that I'm the person featured there.
Contrasts
I went from front dead center of the Palin speech to the outskirts of this group's turf to check my photos. It was like leaving Hate Week in Oceania for a luau in Eden. The teabaggers were, as a rule, furious and the tea drinkers were uniformly friendly. They also had better manners, higher intelligence, sharper clothes, snappier signage, and more teeth. (That last isn't a snarky jibe. I saw a lot of snarling on the Palin side of the Common from people who could really use some socialized dentistry, and you can see for yourself that these ladies and gentlemen don't have a philosophical opposition to fluoride.)
Pinky Extension
Do people do this on purpose? My pinky just does that by itself without any thought - as does my father's and my older son's. This has become a family inside joke.
Me too
Funny you should mention that - I was noticing the same thing the other day. I don't believe I always do it, but I think the algorithm is that if the handle of the cup is too small for for all 4 fingers, I unconsciously extend my pinkie.
That's why it's a stereotype
That's why it's a stereotype of the well-to-do. Us schmoes drink out of big burly mugs, while the well-bred sip from dainty cups and saucers.
Catholic school
One of the nuns used to hit us with the yardstick if our pinkies weren't held out.
This was in art class.
We didn't understand why, and theorized it was so we could have that finger to use for glue.
Fingers, princesses and snobbery.
As instigated by a Byzantine princess at the court of Otto II of Holy Roman Empire, you wipe your nose in the last two fingers and whole hand, when eating from communal bowls.
Clearly some people affect it
But I've always done it unconsciously, and I've always been made fun of for it.
it's a defensive stance
My brother used to make fun of me when we were kids for doing it (I still do sometimes). My mom told me that her father used to do it and said it was "so if somebody tries to steal my drink, I can poke them in the eye".
Works for me.
Report from the master tea brewer
Ian reports on it all.
What about liberty?
So apparently you folks think it's amusing to sit back being snarky while your liberties are being destroyed by the bucketload.
Please move to Europe and leave America to people who agree with the Founding Fathers.
Please move to Alabama and
Please move to Alabama and leave Boston to people who agree with the Founding Fathers that dissent and free speech were worthy enough to be made the First Amendment to the Constitution.
Oh, gosh, that wasn't very polite of me
I shouldn't be bringing up politics in a discussion about a tea party - it's just not polite.
Perhaps you'd care to take this outside to this discussion.
Uh huh
And how hard did you salute when George W. Bush signed the Patriot Act?
I seem to recall being told
I seem to recall being told quite often over the past 8 years, that if I had a problem with what our country was doing I should "Love it or, leave it."
So here I suggest to you, if you think your liberties are being so stripped away, you should either "love it, or leave it." I hear Somalia has a distinct lack of government interference in daily life...
wow
Good god! this is an ugly group of hipsters.
As opposed to an ugly group
As opposed to an ugly group of rednecks