394: Two Teapots

Teacup in Manchester's Northern Quarter is dreadful. Last year my fiancee and I went in for a cup of tea and a cake. We stood, the only people in the queue, at the counter for five minutes, while four members of staff the other side of the counter messed about and ignored us. Then we stormed out and I swore never to return. But I went back yesterday with a friend. We went up to the counter and were told we would be served at a table, and he'd be right over. We told him where we would be sat and took our seats. We waited about ten minutes until someone tried to deliver us someone else's cupcakes: are these yours? No, but we would like to order. My friend ordered a black coffee, and a glass full of ice (he enjoys a nice iced coffee), and I ordered an assam tea.

A sandwich board outside reads S'ils n'ont plus de pain, qu’ils mangent de la brioche which might as well be French for stay away from this pretentious dump. If you care what it means (If they have no bread, let them eat cake) you shouldn't: the correct reaction to a menu written in French in England is just to walk away. A good rule of thumb, especially anywhere you see custard referred to as creme anglaise.

My tea came with two pots and a weird triple egg-timer thing. It was explained to me, slightly apologetically, that it wasn't as complicated as it looked. I was to wait until the middle egg-timer had run through, then pour the water from the first pot through the strainer and into the empty second pot. From the second pot I was then allowed to pour directly into my cup. Why not just pour through the strainer directly into the cup, I know you are thinking. Exactly. Pretentious for pretension's sake. On top of that the tea was served with more than enough milk for ten cups of tea, no sugar, and both the teapots were greasy.

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, so says Occam's Razor. Or translated for the staff at Teacup, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.  (Although that's Latin not French, but you get the idea.)

My friend's coffee arrived without his glass of ice. He asked again for the ice, but none came. Later he asked again for a glass full of ice cubes and a minute later the waitress arrived with a glass of tap water with about three tiny ice cubes floating at the top. Eventually the oh so complicated order of a glass of ice cubes was completed successfully – Huzzah!

Teacup seems to be of the impression that because it sells expensive designer cupcakes instead of homemade fairy cakes, and is frequented by people desperate to be hip, they can charge whatever they like, add loads of meaningless extras to the simple process of pouring a cup of tea, and offer the laziest and most ignorant service in Manchester. Better service is available in any random McDonald's you care to choose.

My first experience at Teacup was a lesson in fuck off we don't want your custom, and my second experience was didn't you learn your lesson the first time? Very well, we will serve you but we don't want to. I don't need to be told a third time: I am staying well away from Teacup from now until the world is consumed by an expanding sun.

334: Coffee morning

Ohhhkay, it's stupid o'clock in the morning – perhaps the earliest I will ever blog, certainly the earliest so far – the mythical morn-time of six twenty A-to the-M. I'm doing overtime yet am still so skint that I will have to walk to work instead of catching the bus like a normal person (joining the ranks of sleepy workers with their faces pressed against the windows, gently snoring to themselves).

The only bread we have is that toastie stuff which makes awful sandwiches and I can't remember if the staff canteen has a sandwich toaster. Being awake and able to move around this early is entirely thanks my housemate's arsenal of strong coffees, and my silly late-night/early-morning indulgence on the stuff; which is closer to hard drugs than soft drink. Who knew people were up this morning; I've already seen two people in matching blue t-shirts drive away from outside the flat.

Now Ive mentioned the early hour, the walk to work and the coffee I seem to have run out of steam ; what else is there to talk about? I can't think of a thing to say about the two blue t-shirt people. Presumably they know what's going on, where they are going, what they are doing, and why they must match one another in two blue t-shirts. As far as I can tell they would be better off not matching, and staying in bed to a more reasonable hour. Perhaps if it was middle of winter with all the wintery accoutrements (pretentious wrong word alert) they would have done the proper honest decent thing and snooze-buttoned it all the way to late for work. I would.

Just time to read the facebook comments on a wrestling video I linked to – just the important stuff. Forget about all that shaving and showering (and other s-word) morning ish ; I'm just going to stumble through town and into work in boxers and a t-shirt ; yeah this is the new uniform bitches, y'all better step back and recognise. It's breakfast time, innit!

But enough about me; would you like coffee, tea, a biscuit? Well give me a couple of weeks and I can probably work out something you'll be satisfied ; a teabag stapled to a postcard with your name and address on it ; that sort of thing. That should keep you quiet for some time. Give me a chance to think, despite the fact the alarm downstairs is still doing some pointless beeping. It's not too loud to be an actual alarm, but it's just loud enough to be annoying; jeggy on the ears. Why I oughta. Right that's enough; best stop messing and get ready for work. We've had our fun, now let's get serious.

330: black shirt, black coffee, blue sky, black sky

Wow – it's Monday morning and I'm wide awake, fully slept, sitting at my desk, getting some jolly writing done before I have to get ready for work. I start at 12.30 leaving plenty of time to get ready leisurely and walk to work in my black trousers and shirt in the sweaty sun. My work uniform is just all black, which is fine by me ; it's almost as though it is intended to make one feel good about oneself, as opposed to most retail uniforms (e.g. The garish crap they stick McDonald's workers in).

There was a fire drill at work the other day which resulted in us all having to down tools and head to the nearest escape. Hundreds of black-shirted workers stood around in Manchester's Piccadilly Gardens. I attempted to mentally write something about it while I waited to go back in. The best I could come up with was the following: I haven't seen so many blackshirts in Manchester since the last time those cocksuckers at the EDL held one of their idiot parades. Not too bad, is it? Yeah, I know it's shit, but ho-hum.

Now it's Monday afternoon and I'm desperate for a cup of tea and can barely hold my weary head up. Fuck tea ; I live with a hardcore coffee drinker so I sat the moka percolator pot on the hob and now have thick gloopy hot caffeine in a cup. And hot dang is it delicious. A storm is coming; the blue sky has passed and heavy grey hangs low below us : high above us – rain comes sweeping in prepping the ground for the storm to come. The heatwave sneaked in for a short time – I expect it will continue tomorrow – the moth on the window senses the forthcoming deluge, and panics against the glass. Anyway, where was I - ~am I, where am I? Today started with such promise. The blog was almost about something, but now who knows what I'm going on about.

I have fixed up the tiny little spare room in this weird shaped flat. The long rectangle has become half tv/living room (with the amazing ability to morph into the most cramped bedroom this side of Tokyo) and half office/library. I have to climb over the futon to get into my little study space and in here I am completely surrounded by my books and boxes full of paper ephemera – it's my comfortable little nest from where I can squark and eat the worms vomited into my mouth by the large feathered one.

The window is perfectly placed to gaze out of – all whistful and arty like, as though I think I'm one of those romantic poet types or a professional philosopher looking at the world and cautiously exclaiming why? It perfectly reflects the TV behind me which is currently showing the third or fourth Buffy of the night. It's pretty destracting, hence my lack of focus.

Caspar David Friedrich, Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,1818