i don't care if monday's blue
tuesday's grey and wednesday too
thursday i don't care about you
it's friday, i'm in love
hello my name's dave and i'm an addict!
I tried to give up coffee once. I lasted 2 days. After 48 hours without 'the bean' I cracked and ordered a cappuccino. With a double shot. I also popped to Coles and bought a packet of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Just to be on the safe side.
I'd had a banging headache since 10am on the morning I gave up. The headache went away when I was about halfway through the packet of choc-covered beans. I finished the packet anyway. Just to be on the safe side.I swore I'd never do anything as silly as giving up coffee again.
For what it's worth, I don't smoke and don't really drink that much (those of you who know me or have seen me dancing naked on a table in the middle of a pub might beg to differ). So coffee is really my only vice. Having said that, I've always found those people who smoke 40-a-day and then say, 'yeah but I don't drink, so smoking is my only vice' a bit odd. It's the 40 a day that'll kill you, mate. The fact that you don't drink whilst puffing your way through that lot is neither here nor there! Ha ha.
Well, I don't drink anything like 40-a-day. I'm strictly a 3 to 6 cups-a-day addict. Admittedly, on those rare 3-cup days, the first (and often the second) is a double-shot. So please don't be misled by the apparently low cup count.
Australia is - and Australians are - obsessed with coffee. Obsessed. With a capital Ob. It's a religion down here.
So, to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, I'd like to state for the record; no-one does coffee like the Aussies.
That statement will cause a storm of protest from Rome to Romiley (my humble place of birth just to the south of Manchester) and beyond. But I reckon that the Italians love coffee, the Brits drink coffee, the French do strange stuff with coffee (like dip their croissants in it) and the whole of the Middle East doesn't do coffee, it does thick tar that masquerades as coffee. (I haven't mentioned the USA because I just can't bring myself to class a two-litre bucket of brown, flavoured-water as coffee!). But the Aussies really DO coffee.
Getting your caffeine hit is really serious stuff down here. Baristas are the new demi-gods; the cocktail waiters of the new millenium. DJ's were the coolest dudes of yesteryear, then came the cocktail waiter with his fringe down over his eyes and all sorts of shiny silver tools tucked into his pants, but today it's the hot-looking barista who gets into all the good bars and snags all the nice girls who wannabe models. It must be the smell of the coffee on him, or her. A good barista is worth his or her weight in gold. Or coffee beans. And a good coffee shop, when discovered, can quickly become habit-forming. People will detour for miles and for days, to stop at a decent coffee joint. And people get very snobby about their coffee. I will cross the road rather than walk past some places that have served me a bad brew.
There are books telling you where to go to get your favourite fix. They rate all the coffee shops and give them scores out of five. The scores are illustrated by little coffee cup symbols. Get 5 symbols next to your name and the world's your oyster, the girls will be swooning, the nightclubs are yours to rampage through until early morning and the addicted masses will be worshipping at your feet.
Coffee.
It was first brewed and enjoyed in Ethiopia in the 15th Century, and it eventually spread throughout the Middle East before arriving in Italy in the 16th Century. The Pope tried to ban it claiming it was a 'Muslim drink', but he eventually gave up and got stuck in - probably after a decent cappuccino. The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645 and the Queen's Lane Coffee House opened 10 years later in Oxford, England. That one's still there today. A 350 year-old coffee shop, no less!!
Even today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Mormons to you and me - feel the need to prohibit the stuff. Apparently it's 'spiritually unhealthy'. To be honest I've never found that to be the case. I always feel great after one of my six daily coffees. My spirit is well and truly enlightened. Without coffee I'm right old misery guts.
But here's a fact that's worth pondering over your next double shot latte. If Mormon Mitt Romney gets the nod from the American public on Nov 6th 2012, there'll be a President sitting in the Oval Office who will very likely have no moral or ethical issue about going to war with Iran, North Korea or whoever might be out-of-favour at the time, but is, for moral and ethical reasons, unable to knock back a decent double-macchiato whilst making that decision. Go figure!
It's a funny old world, don't ya think?!
With that thought I'm off to grab a cappuccino from Barefoot Cafe to cheer myself up.
Coffee or not, I hope you have a super weekend.
Ps ... a few words about Manchester, Mods, Live Aid & Queen are coming your way on Sunday. That's Queen, not The Queen. I'll leave her - and her funny hats - for another day.
photo by picky.
There are books telling you where to go to get your favourite fix. They rate all the coffee shops and give them scores out of five. The scores are illustrated by little coffee cup symbols. Get 5 symbols next to your name and the world's your oyster, the girls will be swooning, the nightclubs are yours to rampage through until early morning and the addicted masses will be worshipping at your feet.
Coffee.
It was first brewed and enjoyed in Ethiopia in the 15th Century, and it eventually spread throughout the Middle East before arriving in Italy in the 16th Century. The Pope tried to ban it claiming it was a 'Muslim drink', but he eventually gave up and got stuck in - probably after a decent cappuccino. The first European coffee house opened in Italy in 1645 and the Queen's Lane Coffee House opened 10 years later in Oxford, England. That one's still there today. A 350 year-old coffee shop, no less!!
Even today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - Mormons to you and me - feel the need to prohibit the stuff. Apparently it's 'spiritually unhealthy'. To be honest I've never found that to be the case. I always feel great after one of my six daily coffees. My spirit is well and truly enlightened. Without coffee I'm right old misery guts.
But here's a fact that's worth pondering over your next double shot latte. If Mormon Mitt Romney gets the nod from the American public on Nov 6th 2012, there'll be a President sitting in the Oval Office who will very likely have no moral or ethical issue about going to war with Iran, North Korea or whoever might be out-of-favour at the time, but is, for moral and ethical reasons, unable to knock back a decent double-macchiato whilst making that decision. Go figure!
It's a funny old world, don't ya think?!
With that thought I'm off to grab a cappuccino from Barefoot Cafe to cheer myself up.
Coffee or not, I hope you have a super weekend.
Ps ... a few words about Manchester, Mods, Live Aid & Queen are coming your way on Sunday. That's Queen, not The Queen. I'll leave her - and her funny hats - for another day.
photo by picky.
No comments:
Post a Comment