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Quarter Horse Coffee

The Quarter Horse Coffee1 shop is an odd one. Located on the Bristol Street road which is on the Queensway dual carriage way through Birmingham.

I say odd because it is slightly out of the city and not the place normally connected to Indie Coffee shops. No footfall of office or shop workers. And another odd thing is that they have their own roaster on the premises. I guess it must get hot in the summer months when that thing gets going.

Now I have not had a coffee there as I am suffering a bout if insomnia. As it was about three pm when I got there I had a Chai Latte. It was perhaps the best chai latte I have had in a long time but I cannot tell you what the coffee is like. I will add an addendum to this post when I have had chance to get one.

The plus side with it not being in the city centre is coffee shop was nice and airy. I sat at a simple wooden bench at a simple wooden table. If I had to use one word I would use the word ‘Minimal’. White walls, high ceiling and plenty of windows lead to it feeling spacious. Calm and quiet which is very nice to write in. One down side is the table where I sat rocked slightly. Quite nice all around though.

A side note that Quarter Horse Coffee was originally opened in oxford. When looking to expand they decided on Birmingham and to have enough space for their roaster. Which might explain the location.

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Shocking Revelation

I have a confession to make.

I have never expected anybody to ever read my blog. It was to be an external expression of my consciousness on the internet. Much like Last Week Tonight with John Scream in the Void. Guess that was kind of naive.

But two friends from work have read it and that was two more then I was expecting. In fact I always thought is was more of a negative number. Which was silly I suppose.

Their feed back was greatly received as would all feedback.

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SixEight Kafé

As I write this I am currently enjoying a nice latte at sixeight Kafé.

It is located near Pigeon Park (Or St Philip’s Cathedral of Birmingham. located on Colmore Row. I have no idea why it is called Pigeon Park). It is just behind House of Fraser on Temple Row by the Grand Western Arcade.

Not that I say this lightly but it has some of the best coffee in Birmingham City Centre, which no small feat. What I like about it is there is a consistency to the coffee that I do not get in other coffee shops. One of the reason I avoid the High Street chains is whether you get good coffee can change from person to person. I used to like the coffee from Nero’s in the Bullring but the person who made coffee left and since then the coffee has not been as good.

But my favourite bit about sixeight kafé is the large basement underneath or the speak-easy style as they call it. It is nice and cool which nice on a hot day like this. It is also very quiet as well which is very good for writing. They also have a great selection of local sourced cakes.

The only down side is they don’t take ApplePay/AndroidPay but take contactless payment but with a 25p surcharge. It still on par with the High Street chains for a coffee & cake so I am happy to pay for the much better atmosphere.

If I was going to try hosting a writers group, I would do it here.

Cheers Peeps

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The lesser spotted Lurgy

I write this I am recovering from a spot of Lurgy. Or is it The Lurgy. I am always unsure, should you call it The Flu or it just Flu. Or it a illness scale “Last year I had flu but this year I had The Flu”. That is without going into where Man Flu sit, which my Fiancée assures me is a real thing.

Started to come down with a cold last Tuesday. Wednesday it got on to my chest and roughed me up a bit. I have what you might call a weak chest. I had a chest infection when I was 27 and ever since then when some cold gets on to my chest it f**ks me up. I spent a lot of time sweating and being completely out of it.

Now me being ill is not new but it hampers my writing as it happened at the start of two days off straight. Normally I will get the odd day here and there as I work in retail. So I think it is what I get for planning two full days after working five days. I work with the public a lot and it means I am front and centre when comes to illnesses.

Anyhow I did was realise how cool Alto’s Adventure is. It was only game I could play in my fevered state. I played on my Apple TV and all took was a pressing single button. It became quite zen and calming after while. Broken up with small spells of my freaking out because I had got to the furthest distance marker.

I also played a lot of SteamWorld Heist by Image & Form. It is set in the same universe of SteamWorld Dig (my favourite mining game) and full of cute steam bots called Cowboys. It is a cute and fun game. I was made aware of it by Jam_Sponge of the excellent DaftSouls podcast. He said it was like Xcom and I see what means. Xcom Two always feels like when things go wrong, it is you who made the mistake. SteamWorld Heist is very similar in that regard. It came out on the Nintendo DS store awhile ago but as I don’t have a DS I had to bide my time. Music to the game is supplied by Steam Powered Giraffe.

