Starbucks. A woman has a meltdown because she’s asked for a Pistachio Velvet Latte and finds out that they have stopped selling them. She screams at the staff as if they have conspired to do this on purpose. A delivery driver arrives with a cage full of new stock and she turns on him. “Are there any pistachios on there?” He is Polish and doesn’t understand what she’s asking.

An old woman walks in with friends, they have been to see a matinee of Murder on the Orient Express, and says loudly, “I can smell coffee.” And follows it up with, “they must sell coffee here.” One of her friends says, “You should have been Hercule Poirot, Margo.” 

There is a woman with a rucksack on her back, who is standing in the middle of the room looking at me. I smile, but her grimace never shifts, and she glares as if I might be a former lover who scorned her. I look at my raspberry and coconut brownie hoping that she will go away. 

But she walks over and demands to know if I’m Blotter from Hebden Bridge?”  I assure her that I’m not, and that Hebden Bridge is hundreds of miles away, but she storms off muttering under her breath. “You always were a liar, Blotter!”

A young guy with tattoos on his face leans across from the next table and says, “Dude, the chances of somebody being called Blotter AND coming from Hebden Bridge is really cool.”