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29 October 2014
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There's more to tea in China
by Morris Telford
Morris Telford
Morris Telford's Diary of Adventure

Morris entertains the waiting passengers at Frankfurt Airport with a few games of bingo but gets involved in a fracas with an angry American couple. Finally he boards his flight to Shanghai and learns that there's more to tea in China than there is in Market Drayton.

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The Morris Telford archive. Read about Morris's previous exploits.

See what everyone's saying and leave a message on our

Follow Morris's journey
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
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FACTS

Name: Morris Telford

Age: 33

DOB: 18/04/70

Occupation:Unemployed

Hobbies: Enlightenment, Philosophy, Bingo

Favourite book – Ordnance Survey Map of Shropshire 1999 edition

Favourite foods – Pickled Eggs

Favourite film – Late For Dinner

Favourite colour – The delicate cyan of the dinnertime sky in Moreton Say.

Favourite British County – Shropshire

Favourite Place – Moreton Say

Favourite Postal Code Area – TF9

Favourite radio
frequency - 96FM

Favourite sound – The gentle breeze rustling through the leafy glades of Moreton Say

Favourite Clive – Clive of India

Favourite Iron Bridge - Ironbridge

Favourite adhesive note size – 75 x 75mm

Favourite Vegetable – Anything grown in the fertile soils of Shropshire

Favourite band – *(shameless plug)

Biggest inspiration –
MESSAGES
Is Morris a madman, a genius - or both? Have your say on our - and see what other people are saying about him.
Communicate with Morris via the - or look back through the archive to find out what happened in previous weeks.
WEEK 23, DAY 1
The poet John Yeovil left for Shropshire today, I have sent him to explore the sensory delights of Moreton Say. I suspect when the tears of joy clear from his eyes and he is once again able to write, he will pen the most beautiful verse England has ever seen.

IÂ’ll never forget the day; it was early one morning, when the beauty of Moreton Say first really hit me. I had just finished arranging some sticklebricks into a dodecahedron and a shaft of Shropshire sunshine broke through the net curtains. I toddled over to the window and looked out to see the fields ablaze with joy. The sun was pushing over the gentle roll of the Shropshire horizon, deep hues of the morning sunÂ’s golden red mixing with the wildflowers, the trees and the rusting shell of a caravan that someone had abandoned at the bottom of our garden in 1959. I remember I felt so liberated and awakened by this glorious sight I wet myself. I was only three.

IÂ’m in a car on my way to Frankfurt airport. IÂ’m getting a lift from a Swedish poet called Lars Frummax who reminds me of a young Mel Croucher. Lars drives a Vauxhall Cavalier, but has painted it with flowers of many colours and written "Love" in several different languages on the bonnet. I explained to him that while I appreciate the artistic sentiment, he has significantly reduced the market value of a perfectly good car. Lars agreed with me, he was drunk and in love when he did the paint job. Now he is sober and alone the cold hard facts of the automotive sales environment have hit him and he longs for the grey metallic sheen of glory his car once knew.

He calls his car "Frans Hals". I have no idea why.
WEEK 23, DAY 2
Lars dropped me off this morning, he’s off to another poetry convention in Chile - The Encuentro Internacional de Poesía. I was tempted to go with him, but I’m afraid I may become distracted with the jet set world of international poetry and neglect my responsibilities as Shropshire’s ambassador of love.

Frankfurt airport looks much the same as all the other airports IÂ’ve visited. Lots of planes, obviously, people looking sad waiting for their flight, sleeping stretched across three bucket seats. Why donÂ’t airports provide bunk beds in the departure area? Why do families look so miserable when they are about to go on holiday? Why donÂ’t they organise Bingo games to keep discontented travellers occupied while they wait for their plane?

Concentrating on that last question, IÂ’m using the international language of Bingo to cheer up a group of families that were trying unsuccessfully to avoid eye contact with me. Using an airport bin as a makeshift drum, and empty cans of pop with numbers scratched on them as balls IÂ’ve been able to get quite a decent game going. ItÂ’s noisy but functional and IÂ’m offering flights to Shropshire as grand prize for the first person to shout "Haus"

On the side of the bin IÂ’m using as a drum for the numbered balls IÂ’ve written Bin-go, which I thought was both funny and clever. It must have lost something in translation as not one person pointed out how amusing the pun was. IÂ’m not sure what the German is for bingo, I do keep hearing people say "Halt's Maul" whenever I spin the bin full of old cans so perhaps that is it.

My plane is delayed. It looks like IÂ’m joining the huddled masses in the airport departure lounge. Looks like a Shropshire style all-night Bingo session for these lucky people.
WEEK 23, DAY 3
I gave away thirteen flights to Shropshire last night. Little did the bakerÂ’s dozen of winners know that IÂ’m as much a winner as they are, thatÂ’s thirteen more people that will, thanks to my machinations, bask in the radiant glory that is Shropshire.

ItÂ’s a good feeling helping people. In this heartless, cold world outside Moreton Say, IÂ’ve seen every side of human nature. From those that fool themselves into thinking they are happy and fulfilled even though they have never seen Shropshire, to those that are searching for Shropshire but donÂ’t know it. IÂ’ve seen people whose idea of a good time is strapping themselves half-naked to a motor home wearing a magic hat, people trapped in an insular society of silly names and caravans, people working in abject misery while at the same time being contractually obliged to smile at all times and suggest fries with everything. Not once in all my travels so far have I met anyone who had the inner peace and joy, the extra choccy sprinkle of fulfilment on the cappuccino of life, the Pentium 5 smile upgrade installed on the motherboard of existence, the protective plastic of pure peace that comes with the new three piece suite of sunshine and serendipity that comes from living in the premiere English county, Shropshire.

