The stuff from before on NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown ...

Horses, what's going on there then?

A NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown special report

A horse, quite close up Fullsize image

We're not ones for shying away from the serious issues, so this week we've been thinking about horses, and why they are a bit crap. Horses as everyone knows have largely been been redundant since the introduction of the internal combustion engine in 1894. They should have known they were up for retirement when James Watt started rating his new engines in horsepower. Up till then horses were gainfully employed by mankind for a few thousand years.

So what were they up to in the 55 Million years prior when proto horsey Hyracotherium (Eohippus) was scampering around the Eiocene forests? Well not much, appart from evolving ever bigger teeth with which to eat grass, and ever fewer toes with which to trample it flat. Mind you, your horse unlike your cow will quite happily suppliment its diet with other foodstuffs given the chance, lets compare shall we?

Cows Horses Grass Hay(dry grass) Silage(grass thats gone all yucky) Grass Hay (OK the same as cows) Polo mints (even the new ones) Kendal Mint cake Biscuits (the're not fussy) Apples Sugar cubes (Obvious) Oats (Of course) Hats (Occaisonally) Carrots Ice cream cones Cornflakes (thats a guess) Frosties (they are like Cornflakes) Cushions (OK I'm making it up now)

Thus horses with their more nutritionaly rich diet don't have to work so hard at digesting it, and need far fewer stomaches and complicated internal plumbing than cows. In fact a cows internal plumbing is even more complicated than an antiquated French hotel. This frees them up allowing for leisure time which they mostly squander away standing around looking at stuff, whinnying (that's horse noises), or with the very occaisional game of chase.

When the Apaches in western movies used to round up the wild horses, most of them wanted to get caught, especially the ones at the back, as they were bored rigid just standing around all day long.

Watch out she's got a blog on a stick, and possibly a T shirt

All you B3TA regulars will know her as 'theWife', well we have finally relented and given her own bit of the site. So we've made this blog on a stick for her. Read it at your peril. You may have also noticed that we finally have aquired an armchair to go with our tea cup, thanks to the very talented Pep of B3TA. To celebrate we've opened another web store so now you can buy NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown stuff aswell as Giant Bee stuff.

Irish Tea Tour

All this week NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown has been on tour in Ireland. We've had a lovely time, including a particularly nice cup of tea and a sit down at the Bushmill's Distillery where they also apparently make Whiskey. We've also done a special double biscuit review of the Irish classics the Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley.

Impressive panoramic tea drinking in the Glens of Antrim Fullsize image