After the gig last night I arrived
home much earlier than I thought I would, and too hyperactive to sleep I
attempted to do some admin catching up. My heart wasn’t really in it though, so
despite being quite far behind on my work I wasted some time on Facebook and
YouTube before gathering snacks and watching the Eastenders
omnibus, once a staple of Sunday afternoon laziness and now shoved on the
Friday night/Saturday morning border. I took Jack for a walk at about three o’clock
this morning before falling into bed and not waking up until around one o’clock
this afternoon. This was a bit of a pain in the arse as I had planned to get a
good morning of work in before going out with Mandi for brunch, especially
considering that this weekend is a Sunday Alternative
weekend and the show still hadn’t been recorded. Rather than delay going to
town on the only day of the week that the two of us can really enjoy each other’s
company, (not to mention I needed to buy shoes), I gathered all the music for
the podcast and wrote my notes intending to record it when we got home.
For a change we went to Bagel
Nash in the city centre as we didn’t really want anything heavy because we had
a big dinner planned later on. My attention was immediately drawn to the
Breakfast Melt, if I couldn’t have a fry-up then this would have to do as it
just isn’t Saturday without bacon (unless you’re Jewish and enjoying your
religious day in which case no offence intended, although is having bacon in a
bagel a little bit offensive considering?). Although I suspect the place is a
chain it was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, I imagine that during the
week it is a nightmarish place full of dickheads demanding their lunch straight
away and treating the staff like shit, but on Saturday it is much more laid
back. My breakfast bagel contained bacon, egg, tomato, and cheese and was very
nice indeed. I’d worked up a little appetite what with the buying shoes and
three books to add to my ‘to read when I have time’ pile; I Play the
Drums in a Band Called Okay by Toby Litt, and the autobiographies of
James Whale and Pamela Stephenson. Mandi had brie and grape and with a pot of
tea and a can of San Pellegrino thrown in the whole lot came to just over
eleven pounds. Saturday staffing is usually a bit hit and miss as they tend to
employ people specifically for that one day of the week, but the two people
working in Bagel Nash today were worth every penny of their wages for friendly
and efficient service.
I have written before about
the demise of the once wonderful Lee Rosy’s in Hockley and how it was once the
nicest (and coolest) place to go. Its biggest problem (although not from their
point of view of course) was that it was always packed and you could rarely get
a seat. When Hartley’s opened I assumed it had been opened to ask as an annex
to Lee Rosy’s and accommodate those who couldn’t be seated. In need of a coffee
in the late afternoon we took that familiar walk down the hill to Hartley’s to
find it was closed, we hadn’t realised the time. We had to do it the opposite
way round and go to Lee Rosy’s instead, (this is known as the Hockley paradox).
However, I took a seat by the window while Mandi went to order (getting a
window seat on our first visit in months, this was quite something as I
imagined we were going to have to earn that over time), and they didn’t
have any cappuccino. The machine wasn’t
working and so they could only offer tea, instant coffee, or cold drinks. I don’t
claim to know a great deal about running a coffee shop, but I would make sure
that on a Saturday I had a working coffee machine. If the engineers couldn’t
fix it I would close for the day. Closing would have been more sensible than
opening and offering a limited range, especially as they could have made up any
old excuse to put on the sign in the window; bereavement, kidnap, alien
abduction. At least if they’d closed they wouldn’t have damaged their image
slightly as I feel they might have done today. I noticed that the place was unusually
empty for Saturday teatime, although this of course could be down to the lack
of coffee. More than the emptiness though, I felt a sense of ennui hanging over
the room. It reminded me of staying in a hotel that was once the toast of
Victorian seaside holidays, frequented by Royalty and the celebrities of the
day, now faded and crumbling and attempting to trade on its once glorious
splendor. Lee Rosy’s has simply given up, I no longer felt like I was in one of
the best places in town. Instead we went to a new place I mentioned a few weeks
ago, Wired. The place (situated opposite Bodega) is a total delight and I feel
it is where our Saturday afternoon cups of chino will be sourced from now on.
===
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