Currently sitting in a coffee shop feeling slightly weary of the world in general (as is usual for a grey Tuesday morning) when I overhear (and see) something that the 'modern man' side of my brain tells me shouldn't bother me, but the adolescent emotionally fatigued side tells me to freak out at. Anyway, I think at 9am (ish. Shut up, it is. Oh, ok then 10.45. That's still early for a student. Like 6am for normal people. Ish.) it is worth noting.
Picture the scene, woman walks in with baby and toddler. Nothing unusual about that, particularly, both children seem to have the correct number of heads etc... What is a bit weird is when said woman sits down to breastfeed her child (again, not particularly troubling, even to me, the man who never gets past the 'o' in 'perio...' before running away) the one-headed toddler (just to be clear) starts screaming "oh yes oh yes oh yes Mummy, me too, please" before grabbing at the remaining available teet. This continues for a while.
Is this ok to be a little bit weirded-out by? Or should I - at the age of 24 - really be able to deal with this particular part of life's natural progression? Answers on a postcard, please (or, failing that, below)...
I think i'll keep my coffee black today.
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Monday, 21 February 2011
'Can you land a plane on it?', 'Nnnyaaaar, but you could probably land a helicopter'...
Oh dear god, sometimes to be in a Clifton coffee-shop is to be in Eton tuck shop just after supper time. Today’s highlight was ‘Rotund Man in Abercrombie Jumper and Scruffy Blonde Hair’ (RMAJSBH) invite ‘Skinny Man in Maroon Gillet with Slick Dark Hair’ (SMMGSDH) to his island for a ‘study break’. They were talking Ions, so i’m assuming they were physical scientists of some sort. Either that or they have an unnaturally large knowledge of the physical properties of Bosch crease-eliminating devices. Nonetheless, the conversation ran thusly (over a vanilla latte and a skinny macchiato – i’ll let you deduce who had what...):
RMAJSBH: So, how’s it going?
SMMGSDH: Well, pretty busy. My supervisor is practically up my arse over these Ions (Irons?)!
RMAJSBH: yar yar. Shame. Well, we could go to My Island for a study break.
SMMGSDH: Oh yar. Where is that then?
RMAJSBH: Oh it’s just some place of the South of France, it’s ours whenever we want it. I mean we have staff living there but they know we own it so they just have to clear off whenever we fancy caviar and Champers in a slightly more sunny setting. Fwnyar fnyar fnyaaaaaaaaaaaaar (the inbred version of ‘ha ha’).
SMMGSDH: Hmmm, well I would but sadly my life is not my own at the moment. The university has this absurd rule that final years need to go to at least eighty percent of their required classes. Fwnuff (the inbred equivalent of ‘tsch’).
RMAJSBH: Yar yar I thought so. Well Easter maybe, yar? You have been working pretty hard, after all. Like a whole two or three hours a week.
SMMGSDH: Hmmmmmm, I do deserve a short break I suppose. A week or two probably wouldn’t hurt. After all, I’m working on this in a team and they’re all poor so they’ll probably just spend a couple of days in Lanzarote or something for their Easter shally-do (I think this is inbred for ‘holiday’?). Sure they won’t mind picking up some slack. Probably best not leave too long though, being the only one from Eton I am sort of the self-appointed Emperor of the group after all. If i’m not around they’ll probably have eaten the fat one by the time I come back, like in that book Nanny read me.
RMAJSBH: What, Charlie and Lola Go to Market?
SMMGSDH: Something like that, yar. It had pigs in it somewhere, and I think someone in SPAIS sponges off the author’s daughter to maintain his bourgeois lifestyle while maintaining some claim to being an independent thinker within the social (fwnar fwnar) sciences. Or something. Anyway, like I said, best not be gone too long; otherwise it’ll be Rhodesia all over again. Is the land big enough to land a plane?
RMAJSBH: nnnyaaaaaaaaaar (the sound posh people make when they mean ‘no’ but are afraid saying so diminishes their social status so they make it sound as much like ‘yes’ as possible). But you could probably land a helicopter.
SMMGSDH: Pity, I could have borrowed Harry’s for the weekend. I’ve played flight simulator, how hard can it be?
Thus follows much talk of Mungo, Mindy and Mandy’s luuuuuuuuuuuuvely ‘ethnic’ do in Ceylon last year. God, I hope he tries to fly that plane...
Friday, 29 October 2010
People Yahtzee
I had a coffee of me at the start of this journey (a very long time ago now), so this counts! 'People yahtzee' is a game I've devised to stop me going crazy on what has now become a very long journey on a friday night (cheers national rail, how I do love you). Here's how the game goes:
A particular characteristic corresponds to a number on the dice. For today, these will be:
1 = shoes
2 = hair colour/style
3 = accessories (glasses, watches, necklaces etc...)
4 = electronic goods (mp3 players, phones, laptops etc...)
5 = clothes (but be specific - must be common colour, pattern or brand, at least)
6 = social class (a certain amount of deduction/guess work involved here, obviously)
You then apply these to what you can spot around you with standard yahtzee scores. So, for example, if you can see 2 people with long blonde hair, you have a pair of 2s and so score 4 points; if you see 3 people with spiky ginger hair and 2 people with converse trainers, you have a full house (three 2s and two 1s) so score 25 points (and are on a carraige which is very much anti the national hair style/colour average).
The only non-standard-yahtzee rules are that you only have 10 seconds to spot, and the second set of numbers must apply to the same people as the first set of number (so the two converse-wearers must be two of the same three gingers) for a full house. Oh, and no repeating - spot your own yahtzees, you lazy beggars.
Get it? Right! Let's play.
'Roll 1': I see 3 people with iphones (surprise, surprise - we are on a train to Cambridge via the London suburbs here). So that's three 4s with a score of 12 (and my 3 of a kind done).
Roll 2: I see 2 pairs of blue gloves (we're on a hot train, you weirdos). So that's two 3s and a score of 6.
Roll 3: I see three hairclips worn to the side. Three 2s or three 3s. I say three 3s as it gives me a higher score, it my game, and I'm playing on my own so there's one to complain. So that's a score of 9.
Roll 4: I see one pair of brown brogues (scuffed), with one head of stupid scruffy blonde hair (posh), with one pair of NHS-im-too-cool style glasses (stupid), holding a blackberry (touch-screen), with one blue ben sherman shirt (tight), who is (and I know, this taking a leap, youl just have to trust me) PAINFULLY middle class. So that's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the long-straight done (all in one poxy person), and a score of 40. Woo hoo me! Self high-five! Yea. (Note: I didn't actually do this. I think if I did I'd be escorted off the train thus lengthening my journey even more).
Roll 5: right, going for the full house here... Got it! 3 primark bags with two of said primark bag owners wearing flourescent punk nail varnish! Ooh yea. Good stuff. That's another 25 points. To me. Player One (of one).
Roll 6: Right, its getting tense now. The crowd have hushed (by which I mean the man with his head leaning unnervingly towards my crotch has stiped snoring). The other players are looking worried (by which I mean noone at all). Here goes ... YAHTZEE! 5 snotty middle class people all sitting in a row (if you count a corner in there somewhere)! What's that? You're challanging it? You want some evidence? Well, here goes...
Person 1: holding a (sodding) ipad
Person 2: wearing a floral dress that is meant to look like its made out of curtains in a certain 'kitsch' (read, shite) kind of way.
Person 3: Ted Baker shoes. Brown. Easy that one.
Person 4: talking very loudly to someone called Tim about going to Jasmine's for new year. Somewhere near Oxford by the sounds of things.
Person 5: Well, me.
Case closed. I win. Oh yea. Only 50 mins more to go (or so we're told, I long ago lost faith in the tinny voice from the sky). I might keep playing a bit, but my thumbs are tired so youl have to trust that I'll win that game fairly too.
'People Yahtzee'; I highly recommend it (so long as you don't mind freaking out the other passangers - I think the man with the Ted Bakers is still wondering why a slightly crazed bloke furiously tapping on his laptop just paused, unprompted, and asked him what brand his shoes were before feverishly returning to his task with a big grin...).
A particular characteristic corresponds to a number on the dice. For today, these will be:
1 = shoes
2 = hair colour/style
3 = accessories (glasses, watches, necklaces etc...)
4 = electronic goods (mp3 players, phones, laptops etc...)
5 = clothes (but be specific - must be common colour, pattern or brand, at least)
6 = social class (a certain amount of deduction/guess work involved here, obviously)
You then apply these to what you can spot around you with standard yahtzee scores. So, for example, if you can see 2 people with long blonde hair, you have a pair of 2s and so score 4 points; if you see 3 people with spiky ginger hair and 2 people with converse trainers, you have a full house (three 2s and two 1s) so score 25 points (and are on a carraige which is very much anti the national hair style/colour average).
The only non-standard-yahtzee rules are that you only have 10 seconds to spot, and the second set of numbers must apply to the same people as the first set of number (so the two converse-wearers must be two of the same three gingers) for a full house. Oh, and no repeating - spot your own yahtzees, you lazy beggars.
Get it? Right! Let's play.
'Roll 1': I see 3 people with iphones (surprise, surprise - we are on a train to Cambridge via the London suburbs here). So that's three 4s with a score of 12 (and my 3 of a kind done).
Roll 2: I see 2 pairs of blue gloves (we're on a hot train, you weirdos). So that's two 3s and a score of 6.
Roll 3: I see three hairclips worn to the side. Three 2s or three 3s. I say three 3s as it gives me a higher score, it my game, and I'm playing on my own so there's one to complain. So that's a score of 9.
Roll 4: I see one pair of brown brogues (scuffed), with one head of stupid scruffy blonde hair (posh), with one pair of NHS-im-too-cool style glasses (stupid), holding a blackberry (touch-screen), with one blue ben sherman shirt (tight), who is (and I know, this taking a leap, youl just have to trust me) PAINFULLY middle class. So that's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and the long-straight done (all in one poxy person), and a score of 40. Woo hoo me! Self high-five! Yea. (Note: I didn't actually do this. I think if I did I'd be escorted off the train thus lengthening my journey even more).
Roll 5: right, going for the full house here... Got it! 3 primark bags with two of said primark bag owners wearing flourescent punk nail varnish! Ooh yea. Good stuff. That's another 25 points. To me. Player One (of one).
Roll 6: Right, its getting tense now. The crowd have hushed (by which I mean the man with his head leaning unnervingly towards my crotch has stiped snoring). The other players are looking worried (by which I mean noone at all). Here goes ... YAHTZEE! 5 snotty middle class people all sitting in a row (if you count a corner in there somewhere)! What's that? You're challanging it? You want some evidence? Well, here goes...
Person 1: holding a (sodding) ipad
Person 2: wearing a floral dress that is meant to look like its made out of curtains in a certain 'kitsch' (read, shite) kind of way.
Person 3: Ted Baker shoes. Brown. Easy that one.
Person 4: talking very loudly to someone called Tim about going to Jasmine's for new year. Somewhere near Oxford by the sounds of things.
Person 5: Well, me.
Case closed. I win. Oh yea. Only 50 mins more to go (or so we're told, I long ago lost faith in the tinny voice from the sky). I might keep playing a bit, but my thumbs are tired so youl have to trust that I'll win that game fairly too.
'People Yahtzee'; I highly recommend it (so long as you don't mind freaking out the other passangers - I think the man with the Ted Bakers is still wondering why a slightly crazed bloke furiously tapping on his laptop just paused, unprompted, and asked him what brand his shoes were before feverishly returning to his task with a big grin...).
Monday, 25 October 2010
A typology of library coffee break moods, by arseyness
Having coffee in a particularly swanky library coffee shop (they have home-baked cheese scones which is my indicator of swank in this case) and I can readily identify 4 types of mood, each with an increasing level if irritabilty. They are (from least irritable to most):
1) 'quite jolly because I work here and this is a paid break but I wish you weren't' mood - pretty self-explanatory, really. The more hair dye on show, the more annoyed that people use their facility, interestingly.
2)'I only came in for the scones but am jealous that you seem to be being more productive than me' mood - For those who went to the library to 'work' this morning so that those they lived with continued to presume they must do something to justify their research grant, but quickly gave up in the face of cake-based temptation. Lack of self-restraint leads to guilt which leads to projecting said bad feelings onto the workings of others. Given its a library there are many targets (which only multiplies the annoyance levels). Note: roughly the mood I'm currently in.
3) 'this is a library and you don't look smart enough to be able to read so please stop drinking my coffee, in my space, and breathing my air' mood - reserved for a particular type of Cambridge undergrad who thinks they're the first person ever to have to do a 1500 word essay to a deadline. You know the ones.
4) 'I've been reading discourse theory for two years and still don't have a bleeding clue what Habermas, Foucault, and Laclau and his mate (you know, the other one; the one that's not Laclau) are bleeting on about' mood - generally drinking a very large, very black coffee in a mug the size of a centries helmet so as to extend the coffee 'break' (though the break probably makes up the majority of the day, one imagines) and prolong the anxiety (now fuelled to levels of feverish panic by huge quantities of caffeine) of returning to Laclua's mate (Mousse-someone, I think he's called). Generally irritable with everyone inside the coffee area, the library walls, and contained within the ozone more generally.
Right, back to reading Habermas I suppose. Bring on number (4) at about 3 this afternoon, I guess. So familiar, yet so unavoidable. Ah well.
1) 'quite jolly because I work here and this is a paid break but I wish you weren't' mood - pretty self-explanatory, really. The more hair dye on show, the more annoyed that people use their facility, interestingly.
2)'I only came in for the scones but am jealous that you seem to be being more productive than me' mood - For those who went to the library to 'work' this morning so that those they lived with continued to presume they must do something to justify their research grant, but quickly gave up in the face of cake-based temptation. Lack of self-restraint leads to guilt which leads to projecting said bad feelings onto the workings of others. Given its a library there are many targets (which only multiplies the annoyance levels). Note: roughly the mood I'm currently in.
3) 'this is a library and you don't look smart enough to be able to read so please stop drinking my coffee, in my space, and breathing my air' mood - reserved for a particular type of Cambridge undergrad who thinks they're the first person ever to have to do a 1500 word essay to a deadline. You know the ones.
4) 'I've been reading discourse theory for two years and still don't have a bleeding clue what Habermas, Foucault, and Laclau and his mate (you know, the other one; the one that's not Laclau) are bleeting on about' mood - generally drinking a very large, very black coffee in a mug the size of a centries helmet so as to extend the coffee 'break' (though the break probably makes up the majority of the day, one imagines) and prolong the anxiety (now fuelled to levels of feverish panic by huge quantities of caffeine) of returning to Laclua's mate (Mousse-someone, I think he's called). Generally irritable with everyone inside the coffee area, the library walls, and contained within the ozone more generally.
Right, back to reading Habermas I suppose. Bring on number (4) at about 3 this afternoon, I guess. So familiar, yet so unavoidable. Ah well.
Friday, 15 October 2010
A beaker of coffee, what a good idea!
Sitting in a coffe shop and have just seen a man drinking coffee out of what looks strikingly similar to a beaker. It is about the size of a small cereal bowl and has two handles (which the man is dutifully using to lever caffeine into his system). All that's missing is a lid; now there's a good idea! The two women with him don't seem to notice this is an odd thing to do (though he does have some sort of very large slipper on so I guess they're probably not particularly bothered about their accomplices conforming to coffee shop social convention as it is).
I can't help but keep thinking of the marketing potential of this (the beaker, not the slipper) for our more jug eared celebs. Imagine slurping coffee from Rooney's cranium (the dark mush within being a surprisingly accurate representation of reality, in this case), or attaching a dunce hat to Linekar's head and using that as a funnel from which to get your caffeine hit. This idea has legs! (Well, ears).
I can't help but keep thinking of the marketing potential of this (the beaker, not the slipper) for our more jug eared celebs. Imagine slurping coffee from Rooney's cranium (the dark mush within being a surprisingly accurate representation of reality, in this case), or attaching a dunce hat to Linekar's head and using that as a funnel from which to get your caffeine hit. This idea has legs! (Well, ears).
Thursday, 7 October 2010
You know the Tories are back in power when...
... you sit in a non-branded, local coffee shop and a woman with a thick 'regional' accent is fuming about having her child tax credit cut, brutally and without warning. She says, "Tina, well Tina takes her kids on trips with it. I don't! I use it to top up my rent. Her and her husband are both on 25k and they still get it, what am I meant to do." Indeed. Stormy times ahead...
Wednesday, 6 October 2010
A reflexive moment based around smart phones
The man sitting in Starbucks next to me is currently immresed in his ipad, with a copy of the Indy open on the table, with a carefully placed (and fully accesorised) iphone laying on top of it. What an open shirted, no good, pointless yuppie.
... Though having just said this it now occurs to me that i'm sitting in Starbucks, updating my facebook status on my Netbook, with a (not so carefully placed) Blackberry sitting on the table next to my filter coffee. What a pointless, open shirted student.
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