It is a truth universally accepted that a tea which takes hours to create can disappear in a a matter of minutes.

I speak, of course, not of a hastily compiled plate of snacks in front of the telly. No; I refer to Afternoon Tea, that iconic repast, that halcyon meal taken best on good china with one’s little finger cocked daintily at odds with all the others.

Afternoon tea, whose single redeeming green thing is a thin sliver of cucumber imprisoned between bread slices trimmed within inches of their existence; the meal which graces every decent London hotel at four sharp  every afternoon; the meal of the tiered cake stand and the doily.

Ah, yes, the doily. Doily was a London draper who invented this small round finely crocheted phenomenon to protect furniture. His work was renowned for the genteel, but these days it has metamorphosed into the strangest…