Chip bought this mug on a trip to the USA, before we met, and got it for her mother, whom she believed to be a fan both of penguins and fornication. When Joan died in 1987, Chip kept it, and, on account of both its size and weight, and her liking for taking tea from bone china or porcelain delicacies, while I favoured coffee in gulpable amounts, it became my cup by default, and one of the six elements I have assembled for virtually every breakfast over the past 20 years and more: a plateful of toast, unsalted butter, an eight-cup cafetiere of black coffee, Meridian spreads and a couple of spreading knives.
It's not so much tempting Fate as blowing it a fat raspberry and shouting ' Come on if you think you're hard enough, but this thing has survived virtually daily use by Sapper Granger for closing in a quarter century without coming close to destruction.
Edit: sadly, the prediction above came true on 12 February 2015; a but of UHU and it's reborn as a pen-mug, but I'm going to have to find something new for my coffee...
