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One of the most quintessential traditions of British cuisine is a good afternoon tea. Whether it be a tea, coffee, there is nothing better than a chat over some hot drinks and sandwiches and cake of course.

And with Mothering Sunday just around the corner there is no better way to tell your mum how much she means to you than treating her to a trip out and a beautiful tea. It could be cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponge cake or a cream tea with scones. While a super posh Fortnum and Mason afternoon tea might be out of many people price range - and too far to travel all the way to London, there are still so many amazing places people can visit to order a tea from right here in Staffordshire.

Afternoon teas are steeped in history, the tradition is largely credited to Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, when in 1840 afternoon tea was created because the duchess would become hungry at around 4pm. The evening meal in the Bedford household was served at 8pm, as was fashionable at the time, which left a long gap between lunch and dinner, and so afternoon tea was born.

TOP STORY: Best Sunday roast in every town in Staffordshire

So we have looked at the best place to book an afternoon tea across Staffordshire based on reviews from the public on Tripadvisor With all of these, pre-booking is usually essential so make sure you check ahead before setting off.

Stone

Restaurant at Moddershall Oaks. Address: Moddershall Oaks, Stone ST15 8TG. Rating 4.0 from 451 reviews.

One reviewer said: "Wow. What a difference from 2018 when I last visited. Unrecognisable. The place is so lovely and modern. The food was spectacular and the staff are even more friendly."

Stafford

Cup a Cha. Address: 4&5 North Walls Unit 4, Stafford ST16 3AD. Rating: 5.0 from 157 reviews

One reviewer said: "Booked afternoon tea for my mum's birthday, for her, my daughter and me. Beautiful food, very welcoming (as always) and the three of us had a lovely lunch together."

Burton

Dovecliff Hall Hotel. Address: Dovecliff Road Stretton, Burton DE13 0DJ. One reviewer said: "I would like to thank all the staff at Dovecliffe Hall for facilitating a very special afternoon tea for our choir. The tea was displayed on layered cake stands and each part was obviously made with care, with attention to detail. The proof is obviously in the eating and everything was delicious."

Swadlincote

The Bluebell Tea Room. Address: 2 Belmont Street, Swadlincote DE11 8JU. Rating 5.0 from 135 reviews. One reviewer said: "A place I visit regularly. A warm welcome every time. Excellent food and the staff are so nice. Don't miss out on visiting this lovely establishment."

Uttoxeter

The Vintage Tea Emporium. Address: 38 Market Place, Uttoxeter ST14 8HP. Rating: 4.5 from 342 reviews. One reviewer said: "Been here three or four times now for afternoon tea and its by far the best we have had. The sandwiches are so tasty and the scones are divine. Need to try something off the menu next time as other peoples food looked beautiful."

Newcastle

Bailey's Vintage Tearoom (Address: 26 High Street, Newcastle-under-Lyme ST5 0JB) Rating: 4.0 from 38 reviews. One reviewer said: "Friendly staff, good food, quaint tea room. All food was freshly prepared when ordered. Nicely presented on china plates. We had sandwiches served with a good size side salad, pot of coleslaw and crisps. Prices very reasonable. Fresh cream scones delicious."

Cannock

Ego at Tumbledown Farm. Address: Tumbledown Farm, Four Crosses Lane, Cannock WS11 1RU. Rating: 4.0 from 1,848 reviews. One reviewer said: "Lovely good. Very friendly staff. Very good birthday treat. Our dog was made very welcome too. Definitely visit again."

Lichfield

The George Hotel. Address: 12-14 Bird Street, Lichfield WS13 6PR. Rating: 4.0 from 1,468 ratings. One reviewer said: "Visited for afternoon tea party and overnight stay. The room was spotless. The staff were lovely. Breakfast and afternoon tea were very nice. Altogether, a lovely break in a well maintained and excellently staffed hotel."

Rugeley

Vintage Tearoom. Address: Parkland Suite, St Thomas Priory, Armitage WS15 1PU. Address: 4.5 from 75 reviews. One reviewer said: "Visited this afternoon, brilliant reception and service. Couldn't fault the food, great value and plenty of it. Will definitely return."

Penkridge

The Moat House. Address: Lower Penkridge Road, Acton Trussell, ST17 0RJ. Rating: 4.5 from 1,381 reviews. One reviewer said: "Had afternoon tea booked for 3pm The Orangery never disappoints; beautiful surroundings amazing staff and food always tasty and plentiful. After we had a seat outside by the lake and table service was swift . Comfortable nights sleep & lovely breakfast."

