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My Kind of Coffee
This is an interesting new coffee shop, in Broadway Parade, Crouch End, more or less opposite the post office. The window is full of beans, of all sorts. Inside is a wonderful roasting machine. They advise you as to the mix, grind it to suit, and you walk away with 100 grams of heaven, smellable from half way across the room, for about £2.20.
Before that, I had a 'dry' cappuccino, for £2.30, 15p more than Costa, but in a different league, for quality. Spacious premises, plus a bench outside on the pavement. Chairs with armrests - good; upholstered in red, white and blue - bad!
2 middle-aged Turks run the joint, and are very keen to make a go of it. They've only been open 6 days, so business is not yet brisk. I got chatting to the young musician assistant. He is crazy about Kerouac, and went to Birmingham to view the original typescript, eccentricly sellotaped together lengthwise, in a long long chain. He got talking to an 88 year old woman, who turned out to be somebody Cassady, and one of the gang, in the original book! They have become friends, and he goes to visit her in Bracknell - she moved to UK aged 60. She says the book is somewhat fanciful, and she has written her own account, 'Off The Road' (what else?). I was so intrigued I have just ordered it from the library.
Where was I? Oh yes. Great coffee. Why not give it a go?
Before that, I had a 'dry' cappuccino, for £2.30, 15p more than Costa, but in a different league, for quality. Spacious premises, plus a bench outside on the pavement. Chairs with armrests - good; upholstered in red, white and blue - bad!
2 middle-aged Turks run the joint, and are very keen to make a go of it. They've only been open 6 days, so business is not yet brisk. I got chatting to the young musician assistant. He is crazy about Kerouac, and went to Birmingham to view the original typescript, eccentricly sellotaped together lengthwise, in a long long chain. He got talking to an 88 year old woman, who turned out to be somebody Cassady, and one of the gang, in the original book! They have become friends, and he goes to visit her in Bracknell - she moved to UK aged 60. She says the book is somewhat fanciful, and she has written her own account, 'Off The Road' (what else?). I was so intrigued I have just ordered it from the library.
Where was I? Oh yes. Great coffee. Why not give it a go?
Comments
I've now read a bit of On The Road, and hate it, so far. I doubt if I shall make it much further.Written by and for adolescents, it seems to me. So far.
I read 'On the Road' when I was about 14 and found it exhilarting at the start but it became tedious around the half way mark. Truman Capote said it wasn't writing but typing, and he did have a point. William Burroughs is another beat writer whose books are interesting but not easy to read. I have never even attempted to read his cut-up books. His last few novels (the Western Lands trilogy) are probably the easiest ones to read.