“Goodnight sweet prince,” muttered my son as our trusty Gaggia coffee maker finally gave up the ghost. He twiddled a few knobs on the machine and the illuminated display declared that the machine had made the grand total of 7,197 cups of coffee in its time. Blimey, I thought, that’s a heck of a lot of coffee. We’d had the machine serviced regularly but the coffee had definitely been getting ...keep reading
It wouldn’t have been my top priority as an academic study but two US professors have put “coffee shop conquerors” under the spotlight. You know, the customers who sit in Costa and Starbucks for hours on end, tapping away at their laptops, hogging tables designed for four and glaring at people who politely ask “is this chair taken?” Or in US academic-speak, “communicate to other customers that intrusion is not welcome.” ...keep reading
I thought I was clued up about France, but thanks to Michael Wright and his brilliant C’est la folio column in the Daily Telegraph I’ve just discovered something new. Apparently, if you invite French guests to dinner they will always turn their car around when they arrive, ready for a neat, speedy getaway at the end of the evening. It’s a brilliant idea – and one my mother took up years ago. ...keep reading