Beverage Report

As the artist in residence at AJ Wells I have a designated 'area'. It's a bit of factory floor next to the canteen. Actually it's a very big bit of floor, nicely situated by the ladies loo and the coffee machine. It's great and I look forward to filling it with Radio Four. I especially like the idea that Woman's Hour will infiltrate the blokey workforce: I picture the furnace man saying to his wife 'Need a new peg bag love? I hear Kath Kidson's big on polka dots this season.'
In reality I'm a bit out of the way and it'll be me and Drama on Four alone as usual.

The coffee machine is another thing altogether - solitude is fine, instant coffee is not. I went out yesterday and bought a nifty mug with built-in caffitiere along with a mini thermos for my cold milk. I hate myself for being so picky, but I blame my childhood. I went to a boarding school where the (instant) coffee came with rules: no coffee for those under fifteen (too much stimulation), coffee once on Wednesdays for over fifteens (milk compulsory) and coffee Tuesdays and Thursdays for the lower sixth by then allowed black. By the upper sixth, about to be launched into coffee drinking careers at the BBC or diplomatic core, coffee every morning at break in any combination with biscuit. I rebelled early on and refused anything to do with instant coffee on the basis that I wouldn't then have to obey any coffee related rules and would also be seen to suffer for my sophisticated tastes. What I actually did was to nick a pint of milk from the staffroom each morning and drink that instead. A couple of weeks into my thieving, the teachers upped their order by a pint and we were all happy until the day I left when they were presumably puzzled by a milk surplus.

I hope Wells will forgive me for spurning the coffee machine. At least I've made my own provisions and they won't have to check their milk crate every morning...