The Lair of the Pleasure Vampires

I spent the majority of today at Starbucks in Cardiff, working on a bunch of sample chapters (if this means nothing to you, go here - go on, treat yourself, it's World Book Day!).

Yes, those of you who read my Beeblebrox List will know I swore off chain coffee shops back in October last year. Those die hard, devoted readers (and gods know who you are, cos I'm sure I don't) who followed my Beeblebrox blog will know I caved on this months ago, seduced at Paddington Station by the delights of some utterly vile and slightly demented special beverage they had on offer. I'm fairly sure it wasn't actually Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate, but it was something equally ill-advised and nasty.

Anyway, so my love affair with Starbucks continues. As I've mentioned before, I seem, for reasons I still don't entirely understand, to get a lot more work done on days in a Starbucks than I do on days here at home.

My day-job printer and general geeky fellow traveller and nutjob pal, Greg, saw my post yesterday about spending today in Starbucks and dragged this little nugget of information to my attention:
"Wasn't there some report that said that Starbucks coffee was basically like liquid junk food?" he asked. "Like a big coffee there has as much fat in it asa portion of fries or something?"

Gee. Ta.

The point of course, as I snootily reminded him, was that I have the staff at my favourite Starbucks well trained. I have coffee with skimmed mile, no caffeine and fake sugar, or as I've described it now for several years, a "bucket o'pointlessness".

"It's OK," I assured him. "I ask them to suck all the conceivable pleasure out of it for me. Y'know...like a bunch of big old Pleasure Vampires". 

So that's where I've been all day - at the mercy of the Pleasure Vampires. Came home and, since d refused to hit me with sticks, I powered off about 400 calories on the bike, and this blog entry comes to you while d is out in the kitchen....baking cakes...for work, and I am in between academic journal proofs (basically 20-odd pages a time of algebra and geometry, with occasional sanity breaks for words. Usually translated from Chinese).


It occurs to me that, as in the best horror films, I may not have yet actually escaped the Lair of the Pleasure Vampires.


Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhh!!!!!