IF IT CAME DOWN to choosing between a cup of tea and a do-it-yourself vasectomy, I'd probably opt for the cuppa. But the decision wouldn't be as easy as it might seem, given my age and my experience at washing teacups.

I'll deal with the idea of DIY chopping away at one's naughty bits after I've had a stiff drink and a little lie-down. So it's tea first, although I cannot for the life of me fathom the fascination with the stuff.

First off, there is the taste. Tea is bitter, so you need milk, sugar and preferably the odd dollop of vodka or brandy to render it drinkable - which suffocates the taste, so why even bother? If you must drink tincture of leaf, rake the yard and boil up the takings. It's cheaper.

But my main concern might best be described as tea fallout - the residue that gets deposited in cups with the tenacity of superglue and requires steel wool or a pneumatic drill or C4 plastique explosive to loosen.

I know, because in our household I get the task of washing the dishes (a long-standing deal with my wife Elizabeth, who gets to clean out the cat litter trays - she says I'm eccentric, but I'm not completely bonkers). Which leaves me the teacups.

Have you ever examined the debris left on durable crockery by tea? I've seen more attractive stains on toilet bowls at Cairo's airport after an epidemic of dysentery brought on by a particularly dodgy batch of kebabs, hummus and sheep's brains.

At least teacups can be washed. All your innards have are some hydrochloric acid and a handful of enzymes, which is a bit like chopping down a sequoia with a five-foot long wet noodle.

And all the while the residue is building up, breakfast by tea break, centimeter by centimeter, cheek by jowl, mason jar by Corning, clogging up your alimentary canal (barfs at one end, farts at the other).

Then comes the grim day of the payoff, and you die of malnutrition because nothing can get through all that grunge, and the coroner rules that "this man (or woman, or cat, if you've got a singularly stupid feline) died of terminal tea plaque of the esophagus."

Tea, of course, is a way of life in Britain. The currency is plunging its way to China, the only schedule the trains follow is about 1.7 derailments per week and cows are going to bovine heaven in their millions with foot-and-mouth disease, but there's always time to waste an hour or three on a tea break.

Anyway, I cannot comprehend the British love affair with tea. Some bone-idle countess with butter for brains was the first to import it, from China or India or some such locale of dodgy culinary tastes. The stuff has been nothing but trouble for them since.

Tea cost the British empire its American arm, as the events of 1773 were to show. That's when a band of disgruntled Yanks donned Indian garb and warpaint and turned Boston harbor into a huge tea urn.

And that's why Coke (the liquid kind) and not tea became the American national tipple. Well, maybe except for Budweiser and Coors after the dry martini went out of fashion.

Meanwhile, back in jolly old England, tea continues to wreak havoc. Now, unions are threatening to bring London's entire rail system to a screeching halt and leave three million daily commuters without transportation - because of a fight over teapots.

The rail management is offering to provide electrified kettles to warm water for train drivers' tea. "Not good enough," sniff the union leaders. "We want proper, industrial-sized boilers."

"For most places" on the rail system, a management spokeswoman says, "we think a kettle is sufficient." Besides which, she notes, "we also supply free tea and coffee."

To which the union folk respond that they've already penciled in dates for a strike vote and declaration. So if you're coming to London anytime soon, bring hiking boots and be prepared to spend a lot of time sitting around drinking tea (the coffee is foul).

It was while taking a hammer and chisel to Elizabeth's teacup the other day that I heard a news item on BBC Radio that threatened to turn my groin into cherry jelly. A chap named Jonathan Heatley gave himself a vasectomy, on purpose.

Heatley is a doctor, which helps, I suppose, but his little contribution to medical lore makes for very queasy reading even to a man of my advancing years. (The tools may be outdated, but they can still come in handy from time to time.)

The doc looked around, saw he had three sons aged 16, 14 and 12, decided enough was enough (anyone who has ever raised a human creature that age can fully sympathize with that) and decided to give himself the "snip" (but not that).

After giving three other males the whack in his office, he decided to make himself No. 4. He gave himself a local anesthetic in the appropriate region (I cringe as I write this, but he says it "hurt no more than giving blood").

Then he set to the serious business at hand, so to speak, after enlisting the help of his wife Heather. "The operation apparatus works via a pedal switch on the floor, which was a bit tricky for me to do," he said. "So I kept asking my wife to press the pedal when I needed it done."

Quite.

"She was very surprised that I was actually doing it," Heatley said. I think I can understand that.

Whatever, the whole thing took about 20 minutes, and Doc Heatley allowed as how "I hardly felt a thing, although it made me sweat a bit."

Fine. Now I'm going to pour the sweat out of my keyboard and get myself a good, stiff drink. A quadruple brandy, please. Oh, and hold the tea.

Thought for the Week: There are two kinds of people - those who finish what they start, and

"Notes From A Tangled Webb" is syndicated by: