Barista is an anagram of Bastard

So, like you, I have long been a hater when it comes to coffee chains springing up all over the place and charging whatever they like for foamy hot water with melted hyperactive beans. The people who spend their hard earned cash frequenting these places are like so much mould on a pile of rotting marshmallows as far as I am concerned, but as I’m sure you’ll agree, none of us fought the good fight against it, so we lost the high street to these new age caffeine freaks long ago.

So yesterday when my friend invited me out for a coffee I decided to try it out and finally taste this jittery lifestyle which has long been old hat to almost everyone. To my surprise, there were several levels of interesting to such an outing that I had never thought of. Such as:

1) Drinking coffee makes you talk faster, so if you’re catching up with someone you can get through reams of information in a fraction of the time it usually takes
2) It takes longer to drink coffee than beer, so although rounds of coffee seem like much more of a rip-off than rounds of beer, your cover charge for the space you are occupying is significantly lower
3) Coffee is a good alternative to booze if you want to exchange information with someone during your conversation instead of just passing back and forth meaningless inanities filled with good vibes
4) Coffee houses are quieter and cleaner than pubs, so put you less on edge (if only you weren’t drinking coffee)
5) Coffee shops sell cakes, which are better than all pub snacks (except of course honey roast peanuts – which are basically cakes without the time wasted baking)

So Starbucks, Costa and all your crappy little friends, I would like to say I’m sorry for all the bad things I’ve said about you. Well not all of them. Not nearly all of them in fact, but at least the one about you being worthless wastes of space.