03 August, 2015

The Circle is Overcomplete

The Peacock of Bulang went well, last week, and thus emboldened, I dug through some of my old samples to find a bit more Dayi: the 8582-805.

First of all, this is a sample kindly provided (many years ago, in fact) by Terje; the tea-leaves have been relaxing in the splendour of their polythene bag for a number of years. I have written previously about a cake that I own in some quantity, the 8582-801 (which is doing quite well).




Comparing the fifth batch of cakes to the first batch of cakes in a year (i.e., 805 to 801) is fraught with difficulties under normal circumstances, but any comparison is surely futile if one has been aging nicely in a tong, while another has been "aging" in a baggie.




Perhaps expectedly, the result for this 805 is not great: it is orange, sour, and seems to be desperately in need of humidity.  It is not a comfortable tea to drink.  It is fishy, like Dayi, but ultimately so, so sour and dry.

Thus, for the avoidance of doubt, I would not recommend aging your young Dayi cakes by sealing them in plastic bags.  Ahem.



Westminster, I-IV

I

on a moving train
before opening the bottle
of fizzy water




II

a summer day
at our lower Thames campus -
Westminster palace





III

oh piss off, sir mark
another friendly meeting
in the ministry






IV

the sound of the bell
that ends he meeting
is Big Ben

1 comment:

Hobbes said...

I rather enjoyed this little set of haiku, written on a visit to Westminster.

Haiku I: this was, in fact, written four years earlier, on the same train and represents the "something is about to happen" genre of haiku. The moments before the explosion - you can well imagine, making it a good haiku for placing the reader in the moment along with us.

Haiku II: at the university's "parliament" meeting, we are addressed in latin by the University Orator. It is traditional for him to celebrate successes of the university, and to make jokes at the expense of "The Other Place". I am sure that they have an equivalent event at our expense. Following the recent national elections, the Orator was smugly reporting that most of the new cabinet members, and the Prime Minister, were our graduates, leading him to call the government in Westminster our "campus on the Lower Thames". He also referred to the small number of new ministers who were educated at The Other Place as being "diversity hires" (much chortling from the dons).

Haiku III: it would not be polite of me to name names, given the text of this haiku (which is verbatim from one meeting), but for those of you who know my day job, it should not be too difficult to work out to which ministry this refers...

Haiku IV: to have a meeting ended by the startlingly loud, and strangely familiar, tune of Big Ben's ring was remarkable. The image that makes the haiga is of my own college back at home, where our bell (in the tower pictured) is a touch more discreet, although just as persistent, when compared with its London counterpart.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes