jamie goode's wine blog: In a cafe in Bermondsey

Thursday, September 11, 2008

In a cafe in Bermondsey

You know, one of the best blogs have an unplanned, dynamic, of-the-moment feel to them. They have a personal voice. They are well written, but not polished. That's what I aspire to. [I'm aware that blogging about blogging is a bit self-referential. Sorry. I shall try not to do it too often.]

I'm sitting in coffee shop in Bermondsey. It's quite trendy, but rough round the edges: one wall is bare breezeblocks, and the ceiling is concrete. A bit like the location, I guess, because Bermondsey has a rough, slightly dangerous edge which fuses well with the impoverished arty crowd.

There's free wifi so the place is full of people like me nursing a cup of coffee and updating their facebook pages, blogging, checking their emails, making use of some down-time. Two people are reading newspapers; the rest are on their laptops. I wonder if some are writing their novels? [Now if you want to get really self-referential and circular, you could write a novel about someone trying to write a novel. How cool is that?] Anyway, I have the smallest laptop (my eeepc). There's one mac; the rest are PCs. The music playing is jangly and alternative poppy.

I've just been to the Sainsbury's press tasting round the corner and I'm due to return to join Tim Atkin to travel over to Shepherd's Bush with him for an Austrian wine dinner. Sainsbury's range is a bit of a curate's egg: some good stuff, but also a lot of uninspiring wines. It will be interesting to see how the other supermarkets are doing (their press tastings will be over the next few weeks) to see whether this inconsistency is across the board.

What's your coffee order? I used to just do Americano (or long black, depending on where you are ordering), but now I'm alternating this with Latte - this was because of the excellent experience I had at Flat White, the kiwi coffee shop in London. But I'm not a coffee geek. For me, coffee is as much a psychological sort of event as it is a flavour experience. Even instant coffee will do the trick - a cup of coffee is a punctuation mark in a busy day. It is something you do with other people, too - a bridging event. While it's great to have good coffee, bad coffee will do, some of the time, at least.

Labels:

9 Comments:

At 8:57 PM, Anonymous sigurarm said...

I have for several years only had espresso and if possible a ristretto (half the water of espresso).
If life is to short to waste it on bad wine, it's also too short to spend it on lousy coffee.

 
At 11:51 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

"You know, one of the best blogs have an unplanned, dynamic, of-the-moment feel to them."

Quite.

So why bother doing a self-consciously planned blog entry, then?

 
At 12:08 AM, Blogger Jamie said...

Anon
Because it wasn't planned. It was spur of the moment in a spare 20 minutes

 
At 12:11 AM, Blogger HamishWM said...

Weird stuff.

 
At 8:40 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Coffee is as worthy of tasting as wine, methinks.

 
At 8:18 PM, Blogger Ron Combo said...

Steady on Jamie, a coffee is a coffee. Are Starbucks wedging you up?

 
At 11:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It doesn't read like a spur of the moment thing, because you once you start a post by saying how the best blogs are unplanned, then we get the "I'm sitting in a cafe in Bermondsey" etc, then immediately the spontaneity is lost, and it comes across like an attempt to be all spur of the moment, rather than actually being so.

 
At 11:57 PM, Blogger Christy said...

I like the post, espeically the idea of coffee as a psychological event. I've always thought coffee tastes better if it comes in a paper cup with a lid...and I guess the reason for that is because if it's in a paper cup, I'm likely drinking it around other people, which seems part of the point in a way.

Christy

www.franklywines.com

 
At 7:48 PM, Anonymous Krista said...

Have you tried the coffe cart on Whitecross Street? NOT the coffee@ (although they also have free wifi). The guys with the cart are there a little south of the coffee@ between 7 and 12 monday - friday. really great coffee. and chatty folks, too. in a good way.

 

Post a Comment

Links to this post:

Create a Link

<< Home