The Coffee Diaries

It takes a whole load of caffeine to successfully schlep around European cities. Here’s some of what I drank to make it all happen...

Black coffee at Carr Saunders Hall, LSE, Fitzroy Street, W1
I decided to start this blog at the very beginning so everything that came after would be an improvement. And it was. This coffee was oily, weak, and came from a plastic jug that I was allowed to pour myself. It was an odd colour, just generally awful in fact, but the amazing view from the rooftop courtyard of the BT Tower across the street made that seem so much less important. Hello London, I've missed you...

Latte from the courtyard coffee cart at the V&A, SW7
The V&A courtyard is lush, even in the floaty, spitty London rain, and brightly peopled with Chinese yuppies splashing in puddles and a beautiful tiny boy playing in the fountain. This was not bad coffee at all, good and malty and the froth lasted really well. Suitably fortifying for the treasures of the V&A.

Flat white at the Serpentine Bar & Kitchen, Hyde Park, W2
This coffee was the perfect temperature, which I appreciate for others might count as not hot enough', but I like things close to room temperature (I spill a lot, it’s a safety thing). This had a good deep flavour, just the right amount of bitter, and a little creamy; a coffee worthy of the neighbourhood.

Black coffee at Cafe in the Gardens, Russell Square, WC1
The sunshine had hit hard by now. I could’ve had a lemonade you know. This murky solution was weak and soapy with a sour lingering aftertaste. Not good. Russell Square, you deserve better.

Black coffee at Elliot's Cafe, Borough Market, SE1
Borough is my absolute favourite bit of London. The view of the Shard peering over the shoulder of Borough Market is thrilling, even if you don’t like the Shard much (I don’t think I do). Elliot’s is suh a beautiful place; handsome staff, lovely atmosphere. I wanted to do a Truman Capote thing and say, ‘Oh, bring us something that takes forever...’ A delicious, Market-sourced meal was crowned with a cup of the finest coffee of the tour so far; rich, smoky, and a beautiful colour. I’ve not had anything as good since North Tea Power back home.

Black coffee and flat white at Creperie du Monde, Chatsworth Rd, E5
It’s very trendy round here, which is good, the hip tend not to settle for bad coffee. The black coffee was really robust and great and the flat white was, well, just a latte. I’m kidding. But really, what's the difference? I can’t tell them apart, I’m too much a novice. Basically, it’s really good coffee here. 

Black coffee at Royal Teas, Greenwich, SE10
Nice and earthy and strong, and a truly scrumptious gorgeous veggie breakfast on the side. Plus a lovely outside table for earwigging the well-heeled Mums of SE10.

Soy latte at Old Shoreditch Station, E2
Boy, this coffee tastes fresh, like they grew it and ground it right there for me. Soy lattes are becoming a bit of a desert wine for me though, I will go for the real deal next time, I think this high standard of coffee deserves it.

Algerian Coffee at the Savoy Cafe, Prague
Since we have no clue what the exchange rate could be for the wonderfully arcane Gothic currency that is the Czech Koruna we have no idea what we’re spending so we go to the Savoy Café. The Algerian coffee is astonishing; thick with egg liqueur, smothered in cream, strong as an ox underneath. I’m almost too overwhelmed to eat the enormous caramel cream choux creation that I accidentally ordered.

Iced espresso at God Shot,  Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Cringe at the subtitle (‘The Future Urban Coffee Klub’), and only a really hip coffee joint can afford to be so surly across the counter, but the goods are up to scratch and beyond; super strong with the right amount of bite and, weirdly/pleasantly, a kind of citrusy thing going on afterwards. Go out of your way for this coffee. All the way to Berlin if you must.

Flat white at Café CK, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
The coffee in this city gets better around every corner. A block from Gunshot, CK’s offering is nutty, buttery, served by a friendly bearded English barista, and best drunk out of doors with bikes and dogs aplenty.

Filter coffee at Anna Blume’s, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin

Everything at Anna Blume’s is superb; the three-tiered vegetarian breakfast, gorgeous pan-European clientele, the sunny Prenzl’berg street corner location. The coffee is so nice I had to get two of them, the second bigger than the first.

Flat white at Bonanza Coffee Heroes, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
Staffed by three handsome, sharp, moustachioed fellows. All very East London. And vaguely intimidating in fact. But the coffee is rich and mellow and so full of flavour. It tastes expensive, but really isn’t. Hit there before you hit Mauerpark.

Iced latte at Engelberg, Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
The last coffee of the holiday and by now it’s too hot for the hot stuff so this chilled creation is divine; rich, looks like brandy, and spills a lovely glow across the table as the sun pours into the sides of the glass. So long Berlin, we love you, we’ll be back …

  

End Of Year Review: 2011

2011: I turned 33. It looks like I will outlive Jesus after all (touch wood). This little blog turned 3 years old. Look what I was doing back then; not much eh? This year I had my tenth anniversary working for Manchester University Press and my fifteenth anniversary of living in Manchester. I moved here in September 1996, three months after the IRA bomb. Mum wasn’t happy. Also this year I showed up in the Manchester Evening News and Attitude magazine with a load of Manchester chums. Click click flash flash darling.

