Mocha Chocca Hazelnut Banana Topped Bullshit

Okay - here we go again with a long convoluted diatribe on my part about my utter hatred of life, love, humanity and the world in general. This time - coffee. Or rather, coffee 'houses'.

Why are we all pretending that Starbucks make great coffee? Why are there Muppets proclaiming how child friendly these venues allegedly are? Why the fuckity fuck are any of us going there in the first place?

Fact : your local greasy spoon makes fantastic coffee. It'll be so thick your spoon will stand up in it, and so strong you'll wince slightly as you take every sip. None of your hazelnut espresso dollop -just industrial strength coffee made for builders. They'll also lube up your tubes with a heart attack on a plate. What can you get from Starbucks et al? Maybe a pannetone and a crusty looking biscotti. Yum. Not.

Of course, at Starbucks there is the added benefit of a sprinkling of idiots being 'important' whilst using their laptops, the local NCT mums being worthy and thoroughly irritating, and various professionals being snotty and rude whilst the staff snigger as they mispronounce the names of things incorrectly.

Whilst we're on the subject of staff - barrista? Eh? So let me get this straight, you have invented a word that sounds like barrister so that you can pretend you have entered the legal profession? Is this not like a rubbish man being called a waste disposal professional? I don't get it, I really don't. I'm sickeningly pc, and I still don't understand these job titles.

Explain me to me also - I want a large, strong coffee - lots of caffeine to keep me going until my next fix, enough milk so that I can just drink it before one or other of The Midgets starts screaming or hitting me with whatever is at hand. I do NOT want a caffe latte - I want a milky fucking coffee. I do NOT want a grande, goliath, or god size - I want a large coffee. And please, do not be correcting me to your appallingly phrased in house drink sizes - bring me the large coffee, get me some beans on toast or a sausage sandwich, let me scoff the lot and then let me fuck off.

Local greasy spoons are infinitely more friendly than these vile creations. I would far rather visit a place that treats me like they actually want me and The Midgets to be there, however loud or vile any of us are, and who won't scowl at me when any of us tread beans into the floor or spill a drink. I want to go to the sort of place that will bring the Midgets and I three forks when I order a portion of chips, or three plates when I get a round of toast. Certainly not somewhere that will charge me as much as I spend on food for a day for the pleasure of weak coffee served by someone with a weaker chin.

The next question is inevitably going to be do I go to any chains. Of course I do, I have to. I don't bloody like it though.

My hatred of Starbucks and their ilk is many fold - not just the damage they do to communities ("they use Fairtrade coffee" - nope, not for everything they serve they don't, "Pret is owned by McDonald's" - yes, but they give all food left over at the end of the day to the homeless, and McD's sponsors a facility that allows parents to stay overnight in hospital with their sick kids, so come up with something else whingers), but the clear damage they are doing to everyone who visits them who will never learn what proper coffee tastes like.

Coffee should be drunk from a white mug that is still resplendent with the previous users coffee stain down the side. There should be a spoon in it that is short enough to make you burn your finger if you try to fish it out, but long enough to poke you in the eye if it stays in there whilst you drink. There should be at least one builder's bum in the near vicinity. It should not involve re-mortgaging your house to purchase, and there should certainly not be any mocha chocca hazelnut banana topped bullshit involved.