cafe au ma god
it might seem fitting that as the leaves change from blue to red, so too do the labels underneath the vending machine coffee. an urban sign to tell you that autumn has once again arrived. during the summer you can subject yourself to not only vending machine coffee but cold vending machine coffee and you generally have no choice. that is not to say that it's 'iced coffee' - this is simply cold nescafe. a sobering thought. it's surprising what an addiction can lower you to.
which reminded me of some of my better cups of tea or coffee and alistair gow of clachan of campsie.
alistair is a legend in central scotland not only for his ability to build the best bike wheel around, but also to keep you in conversation for two hours longer than you had anticipated. despite having heard about him for many years, I only got to know him shortly before I left - his shop sits at the foot of the campsie hills in a tiny, sleepy village (clachan). he sorted a few wheels for me while I supped on fantastic tea that was in endless supply - if the pot ran dry his assistant would be called to brew some fresh. alistair, like a farmers wife offering seconds, looked personally offended if you declined.
his shop could be described as a disaster zone: it really gives meaning to the phrase "looks like a bomb hit it", but sitting in the far corner and only occaisionally looking up from his bastard of a truing jig, he could answer almost any product related question pointing to a toppling stack of boxes to find a jersey, or an old wooden chest drawer to help find a fixing. calls would come in, in the background, from all over the UK and the interesting thing I noticed was that most of the crap lying about was far from that - it was new, high quality goods ready for shipping.
the best thing about alistairs and any good bike shop is the personal service, blether and cup of tea. my goal now is to find the japanese equivalent of big al - the only trouble is, is that even though I've gotten friendly with some local bike shops they're all so terribly well organised. I can work on that though.........
Posted by stupot at October 18, 2005 11:28 PM