Peter Bromhead: Teddy bear coffee and the publishing industry's demise

Cartoon / Peter Bromhead

Opinion

I would move to America tomorrow, if it wasn't for the coffee and terrible food.

As most visitors to the US are aware, coffee comes in only two varieties: boiled mud or Starbucks, which, as discerning coffee drinkers agree, means endless variations of a fluffy milk concoction suitable only as sleepy-time nursery food for teddy bears.

It's also hard to adequately describe the New World's eating habits without regurgitating what everybody already wearily understands about Americans' preoccupation with fast food. Servings are always over-sized and edible only once saturated in ketchup or mayonnaise. The only culinary creation Americans can claim to have perfected is the hamburger.

Even at Stanford University, you cannot escape the iconic bun; the sculpture dominating the forecourt is Rodin's masterpiece, The Burghers of Calais.

The pathos and energy of the United States can be observed daily outside the Apple store in San Francisco, where queues of people waiting to buy iPads start forming at 6am.

Buyers stand patiently in line, comforting themselves with teddy bear coffee and super-size cheeseburgers while waiting for the doors to open at 9am.

On average, these establishments sell their daily quota of 300 iPads within an hour. Clearly, the slave labourers in China need to ramp up production.

The dynamics of the emerging electronic age is obvious in these cyber-shrines.

Mr Jobs has created an inane sense of eagerness for all things Apple, and customers bubble over with gusto as they rush to finger the latest and greatest in technology.

The scene every morning is a bit reminiscent of sports fans clamouring for autographs from football heroes.

Meanwhile, down the road, the bookshop emporiums are closed, padlocked and boarded up.

The advances in all things electronic do leave one gloomily wondering if Mr Caxton's influence, which has held sway since the 15th century, really is ending.

As a personal defiant gesture to support the flagging print industry, I purchased a sealed Penguin classic paperback to read on the journey home.

I selected Orwell's 1984, curious to re-read about how dear old George had perceived the future, without the benefit of knowing how cyber-technology was going to change the world.

However, when I opened the package on the flight, I discovered it was just one of those silly, whim-wham notebooks full of blank paper, carefully bound to realistically resemble the original orange Penguin paperback.

No wonder the publishing industry is going down the tubes.