Friday, January 28, 2005

Coffee Pot, Guildhall Shopping Centre

With L, my uncle, and my mum, we had coffee in this long-running cafe near the entrance to the Guildhall Shopping Centre.

I can remember this place back in 1984 when I first arrived in Exeter and was a student at the college in Hele Road (for just three months, of course). Nowadays, its customers are mainly middle aged going on old. It should suit the three of us very well then.

There is a very attractive young foreign lady behind the counter and she is later joined by her friend who arrives by bicycle, parking just outside, next to the old granite pillar at W H Smiths. Nearby, two people are in conversation about foreign affairs and economics, an unusual subject for most people these days.

A man arrives, sits down, lights his cigarette and starts to read some business documents. He looks a friendly chap, deep in his own thoughts. I recognise him instantly as the owner/proprietor of Queen Street News, which he must've run for the past twenty years, at least. Whenever I have been in that shop, he has always been there, though his assistants come and go.

Of course, Queen Street has seen a number of changes since the mid-1980s. The old C&A department store shut down about four years ago, replaced by a Tesco Metro store, direct competition for the Queen Street News man. He also has to compete with the forlorn Costcutter in the Central Station arcade; that's two newsagents selling stuff cheaper than him. However, he seems to manage okay. Actually, he's also got the Sainsbury's metro store in the Guildhall to compete with, too.

'The pound now buys two American dollars.' The older man is talking to someone else sitting back to the window. This is where I enter the conversation!

'Well, they say the American economy is on the brink of collapse, the dollar sliding towards catastrophe.' We have a delightful conversation about this and also the history of Exeter, which L joins.

The older man says he is 83 yet seems quite disappointed when I say that I would've said 70. Really, he could pass for 65. He says he still enjoys his annual visits to Slovenia and its capital city, Llubjana - not Llubjanka, as the other man says (the ex-KGB hellhole in the middle of Moscow, as I point out). There really are a number of international connections in the city of Exeter; quite refreshing, really.

They take their leave, the younger man - about 50 - introducing himself as 'John'. I know I have seen him many times in the past, as well, though I can't quite place where. He is like a smaller, older, grey-haired version of Frank Worthington, the maverick 1970s footballer. He has long silver hair and sideburns and a moustache. I must try and remember where I have seen him before.



An Exceedingly Good Survey

I was walking from the High Street in Exeter towards Martins Lane at about 2.30 in the afternoon when one of those customer survey women, with a clipboard, pen and ID, stopped me (right next to Clintons Cards). She was aged about fifty five, very well-spoken; in fact, quite posh.

'Would you like to take part in a customer survey in the Clarence Hotel? It will only take a few minutes. You can have a coffee.'

Well, how could I refuse? I wasn't doing much anyway so I accepted her invitation, my first for several years (since the chocolate bar survey back in about 1991).

'Yeah, fine.'

She led me down the narrow Martins Lane and around the corner and into the Clarence Hotel, currently undergoing major refurbishment. This meant passing Tact Personnel, that awful employment agency, and the Ship Inn.

The room was upstairs, past a number of old oil paintings, mostly of venerable persons and some nautical stuff. It's actually very plush inside the Clarence Hotel and quite easy to see why it is five star. It has thick, expensive carpets and very well painted walls.

On the laptop computer, going through the preliminary stuff and then the questions/survey, it took me about five minutes to work out what the hell it was all about. It's funny because it reminded me of a radio programme I had listened to on the BBC website the other day. That show - a great, fantastic show - was I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. This show is chaired by the great Humphrey Lyttleton who must now be about 80.

Anyway, one joke - from the introduction to the programme, always the most interesting part - was about Rudyard Kipling, the noted poet and novelist. The show was from Royal Tunbridge Wells, and Lyttleton joked that Kipling lived in nearby Burwash and that his most famous poem was If. That's the one which goes: If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs... then why not treat yourself to one of my exceedingly good cakes.

Well, this survey was all about cakes and confectionary and was actually, finally, all about Kipling cakes. They have new packaging and they want to know what people think about their reputation and stuff. Surprisingly, there was no way of mentioning the 'exceedingly good' catchphrase. It did ask, however, how old Mr Kipling was - about 70 I suppose, the perfect age to be a dedicated cakemaker.

I'm sure Mr Kipling has visited Exeter before; he's probably even had tea in the Clarence Hotel. I think Mr Kipling is an exceedingly good person as well as a great cakemaker. But he is so enigmatic that no-one has ever seen a photograph of him. If Mr Kipling opened a coffee shop and bakers he would be the most successful ever, for sure.

I think Mr Kipling is the John Betjeman of cakes though he's probably teetotal; he only has afternoon tea and cakes. If they'd met in Exeter they would've gone to the famous Deller's Cafe - the Cafe of the West in Bedford Street - and had afternoon tea (and they would never be stopped for a customer survey along the way). It would be like that sweet, touching, final scene at the end of the film Remains of the Day where Mr Stevens meets Miss Kenton for the last time and they have tea, accompanied by a haunting Blue Moon. Perfect. (It was actually filmed in the Winter Gardens Pavilion in Weston-super-Mare).

I left the Clarence Hotel and the survey with a pen, after my awful cup of coffee. Why didn't they offer me one of Mr Kipling's cakes?

For the full history of Mr Kipling and his great cakes:
http://www.mrkipling.co.uk/downloads/info_pack.pdf

This page has some great pictures of Deller's Cafe and its ornate interior:
http://www.exetermemories.co.uk/EM/1940s.html

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Relative from London

After an absence of one year, L arrives from London by coach.

How long will this last, the re-union? He is a very spontaneous person - certainly when in Exeter - and is likely to vanish at a moment's notice, even at 2 in the morning. It is a fleeting visit from an unpredictable, volatile person.