The trainee gamekeeper on the 8:52 had in her hand what has become the scourge of London in the 21st century.
The takeaway coffee cup.
‘Grab a coffee 2 go’ is the latest fast food American craze to arrive at our shores, and it is commuter types driven by sheer boredom to faddism, that are the main perpetrators. It’s the must have accessory to accompany the iPod, stripy scarf and copy of The Da Vinci Code on the platform catwalk.
The stuff that commuters carry is directly proportional to the likelihood of them ‘Grabbing a coffee 2 go’, if they are carrying a massive laptop to wack me on the head with as they walk past my seat then they’ll probably also have a coffee to spill on my clean cords. Sometimes I wonder how these people actually manage to move what with the rucksack, handbag, squash racket, iBook and Costa Mocha-fuckingchino!
But you know what? I can live with the latest fashion and can almost admit to liking the smell of the stuff, but what really grips me is the rubbish that our new ‘Grab a coffee 2 go’ culture has created. The Underground, which is cleaner and smarter than it’s ever been, becomes the daily rubbish bin for thousands of coffee cups that are discarded in a fit of self importance.
The curse of the coffee cup has arrived.
They are everywhere and now that I’ve started looking for them they’ve started multiplying like Gerbils. No platform is now complete without a scattering of coffee cups thoughtfully placed under the chairs, as if placing it down makes the ignorance of it all more sophisticated. After being considerately positioned they are then kicked over, allowing the sickly foam to squeeze from the lid like post coital residue, the annoying little serviette soaking some of it up to complete the effect.
I always ask myself who these people think will clear up their unwanted mess, and the answer is of course quite simple.
Someone else.
One of the army of invisible workers earning just above the minimum wage to do a completely unnecessary and soul destroying job. Probably a young, black and foreign, disillusioned with a world in which their lot amounts to picking up other peoples shit simply because they are too lazy and arrogant to take it to work.
The culture of ‘Grab a coffee 2 go’, along with Starbucks and all the corporate greed that accompanies it, is overwhelming American, just like the selfish culture it fosters.