Glebe Markets

I wander down to Glebe Markets most Saturdays. There is the usual collection of stalls selling handicrafts, the sort of clothes you could only wear on a trip to Glebe Markets, scented candles and jewellery and whatnots that were apparently made in poor countries under non exploitative conditions. There is also a coffee stand which sells non colonial coffee from Guatemala. This is where I hang out less because I particularly care about helping impoverished Guatemalans towards a better life and more because it is the only coffee stall at the markets. They have benches where I can sip excellent coffee grown by the only poverty stricken Central Americans not currently engaged in swimming the Rio Grande. The delightful young lady who makes the coffee (confusingly she is from Colombia) provides friendly service, particularly to regulars.

I sit there with a friend, under the shade of a large tree and we talk long and knowledgeably about things we know nothing about. I might be being unfair to him, its entirely possible he knows a great deal about physics, philosophy and psychology but since I know nothing about any of these things its difficult to tell. We also talk about politics which is easier since ignorance is no barrier. In fact it is a positive advantage. I gently point out that he's a communist and he politely enquires where I left my brown shirt and jackboots. Which is a vile slander as I have never worn a brown shirt in my life.

Meanwhile, all around us are people who obviously bought their clothes from Glebe Markets shopping for more clothes. There are also a couple of second hand bookstalls where you can pick up the occasional gem as well as about a million copies of the Celestine Prophesies. People wander around selling copies of a newspaper called The Green Left. I read it once and I think they could lose half the words from their title without having to change the contents much. Sometimes we get live performances by politically acceptable entertainers which I don't watch because they're at the other end of the market from the coffee stall. A few weeks ago we met a woman whose husband taught something called "peace studies" and had brought a group of Sri Lankan peace dancers out to perform. I could have pointed out that war studies are more fun and that the Sri Lankan army had recently brought "peace" to that nation by bloodily crushing the Tamil insurrection but I didn't in deference to the fact that his wife was hot.

Across the road from the markets are a series of bookshops and cafés which provide shelter should it rain. There are probably other shops there as well but I haven't noticed. One of the cafés is The Fair Trade Café which, like my little stall in the market, claims to emancipate the miserable workers of the third world by selling their product. Sadly they conform to every stereotype of a business that was set up to make a difference rather than a profit. The food is bad, the coffee worse, the prices are high and the service sucks. They do, however, have comfy armchairs.

Sappho Books just up the road has acquired a food and liquor licence and now does coffee, tapas and wine as well as second hand books. When they start providing beds I'll never have to leave. Their coffee is good but really the appeal is the whole package. For the strange and perverted who prefer a vegetarian option there is Badde Manors Café. I have no idea what its like because it is vegetarian. Since the only thing I normally buy at cafés is coffee and a muffin you might not think that's a problem but its the principle of the thing. I don't trust a food establishment that doesn't serve meat.

After a morning of talking and drinking coffee I wander off home feeling nicely jittery where I sit in my armchair and contemplate how pleasant it would be to take a nap if it wasn't for the fact that my eyes appear to be nailed open. Got to love that Guatemalan coffee.