I canÂ’t wait to bring a little of the old Shropshire magic to China.

My flight is now rescheduled to leave in two hours. Just time for a couple more games of airport bingo.
WEEK 23, DAY 4
I missed my flight due to a bit of trouble last night. An American couple called Kip and Monica took offence at my rousing game of airport Bingo and complained to airport security. Fortunately one of the winners of my flights to Shropshire was Jurgen the chief of security so his complaints were unsuccessful The problem was that Kip had a weak heart and all the stress made him go a bit giddy and he collapsed while trying to stop me spinning the Bin-go bin. This not only invalidated an exciting game that was nearing itÂ’s climax, but made me feel terribly guilty as I did grapple quite enthusiastically with him at the time.

Monica tried to stop me, but I felt it my duty to accompany Kip in the ambulance and see what I could do to help. I offered to pay their medical bills but Monica got hysterical and they had to sedate her, leaving me in charge of Kip, I had to say I was their son just to get admittance to his room. This is where the problems started, they had just hooked Kip up to a monitor when my phone went off, it was Mother ringing to tell me the grass needed cutting. The nurse heard me saying, "Not now Mother" and became suspicious because I had said Monica was my mother and she was unconscious on a hospital trolley next to me. Also, mobile phones were not allowed in the hospital and so I was taken to a small white room and told to wait.

Then Kip and MonicaÂ’s real son, Chad, who looked not unlike a young Trevor Howard, turned up and I had to tell him I was his long-lost half-brother, he embraced me and we went to see our Father. Kip woke up, much shouting ensued and I slipped away in the confusion.

By the time I got back to the airport, my flight had flown. They could have waited for me.

ThereÂ’s a lesson to be learned here.

Not sure what it is though.
WEEK 23, DAY 5
IÂ’m booked on another flight for tomorrow.

My flight is boarding now, IÂ’m sitting next to a lady who looks a bit like a cross between Kathleen Turner and a Barbary ape. Small, blonde, slightly masculine and unusually hairy. My macaque-like companion refused to give me her name and put on one of those eye-masks. I suspect she does not want to talk to me.


I decided against another session of airport bin-go. I played an arcade game – "House Of The Dead" at the airport arcade instead. It might not further my cause, but at least no one gets hurt. Unless you count the hordes of undead creatures that fell foul of my uncanny marksmanship.

IÂ’m full of optimism. Finally, IÂ’m on my way to China, land of the fortune cookie, the panda, lychees, unusually small trees, Chinese food, Chinese dragons, Chinese checkers and other things Chinese. I canÂ’t wait.

According to my travel leaflet, China is world's fourth-largest country and considerably bigger than Shropshire with 1,284,303,705 living there. This worried me a bit, if I do manage to convince everyone in China to pop over to Shropshire the M54 might not be able to cope. The Chinese climate is apparently "extremely diverse; tropical in the south to subarctic in the north", this sounds a bit like Shropshire too, I should fit right in.

Looking out the window of the plane, we are above the clouds now. From above, the clouds look so white and pure, more solid than they should. I can imagine stepping out of the plane and going for a run in the fluffy panorama below me, it looks soft and welcoming like virgin snow. We just passed a bank of clouds that looked just like an ivory replica of the Wrekin. I told the stewardess my feelings on the cloudscape, she didnÂ’t seem very interested and just offered me some peanuts.
WEEK 23, DAY 6
It was a long flight and we have just landed in China, at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport. A lot of the people here are wearing face-masks, not sure why, perhaps the pollen count is high. The airport is all blue neon signs and white walls. There are a lot of Oriental people here.

IÂ’ve booked into a hotel and want to explore Shanghai.

Shanghai is big, bigger than Oswestry, bigger even than Telford. IÂ’m shopping now in a place called the Super Brand Mall, itÂ’s an amazingly big shopping centre, it makes Market Drayton look like a small market town. ItÂ’s not what I expected at all here in China, IÂ’d seen the Chinese television series "Monkey" at home and itÂ’s nothing like that.

I tried to speak to 27 different people today, none of them seemed to connect with me on any significant level or want to listen to things about Shropshire and how great it is. On the bright side, that still leaves 1,284,303,778 people left who might be interested in speaking to me. 16 million of them live in Shanghai, I could spend the next ten years here and only scratch the surface, I need a mass-market approach.

I went to the Chinese Communist Party Headquarters to have a word with them about the Shropshire way of life but the place was just a museum. IÂ’m not really sure where the real seat of power is here in Shanghai, itÂ’s probably hidden somewhere but I intend to find it.
WEEK 23, DAY 7
I tried to talk to more people, not much luck. Fortunately IÂ’ve got directions to a tourist company that arrange help for western visitors.

I’ve hired a guide, his name is Lang So Pin, he promises to help me bring Shropshire to the Chinese masses for the equivalent of £1.56 per day, not a bad deal. Lang looks a bit like an overweight Bruce Lee with bad teeth and possibly a wig. He speaks both Mandarin and standard Chinese so I hope to be able to communicate via him to most of the people I meet.

Lang tells me I should drink tea to experience the real China. I explained to him that IÂ’ve been drinking tea all my life and showed him the three PG tips bags I had left in my travel pack. He laughed at me, IÂ’m not sure why.

We are at the Hu Xin Teahouse, it’s a beautiful place, all twirly banisters and knobbly roofs. They take absolutely ages making a cup of tea here. I tried to take over and use one of my last pyramid bags instead of messing around with all this loose-leaf nonsense, but they seemed quite offended so I left them to it. The cups were very small too, especially for the price they cost. I told Land So Pin that you can have a pot of tea for one at a café in Market Drayton for 80p and get three cups out of it, he seemed suitably impressed.

Tomorrow he promises to show me the real face of Shanghai, I hope it involves Bingo.

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