STARBUCKS

There are few greater pleasures that do not involve the exchange of bodily fluids or a grinning No.9 with one arm raised than slipping into a greasy spoon for a nice brew, a read of the sportspages of a decent paper and of course a full english breakfast. It might just be me but I prefer this as a solitary activity, sliding anonymously into a quiet corner to watch the world go by. Peace.

These type of establishments are on the retreat in our fair and noble city as the march of embourgesiement carries all before it in NE1 much to the delight of the Jesmonderrati whose values appear to be shaping the social and physical make up of what was and still in its soul remains, a workers city.

Someone, somewhere has decided they want NE1 to have a cafe culture. They have been on a cheap flight to somewhere hot and they are blinded by the image of some tasty, sultry bird reading La Stampa and sipping on a cappuccino. And they want us to like that as well. And the noberrati appear to have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker.

In their heads they have just walked onto the set of "Friends" and are gagging for frothy, whimsy from the beautiful people. Instead they get an unhappy, over-weight middle-aged shopper with her put upon husband who always seems to need more space and is either too hot or too cold, forever cast upon the eternal horns of the take your coat off, leave it on dilemna. Naturally there will be queues in which good old Anglo-Saxon bad humoured impatience is never far from the surface - they've waited more than .2 seconds to be served their phony grossly over-priced muckachoccachino by a dis-interested minimum wage slave who is as much interested in your coffee leisure experience (sic) as you are in David Beckham's HELLO life.

These are no urban retreats. There is no quiet bolt-hole for you to take a bit of refuge from the general shittiness of life. You are on show and the message is clear - once you have swilled that tepid milky shite down your neck, get the fuck out and we'll get the next lot of life-style dupes in. At its best, sitting in one of these places is like being in a Post Office queue at its worst, like being at a Black Sabbath concert. Naturally, some soppy social worker type who imagines she's at the zeitgeist will be constantly checking her brat, Tarquin to stop fucking around, whilst you will be cursing your life. This Is The Modern World?

Just say No!

TF