by Elizabeth Stell & George Prew

Four o’clock. Halfway through the afternoon, halfway between lunch and supper, it is undeniably time for the greatest and most British of pleasures. This important ritual revives your attention, eroded by three hours of constant reading or writing and allows for a justifiable fifteen minutes, and a cup of tea and a biscuit, to ready you for those next three hours.

It gives important time to sit and think about your essay, reading, life or anything else: time for meditation and restoration before you return to your work. How many innovations, how many life-changing decisions have been made during this vital ritual of the British working day?

In this celebration of the Fourth, it would be entirely remiss to leave out that all-important fourth hour of the afternoon, that ritual of rejuvenation, that tea time.

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