Another scene from the territorial dispute posted a few days ago. Here fast food packaging enters the scene. (Please click to see whole picture).There's a sale in almost every shop. "Oh no!" says the man outside the show shop displaying women's boots, shoes and handbags, in Mount Pleasant. He is addressing two women who accompany him. "Further reductions! We should have waited!"
Outside Ishmael's tea and coffee shop, I drink chai - black tea with spices in a glass cup. Jenny has the same with milk. She pours the milk onto the tea. The milk floats for a moment on the tea. Then the tea rises and mixes with it. It stains the milk and churns into it. For a moment, it looks like a stormy sunset with swirling clouds.
2 comments:
I'm sure you've reflected on the striking name of the tea and coffee shop but I must have missed that. I assume too that the staff are wearied from dreaming up responses to literary TW customers and have probably standardised on, "Yes, you may call me that." I Googled and find the name has a tangle of Islamic and Judaic roots. It's a big deal for the former (The ancestor of Arabic people) but equivocal to the latter ("wicked but repentant"). If alone, therefore, your reading matter could range from the Talmud to the Qur'an (I love that apostrophe) to Melville, though it would be interesting to know, from the waiters' experience, which book heralds the biggest tip.
When the shop opened they adopted a system where, when you gave your order, they asked your name, so that they could call you when your drink was ready. They have changed the system now, perhaps because they tired of customers replying: "Call me Melville". Nowadays you have to wait at the counter and carry your own tea and coffee to your table.
A brochure explains that Ishmael is a chain. Its first branch apparently opened in Blackpool a good many years ago.
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