Nest of gods, fountain of ambrosia. My Jerusalem.

Recently I’ve started to become obsessive about coffee and coffee shops. I’ve been working as a front of house/barista person for a few months and have really got into it. I thought i’d start visiting coffee shops and reviewing them. I’ve been meaning to visit The Coffee shop Espressini in Falmouth for a while, after reading this cosy coffee shop review. I thought it would be a good place start. Here’s what I thought of it:

Before I arrived I thought I’d have a nosy in Picnic (So called independent cafe of the year) I ordered a flat white, it was awful I spat it out and left.

Next was Good Vibes Cafe. Oh Good Vibes Cafe.

After a good while of panic and frustration with google maps I finally found what I was looking for; I had stumbled upon the nest of Gods.

I was greeted by a well presented, jolly chap adorned in a coffee stained apron, reminiscent of a Victorian carpenter taken straight out of a period drama.

He introduced me to the blackboard behind him, hand written in a dandy typeface, a menu of the finest coffees blends available. What stood out to me was a brew bar special. The barista/Victorian craftsman/wizard informed me my coffee would be with me in due time.

I allowed myself to be engulfed by the environment. The shop was perfect, straight out of a Dickens novel. The most fantastic antique lighting illuminated a fine selection of sandwiches and cakes. The aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans from around the world, the perfect collection of vintage furniture. I had transcended into the land of angels.

My coffee arrived, and I was amazed. I sat for perhaps twenty minutes enjoying the scene, sipping my coffee. The splendour of this establishment was nothing short of magnificent.

After observing a few customers come and go, I decided my time was up. I collected my things, and went to pay. Perhaps a flat white would do me good for my travels back to the land of Plymouth. I was handed a 6oz cup, unbeknown to me. That cup held el melon; nectar of the gods it was not brought to the deities of the Pantheon by doves, but to me by the man behind the counter.

I took a sip. I stopped dead in my path, like a rabbit in the head lights. My entire life flashed before my eyes, the flavour that this six ounces of pure heroine was nothing short of a miracle. No longer would mortal blood flow through my veins, but Ichor. The flavour of cherry drops, bourbon vanilla beans, rhubarb and pure happiness danced on my tongue.

After that moment everything became so much brighter, before I was blind and now I can see.

I have honestly never been so happy. Life will never be the same again. Thank you Espressini. Thank you.

Youth Culture; the festival scene.

“Hyper reality” is a term used in semiotics to describe an inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from a simulation of reality, especially in technologically advanced post-modern societies. Hyperreality is seen as a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are seamlessly blended together so that there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins”  A concept that I feel can be explored among the young festival goers of Britain. Many people that come to festivals seem to do so to gain cultural capital through a hyper reality, by collecting wristbands and taking photographs to show off to their friends later on the internet, if you google any gig or festival post 2007 you will find pages cluttered with crappy iphone videos of every song from every set, a description page full of hashtags and ‘lolz’, and the inevitable link to their twitter and Instagram pages. The act of telling their peers that they attended the festival seems to the most important factor in the decision making process of choosing a festival or gig. So dickhead, douchey kids can fill their Facebook and Instagram pages with self portraits of young ladies sunburned looking like a ducks in their fucking stupid fake daisy chain jesus head wear, Hunter wellingtons and silly short jeans alongside their under educated, Magners wielding Ladish male counterparts both with their wrists clad in festival wristbands. It’s chilling.

No longer do cultural events actually take place in real time or in a physical place held in reality, instead they take place on a laptop monitor and to come encased in a spontaneity-proof layer of bureaucratic bullshit, and it’s killing our culture. I think it would be interesting to see a gig from the performer’s point of view, especially at a festival or gig targeted at my age group. To see that everyone is recording the experience to play back on Facebook and twitter. Who’s to blame? Well, you can start with Clear Channel, Cineworld, Calvin Harris, flash mobs, South African ex-pats who take picnic blankets to open air cinemas and anybody who’s ever filmed anything on a smartphone at a gig.

Furthermore, festivals also used to (in the early 2000’s) be a hub for new fashion trends and were attended by the fashion aristocracy. Until Alas, in 2012, everyone seemed determined to dress like they’ve been shopping at a department store bedding section rather than actually putting any effort into appearing unique or expressing their true selves, it’s not a rebellion anymore either. I bet no one even knows how Karl is. Instead (if we look at it through Cooley’s looking glass self) we see teens making an attempt to fit in with the Facebook famous, clad in Onesies, Uggs, morph suits and those hats that look like they’ve been ripped off a makeshift hippie catapult – these are merely clothing equivalents of Hollyoaks and One Direction.

They don’t do this prove that people are comfortable in their own existences, they prove that they’re lazy and they’ve run out of ideas. What are we doing? Have we given up? If not, why are we trying to make the world look like some kind of global slumber party? This shouldn’t be the new thing, along with the hyper real state of the whole festival affair, the bizarre and unwarranted drug use and worst of all the huge commercialisation of the once peri dish of youth and folk culture that has been driven into disarray, forced into a realm of popular culture, a vast abyss of bullshit trivial meaninglessness that is recorded and reuploaded to the fucking internet. Festivals no longer sit high in the trophy cabinet of the youth as a display of the plethora of talent conceived by folk culture; instead it is dominated by the twitter feeds of the Bastille who, may I add seem to be stealing their material from pulp listening, onesie wearing, ‘ rollie’ smoking, coke snorting, CCTV resembling ‘Lads’ spawned in the last true era of cultural significance. An era stolen by the once toddlers of the 90’s, Nirvana and MTV, and indeed Pulp lyrics. Cultural products that are not, and should not be taken by the 17 year old tumblr dicks of Britain. It’s obvious why they may try to steal it, and lets face it, all they have is Bieber, 1D and fucking Boardmasters.

We find ourself in a dangerous position. We can either cut our losses and evolve, rebel against the suppression of our peers OR find ourselves like our forefathers in the mosaic-tiled shopping centre water features and McDonald’s window seats with spiky, intimidating ugly faces clad in hoods, studs, plastic, leather, perforated nylon, bits of fence, other people’s spit and own social awkwardness. Pensioners will be scared and we’ll have a generation of teens who don’t look like they’ve just fallen out of the bath. Music may once again find a soul and Coca cola may leave us alone to organise a festival without having to churn up a huge profit.

 

Ollie