You'd be surprised how much easier it is to conduct business over tea than over lunch or dinner in a bustling restaurant.

We are not passing values on to our children. We are not sitting down at the dinner table talking about the tiny things that add up to caring human beings.

At tea time, all the noise, greed and aggressiveness of the '80s can be drowned out. For 45 minutes, anyway.

Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.

There is so much bad manners and oafishness in large corporations.

Manners are nothing more than thinking about somebody else.