Anyone for a cuppa?

Tea is a part of most households' daily routine. Especially in mine.

My day begins when my first cup of tea is in my hands. Whether it is when I get into the office ("Oh, are you putting the kettle on...?), or when I slump groggily into the kitchen and automatically reach up for the tea cupboard on a weekend, I genuinely do not remember a day in my adult life which has not began with a brew.

And it is easy to see why; tea is now a staple part of our diet. It has infiltrated our consciousness. It has formed, solidified,and bound friendships. It is physical, cultural, and mental. It is quintessentially British.

How did a tradition reserved for the far east become such an inherent part of our history?

The UK Tea Council tries to explain with a few facts:

* It brings people together. 80% of office workers claim that they found out more about what's going on over a cup of tea than in any other way

*By the mid-eighteenth century, tea had overtaken ale and gin as the drink of the masses to become Britain's most popular beverage.

The ever-growing importance of tea in an era when nostalgia is in (ref: Downton Abbey/Birdsong/designers at London Fashion Week showcasing their Autumn/WInter ranges) and vintage is cool, has led The Tea Council to hire PR agency Threepipe to promote the merits of tea amongst 20-25 year old females.

Ladies who lunch: Threepipe have been hired by The Tea Council to "make tea cool" amongst 20-25 year old females.

The agency has been hired to help "attract a young, social media-savvy audience" away from coffee and water, over a period of three years. 

I am personally, really looking forward to hunting down the tea pop-up shops "with a British fashion theme" which will hopefully be popping up in an area near me soon.

I'd like to take this opportunity too, to urge Threepipe not to forget the North when they plan these tea pop up shops - because everyone knows Northern girls love a good cup of tea. We'll bring the biscuits.

101 International Women's Days closer to equality?

Lady Godiva as depicted by Pre-Raphaelite artist John Collier (1898)

When Lady Godiva rode naked on horseback through Coventry during the 11th century in protest of her husband's taxes on the townsfolk, she probably had no idea that she delivered one of the greatest acts of feminism in history, to be celebrated 10 centuries later.



Congratulations women! We will officially be celebrating the 101st International Women's Day this Thursday, to mark the progress we've made over the years in securing the right to work, to vote, to an education, and the right to be simply treated as equal to men.


Joan of Arc, Hua Mulan, Simone de Beauvoir, Marie Curie, Mary Wollstonecraft, the Suffragette mum from Mary Poppins... the list goes on, yet if any of these women were still around (real or fictional) they would see that despite their efforts, equality for women still has a long way to go.


Last August, PR agency Kindred were hired to construct a campaign for the Chartered Management Institute (CMI)on the gender pay gap. Their results were shocking.

A man is still paid £10, 546 more than a woman for the same job. This is an average, according to PR Week. So this does not take into account anything above this level of discrepancy. In 2012.


I've never thought of myself as a feminist, as the word can be so loosely defined and loaded with various meanings, and it would suggest that I am a little bit Germaine Greer, which I guess I'm not. Having said this, I was brought up in a single parent family by my mother, who did a kick-ass job raising two kids and then went on to put them both through private education/higher education rather successfully, if I do dare to say so myself.


The idea of feminism then, I guess, has been playing on my mind. This time last year I was sat with women who had no idea that their survival instinct gave way to actions with huge connotations to the role of women in Nepal. These women became breadwinners and spokespeople in their communities when faced with adversity. These women were so strong, I never questioned for a moment that their gender might be an issue.


It's hard for me to explain to someone I meet now in the UK how  that tiny, rural, and mostly illiterate village in Nepal could teach some City CEOs and Directors a thing or two about equality and politics in the workplace. 


After I read the PR Week article, I asked myself what Rekha and Gita would think if a man in their village was paid twice the amount they were paid for a hand-reared piglet, just because he was a man.


I could imagine that the statement would be met with laughter, followed by anger, followed by action. In my head, I see the two women marching up to the imaginary buyer of the piglet, and asking for what is rightfully theirs.


Now wouldn't the world be a better place if all women could do exactly this, without the hypocrisy and hurdles presented to them each time they want to challenge their bosses for inequality in the workplace?


[Find out more about International Women's Day here, and join the likes of Annie Lennox and Emeli Sande at Southbank this Friday to celebrate equal rights.]

Pros and Cons of the Murdoch media empire

Advertising campaign for The Sun on Sunday

It's been a big week for News International, first the Sun on Sunday (SoS) is launched and @Rupert_Murdoch tweets "Amazing! Sun [on Sunday] confirmed sales of 3.260,000 copies", then in a shocking move, James Murdoch steps down as Chief Executive of News Corps, and is quoted as saying "You only need one Murdoch running the newspapers".
And it took the Murdoch's how long to realise this? Prior to the Leveson enquiry, the Murdoch empire was spreading like wildfire, worryingly continuing to strengthen their monopoly on worldwide media. This is the family, if one needs reminding, who shut down  The News of the World (NotW) without further thought for the livelihoods of their journalists in a bid to protect their image from further tainting. The plan backfired, when media picked up on the fact that the Sun on Sunday online domains had been mysteriously bought up, almost immediately after NotW was put out of business.
Yet communications and media experts are remaining positive about the big move. I'm trying to see if they have a point.
Thanks to the Leveson enquiry and Rebekah Brooks' horsegate, a) there won't be any more excuses for shoddy, illegal journalism and b) the Met will be think twice before they loan anything to a Murdoch associate. Neither of the two are bad results.
All eyes are on the SoS this weekend yet again, and Rupe  tweeted hopefully that "down fifteen percent [in sales] would be a great result".
Merely two weeks into the publishing of the Sunday title, I feel the good, the bad and the ugly of the launch are yet to be discovered in full. The SoS will have to tread carefully and undoubtedly need to overcompensate for its predecessor, the NotW's actions, but I'm acutely aware that it remains another mouthpiece for the Murdochs to spout their right wing ideologies. 
The major issue the SoS brings to the forefront of my mind is this; it's high time that newspapers had a government body monitoring its content, just like broadcast media has. 
Yes, it does distress and agitate me that a media mogul who thinks that a newspaper who runs anti-sex abortion headlines shouldn't also run gay marriage headlines as it confuses "old readers", remains in control of so much of the "News of the World" (pun intended).
At the risk of sounding like a fence-sitter, my mind is yet to be made up on the benefits society will reap from The Sun on Sunday's journalism.
Hmm, two minds indeed...