Tamworth

The Fox Inn. Address: Lichfield Road Hopwas, Tamworth B79 7SH. Rating: 4.0 from 416 reviews. One reviewer said: "Went here with friends. Great food and service. We were looked after by Sharon B who was very pleasant and helpful. Cant wait to return."

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Best places for afternoon teas in every town in Staffordshire - Staffordshire Live

It has been 10 days since the BJP baggedthe numbers in the Manipur Assembly election to form the government without requiring help from any other party.

Suspense, however, still looms over the chief minister pick.

While Manipur caretaker Chief Minister N Biren Singh successfully led the state government in the last five years, there are other contenders for the CM chair as well.

Apart N Biren Singh, senior Manipur BJP leader Thongam Biswajit Singh, Govindas Konthoujam Singh former Manipur Congress chief who recently joined the Saffron party andspeaker in the previous assembly, RSS-backed Yumnam Khemchand Singh, are also said to be in the race.

According to sources, none of the contenders are ready to accept the other and the friction between Biswajit and Biren is at its peak.

Thongam Biswajit Singh skipped the tea party which was held after the party won the assembly poll.

Both, N Biren Singh and Thongam Biswajit Singh, flew to Delhi on Saturday to meet the central leadership amid discussions over the in the party over the next chief minister of Manipur.

N Biren Singh met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other senior ministers, while Thongam Biswajit Singh, too, held talks with the party top brass.

Sources privy to the developments said that the CM name has been finalised and the respective person has also been informed of the same after the Saturday meetingsthat took place atAmit Shahs residence.

The name is likely to be out by Sunday night and the party is said to have decided to send Manipur observers, Kiren Rijiju and Nirmala Sitharaman, to the state with the task of chalking out a suitabledate for swearing-in ceremony.

Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and Ukraine-Russia War Live Updates here.

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Manipur Govt Formation: Biswajit or Biren? Suspense on Next CM to be Over Soon - News18

Six new variants, including four from the recent AlphaZero paper,are now available for all Chess.com members to try. They can be found at Chess.com/variants.

The recent scientific paper from Google's DeepMind, co-written by 14th world chess champion Vladimir Kramnik, caused quite a stir. The nine variants that were tested bythe self-learning chess engine AlphaZero were discussed widely in the chess world.

Now, four of them can be played on Chess.com. Three other variants are now available on our site as well. Here's an overview, starting with the AlphaZero ones:

This is a variant that's easy to understand and possibly closest to regular chess: castling is not allowed, and that's it. As GM Magnus Carlsen remarked this weekend, he would have answered GM Hikaru Nakamura's Bongcloud 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2(which Naka played against GM Jeffery Xiong) with 2...Ke7 and after 3.Ke1 Ke8 you have No Castling chess.

But it's safer to play the variant itself, now available on our site so that you don't run the risk of playing that Bongcloud and getting an opponent that doesn't play along and smashes you instead.

Play No Castling chess here.

This variant was called Self-capture in the DeepMind paper. It basically allows you to take your own pieces as well, in addition to your opponent's pieces. You can imagine positions where it makes sense for a rook to take the pawn in front of it because opening a line could be (much) more valuable than that pawn.

Kramnik was very enthusiastic about this variant. He wrote:"I like this variation a lot, I would even go as far as to say that to me this is simply an improved version of regular chess.... Regardless of its relatively minor effect on the openings, self-captures add aesthetically beautiful motifs in the middlegames and provides additional options and winning motifs in endgames."

Play Capture Anything here.

On Friday, September 18, Chess.com hosted a round-table discussion with GM Vladimir Kramnik, IM Danny Rensch, and researchers of DeepMind discussing their latest paper in which AlphaZero explores chess variants. Here it is for replay:

This is possibly the most complicated variant of all: pawns are not only allowed to run forward but also sideways.As Kramnik wrote, "Even after having looked at how AlphaZero plays Pawnside chess, the principles of play remain somewhat mysteriousit is not entirely clear what each side should aim for. The patterns are very different, and this makes many moves visually appear very strange, as they would be mistakes in classical chess."

Play Sideways Pawns here.

Torpedo speeds up the game as here pawns can move by one or twosquares anywhere on the board. (In standard chess, only in the starting position are they allowed to move two squares.) Interestingly, en passant canconsequently happen anywhereon the board. But the biggest difference is that games become more tacticalcompared to standard chess. Watch those pawns.

