Columnists
Barbara Davies berates the craze for top-dollar coffee, Bill Knott says “waste not, want not” and Elizabeth Herridge champions the visual arts scene in Las Vegas
SPEAKERS’ CORNER
CAN’T QUITE BRING YOURSELF TO SAUNTER UP TO THE COUNTER IN YOUR LOCAL STARBUCKS AND ASK FOR “A GRANDE, WET, SKINNY LATTE WITH CARAMEL SYRUP AND AN EXTRA SHOT, PLEASE”? YOU’RE NOT ALONE, SAYS BARBARA DAVIES
IT’S HARD TO pinpoint when it was exactly that Britain’s coffee-drinkers lost their heads and started forking out around £3 for what was a simple hot drink. But at some stage during the 1990s, Britain’s coffee revolution got well and truly out of hand.
The alarm bells should have started ringing when people in the office started jumping up to announce: “I’m off to Seattle! Does anyone want a latte?”
Of course, we quickly learned that going to what was then called The Seattle Coffee Company for a round of drinks was infinitely more expensive than popping to the staff canteen. As well as bankrupting you, it could also take up to half an hour for the barista to perform moves reminiscent of Tom Cruise in the film Cocktail. The novelty should have worn off as quickly as the froth on our cappuccinos. But it didn’t.
The result? Our towns and cities are now dominated by bland, over-priced coffee shops that desperately try to give an image of individuality and quality by selling “designer” drinks.
Step inside these establishments and you see the little affectations: the same jazz CD that’s being played in countless other branches and the pretentious use of the grand Italian title “barista” for staff, despite the fact that most of them are foreign language students on gap years. Even if you find one who can actually make a half-way decent cup of coffee, you’re unlikely to see them again.
Next time you pop in they’ve gone and their replacement – wearing the obligatory “trainee barista” badge – is wrestling with the controls of the Gaggia machine. Do you think they are seriously considering a future as a coffee sommelier? How hard can it be to steam a jug of milk? How many of them would you let near your kettle at home? How did it come to this?
Then there are the leather sofas and armchairs, which sound pleasant but are usually covered in crumbs and smeared with icing from the “baked-on-the-premises” cakes that look suspiciously the same as cakes baked on other premises.
Let’s face it, these coffee shops aren’t about coffee at all. They’re selling a lifestyle and an image that we instinctively want a slice of.
It’s got to the point now that certain coffee chains have even become a barometer of an area’s standing. Estate agents have started calling it “the Starbucks factor”. If one of these shops opens in your neighbourhood, or a Costa Coffee or a Caffè Nero or a Pret a Manger, then rub your hands with glee; your property has probably doubled in price. Prospective buyers will be lured by the same manufactured image as the rest of us: Sunday mornings spent reading the papers while lingering over a steaming caffè latte.
In America, coffee-lovers have started to rebel against this phenomenon. Those wanting to avoid the stores of the big-brand coffee giants can enter their zip code onto a website that will then provide them with a list of local independent cafés nearby.
The joy and value of a genuine café society is in its individuality. Cafés are vital social meeting points. For centuries they have been a melting pot of ideas for artists, musicians, intellectuals and radicals.
The thing about us Brits is that we’re afraid of the unknown. And yet think of some of the best cups of coffee you have ever imbibed and memories will come flooding back of different places you have travelled: espresso drunk in a pavement café on the edge of Rome’s Piazza Navona on a summer’s evening, Viennese coffee and cognac sipped in Café Sperl on a wintry afternoon. Dare to be different and you will be rewarded in coffee heaven. Right. That’s it. Rant over. I’m off to put the kettle on…
Barbara Davies is author of The Russian Lieutenant’s Woman: A Tale of Love, Betrayal and Vodka published by Hodder & Stoughton (£12.99)
Photography: iStockphoto
FLYING THE FLAG
CAN WE FIX IT? YES WE JOLLY WELL CAN, SAYS BILL KNOTT
I READ RECENTLY that a British supermarket has started selling DVD players for the astonishing price of £9. This, on the face of it, should gladden the heart of any free-market-loving couch potato, representing, as it does, the benefits of mass production, cut-throat competition and electronic miniaturisation.
What will happen now, though, should anyone’s DVD player go on the blink? Will a cheery local tradesperson be given the task of repairing it? No chance. The old player will be dumped in the bin, to be supplanted by a shiny new bargain-priced replacement picked up with the cornflakes during the weekly shop.
Nothing gets repaired anymore. Computers become obsolete and are dumped, errant watches are thrown away, ailing toasters and kettles are junked… the list is endless. When was the last time you saw somebody sporting elbow patches or darning a sock?
From the bin, all these gadgets and socks will end up in a landfill site, just a part of the 25 million tonnes of waste generated in England alone. There is a sense in which our society now approves of wasteful disposal in a way our grandparents, brought up in a make-doand-mend mindset, would have found horrifying.
Developing countries are, by necessity, much better at repairing things. In downtown Colombo last year, I was waiting in a little shop, nursing a cup of tea as a teenage techno-prodigy repaired my mobile phone, when his older brother noticed that my leather sandals were falling apart. He plucked them from my feet, whizzed off on his scooter, and had them back on my feet, perfectly stitched, before I had finished my tea.
I felt enormous gratitude: partly because I had worried that he might not return, and the idea of tramping back to my hotel barefoot was not enticing, but mostly because there was, as my grandfather would have said, “plenty of wear left in ‘em”. Had I been in London, they would have gone in the bin. Affluence, I fear, is leading to effluence.
CULTURE VULTURE
ELIZABETH HERRIDGE SAYS THERE’S MORE TO VEGAS THAN CASINOS
WHEN PEOPLE THINK of Las Vegas, they often overlook the fact that it’s a major performing and visual arts centre. A major force is Cirque du Soleil with their five original, full-scale productions incorporating theatre, music, gymnastics and special effects. Most of the major casino/resort/hotels are home to a Cirque production. This population of extremely talented people, as well as the plethora of musicians and other artists needed to support the shows on the Strip, has helped to foster an increased demand for the arts.
The Downtown Arts District has become a centre for both gallery and residential growth with the Holsum Lofts and Arts Factory properties being major hubs of artistic life.
The Las Vegas Art Museum, about 10 miles west of the Strip, continues its mission of engaging visitors in the international culture of contemporary art. Recent exhibitions have included a retrospective of the work of Martin Mull, Roy Lichtenstein prints, and the architectural models of Frank Gehry.
The Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, in the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, is host to fine and decorative arts exhibitions from around the world. Recent shows featured the work of Claude Monet from the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as the photography of Ansel Adams.
The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum, located at The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, has presented a variety of exhibitions since it opened in October 2001. A partnership between the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation in New York and The State Hermitage Museum of St Petersburg, Russia, allows the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum to showcase the permanent collections of these two world-renowned institutions. From Impressionism to Modernism, the Renaissance to Pop Art, this Rem Koolhaas-designed facility has been host to numerous masterworks in its steel exhibition space.
From April 2007 till January 2008 the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas will present Treasures from the Guggenheim and State Hermitage Collections
Elizabeth Herridge is Managing Director of the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum
