These inconsequential images seem to encapsulate exactly the kind of intriguing clue I'm always coming across in my local, urban environment. It's funny how even the crappest of details can trigger a new train of thought, or signal some meaning underlying the immediate surroundings.
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| Both Images: St Augustines, Leicester,February 2016 |
The rise of mainstream Coffee Culture in Britain has always felt a bit bizarre, given how close we are to mainland Europe, - where something as straightforwardly enjoyable as a good cup of coffee, (at an affordable price), was taken for granted, all along.
Don't get me wrong, - I enjoy a cup of 'quaffee' as much as the next person, but it does feel like, these days, we seem incapable of enjoying the simple pleasures of life, without having them marketed back to us by bloated corporations, under the banner of 'Lifestyle'. The 'Blair Years', around the turn of the century, seemed to be all about that, - and it's certainly the period when it first became de-rigeur here for every aspirant pedestrian to trot along clutching an ostentatiously large bucket of mocha-chocca-chino, (or whatever).
Anyway, these images seem to give something of a lie to all that self-conscious Cafe-Society stuff, bringing it all resolutely back to the level of tawdry, crumminess for which, let's face it, - I'm a complete sucker. It's worth noting that these cups seem to have been left by builders currently redeveloping the St Augustines area of Leicester into a cross between a student village and a S.M.E. start-up hub. They're pretty modest by contemporary standards, although it amuses me how the bottom-most vessel still seems something of a poor relation alongside the others. Anyway, once the redevelopments are complete, I suspect, the cups can only get larger, and the beverages - more high-concept, around this neck of the woods.
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