meish dot org: life, unfolding

Long-term readers of this blog may be overjoyed to hear that I’ve created a special category for posts pertaining to the Deli-from-Helli, the somewhat random Armenian sandwich emporium that I’ve been frequenting on and off for a number of years now.

Those who have no idea what I’m talking about should visit that collection of posts and catch up. There’s more to come, I promise.

Or is that a threat?

Update: Wah. Categories not working for some reason. Will sort out. Hold that thought.

Update Update: Categories fixed. Feast away.

I moved jobs recently, relocating to an office about half a mile down the road. It wasn’t hard: the new office is (half a mile) closer to home, and therefore an easier commute, plus handier for lunchtime shopping and eating options.

The toughest bit, however, was not waving goodbye to my familiar view, my old desk or my lovely perfectly-adjusted-for-my-bum aeron chair… it was breaking the news to the staff of the Armenian delli-from-helli across the road from the old office, where I had been getting lunch (and sometimes breakfast, and sometimes dinner) most days for the last five and a half years.

They did not make it easy.

Breaking up is hard to do, and nothing makes it harder than when the person (or in this case, sandwich shop) you’re breaking up with refuses to accept that it’s really over.

“No no,” they said, “you can still come here for lunch.”

Well no, I explained, it’ll be a bit out of my way.

“Not at all!” they insisted, “The walk will do you good!”

I conceded that while that may be true, it was still out of my way, and time might be an issue.

“Well then,” said Bad Cop - the matriarch of the enterprise who barks at employees for getting customers’ orders wrong, and customers for ordering the wrong things, “I will write down our telephone number, and you can ring us ahead and we will have your lunch ready when you arrive, so you don’t have to queue.”

Most enterprising.

I didn’t mention the myriads of other - dare I say it, better, more reliable - sandwich emporiums (emporia?) near my new office; the restaurants and cafes; the supermarkets; the office lunch delivery services; the specialist delis and organic establishments which beckon within reach of my new desk and (yay!) aeron chair. I didn’t mention that the flaky service and surprising order fulfillment I’d become accustomed to over the previous half decade with them had been something to overlook because they were so convenient for the office.

Instead, I did what most people do when breaking up a longstanding relationship. I smiled, and lied, and pretended that we could, of course, remain friends, but with the guilty, hidden knowledge that I’d likely never taste their floury baps again, nor experience the odd but strangley familiar (after a few times, anyway) sensation of biting into what you thought was mozarella, avocado and tomato on ciabatta (no butter) only to discover that you’d actually been given Mexican tuna and taboulleh on ciabatta (with butter).

Breaking up is hard to do. Now every time I pop into a different sandwich shop for lunch, near my new office, I find myself scanning the passing crowds on the street beyond the plate windows, in case one of the Deli-from-Helli employees is out and about, making a delivery, and catches me cheating on them - or rather, cheating on their memory. The guilt. The shame.

Perhaps I should have told them I was giving up food, instead of moving away. Would that have been easier to stomach?

I’ve had issues with the Armenian deli-from-helli recently. I mean, I’ve always had issues with them - the random order fulfillment, the rudeness, the wildly varying pricing policy, the chaos and stress of just trying to get a coffee and some toast in the morning - but recently, they’ve surpassed themselves.

For a month or so, now, I’ve been avoiding Bad Cop. Remember her? The “what you want, lady?” lady? Bad Cop is the snappish matriarch who bosses the other family members around, and seems to want to be in charge of the cash register, the coffee machine and the sandwich making bar, all at the same time. This is eeempossible, but it doesn’t stop her trying. There’s a very limited space behind the counter, and Bad Cop, Good Cop, the new boys (lurch, the one who’s twelve, and the prodigal daughter with a tattoo on her neck - the usual cast members) jostle for elbow room and prep space. It’s all a bit chaotic.

Anyway, a month or so ago, I noticed that Bad Cop was using her stumpy little thumb to hold the the salad on my sandwich as she tonged it on. I don’t know about you, but I sort of object to having a thumb in my sandwich (”Mozarella and tomato on ciabatta, please, with some black pepper - but hold the Armenian thumb!”) and besides, the sandwiches she made were also sloppier and less carefully made than those made by the other employees. She wanted to get the money and get you out the door, without recognising that maybe, just maybe, you were less likely to return if you had a sloppy sandwich with a thumbprint in the middle of it. I started avoiding her gaze, and whenever she barked “what you want, lady?” at me, I’d say “oh, still thinking” and wait until another employee was serving. Sneaky, I know.

