"Tea, Timely Tweets, and My Intentions to Become a Professional Juggler"

Tea, Timely Tweets, and My Intentions to Become a Professional Juggler

By: P. H. Potter (not to be confused with the Hogwarts wizard)

There were three things that kept me going over the last fortnight: a steady supply of tea, a spreadsheet of potential tweets, and an ever‑growing stack of objects that I hoped could one day juggle themselves. If you’ve ever looked at my blog and thought, “What the deuce is this hoarder doing?” then you’re in for a treat.

Tea is the pre‑eminent sustenance of all that is right in Britain. I swore, after a particularly dry afternoon at the office, that I would never again risk the consequences of an empty teapot. I now have a small, brass kettle that gurgles like a cleaning lady in a high‑rise apartment block. My tea power is such that I can tolerate the hum of the office printer and the crackling of the Wi‑Fi router, all while achieving a full cup of Earl Grey with milk that tastes like pure, unadulterated dedication.

My Timely Tweets serve two important functions: one, to record my thoughts in real time; and two, to remind me of the tasks I forgot. Have you ever tried to tweet while simultaneously holding a cup of tea? It is a gargantuan feat – a true testament to the British award for multitasking. Unfortunately, my poor hand coordination means that I usually misspell “Twitter” as “Twiter” and tweet about my tea supply in the wrong 280 characters. Nevertheless, my followers adore the inevitable typo, and I have been asked to politely respond with the phrase, “Oops, typo forms the essence of humanity.”

And My Intentions to Become a Professional Juggler – loftier than my tea consumption, yet still web‑driven. My juggling ambitions began when I watched the BBC documentary Juggling: The Other Side of a Life in which a man held five apples, a feather duster, and a live pigeon while reciting Shakespeare. That was when I thought, “Is that lent serve? No, I would perform a different kind of spectacle for the public.” I am especially intrepid because I have never owned a juggling hobby before: I have a loosest collection of oranges, a single candle, and the sofa cushion that simply wanted to be thrown up for a moment of joy.

I set my sights on stardom, because I realise that small shelves of canned vegetables won’t throw me into the limelight. I have joined the local community theatre, where I practised catching a rubber ball at the back of a room while replying to Twitter messages. One might wonder: why juggling when you could sit and be busy? The answer is the inner aesthetic of hahening. A well‑timed catch is a “chant” in the language of juggling, and a well‑made flush of humour on Twitter makes you feel golden – the same as throwing the ball into a bag of air without dropping it.

So if you ever find yourself somewhere under a tree or in a library waiting for an appointment, schedule a tea break, post a tweet, and perhaps, if you are lucky, you will see me juggle a matchbox, a carrot, a tea leaf, and a lollipop. I never promised that I’d be a professional juggler – it was a joke about a very bright future. But that, combined with the motivation and understated confidence constructed by a true communal tradition – pluck of the tea kettle, a few retweets, and a flurry of potential wins – almost assures that for the world to be a circus starts just now.

If you want to become a professional juggler too, I suggest: start by juggling a cup of tea while posting a tweet. That will at least keep you from losing your bearings (and your tea constants). Cheers!