Media
In the past they were often used as stereotypical figures in British comedy, with a tea lady usually portrayed as a harassed, overweight, middle aged woman in a uniform and cap, or as a very pretty recipient of all sorts of lewd comments from the workforce, as in the Carry on film Carry on at your Convenience.
The character Mrs Doyle in the 1990s British sitcom Father Ted, set in Ireland, had the role of a tea lady, and became known for relentlessly forcing the other characters to drink the tea she'd made for them, possibly a reference to the fact that the Irish are the biggest tea drinkers in the world averaging 4 to 6 cups per person per day. Tea ladies in general were a frequent target of illusory "cuts" and "economies" in Yes Minister, frequently conjured up by Nigel Hawthorne's character Sir Humphrey Appleby. However, tea ladies were never once seen onscreen for the whole five-series run of the show.
In association football, media and fans often blame "the tea lady" for leaking information about player transfers to the public, regardless of whether or not team managers actually have a tea lady.
Read more about this topic: Tea Lady
Famous quotes containing the word media:
“The question confronting the Church today is not any longer whether the man in the street can grasp a religious message, but how to employ the communications media so as to let him have the full impact of the Gospel message.”
—Pope John Paul II (b. 1920)
“The media no longer ask those who know something ... to share that knowledge with the public. Instead they ask those who know nothing to represent the ignorance of the public and, in so doing, to legitimate it.”
—Serge Daney (1944–1992)
“The media have just buried the last yuppie, a pathetic creature who had not heard the news that the great pendulum of public conciousness has just swung from Greed to Compassion and from Tex-Mex to meatballs.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)