OFF-CENTRE

If I was disloyal to good old St Arbuck last week by enjoying a cuppa down at Waitrose, he'd be furious with me today. Oh he'd be red-faced, the old monk of Seattle, throwing his plastic coffee beans around and glaring at his green-aproned minions while they gently pick up the pieces of broken chalkboard and snapped-off wooden stirring sticks.

I'm in Costa, where they've discovered tea spoons and have invented the off-centre saucer. Now tell me if this doesn't make you feel queasy: the cups in Costa sit over on one side of the saucer - presumably so that you can dump your tea bag or balance a spoon or something on the other. It's outrageous! And by that I mean different, asymmetrically unaesthetic and quite brilliant, of course.

Costa also seems to be the place to bring your babies out for a coffee. There are loads here today, slipping out of wooden high chairs, squealing and thumping trays. The air is thick with biscuit crumbs, wailing screams and the hushed tones of steadily boiling parents with stern, exhausted faces.

On the plus side, Costa have a rack of newspapers available for their customers' perusal. I got there to find all the real papers had gone and there was only one copy of one of the joke papers left - you know, one of those parody ones you're not supposed to take seriously.

So I picked up the last copy of the Daily Express and flicked through, looking for the crossword.

Lots of fun stories today - apparently, Jeremy Clarkson is hard to work with, an old lady put a thousand pounds of credit on her mobile phone and a police van in Haverfordwest got a parking ticket - presumably we're supposed to chuckle, point out the irony and remind ourselves that we're supposed to delve headfirst into schadenfreude at the police's misfortune. It's not really a story that, is it?

Anyway, I found the crossword on page 43 and quickly realised that I wouldn't be able to do it. I'm just not on the right wavelength today, and I've only got one clue:

Father holding Eastern object in cul-de-sac (4,3)

I think I'll stop there with the crossword. Seems to be a bit of a dead-end this week.