Play Torpedo here.

Besides the four variants tested by AlphaZero, three other variants have been made available this week as well. Fog of War, also known as Dark Chess, has been the most popular so far. It is a variant where the main novelty is lack of information:you can only see the squares where your pieces or pawns can move and attack.

Play Fog of War here.

If you want to remove any information (instead of the board itself, which you'll need to play), you can try Blindfold chess. In addition to being a fun challenge, this could be a good way to train your visualization skills.

Playing blindfold chess has such a rich history that there's a separate Wikipedia page on it as well as a page in our Terms section. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Melody Amber tournament had top grandmasters play blindfold chess behind a laptop for which special software was created. If the tournament were to be re-instated, they could just log into Chess.com.

Play Blindfold chess here.

Last but not least, Chess.com has added the variant Chaturanga. Speaking of history, this ancient Indian board game is in fact considered to be a common ancestor to chess.

So what are the rules? Well, for starters, the pieces have different names. The king is Raja, the queenFerz, the rook Ratha, the bishop Alfil, the knight Ashva, and the pawnBhata.The Ferz is much weaker is it can only move one square diagonally.The Alfil jumps two squares diagonally. Other than that, the pawns can only move one square and castling does not exist.

Play Chaturanga chess here.

This is not all. As some of Chess.com's programmers go pretty wild about variants, they are now working on a project called Custom variants, where members can mix and match rules to make their own variant.

That would be perfect for GM Levon Aronian, who already came up with something. He recently stated that he would like to try Capture Anything but limit captures to the heavy pieces. Soon, he might be able to create Aronian Chess on Chess.com.

Interested in trying out the new variants? Find them at Chess.com/variants.

See also:

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AlphaZero (And Other!) Chess Variants Now Available For Everyone - Chess.com

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Lawrence: No-fly fantasy in Ukraine

Large shipments of Western weapons continue to flow into Ukraine as Russias invasion enters its fourth week.

President Joe Biden announced an additional $800 million in new security aid to Ukraine on Thursday, hours after Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyys address to Congress. The U.S. weapons package to Ukraine will include eight hundred Stinger anti-aircraft systems, twenty million rounds of ammunition, 7,000 light weapons, 9,000 anti-armor systems, and one hundred drones.

"These are direct transfers of equipment from our Department of Defense to the Ukrainian military to help them as they fight against this invasion, Biden said.

Biden singled out the anti-aircraft weapons in the aid package. He also said the United States is helping Ukraine acquire additional longer-range anti-aircraft systems and the munitions for those systems.

One possibility could be transferring long-range S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to Ukraine.

"These S-300s and longer-range artillery forces is what will help close the sky over Ukraine, said Gregory Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "President Zelensky is not asking for American troops or American equipment or anything of that nature to close the skies. What he's asking for is the artillery that will do that. The S-300 may be the one that does that.

CNN reported that Slovakia is considering giving Ukraine an S-300 system, but wants assurances that the weapon will be replaced immediately with a system of similar capabilities. Negotiations are reportedly underway to backfill Slovakias missile defense capabilities with a U.S.-made Patriot missile system, but the current status of those talks remains unclear. Slovakia is one of only three NATO members to possess the Soviet-era S-300, with the others being Bulgaria and Greece.

"I want to be honest with you. This could be a long and difficult battle, Biden said. But the American people will be steadfast in our support of the people of Ukraine, in the face of Putin's immoral, unethical attacks on civilian populations.

British defense minister Ben Wallace said to the BBC on Wednesday that Britain is supplying Starstreak man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) to Ukraine. Wallace told U.K. lawmakers last week that London is considering delivering Starstreak systems to Ukraine, noting certain logistical challenges that include training.

Other forms of military aid to Kiev remain off the table for now. The Biden administration has declined proposals to transfer MiG-29 jet fighters from Poland to Ukraine, with U.S. defense officials claiming that the Ukrainian military is currently not in need of more aircraft and that they can fight more effectively with their western-supplied man-portable missiles. Leaders in Washington and other NATO countries have likewise repeatedly rejected Zelenskyys continued calls for a Western-imposed no-fly zone in Ukrainian airspace, describing the measure as a needlessly risky and escalatory step.

Mark Episkopos is a national security reporter for The National Interest.

Image: Reuters.

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United States, NATO Allies Sending Additional Weapons to ...