Comments for Toast Travels

Comment on Tea : An Exquisite Order of Things by donna oluban

donna oluban — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 22:12:00 +0000

For part of an art module some years ago i decided to really listen to what people were discussing during tea breaks at home at work and meeting friends. I made a mental note of funny , sad or just general gossip and as soon as i could jotted the basics in my moleskin.Later i hand wrote random bits on to rice paper sealed these little snippets of life into tea bag type bags with liitle strings attached to them i wrote one word that summed up the converstion enclosed in each , all of these i put into a hand decorated tea pot and i called my piece ” tea bagage”. Many a problem shared and halved over a cuppa.

Comment on Tea and Good Manners by Melissa S.

Melissa S. — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:39:04 +0000

As an American, I feel a bit sad that this kind of ritual has never been a part of my life. Beautiful piece.

Comment on A Little Piece of Space by Jacqueline Burns-Walters

Jacqueline Burns-Walters — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:27:09 +0000

Thanks for this info. I too am going to look at the picture of the day, every day. Love your “Toast travels” series, and your clothes

Comment on 2011, our A-Z of the Year by klara

klara — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 08:08:39 +0000

Nadolig Llawen!!

Comment on The Very Best Place by Patricia

Patricia — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 20:07:23 +0000

Beautiful, I almost can see it….

Comment on This Month by TOAST

TOAST — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:27:56 +0000

Hello Jane,

Thank you for your comment. You are right, we do sell clothes, and homewares. But Toast Travels is the place where we explore our interests and enthusiasms beyond our own world. We posted the film of Jarvis Cocker talking about his new book simply because we like him, his music and his lyrics and found the film of him interesting, as we do the book. We also like much of what Faber & Faber publish. I don’t think we suggested anywhere that we posted the film in order to ‘change stuff’ as you seem to have understood. That said, there is certainly plenty in the world that, in our opinion, should change, but I’m not sure that means we should become politicians. Otherwise everyone with an opinion should get into politics, and surely there are enough politicians already, don’t you think?

Comment on Tea and Good Manners by Tegid

Tegid — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:03:00 +0000

The cultural and social significance of Tea spans throughout history – predominantly China and Japan of course. A great book to read if you love tea and social pleasantries is Okakura Kakuzō’s The Book of Tea, a long (but very readable) essay explaining the role of Tea and Teaism in day-to-day life. Okakura explains that the classic tea ceremony enacted good social relations – promoting equality (tea was accessible to all) and hospitality in the act of making a fuss over your guest. It also gathers the guests of a house together to appreciate the intricate relationship between the simplicity and complexity in all thing – leaves and water amongst time and space lead to an infinite variety of subtle flavours.

The question, “Fancy a cuppa?” carries a history of almost 4000years on its back. Xenia is the duty of hospitality and was paramount in Greek socio-philosophy. Zeus was sometimes referred to as Zues Xenios which is often taken to mean “God of travellers” but which can also be translated to “King of Strangers”. Customarily the first thing you should do when anyone arrives at your door – especially if they’re a stranger – is offer them food and drink. Though this may seem odd to us Xenophobic brits, in a world of barbarians and warring factions the act of hospitality was a life saver. So powerful was the act of exchanging stories over food and drink that when two warriors meet in the battle of Troy (a Greek and a Trojan respectively) and realise that their fathers had drank together decades ago in an act of Xenia they refuse to fight one another.

Its the ultimate civilizing act to offer someone a cup of tea – it overcomes our animal instinct of fight or flight and makes peace and similarity where otherwise there would be war and separation.

More recently – and I’m not sure of how true this is – there’s a difference between a poor and a rich cup of tea. A poor man’s tea was made with milk in the bottom of the cup first, this was so that the hot tea would not shatter the clay cup. A rich man adds his tea afterwards because he can afford china cup (and a milk jug).

Right – I think I need a coffee….

Comment on Car Music by JCT

JCT — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:31:29 +0000

Without music, our lives would be so boring. Just like yourself Rachel, from a very young age i enjoyed listening and singing to music while travelling in my dad’s car to our nearest town on shopping trips. Feeling totally relaxed, and happy when we would arrive in our destination. Music comforts us, brings warmth into our lives, brings joy and so much happiness to so many people. I can’t imagine driving to my place of work each morning without my radio on. It really sets me up for the day.
My favourite song has to be ” The fields of barley ” sang by sadly the late Eva Cassidy. The words are so beautiful, and Eva sang it so perfectly.
My memory of listening to the Beatles was on a long journey up to London before the M4 was built! but i did not mind as a child i was floating on a cloud, looking forward to seeing the bright city lights.
Thanks for waking up my stored memories

Comment on The Very Best Place by Jorge

Jorge — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:28:35 +0000

Thanks for the post (and for Romatic Moderns). I was reminded how lovely Mannigtree is a couple of weeks ago. – the perfect beginning to autumn http://tinyurl.com/67y8etm. +1

Comment on This Month by Jane

Jane — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 22:47:20 +0000

Why have you got Jarvis Cocker plugging, via Faber, his book comprised of his song Lyrics. ? I thought your company sold clothes and lifestyle, its all becoming bizarre. If you want to change stuff go into real politics,don’t just play at it , its not believable and feels synical.