The long and even longer of it

A lesser Alice once sang:
school's out forever.

It's back to school folks, only that it isn't. Not anymore. I am done. The agony of the first day shall no longer hover over me - not in academic terms at least.

Before you ask for the details of my psychotherapist, I have not, in fact, found a solution to the age-old phenomenon of the first-day-anxiety, or indeed, the first-week-anxiety. I have just left education. Full stop.

The relief I am not feeling perfectly reflects the bouts of knowledge that I am not getting from a year of postgraduating my way through London: all I get is the waft of expired meat from the cornershop. It summarises what has been going on this last year, and unfortunately, there is no health and safety committee running to the rescue. If you are traveling to the Strand take some smelling salts with you  - the rot is unbearable.

There were happy times though (rummaging through archives), and it is strange to see familiar names and faces spread all over the world again, right through to the edges, like the most accurately garnished Nutella Bagel you have ever had. The back-to-school feeling is met with the feeling of losing irreplaceable friends, who remain on the same planet, but are in another galaxy. Life goes on, and that's the long and even longer of it, irrevocably, sadly, and with much anticipation of the things that are going to happen, because they will. A stand-still is not an option (as much as I would love to hang around in this moment for quite a bit, just enough to let everything settle) I run, just like everybody else, with the times, and against time. Lucky us. Poor us.

Go to Notes in Covent Garden. They are a
hipster, independent, relaxed café with
excellent nibbles, coffee and wines!

 While I am sitting here, over iced coffee and iced olives (pretentious idiot that I am), different lives happen. Lives that were once united in their hate against a prestigious (cough) university on the north side of the river, and that are now scattered around the globe as in a gigantic Monopoly game. As I have only ever played the Belgian version from the 1950s, I have no idea what the modern day equivalent of all the boulevards and rues is, but I imagine that some people will end up with four hotels in the Rue Neuve, while others constantly hop between Gare du Nord and Gare du Midi, and even others are happy to avoid the Caisse de Communauté. I have always preferred 'Spiel des Lebens' (LIFE for all Anglophones), because you had a car at your disposition, and there was this wheel in the middle that was slightly more arbitrary than the cards in Monopoly. As opposed to Monopoly, you could marry (though only into the opposite sex - might have to be revised now), and there was a sense of philanthropic accomplishment, in addition to all the money. Weird - me talking about philanthropy.

Isn't this the BEST loo in
London/the world??

So, I resume where I left it about a year ago. With it, I sort of mean my life, plans, etc., when friends re-scattered across the world, and life just continued, completely oblivious to all the details. I, however, am very attentive to all the details in this (my) life, and here is a bit of visual trivia (see picture). A textual analysis shows a water closet, white suite with a neon orange lid. In the background we see white tiles with black drawings. It is the loo at 157 Brick Lane, my local watering hole. As a person who rates places by the standard of their facilities, including hand soap and scent, I appreciate the effort these guys put into this award-worthy loo. Their coffee isn't too bad either.

The weather is now turning from soppy grey Summer-plagiat to Indian Summer. As always when things are shifting. With a bit of luck they shift in the right direction. If not, I'll still have the loo.

It's all in the name, innit mate?

Can I take your name, please?

             

                        

- Of course you can. You can. You take it, and then you mincemeat it into something barely legible, barely understandable, barely my name on plastic cup. YOU are the Starbucks person serving me, and I really start hating you - all of YOU!

- My name is Alice and I have a serious problem: I like Iced Coffee. I don't need the sun to drink my iced coffee, no. When it comes to iced coffee, I loose all self-esteem and all self-control. Anytime of the day, anytime of the year. I even go so far as to abandon my self-imposed ban on multi-national chains and drop into Starbucks (pah!) to get my fix. It's this serious (Sorry Brick Lane Coffee, Get Coffee, Monmouth and Climpson & Sons).

So imagine how I feel if I, in the midst of betraying myself and all other coffee-lovers, am being treated like a non-person - a nameless individual without identity!!??? I hate the fake smiles and the 'How are you today' that is being trained into the people at Starbucks, and I hate the uniforms that are supposed to democratise the lot, but in fact only widen the gap, and I hate the name badges that make everybody sooooo approachable. All about Starbucks is fake, but what really gets me going is the bloody name-taking.

Dear non-existent reader, my name is Alice. It's a British institution if you like; 9 times out of 10 when I meet new people and introduce myself, they say something like 'ahh, in WONDERLAND' or 'uhum, so your parents were into Lewis Carroll?' or even 'aha, school's out for ever'. It's almost impossible not to make the reference, and if they don't, I'll take over and do it myself 'like the one in Wonderland', to preempt all future tasteless jokes and references to cake and drink, and caterpillars, and cats, and oysters, and two fat blokes with almost identical names, and and and......

Also, dear reader, I have a very standard diction - not Laurence Olivier - but not bad either. I used to work for radio and telly, so I think I should get the talking part alright. I speak more or less the Queen's English, with a hint of an accent, but in a conversation that lasts less than a minute, nobody would notice. Even after an hour, some people are surprised to learn that I am one of the Queen's finest immigrants.

So - but here comes Starbucks. As you can see from the collection of pictures, not a single of the 'barristas' has managed to get my name (remember, it's A-L-I-C-E) right. The bloke who wrote 'ALES' gets an extra prize for asking me to spell my name. So HOW, HOW on earth is this possible?????? It's bloody, effing five letters long; it's taken from one of the most popular Edwardian children's books and there is MORE than just one of us around!!! (At the moment I'm listening to Limahl 'Neverending Story' and frankly, there you have a name to get wrong! #ChildOfThe80s)

I've been thinking about this problem for some time now, and the only logical explanation (if there is one), is that I just don't look like an Alice. I'm not a small blonde girl in a blue dress (that could also make me a Dorothy), I'm not a leather-wearing, ageing rock star - I look very much like myself, and a tiny bit like my gran (who was an Alice, too). It seems though as if Starbucks' staff doesn't recognise me as an Alice, and finds nice alternatives to re-christen me. Very often, those alternatives end up being men's names (?). Even if they ask me to spell my name (Ay - Ell - Ai - See - Ee) they get it wrong.

They must be completely oblivious to my name, if they get others right (a guy in the queue was called Timothy, and there was a Rishi, as well as a Gwendolyn) - to the extend that I fear entering one of their shops, dreading the fake smile and the 'Can I take your name?'. They can take my name; they do; and then they destroy it.

Time to clock out. Best of luck, Alysse xxx