A couple of weeks ago, I went in at lunchtime and ordered a cheese and tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread. There was a new boy serving, while Bad Cop manned the till. She watched with eagle eyes as new boy plonked one, then another slice of cheese on the bread. Bad Cop barked at him. I speak no Armenian, but even I could tell that she was telling him that he’d put too much cheese on. He mumbled something back which caused Bad Cop to roll her eyes and leave the cash register, walk over to my sandwich and reach in to remove the offending superfluous slice.

“You’re not taking that slice out of my sandwich, are you?” I asked, incredulous and peering over the top of the counter.

“He put too much on,” she answered, “he’s new. It’s one slice per sandwich, he doesn’t know yet.”

“I’m not objecting to you removing the cheese - I’m objecting to your unwashed hands in my food,” I replied.

“I only touch a little bit,” she responded, placing the redundant slice back on the pile in the chilled cabinet.

“I don’t care,” I said, “you’ve been handling money at the till. Coins are filthy, you know, all sorts of germs on them.”

“I wash them now,” she said, heading for the sink.

“It’s too late!” I exclaimed, “can I have another sandwich, please?”

Good Cop stepped in, chucked out the old butty and started to make me another. Bad Cop stormed back to the till and glowered at me. Good Cop buttered the bread and then reached for the top slice of cheese on the pile in the chilled cabinet.

“Not that one,” I said, “that’s the one she touched with her dirty hands,”

He shot Bad Cop a steely glare, and then threw away the top slice. Finally, he passed me the completed sandwich. I took it to the till to pay, and Bad Cop overcharged me. Figures.

The thing is, I don’t think I’m being out of order to expect food to be made hygienically. Money is filthy and germ-laden, and anyone handling food (and that includes me, before I eat it) should wash their hands before they eat, especially if they’ve been handling coins or cash.

Scary factoid: E.Coli and Salmonella bacteria can survive for up to eleven days on normal silver/copper coins. Eeuw!

In case you are wondering, the reason I keep going back to the deli-from-helli is principally because the food is great. Fresh, tasty and usually worth dealing with the stress and hassle of ordering it.

Today, all is forgiven, though. Bad Cop cooked with her own fair hands the tastiest (and perhaps only) Armenian/Thai chicken curry I’ve ever had. Utterly delicious.

I fully expect to discover that she stirred it with her boot or something, but I’d still eat another plate without hesitation. Yum.

Mind you, if I come down with giardia within the week, you’ll know what happened.

There’s a guy walking down the road swigging from a plastic Coke bottle. He’s got one hand on the bottle and the other on his crotch, for reasons I don’t fully understand except that he might also be holding his trousers up - they’re so low-slung and capacious I can see the bottom of his boxer shorts. He takes one last mighty swig from the bottle and then throws it - not even just a quiet drop - off into someone’s front garden.

For a moment, I’m tempted to repeat the action my mother must have done a thousand times when I was a kid.

She’d see someone dropping a crisp packet or can in the street, then she’d pick it up, run over to them (well, trot - mums don’t run, do they?) and say “I think you dropped this.”

The litterbug (one of my first words, I’m proud to state) would be so embarrassed by being presented with their litter by a white-haired little woman (mum went entirely grey by thirty-two - it’s genetic, and I’m heading in that direction too. Well, sometimes, in the wrong light), they’d usually just meekly take it and then pop it in the next bin, when they thought mum wasn’t looking anymore.

I used to have puzzled toddler conversations with her afterwards, tugging on her sleeve:
“He didn’t drop it, he was throwing it away…”
“I know”
“…then why did you pick it up?”

So for a moment, I’m tempted to repeat this procedure with the boy in the low-slung trousers and the bandana, and then I notice that he’s bigger than me, and I’d end up looking like a loony. So I don’t.

Then I’m in the deli, getting lunch, and the new boy is preparing my jacket potato with tuna sweetcorn. He’s young and chatty and laughing with one of the other guys behind the counter, and just as he’d closing the polystyrene case on my spud, Bad Cop (remember her? “What you want, lady?”) spits something at him in Armenian and he rolls his eyes and, using tongs, unloads half the filling from the potato which is now 98% potato and 2% tuna. Not a favourable ratio.

