So we went up to Leeds to pack up Mel’s dad from his house and ship him to Manchester to his new flat. Sounds easy. Chaos theory sounds easy. Climbing Everest sounds easy. I’ll spare you the details/agony. But Sunday we packed and Monday we shipped over to Manchester, following the removal van as the gorgeous sunny Yorkshire morning gave way, half way across the Pennines, to the dull grey wetness that IS Manchester’s only ever weather.

But we had to stop for coffee. Because the kettle was in a box marked ‘KITCHEN’ and we’d been deprived of hot drinks since breakfast. And hence ‘gasping’. I stopped at a petrol station that was also an M&S and had a ‘Wild Bean Cafe’. Brilliant. And even more brilliant; it wasn’t from an automated machine but actual, real, proper, frothed up, ground-in-front’a-yer-face, barista coffee. But the barista, nice though she was, was the cashier for the petrol station. So do they only employ cashiers who can barist? Or do they only employ baristas who spend 90% of their day taking petrol payments?

Surely they’re not implying that ‘anyone can make coffee with one’a them machines’ so they get 10 minute training when no-one’s filling up with diesel and they’re away? Qualified.

The coffee was great, as it ‘appens. But when I’d ordered, ‘large latte and small latte’, this petrol-pumper/barista hybrid person told me of a wonderful offer. If I upgraded my order (£5.15) to ‘2 large lattes’, they could throw in 2 ‘sweet treats’ and all for just £6!!!!! Holy shit!!! What are ‘sweet treets’? I inquired. Because I love ‘sweet’ as a class of stuff, generally speaking. She pointed me to a rack with one moth-eaten croissant, 2 really iced cinnamon things and a whole bunch of multi-coloured muffins. So Mel was out of the equation.

And so was I. If there’d been an amazing almost croissant I couldn’t have resisted. Pan au raisin? Now you’re talking. But that lot?

What she was doing was offering me fatness. Obesity. I was ordering a coffee and she was offering me cash incentives to up my order by an extra 400 calories per person for virtually nothing. She was a Temptress. Professionally. Possibly on commission to upsell. And if I was a lorry driver or a sales rep and had a long, lonely stretch ahead, I’d definitely have gone for it.

Which you can see when you stop at any service station. The size of the average travelling Brit. And in every service station they have the same kind of ‘offers’ too. After you’ve had your Burger King or Pizza Hut lunch.

It’s not for nothing that we’re the fattest nation in Europe. Takes a lot of work, lot of incentives, lot of temptation.

Happy Wednesday

A xxxx