Prompted by my (soon to be ex) office manager, yesterday I kept a tally of how many cups of tea I drank during the course of the day...I don't know if, in a quantum way, by the very act of monitoring my behaviour I altered it in any way (I tried not to, but you never know) but the end result is that, on this occasion at least, I consumed twelve cups (with a spot of milk, no sugar, ta)...
This, slightly surprising figure, caused both he and I to raise our eyebrows a little...but is it actually bad?
From one point of view, no, it's actually quite the contrary - to quote Wikipedia -
"Tea leaves contain more than 700 chemicals, among which the compounds closely related to human health are flavanoides, amino acids, vitamins (C, E and K), caffeine and polysaccharides. Moreover, tea drinking has recently proven to be associated with cell-mediated immune function of the human body. Tea plays an important role in improving beneficial intestinal microflora, as well as providing immunity against intestinal disorders and in protecting cell membranes from oxidative damage. Tea also prevents dental caries due to the presence of fluorine. The role of tea is well established in normalizing blood pressure, lipid depressing activity, prevention of coronary heart diseases and diabetes by reducing the blood-glucose activity. Tea also possesses germicidal and germistatic activities against various gram-positive and gram negative human pathogenic bacteria. Both green and black tea infusions contain a number of antioxidants, mainly catechins that have anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic and anti-tumoric properties".
- however, it does also contain quite a lot of caffeine...50mg per cup in fact...which means I am dosing (although spread out over 9-ish hours) on roughly 600mg of caffeine per day...this *seems* like a lot to me, even though (medically) there is "very little risk of harm" (see the note above the chart) - and (in my defence) - I barely touch a drop of tea outside the office (I go every week night and all weekend long without so much as a sniff, with no ill effects at all)...
But it's given me pause...What do you think? Is twelve cups of tea a day too much?
Here we go, just a few shots from my HTC Hero of my new Journey, unfortunately an operator came and took my place by the only clean window so my later shots are through rather a lot of grime, but actually, that improved some of them (imho)...anyway, this is where the journey on the DLR starts, Lewisham station - - I've only got down the stairs to these two platforms *twice* and not managed to walk straight onto a train and choose a seat, once was a points failure (when I ended up walking through the docklands heading for the big tower from Crossharbour), and once was a sub-station failure (last week, and was fixed in about ten minutes flat), trains come in every two minutes or so, so if one were to find both trains full, it's only a very short wait for another empty one to arrive (as this is the end of the line)... The first couple of stops are very close together, Elverson Road - - and Deptford Bridge...it's then a slightly longer hop to Greenwich (where I change for CannonStreet services on the way home), the reason why I don't change here in the morning is because all the seats have now (usually) been filled... - at Greenwich we are usually full and standing, ready to start the journey under the Thames - - stopping underground at Cutty Sark (for historic Greenwich) - - (yeah, sorry 'bout that - cameraphone no likie low lightie) - and Island Gardens, then back out into the daylight for Mudchute (named thusly as it was the dumping ground for all the mud when Millwall Dock was being dug) - - lucky really, as, as a result it became a sort of improptu nature reserve, eventually becoming home to a big urban farming project (the one on Junior Apprentice last week, if you saw it) and actually quite a pretty area - - from here it's another fairly short hop to Crossharbour (which, as I mentioned already, I now know how to walk from if needs be) - - this is a busy little shopping area, full of waterside cafes and bars, just a taste of the buzz a stone's throw away - - then on (past the foundations of the old Crossharbour stop, demolished I imagine, as the platforms were too short for the new trains), the towers of the Wharf now clearly visible glittering in the sunshine off to our right through South Quay and Heron Quays (in very quick succession) - - and then into Canary Wharf station (where I get off and walk for 30 seconds to find myself in reception, One Canada Square)...DLR Commute - Done!
...just sat enjoying our second glorious day in the sun on West Wittering beach, even managed to use our local knowledge to skip the three mile tailback to the car park! ;)
*Proper* crunchy Buffalo chicken wings (New York Style) - with insane American Hot Sauce and salty creamy blue cheese dip...no-one in England can get it quite right (apart from Chillis - which was killed by the credit crunch)...
My C500 running Windows Mobile (Smartphones didn't start with the iphone, here's to full internet, movies and apps way back in 2004, I wasn't even blogging back then)... ;)