I raise my eyebrows and Bad Cop won’t even meet my glare. I go in there every day and she’s stiffing me. I hope she wisely invests the 0.4p she managed to save by unloading my baked potato.

A South African man with a big floppy quiff is ordering a very complex lunch. He’s got a real physical presence - his chest is puffed up and it feels like he’s taking up too much space. Every time the girl behind the counter checks a bit of the order, he sighs heavily and tolls his eyes at the other customers and confirms in a patronising and snappy tone:

“…you want mayonnaise on the ham bap?”
“[sigh] Yes, I want mayonnaise, that’s what I said, wasn’t it?”
“…and the coronation chicken is on ciabatta?”
“[siiiigh] Yes, ciabatta, I already told you that, for god’s sake”
“…would you like the quiche heated up?”
“[sigh] Well, obviously, yes. Christ almighty.”

How hard is it to be even vaguely courteous? What gives him the right to be such a needle-dick?

There’s this bloke at the counter, paying for his lunch. He’s just ahead of me in the queue - I know this because he made me decide not to have a sandwich today: while deliberating what to have himself, he managed to cough all over the pizza and prod eight baguettes, not to mention getting his head right into the salad bar and breathing. A lot. So I had a potato.

Then after he has paid he walks off, leaving his bottle of water on the counter. So I shout after him “excuse me; you forgot your water!” and he comes back, grabs it and says “I don’t want any water”.

The man behind the counter (Not GoodCop - Penry, the mild mannered janitor) tells him that he was charged for it, and the bloke takes the water and walks away without a word. I shout after him, “you’re welcome!” which sometimes gets me into trouble, but not today, because he’s already gone.

And for the love of all things reasonable, can someone please tell me what the point of flimsy, floppy plastic forks is, if they bend and flex every time you try to get a forkful of baked potato - and then catapult the contents onto your screen or into your hair or across the office? Gah!

Queueing in the deli at lunchtime (mozarella and avocado on lavash bread, since you ask) I was suddenly aware that the mouths of all the women around me were awash in a giant slick of lip-gloss. Not lipstick. Not colour. But sticky, semi-transparent or slightly-coloured wet-look gloss, making each mouth look dripping and wet and, basically, ready for anything.

Don’t get me wrong - I have lip-gloss too (blame Cat Deeley), but I tend not to think about it as a fashion thing - it’s less of a hassle than lipstick, and more interesting than blisteze. But you know what? I’d never really considered the impact of the female mouth, painted wet, until I looked around the overheated deli and saw at least ten women, hungry and flushed and moist-mouthed. Have I accidentally stepped into the set of Heather does Hammersmith? How odd.

Lip gloss these days doesn’t taste nearly as good as it did when I got my first tube in about 1984 - strawberry flavour, and so sticky you had to keep your mouth open all day, or else your lips would clamp together. Oh, and throughout the day, you’d gather random flotsam and jetsam across the bottom half of your face - hair, crumbs, dust, insects, whatever - as the process of living spread your attempt at glamour across your face.

There was another product around back then - I’m not sure it’s even legal to make it anymore (there was probably a warning on the back, like with bottles of DEET - “may be harmful to fish”) - called Lip-Kote or something similar. It came in a clear glass vial with a tiny brush, and you were supposed to paint it onto your lips to fix your lipstick firmly in place throughout the day (”Eat! Drink! Kiss!”). It stung like crazy - I do remember that. You had to paint it on, a sort of varnish for your face, and then hang with your mouth open while it dried, looking like exactly the kind of dumbass you were for bothering to do it in the first place. Why did anyone bother?

I don’t remember ever being able to wear it properly, though - aside from having to wash it off after five minutes because it stung too much and I was bored of holding my mouth open, at eleven, what use did I really have for lipstick-fixative, apart from contraband experimentation in a home where Barbies were forbidden and Greenham was considered a holiday destination?

Mornings start well when they start with Marmite on toast and latte from the local Armenian deli. Well, at least they start surreally.

The people who work there have a sort of Good Cop - Bad Cop thing going on. You go in and depending on who you get serving you, you might be in and out in the time it takes the bread to brown, or it could be a lot longer than that.

