I’ll have a Latte latte-er

One of the things we do really well is the Great British ‘spread’. Every weekend between March and September, the country resounds to the sound of crunchy cucumber and cress sandwiches, garnished with ring of ready salted and a side bowl of peanuts.

Our space race may be being run by a dalek-esque thing named after an arm of our car industry which was always on strike. It may only need someone to take away our Navy’s ipods for us to lose our position ruling the waves. And we may be the laughing stock of every sport we have ever taken the time to invent, to the point where the only reason we’re hosting the Olympics is so our nation is mentioned somewhere between the opening carnival to the closing address. But at least everyone will say we did a good spread.

Unless they happen to stop at the Little Happy Cook motorway services.

Here you are presented with one of the great myths of travelling – the idea that you can make a decision and order the food you want. Actually, you can order whatever you like, but you almost certainly won’t get it.

A few weeks ago I passed through the most southerly services on the M5 three times inside a week, and not once did I get what I’d asked for. Not once. I even had a little chat with a stranger in the queue about my chosen beverage. We talked at length (by which I mean for at least 2 minutes) about what a jewel to behold a vanilla latte was. He’d never come across such a thing, and here was I selling the extra 30p syrup on behalf of ‘we-coffee-do-maketh-4-u’ Inc. The woman looked at us throughout, listening to our conversation.

But as I found out upon taking my first mouthful of my not-vanilla, not-latte, actually vaguely-cappuccino drink, she had had approximately the same comprehension of our conversation about coffee as I would listening to a langua-phone recording of a conversation about crop rotation spoken in the ancient tongues of Latvia.

The next time I was there the barista asked if I’d like chocolate sprinkles on my extra large mocha. I declined and smiled in a distinctively Bristish polite way as I explained that I was waiting for a medium vanilla latte. She turned to the chap ahead of me in the queue, apologised, and asked him the same question. He said yes, slipping in a brief sentence about how he’d ordered a regular one, but not to worry.

Come on people. If Britannia rules something, let it at least be the Great British Spread. People of Britain, your country needs you. Go forth and make traingle-cut cucumber sandwiches. And put the tea-urn on low whilst you’re there.