An English tea

By Jason Moore I sometimes despair when I go to international trade fairs and see the British stand. While the French and possibly the German always go overboard the British stand often leaves plenty to be desired. Some shortbread biscuits, a Landrover and a photo of Big Ben is usually what the stand consists of. Just recently, things appear to have gone even further overboard with ultra-modern exhibitions which have little to do with Britain. But probably what Britain forgets is that what we do best is pomp, ceremony and maintaining traditions and people from overseas just love it. We had a classic example on Thursday afternoon in our offices which we share with two other newspapers, the top-selling and the Catalan paper Balears. Now, inter-office parties usually consist of plenty of delicious local products. But being the Bulletin we decided to organise a traditional English tea with all the trimmings. In the end we had more than 100 guests from our two stablemate newspapers and I think you can safely say that they were over-the-moon. It was a proper Te ingles. So perhaps when the British government hits the road again and wants to promote Britain , forget any ideas which have been dreamed-up by a think tank and design team. I am sure that a traditional English tea will suffice. It may be old fashioned but it certainly works.