If you get the Good Cop, you place your order, she prepares it, and then you leave. Simple. Uncomplicated. Straightforward. If you get the Bad Cop, woe betide your hangover - you’re in for a long ride.

The Bad Cop woman snaps, in her thick Armenian accent, “Yes lady, what you want?”

As soon as you open your mouth to ask for some Marmite on toast, she turns around and starts ordering the KP around [tangent: I once worked in a kitchen where the KP (Kitchen Porter, for the uninitiated) insisted on being called the Dish Pig]. So you’re stuck there with a half-formed request on your lips, stomach rumbling. A minute later, she turns around and says “Who’s next please? Yes lady?” and then fixes you with a steely glare and says “You want bagel with cream cheese lady?”

“No,” you say, “Mar-”

“Marmalade on Ciabatta?” she growls.

“Er, no…toast with M-”

“Mayonnaise?” she says, already grabbing the catering-sized jar off the shelf.

“Marmite,” you mumble through your hangover, “just toast and marmite. And a latte”

“You want brown bread white bread?” she queries, already putting white bread in the toaster and pushing the slot down.

“Yes, white is fine,” you say, resigned to white bread anyway.

She’s not so much Bad Cop as Vague Cop, I suppose.

Then halfway through preparing your toast, she asks the next customer “Yes lady, what you want?” and then ignores her, or leaves your toast cooling on the metal countertop [tangent: what's the name for the beads of moisture left on the counter by hot toast? Toast sweat?] while she goes to beat up the DishPig or make a Bacon and Jelly Bap or whatever.

When she returns to your toast, she puts way too much marmite on it (toast should be lovingly caressed by marmite, vegemite, etc, not slathered in it) and then wraps it in greaseproof paper and thrusts it at you saying “fifty-five p, lady”

“Er,” you say, fumbling for change “…and my latte?”

She barks in Armenian at the DishPig, who grudgingly shuffles over to the coffee machine thingy and then promptly makes you a cappuccino, with extra sugar.

Nothing like a perky start to the day, eh? The fun thing is that I get to do this every single morning and although Bad/Vague Cop recognises me every day, and will happily make conversation about what I was wearing three weeks ago last tuesday, or the bloke with the nice tie who I took there for lunch last June, she refuses blindly to apply that same photographic knowledge to my order, which is the same every single morning without fail, and has been for the last eighteen months, at least.

Marmite. Toast. Brown bread. Latte. No sugar. �1.95. I even have the right change ready. Sigh.

I’ve had issues with the Armenian deli-from-helli recently. I mean, I’ve always had issues with them - the random order fulfillment, the rudeness, the wildly varying pricing policy, the chaos and stress of just trying to get a coffee and some toast in the morning - but recently, they’ve surpassed themselves.

For a month or so, now, I’ve been avoiding Bad Cop. Remember her? The “what you want, lady?” lady? Bad Cop is the snappish matriarch who bosses the other family members around, and seems to want to be in charge of the cash register, the coffee machine and the sandwich making bar, all at the same time. This is eeempossible, but it doesn’t stop her trying. There’s a very limited space behind the counter, and Bad Cop, Good Cop, the new boys (lurch, the one who’s twelve, and the prodigal daughter with a tattoo on her neck - the usual cast members) jostle for elbow room and prep space. It’s all a bit chaotic.

Anyway, a month or so ago, I noticed that Bad Cop was using her stumpy little thumb to hold the the salad on my sandwich as she tonged it on. I don’t know about you, but I sort of object to having a thumb in my sandwich (”Mozarella and tomato on ciabatta, please, with some black pepper - but hold the Armenian thumb!”) and besides, the sandwiches she made were also sloppier and less carefully made than those made by the other employees. She wanted to get the money and get you out the door, without recognising that maybe, just maybe, you were less likely to return if you had a sloppy sandwich with a thumbprint in the middle of it. I started avoiding her gaze, and whenever she barked “what you want, lady?” at me, I’d say “oh, still thinking” and wait until another employee was serving. Sneaky, I know.