I quit smoking in September, this time for good. I’m doing really well and enjoying life without cigarettes. *clicks heels* It was the right time. You should all try and quit this year. Apart from anything else it does wonders for your hangovers.

Our amazing dog Sam died this year. ‘Sammy Lammy Lambkin’ to those who loved him, and we really did love him. We had him from a puppy and he was ours for seventeen years. When I would pack up my bags to go back to University at the start of term he would sit on them to try and make me stay. He was a big dumb sweet thing and our family isn’t the same without him. Good bye Sammy…

In capital ‘P’ Politics, ‘Occupy’ and the ‘99%’ movement may have deftly solved a problem that Socialists have been mulling over for decades: how to make the middle class realise they are part of the working class, and how to make the working class feel enfranchised by middle class dissent. More power to it. The 1% can be dismantled, I feel sure of it. They got the guns but we got the numbers.

In music, Morrissey ends the year without a record deal and I wonder/worry that we might have heard the last of him once again. In related news, Bon Iver overtook not just Elliott Smith but Morrissey himself as my most played artist this year. Times they are a-changin’…

Amy Winehouse died in July. Not long afterwards we went to Camden Square bearing gifts to say goodbye in the slightly flimsy but well-intentioned way that you might when somebody’s music has been in your heart through some important things. I’m so sad about it still. ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ always stopped me in my tracks but these days it sounds too sad to bear. It was a hot day in Camden and I’ll always remember the shadows on the High Street and the lovely friends I was with, and writing out lyrics with a silver pen on the train down to London like a teenager.

Here’s what the rest of 2011 looked like from here. This write-up has been brought to you by THESE SONGS RIGHT HERE…

The family…

I became an uncle this year, not once but twice. After a somewhat agonising pregnancy for my poor little sister Clare, baby Jack arrived in January, complete with personality and appetite and sass from the off. He is the spit of Clare, ergo beautiful, but I sense a degree of forthcoming naughtiness previously pioneered by my brother Sean. Fun times ahead! Then in June little Stanley James followed for my big sister Emma and to start with he was just the opposite of Jack. He arrived a bit early and we had to worry and fuss over his weight, there was barely anything of him, he was like a little Victorian baby, all swaddled and passive. Then he just bloomed. I heard him giggle for the first time last week and, well, it’s just the reason you get out of bed in the morning isn’t it? Our two beautiful boys. There’s so much to show them, I can’t wait… *makes pile of books, records and travel guides*

The trips...

New York in March. Glastonbury in June. Berlin in September. Festival in Murcia. Loads of London and Stratford and Liverpool and Sheffield. And Salford...

The parties...

In the summer I DJ’d to help raise money for my friend Amber’s boob-job. In Liverpool I played at the Alternative Miss Liverpool pageant for a gorgeous crowd of gender terrorists in taffeta. Off The Hook had its first birthday party. Our new wayward disco baby Drunk At Vogue had her first outing after two years of daydreaming about it and several months of me and my friends working like disco dogs to make it happen. (Eyes peeled for more parties in the New Year). I’ve played at a gay wedding, a photography exhibition, on a boat on the Irwell, in a warehouse, a disused office, at Dalston Boys Club, Clique, Bollox, the Contact Theatre, the Northern Quarter Loves U Festival (before Mr Scruff!), in full Halloween make up and in my underwear at a fetish party. Good year.

The starfucking...

This year I met Jarvis Cocker backstage at the Town Hall after his wonderful interview with Dave Haslam. I ate some of his Pringles. I chatted to Victoria Wood at the International Festival. I slept in Elbow’s tipi at Glastonbury with Radiohead and The Chemical Brothers drinking on the grass outside. I saw the lovely Kirsten Dunst and the awful Lily Allen backstage. I drank and DJ’d with Joel Gibb in Berlin, swapped messages with John Grant about his Glastonbury appearance and the Weekend movie (more of which later), got invited to Spain by Jonsi, met Tim Burgess on Halloween, and had a full drunken body hug with Alan Hollinghurst. I think I’m done…

The movies...

‘I’ve been a lot to the movies lately; the last one ruined my heart...’ sang Jonas Alaska on one of my favourite songs of the year. He wasn’t wrong; a couple of real heartbreakers left their mark on me this year.

‘There was a mother who came to the [AIDS ward] and one... two... three times she lost her boys there...’

‘We really had a great time. We would go out dancing and then I would come home and sleep. Unfortunately none of those men are alive today...’

‘All of the guys in that office got infected. And they all died except one...’

