My favourite mug

I would like to take this opportunity to mark the passing of a very dear friend. My favourite mug suffered a tragic freak accident this morning when another mug fell on top of it. The other mug, naturally, was undamaged.

My favourite mug was made of white toughened glass, which in my view is the absolutely best thing to drink tea out of, as all good caffs know. It featured a charming, if not very right-on, illustration of a smiling tiger - who, I now suddenly realise, not having looked at it properly for years, bears an uncanny resemblance to Bruce Forsyth - and a very small Indian man - hunter or keeper? I never could decide - whose crudely drawn features manage nonetheless clearly to convey an air of baleful impotence in the face of the disproportionately big big cat.

I remember selecting it - in Woolworths, where else - some time in the mid 1970s. My sister and I got to choose one each. It has been with me ever since, a minimum of thirty, probably more like thirty five years. It has comforted me with tea on many momentous occasions, as well as making the odd racy foray into delivering coffee or cocoa. Tea is its real purpose in life however. It has stayed with me from house to house, from life to life. It is one of the very few things I would never leave behind. Other mugs - hundreds, probably - have come and gone, but this one I have used nearly every day. Every day for thirty plus years.

And now it's gone. I didn't quite shed a tear - I'm very good at not crying over spilt milk - but it's another little bit of my past consigned to the dustbin, and a timely reminder that nothing lasts forever.