A couple of weeks ago, I went in at lunchtime and ordered a cheese and tomato sandwich on wholemeal bread. There was a new boy serving, while Bad Cop manned the till. She watched with eagle eyes as new boy plonked one, then another slice of cheese on the bread. Bad Cop barked at him. I speak no Armenian, but even I could tell that she was telling him that he’d put too much cheese on. He mumbled something back which caused Bad Cop to roll her eyes and leave the cash register, walk over to my sandwich and reach in to remove the offending superfluous slice.

“You’re not taking that slice out of my sandwich, are you?” I asked, incredulous and peering over the top of the counter.

“He put too much on,” she answered, “he’s new. It’s one slice per sandwich, he doesn’t know yet.”

“I’m not objecting to you removing the cheese - I’m objecting to your unwashed hands in my food,” I replied.

“I only touch a little bit,” she responded, placing the redundant slice back on the pile in the chilled cabinet.

“I don’t care,” I said, “you’ve been handling money at the till. Coins are filthy, you know, all sorts of germs on them.”

“I wash them now,” she said, heading for the sink.

“It’s too late!” I exclaimed, “can I have another sandwich, please?”

Good Cop stepped in, chucked out the old butty and started to make me another. Bad Cop stormed back to the till and glowered at me. Good Cop buttered the bread and then reached for the top slice of cheese on the pile in the chilled cabinet.

“Not that one,” I said, “that’s the one she touched with her dirty hands,”

He shot Bad Cop a steely glare, and then threw away the top slice. Finally, he passed me the completed sandwich. I took it to the till to pay, and Bad Cop overcharged me. Figures.

The thing is, I don’t think I’m being out of order to expect food to be made hygienically. Money is filthy and germ-laden, and anyone handling food (and that includes me, before I eat it) should wash their hands before they eat, especially if they’ve been handling coins or cash.

Scary factoid: E.Coli and Salmonella bacteria can survive for up to eleven days on normal silver/copper coins. Eeuw!

In case you are wondering, the reason I keep going back to the deli-from-helli is principally because the food is great. Fresh, tasty and usually worth dealing with the stress and hassle of ordering it.

Today, all is forgiven, though. Bad Cop cooked with her own fair hands the tastiest (and perhaps only) Armenian/Thai chicken curry I’ve ever had. Utterly delicious.

I fully expect to discover that she stirred it with her boot or something, but I’d still eat another plate without hesitation. Yum.

Mind you, if I come down with giardia within the week, you’ll know what happened.

This is the first and only time you’ll ever catch me writing about football, I promise.

Let’s put the cards on the table. I’m not interested in football. Regional/local games and teams just leave me cold - perhaps because I’ve never really strongly identified with a particular part of the country (hence no local loyalty), perhaps because I come from a completely non-footballing family - I think my dad once had a magpies mug in the kitchen cupboard, because of his family roots, but I’m sure you’d never see him getting up at seven to watch a pivotal match.

It’s easier to summon up a modicum of interest in national teams - such as have been playing in the world cup - but mostly because it’s strangely satisfying to watch something (anything) done well. When you see real professionals doing something brilliantly (skiing, driving, swimming, running, kicking a ball around) you can be stirred by the result a bit more, oddly.

But when I say I’ve been getting interested in the world cup, don’t get me wrong: I certainly haven’t been waking up at the crack of dawn to catch the matches. Likewise, I’ve been mostly ignorant about the proceedings of the tournament, and quietly amused at the passion is has inspired in our neighbourhood - flags hanging from balconies, and on car aerials, and red sticky-tape crosses on every passing white van.

During last week’s match against Denmark, with all the windows on the street open because of the muggy weather, we could hear the shouts and heavy sighs of those watching the game, which meant we didn’t need to tune in. The same was true on Sunday, when the tennis began in earnest at the Queen’s Club, which is within crowd-roaring-and-applause distance of our open window. Who needs to watch the match when you can watch the audience reaction to it instead?

But I’m interested in key England matches the same way I’m interested in the results of the Oscars or the Wimbledon final, or the winner of Big Brother. I won’t go out of my way to watch the event (and certainly not at the expense of sleep) but I know it’s something that the whole country will be aware of and potentially talking about, and so I’ll ensure that I know the result and basically what happened, so I can contribute vaguely to post-punditry, or at least not be completely in the dark and clueless.

So this morning, I woke up early and enjoyed a long, lazy lie-in before popping the radio on just as I hopped into the shower. One-nil to England. Then as I put on my shoes, I switched on the telly for a brief glimpse. Two-one to Brazil.