I also listened to a lot of Bukle’s Podcast(Aka Adam Buxton) which is very good.

And the Literature and latte are finally releasing Scrivener for iOS. Which I thought would never happen. I knew they had gone to beta testing the program but I had expected that it would take the amount time it took them to get that point ie six months to a year. Well that is what I get for not trusting Keith. When it comes out I will put my thoughts on using it here.

TLDR I’ve been of work for just under a week and I was so out all I could do was play Altos Adventure as it was the only thing I could get my head around.

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So I’m Back Up and Running

Had a few issues with my domain mapping (self inflicted) when I change over my domains.

But I’m back up and running.

I will try and update the site more often. Have a few idea for blog posts.

On a side note I have got my internet back, which was good cause it was very stressful. And I’m also getting married in October so that has been the most important thing in my life.

But I realised I was always putting some things off and waiting to before going ahead with my life. It was always “I do that when I get time” or “When (insert random time) happens I’ll get started on my Novel”. So I decided it best to start now.

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Fear for the Future

As my country seeks to extricate itself from the EU, I wonder what their expectations are and what they will be satisfied with.

Leave the EU completely and retain complete control of state. With its control over our economy and the self inflicted wound that goes with it.

Or leave the EU but retain connection to the Single Market, but have to deal with the free movement of people. This is the one I don’t think the people who voted leave would be happy with. They will cry foul and go even further into the bosom of Nigel Farage, UKIP and their fellow hard right groups.

Now to be honest I understand how they feel. To be disinterested, ignored and left behind. The North of England has had a rough time for the last 30-40 years. Since mining industry was closed in the eighties and manufacturing became less important to the Nation’s economy as a whole. It has been poorly invested in over the past few decades.

Some of the poorest areas of Western Europe are in the North of England. They have received a lot of support from the EU but they have seen immigrants getting jobs when they can’t get jobs themselves or lost jobs to only be replaced by cheaper labour.

It is easy to blame immigration for all your woes but that undervalues the years of systemic underinvestment from Westminister. This will not change anytime soon and will probably made harder with the economy weakened or possible recession.

My only hope is that the people who voted to leave the EU don’t lose hope when the impossible expectation they were given fails to materialise. Don’t give in to the hate and let others make their decision for them. 

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Interwebs Update #2

So we had the Openreach engineer out again and he took one look at the number and said he “Could not install the line” as it was a Midland exchange number. As I am on the Central exchange that was not going to work. A nice guy called Gary has been chasing up BT Openreach and keeping me informed on what was going on. Due to his hard work I finally feel like I am getting some where. Which is a good feeling. An engineer is coming out on Friday to fix the line and as it a Central number I feeling good about my chances.

I am currently writing in the basement of Coffee Lounge just opposite New Street Station and Grand Central. It is possibly the largest independent coffee shop in Birmingham. To be honest that might include the chains as well. I had a Flat White

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Coffee Shop Update #1

Costes Cafe Bar is where I’m currently writing today. It is just off the Business Quarter near the Ring Road. It is possibly the biggest coffee shop on one floor and best decorated but definitely has that compromised design that you get when a building serves two masters. The best way I can describe it is a ‘Pub Grub’ family restaurant during the day and ‘Aving it Large’ pub at night. In the end there is a compromise to do both and well rather than do one brilliantly. I Didn’t write as much as I had hoped as my neck was aching but that can happen.

I had a Flat White

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Local Coffee Shops

I have started writing in coffee shops. I needed to get out of the flat and try writing somewhere new. Having been without internets for a while has left me stressed and unable to write. So thought changing the scene has been constructive and I have written 500 words. Which is very good for me.

I have tried to stick to independant coffee shops. The first of which is Six Eight Kafe just by the Great Western Arcade. It is a nice arty coffee shop and when I visited there is very quiet. That could have been due I went to basement to write and it was sunday. I had a Flat White

The second one I went to was the Urban Coffee Company on Church Street. It a small independant coffee chain across Birmingham and with one in Coventry. It is possibly the most independent coffee shop. If purely counting the amount of times I’ve seen the word ‘Independent’. I had a Flat white.

I shall update when I visit more Coffee shops.