Monday's Quote of the Day
"The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75 percent of stocks" - the issue that troubled civil servants in the 1950s - ensuring there would be enough tea in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack.
A secret government report from 1955, just released by the National Archives, outlines what officials "assumed" would happen in the first two weeks of a nuclear war.
As well as putting the death toll at five million, they feared that the attack would decimate tea stocks and imports would be delayed. "It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week (enough for about 12 cups) could be ensured." Oh, and 10 million people would be injured or affected by nuclear fall-out. Time to put the kettle on.