8 Comments

I liked this so much I signed up! Love philosophy as conversation and greatly appreciated that this conversation between Laura & Helen showed how humour can hold together one’s own (apparent) contradictions and also manage conflict between people. Thank you!

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Thank you Kevin!

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That descended fast, totalitarian tea. Thank you both for a deeply entertaining and funny discussion 🙌

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Wonderfully thoughtful chat. Thank you both.

But because of course any comments about chats like these should *always* feature selective deranged nit-picking, I would like to consider the following IN MY DEFENCE:

"ISO 3103 is a standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (commonly referred to as ISO), specifying a standardized method for brewing tea, possibly sampled by the standardized methods described in ISO 1839.[1] It was originally laid down in 1980 as BS 6008:1980 by the British Standards Institution,[2] and a revision was published in December, 2019 as ISO/NP 3103."

So as you can see, the ISO is derived from the BS. Therefore! When I said "British" I meant it as lazy shorthand for "International" - which is a recurring verbal tic we English excel at, because it so efficiently conveys our utterly lack of curiosity about non-British ways of thinking, but does so in *this* case in a factually correct manner (the one very specifically arising from the other), which makes it totally and completely okay.

I hope everyone knows that and remembers it next time, so they don't even have to think about any of this.

Thanks.

Rt Hon. Mike Sowden, BSC* SSC GSC RSPB HGV VD.

*Bronze Swimming Certificate.

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This is the most British thing anyone has ever written, and I’ve read Kipling.

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Ye gods. *checks medical cabinet for some burn cream*

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Good grief, Mike. You are treading on very dangerous ground here. I'm just going to duck and cover at this point.

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If I left a comment that was kind, reasonable, open-minded and empathetic, Laura would be deeply disappointed. And so would her legal team. Yes, she'll ruin me in court, but the sheer expense of doing it should ruin her as well, and that's the level I like to work at.

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