Walking to work, I tuned into a radio station broadcasting live commentary from the game, and wandered through the deserted (or female-dominated) streets as a man shouted nonsense into my ears. It’s a game of two halves, men against boys, early doors, at the end of the day, in all fairness, over the moon, all that.

Around me, others were huddled around pub doorways, peering at the tellies within, or parked up and listening in their vans, or wandering with radios on, like me.

The odd bit of action, relayed to me through my earphones, was complimented in superwide stereo surround sound by the people of London, shouting encouragment and comment, oblivious and enthralled in the match going on between their ears. Random shouts into the balmy morning, nonsensical unless you happen to be listening to the same broadcast.

Man in my ear: Beckham goes for the cross….Nicky Butt goes in for the kill…oh no, he’s gone wide…
Fat man in bomber jacket wearing headphones at the bus stop: Oh for fuck’s sake

Man in my ear: With three minutes left to play, Rivaldo’s on the floor again…
Bloke in suit having a fag in the doorway of an office building: You fucking cheat, get up!

Man in my ear: Well into stoppage time now, the Brazilians are taking an unbelievable amount of time with this free kick…that’s twenty-three seconds so far…
Man in jeans with money in his outstreched hand, ready to pay for his coffee at the Armenian deli but distracted by the telly on top of the fridge: Come on you bastards! Stop wasting time!

It’s like being there, but without the jetlag, and the bloke with a trombone in the stands behind you.

There was a long queue for sandwiches in the deli this lunchtime. Good Cop seems to be off sick (food poisoning, perhaps?) so Bad Cop bossed everyone about - even the customers - barking orders in impenetrable Armenian at the minions, and choppy English at those of us on the other side of the counter. The queue snaked the length of the shop, and then doubled back on itself, as it usually does. We waited, some patiently, some not so.

A short, unkempt, vague looking woman of a certain age wandered in, wearing a sports jacket and carrying her hand outstretched, holding something in her palm. She approached the businessman at the counter, who was paying for his lunch, and said slowly to him “Could you go to the shop next door and buy me some poppers?”

He looked at her, bemused, and she repeated “There’s a shop next door, could you go there and buy me some poppers?”

Bad Cop piped up from behind the cash register, “He’s buying his lunch, leave him alone!”

The businessman said to his companion “What does she want? Poppers? Party poppers?”

Someone in the queue chimed in, saying, “You should try the Non-Stop Party Shop on High Street Kensington. They’ll have them”

“No,” said the woman with the glassy eyed stare, “I can’t go that far, that’s too far. Will you please go next door and buy me some poppers? Please. Please.”

Bad Cop yelled at her again, “Get out, please. These people all work in offices. They’re too busy to do your shopping for you.”

The woman tried again, someone else in the line, “Will you go and get me some poppers? They won’t sell them to me. Here’s my money. Please. Please.”

The woman she had accosted ignored and sidestepped her neatly, collecting her ciabatta and leaving the shop. A man in the queue said loudly, though to no-one in particular, “There’s a newsagent on the corner; I think they might have silly string.”

The woman staggered slowly out onto the pavement, asking passers-by if they could buy her poppers.

I bit my tongue and tried to resist the temptation to explain to the entire queueing deli that the woman was probably not looking for celebration accessories, but was instead looking for someone to furnish her with Amyl Nitrate from the sex shop down the block.

Partying. Not partying.

“Help you, lady?”
“Brown sliced bread with ham and cheese please”
“Brown bread, lady?”
“Yes please”
“You want butter, mayo, lady?”
“Just a little of each, please”
“You want butter, lady?”
“Yes, a little bit, please”
“Mayo lady?”
“A little bit, yes please”
“You want ham and cheese?”
“Yes, please”
“You want cheese, lady?”
“Yes please, and ham”
“You want salad, lady?”
“Just lettuce and tomato, please”
“You want cucumber, lady?”
“No thanks, just lettuce and tomato, please”
“Your sandwich, lady. £1.50″
“Here you go. Thanks.”
“So, BT are offering a new broadband solution, lady? And AOL made a £50 million loss this year, eh?”
“What?! Er…yes…er…thank you…goodbye…”

WTF?