"It's a bomb, dear. Elbows off the table"
A friend of mine was in Gunter's tea shop one day when an air raid began. As the sedate atmosphere was increasingly disrupted by the sound of explosions coming closer, the waiters disappeared, leaving the nannies and their charges to display characteristically British phlegm (morbid humour) as the plaster dust sifted down onto their meringues and milles feuilles.
Finally, with a massive crump, a bomb destroyed the house next door: the tea shop windows blew in, the lights went out and part of the ceiling collapsed.
"It's a bomb, dear," she replied. "Elbows off the table."