Mark Steel: Why nothing beats a good cup of tea

It's part of our complex history that we're surrounded by beauty that was funded by atrocity

Published: 23 May 2007

If the Cutty Sark was set on fire deliberately, it must be by the laziest saboteurs ever. Because they only had to go a mile up the road and do the Dome instead, and they'd have been the most popular arsonists in history. It would have been like the last scenes of The Wicker Man, with smiling children and delirious citizens holding hands and doing country dancing as the flames roared. Then the Government could have launched a fund in order that: "This valuable piece of our heritage can be fully restored to its former pointlessness." continue...