The view from my office in Christchurch is quite terrific — over the wonderful trees on the campus out towards the Banks Peninsula (I think!). The best office view I’ve had since the long off days in the Hugh Owen Building in Abersytwyth where I had a panoramic view looking over Cardigan Bay.
It’s the beginning of the academic year here, and the campus is overflowing with lost-looking freshers. Somehow they look younger (and seem to be trying less hard to be cool) than their Cambridge equivalents. Almost deserted when we arrived last week, there’s now a nice buzz about the place.
NZ coffee culture note. More or less every place we’ve drunk coffee so far has had what looks like a proper espresso machine. And suitable tamping and steaming and frothing all seems to be going on. So you take ceremonious delivery of what is supposed to be an espresso macchiato. But not once — yet — have I had anything that would pass muster as even an approximation to what you get in the humblest corner cafe bar in Italy. Very odd. But I’m reliably told that the bar opposite the art gallery does the real thing: so here’s hoping …
Every time I ask for a cappuccino in Britain, the barman heats the milk until it reaches the temperature of the lava. This is no coincidence: they all check their little thermometer, to make sure they keep heating the milk until it is so hot that you can barely hold your cup – let alone drink what’s in it – for at least 15 minutes. The lava milk is then added to a coffee of very dubious quality, for an even more dubious result. That’s part of life. In Britain.
But things can get worse. In France, for instance, a cappuccino is a coffee with cream. Yet a coffee with cream isn’t a cappuccino, is it?