I made a ragged entrance today at the back-up cafe. My SMALL talk was poor. I tried to make up for it when Double denim brought over my first latte. The thinking was I’d lead on the wet weather before going into how so long as it wasn’t rain on a Monday, I can deal with the rain.
I just couldn’t get the SMALL talk going though. I’m determined to get at least one exchange off the ground in the next two hours. Chances are that I might need to fall back on the football. Double Denim loves the football talk.
Meantime, there’s some sax-heavy festive music here. The sax within the jazz or pseudo-Jazz sphere, works brilliantly but outside of that, particularly in pop, it dates badly. That’s why a lot of 80s music, as great as it was and as much as I love it, sounds more old-fashioned than it should.
Meantime, Double Denim’s Wingman, the dog-stroking-but-won’t-wash-his- hands-before-delivering-your-drink-and-pastry, Nostril Flarer, emerges from the customer loos. I don’t think as a model, staff sharing the loos with customers really works. If there is the space, and there is definitely the space here, you want to be running separate toilets. Maybe the idea with the staff here is that they show they are no different to the people, but personally, with eateries, I like the staff to convey some God-like air. There should be staff toilets, not visible to the public. Maybe they don’t even need to go to the loos because they’re SPECIAL?
A woman, another regular has arrived, and as she waits for her takeaway, she effortlessly engages Double Denim in SMALL talk with a simple line, “What is going on with this high street today?”
I can’t help thinking I should’ve gone with that. There’s plenty of options there for Double Denim to take the conversation in any direction. Burst water mains, buses on diversion, road works.
The woman though undermines her SMALL talk by forgetting to pay for her takeaway and an awkward moment ensues with Double Denim having to call her back.
They sort out the payment. An honest mistake. As she leaves, Double Denim gives her his usual (and very distinctive) ‘All the Best’. This always strikes me as very final. Most customers here seem to be regulars I’m already recognising after five-six months of having this place as my back-up café. I don’t think you give people you see a lot the ‘All the Best’.
With Double Denim being a Juventus fan, I’m thinking I could maybe steer him towards some SMALL talk on who was better, Platini or Zidane? Now most kids these days remember Platini as a somewhat dubious UEFA bureaucrat, which is unfortunate given that for me, he may have been the second greatest European player of all time, just behind Cruyff. Zidane, for some reason, even before coaching Madrid, is more associated with his spell at the Spanish giants from ’01-06, but the fact is he was far better in his five preceding years at Juventus.
There’s no denying Zidane is one of the greats, and this is what I would be telling Double Denim, but Platini had the edge. What Zidane did though was he put himself in that conversation, no small thing given just how extraordinary Platini was, particularly between ’82 and ’86 when he was Maradona’s only rival as the world’s best player.
I doubt I could go down this SMALL talk route when the back-up café is busy because I'm confident this Platini v Zidane debate would get Double Denim salivating and lead to long queues building.
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