‘Everybody in that study died but me...’

We Were Here was the documentary we were all waiting for. A handful of articulate and erudite voices talk us through their personal accounts of life in San Francisco at the time the AIDS epidemic hit the city. It was a time of weekly funerals and young gay men walking around ‘like concentration camp victims’ and of scarcely believable quantities of fortitude and love. Make it a duty to watch this film and pay your respects.

Like We Were Here, Weekend managed to be both life-affirming and terribly painful. Understated performances, incredibly sexy, and shot with the cinematic quality (and guidance) of a Quinnford and Scout photograph, this got under my skin in a way I hadn’t expected. As an almost-love-story it made a few people take a good hard look at themselves, myself included. I was supposed to go for post-movie drinks the night I watched it but I couldn’t; instead I walked around the city by myself for an hour in a cinematic and dreadfully upsetting fashion listening to ‘What’s In It For Me?’ by Avi Buffalo on endless repeat. But really, what’s in it for me? Maybe I should find out…

The boys…

Come off it, I’ve got to save something for the autobiography haven’t I?

The future...

Next year it will be ten years since I came out of the closet at the tender age of 24 (on my Mum’s birthday). To coin a 2011 phrase, It Gets Better. I’m making a list of resolutions as always; let’s see how life intervenes. I’m working on Novel Number 2 and maybe re-hashing Novel Number 1, or maybe not. DJing as much as I can, trying to make the world a better place, having a spring clean, the usual. As for the blog, I have an exciting project beginning in January. It’s called ‘Manchester: In Residents’ and every week or so I will hand the reins of Manhattanchester to a different fascinating individual to let them tell their own particular Manchester story; how they got here and where they’re at. Let’s see the city from the inside. I’ve already had some brilliant responses. Tune in…

To follow: 2011 in pictures …

Belated Berlin Photo Blog ...

Berlin Part 6: Our last auf wiedersehen …

A late healthy breakfast at Hilde’s where we meet Matthew’s friend, the lovely Anita. Anita is an ex-Mancunian resident and a delight so we decide to fall in love with her over croissants and fruit and Geordie’s fragrant peppermint tea which is simply fistfuls of shredded mint leaves in piping hot water and which smells of HEALTH. Delish. Anita hasn’t been in Berlin long but she already has a fascinating job working for this talented lady. Jealous.

The sun is blazing down. I have to donate my hat to Matthew. It’s a parks and ice-cream day for sure. I have pistachio and one other flavour which runs down to my elbow in the heat and makes me feel about eight. Mauerpark is our destination. It runs along the site of the old wall (‘mauer’) and the deathly no man’s land that lay there. Today it’s a bustling park with performance spaces, wild undergrowth, and best of all a huge flea market where you can and must buy everything from knives and forks and dresses to ice cold beer and records. Matthew tries on a lovely lavender panama hat with some sort of floral print on it and the couple running the stall fall about laughing.

After a nice lazy wander and some beers we retire to a bar across the road for Mai Tais in the shade. Our good intentions of visiting the gay museum fall apart as the cocktails work their magic. It’s simply too hot and too hilarious to do anything but sit and smoke and laugh like drains. Stomachs begin to rumble so we head out for Vietnamese food in the slowly cooling streets of Prenzlberg.

Soon it’s time to say goodbye to Anita. The boys and I begin to amble home. Soon the sky bruises and my skin starts to prickle. We’re not very far from the flat when the first ice-white flash of lightning booms its way across the sky. It’s the beginning of the biggest, loudest thunderstorm I’ve ever seen in my life. This was our view of it from our balcony (careful, it’s pretty loud…)

After watching in the hot rain and drinking some or other amazing wine with the lightning coming from all directions round the Fernsehturm I am filled with a weird kind of energy. It needs to be danced off. I leave the boys at home and go to meet Craig for nocturnal revelry. I don’t know if I have a reputation for getting lost or something but this is what is placed inside my wallet before I head out …

Pork at Fechen 3000 is exactly as upmarket and glamorous as it sounds. Tonnes of beary boys and fit art gays pinballing around the place to a mush of indie and dance and electro guff. The lovely Joel Gibb from The Hidden Cameras is DJing when we arrive and lets me take over the decks for a bit. The ‘decks’ being someone’s woefully undernourished iTunes from which I salvage some Ladytron or something. It’s all severely hazy by this point. I’m seriously entertaining missing my flight on purpose but the administrative nightmare of this threatens to sober me up (fat chance) and there’s still plenty of time to party yet.

There is more than one area in this nightclub establishment. I lose my brand new jackplug necklace in the other area of this nightclub establishment. That’s all I have to say about that.

I am limping for a cab home at 8 am. Every single item of my clothing is drenched with beer. The get-me-home Polaroid proves itself priceless. I still have it with me now. Everywhere I go.