The Pot Boy Meditates on the Tea Cosy

Nobody has asked me for a smidge of advice in months—aside from the Alabamian Maid, who asked me for hat advice. Mine was sterling, as she would attest. This lack of interest from the lovelorn, the irate, and the generally upset is rather heartbreaking to a Pot Boy and would-be Palace Advice Columnist. So I shall offer some advice, gratis: for first-rate mental health, be sure to frequently slap a tea cosy on your head.

Wearing a tea cosy on the head is a harmless, pleasant little activity. I am surprised to find how many of my acquaintance have sported a tea cosy. It lends most a sort of Comic Bishop appearance. A scullery maid with the cosy set at a rakish angle is irresistible. Small children like to don a cosy, grab a poker, and strike a martial attitude.

There’s a Billy Connolly quote that deserves to be a pop-up, I see it so often: “Never trust a man who, when left alone with a tea cosy, doesn’t try it on.” Although a comedian, he must have some wisdom, because I find that there’s truth in that line. Is it his, or did he pilfer it from some statesman or oracle, I wonder?

It occurs to me that if Attorney Clendon—remember him?—had worn a tea cosy on his head while reading that Bilge Karasu novel, Night, he might not have vanished into the shadows. Perhaps he will, feeling about in the dark, find his fingers closing on a cosy. Perhaps it will serve as a sort of domestic life preserver and buoy him up.

Many claim that the cosy that is used as an occasional, spur-of-the-moment garment must be one of those hand-knitted or crocheted cosies that look like woollen hats. This is entirely false. The proper tea cosy attire is the traditional ‘dome’ cosy.

On my head is a grand dome cosy in orange, with blue and red polkadots. The interior is stained and ringed, and looks rather like cloth once stuffed in a mummy’s cranial cavity. In it I am grand and playful, ancient and boyish, wise and silly, an answerer of questions too deep for my understanding.

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Update: How satisfying to immediately get a question about proper attire, and another on peahens! I look forward to more questions, and when I have a sufficiency, I shall scrub the pots in great meditative circles and then reply.

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