I adore Money and London Fields. The zone of interest is a masterpiece. The man was one of the most consistently creative and interesting writers we've seen. I'd also wager he would be good fun to go on a pinting session with
Not sure if it's an issue localised to Ireland, but I've avoided Starbucks since I started seriously drinking coffee - not because of the price, but any cup I've had (and they're more akin to buckets) has had that bitter finish that over roasted/burnt beans bring to the table. Still the way Dublin is going, it's going to be hard to avoid places like Starbucks, Cafe Nero etc. soon - smaller places being priced out of the market.
Don't remember where I heard it, but I was told that Starbucks has actually decent quality beans that they overroast way too far. What a waste.
Your experience seems to agree with what I heard.
Absolutely my experience with Starbucks. Their default Pike Roast drip coffee is black as pitch and tastes like pure carbon. It could very well act as a smelling salt to snap one out of stupor or slumber.
Their lattes are a treat, though. A white mocha, pumpkin spice, or in the winter, a creme brulee latte are all divine. Basically hot milkshakes.
I think over roasting allows companies to sell beans from different regions/sources as one batch. Can't tell the difference when everything has the same burnt consistency.
That's a pity, sacrificing quality and end user experience to squeeze another dollar out of the system. Reminds me of Cadbury chocolate, when I was a kid it was incredible - a real treat. Now it's waxy mush full of palm oil, all to squeeze more profits.
You can still find beans that are roasted properly from smaller roasters that use smaller batches. When I'm in doubt, I'll go for for light roast or a flavored medium roast. Light will have the most caffeine, but more acidic.
Yep, it is the same in Berlin. There are local roasteries such as The Barn who make amazing coffee drinks from lightly roasted beans. The coffee has almost a fruity taste, it is so good.
I just got back from the US and had Starbucks a few times. The coffee was almost an exact opposite from that. Bitter, bland and burnt. Luckily we visited Seattle that has some good coffee culture still left, but I really don't get the popularity of Starbucks.
Starbucks is in the business of selling milk, mainly. That’s where they make the most money. If you’re going to serve someone a “coffee” drink with 30 oz. of dairy, the espresso has to be as black as tar or it won’t be tasted at all. This is the main reason Starbucks roasts the coffee as they do.
The second reason is cheap consistency: it’s harder to do a medium roast blend and get a reliable flavor profile than to just burn everything to ash.
I'm an American although not a big fan of Starbucks (I like to brew my coffee at home), but I definitely prefer dark roasted coffee and buy my beans that way.
I hear this complaint a lot but Starbucks has done a ton of testing and studies to arrive at their process. They may not appeal to “serious” coffee drinkers, but it is engineered to appeal to the general public. Personally I’ve found their coffees “fine” and inoffensive, and the consistency has given it a place for me.
That said, I do think it’s getting too expensive for what it is. Maybe there are good reasons like living wages for workers or whatever, but it also means I am more likely to just have coffee at home.
The problem is not only with Starbucks though, personally I see lots of commercially roasted beans were over roasted and thus the brews resulted are just brownish bitter water.
Love that season of the Wire. I'm from rural Ireland and there is a body of water near my home that is a suicide hotspot - 2 towns on the same river have given their share of young men to it unfortunately.
There is a rather prevalent belief, perhaps even a subconscious one, among people that suicide by leaping into a body of water is the go-to method. Probably doesn't help that it's been shown in media a lot, probably only below hanging and, perhaps, wrist-slitting. Anecdotally, at least 5 or 6 people that I've spoken to when discussing some grim news regarding events like these had the impression that suicide by water was a fast and calm process, which it most certainly is not. I still think about Scott Hutchison of Frightened Rabbit and his tragic demise, that one was very publicised and I can only hope it didn't inspire too many other struggling people.
Many cases also involve leaping from a tall bridge which raises the odds somewhat of a fast and painless death.
My anecdotal experience of such events is two fold...
One time I actually considered doing this but when it came to it I realised that, no matter how hopeless my situation seemed at the time, I am an optimist at heart and jumping off a bridge isn't something I'm ever going to actually do.
Secondly, same bridge a few years later, I encountered someone contemplating a jump and tried to talk him out of it. Relating the above and pointing out that life had turned OK after all didn't do much to dissuade him. Convincing people not to do it is not as easy as one may imagine. I soon figured that everything I said was just making matters worse.
Anyway, thankfully, I manged to flag down a passing ambulance and they were able to handle the situation much more calmly, he didn't jump.
One of the paramedics told me not to be hard on myself for not coping so well, she said the ones who are going to jump just do it. The less committed are playing the idea through, like I was, and are hoping for some kind of intervention to help them out of their current mindset.
I'm a member of a maritime SAR unit and when rescued, people who have deliberately entered the water often say they didn't want to be found by their family or found at all.
I've always maintained this is the greatest set of lyrics ever put together. Love, loss, war, ptsd - it is up there with the finest poems and sonnets ever composed.
An absolute wordsmith, 'a pair of brown eyes' is as close to a perfect song. Novels of thousands of pages haven't told a story as deeply as that song. His version of the Band played waltzing Matilda is one of the most moving songs I've ever heard - and amazingly wrote fairytale of New York as a bet, when Elvis Costello bet him he couldn't write a Christmas song.
Wordsmith is correct and a man with abundant talent. There's a great fairly recent documentary about his rocky life called Crock of Gold.
Regarding his aptitude for song writing there's a interview with Nick Cave where he covers a Pogues song... Cave describes spending time with Shane McGowan and him having a pile of songs in a mound on the floor. Picking them up he sees there are beautiful songs just lying there most destined for oblivion. A prolific song writer to say the least. You'd wonder how many gems were lost to his irreverent nature.
I saw Shane and the Popes (and a great New York band Black 47) open for Elvis Costello in NYC many years ago. Shane walks on stage and immediately hocks a loogie in the face of a random audience member standing up front. ‘Twas a hell of a show.
I’m from rural Ireland, and I always remember my first roundabout - I used go driving with my dad when learning, and as the weeks progressed I’d get closer and closer to Killarney which was the nearest town. Coming from our side the first thing you meet is a roundabout with 3 exits, one bringing you out the roads that bypass the town, one to the town centre, and one to a housing estate off the roundabout. As I joined the roundabout I met a woman driving against me on the roundabout taking a shortcut to her exit of the housing estate - frightened the shit outta 16 year old me, my dad was spooked too. I managed to make room enough for her to pass - she was oblivious. My dad actually knew her, lived there all her life, she must have driven that road 1000 times - how often was she taking that shortcut
It was a huge cultural moment. If you look at the impact of the 88 euros and subsequent world cups, we had songs, books, movies. And then, it all just died because someone never put the cones out for training, on a field in japan
I don't think we've ever processed that as a nation. Sure we struggled to process a civil war, we have no chance with saipan.
