(Global) July/August 2007

Good Hood – Ideal World
Business Report – Perfect High Street

Flat white coffee consists of a shot of espresso served with textured milk, Aussies and Kiwis (who we revere for being true coffee snobs) wouldn’t drink anything else, so a group of them opened Flat White in Soho, London in 2005. Also serving bagels and ANZAC biscuits, this café is one of our high street’s friendliest hangouts. - Tyler Brûlé and Thomas Calvocoressi

(UK) July 2007

Finally a decent Flat White in London!

A flat white is a style of coffee passionately loved by Australiasians – a strong shot of espresso served in a small cup (6oz) with extremely silky milk.

“Death to the coffee chains” cries Peter Hall, one of the team behind the antipodean café recently opened in Berwick Street, Soho. Sick to death of the crap coffee dished out in London Peter and partner Cameron McClure decided to start a coffee revolt by importing the passionate café culture of the southern hemisphere. Apparently Heath Ledger, David Schwimmer and Pierce Brosnan hang out there too. Visit Flat White at 17 Berwick Street, Soho W1F 0PT.

(NZ) 12 March 2007

Real coffee – at last – in London

Cameron McClure, a former Christchurch barista, is providing something long missing in London – a good cup of coffee, writes Aucklander Susan Buckland

After forking our £50 on a “guaranteed for 10 years” hairbrush at Harrods I need a coffee.  A good coffee.  But a good cup of coffee in London has proved elusive since my arrival a fortnight ago.  In the great city which has so much of everything, initial surprise turns to frustration.  Heck, all I want is a cup akin to the coffee I relish back home in New Zealand.

Relief comes when a London-based New Zealand friend tips me off about a café in the English capital’s colourful heart of Soho.  “Flat White will see you right” he says.  “one of the owners is from Christchurch. And he is opening up an aromatic new world to the locals.”

Straight to Soho then.  When the craving sets, there’s no mucking around.

Alighting from the underground at Covent Garden I plunge into a buzzing enclave of shops, clubs, cafes and galleries.  Flat White hits the nostrils on the approach to No.17 Berwick Street.  The small café with its name splashed in café au lait colours above  the entrance is wedged between competing cafes.  No matter.  It is flat out serving customers.

“Londoners didn’t know what a ‘flat white’ was, but they do now,” smiles former University of Canterbury student Cameron mcClure.  He and his Australian partner have been getting thumbs-up press, including an endorsement from The Independent newspaper that “a flat white is an antipodean-style coffee that doesn’t quite translate”.  And the website www.cafegeek.com is rapturous in praise.  As to whether New Zealand or Australia invented the “flat white” coffee, it’s like entering a pavlova debate.

So why is such a good cup of coffee so hard to find in London? “It boils down to using good coffee, roasted in the right way and made properly with an espresso machine capable of a consistent brewing process.”  McClure makes it sound like a science as he talks about milk preparation, surface skimming to get the micro-foam and coffee extraction time.  Resteamed milk is a no-no, the right amount of froth is an art form.  “Novice baristas imagine you can press buttons and the machine does the rest.  But there is nothing hey presto about it.”

Not if your mission is to serve great coffee.  Take the flat white, one of several varieties of coffee served at 17 Berwick Street.   The end result achieves subtle caramel flavours through the coffee and just the right amount of milk.

After working part-time as a barista in Christchurch cafes, McClure arrived in London in 2005 and within a few months had plunged into his own café business with his Australian partner.  They plan to open another café next year.

(UK) (click on logo to visit website)

Cafe Flat White

The antipodes hardly springs to mind when thinking of coffee but Soho's Flat White aims to fix that. Named after the heady brew popular down under ("like a capuccino without the froth") this cosy kiwi-run establishment is causing a minor stir in the Soho cafe scene with many declaring their eponymous drinks the finest in London. Deliciously affordable bagels and panini rub shoulders with more authentic Anzac and Afghan cookies on the snack menu, while the decor takes in changing collections of expat artworks overshadowed by a Scarface-meets-Summer Bay mural. The sincerity in their farewell "Enjoy your day!" may seem treacle-sweet to local media misanthropes but it left me feeling warm all over - much like those delightful coffees. - Joshua Meggitt

(UK) 28 February 2007

Its Time to get Real

London is a centre for global food.  But too much of what we eat is a rip off and lazy imitation.  Today we launch a campaign to truffle out those who are true to the game.

FLAT WHITE

Barista Cameron McClure says the secret of good coffee is to make it slowly, but it is also clear that his skills “driving” the La Marzocco machinery are essential.  The espresso was a perfect 65C with a half centimetre deep “head” of fruity, hazelnut-coloured crema; the dark coffee beneath was strong, with a long lasting, slightly acid aftertaste.  The coffee blend is Monmouth’s espresso blend.  Milk is steamed slowly to make the cappuccino, producing a soft and silky foam – not a bubble bath.  If you request chocolate, it will be shaken on before the milk is added, and the milk poured to leave a distinctive pretty leaf pattern.   Other coffee is hard to drink after the Flat White experience.  (A swift espresso served by a rude barista at the famous Bar Italia down the road, paled in comparison.)  The bar serves good-quality fresh cakes, pastries and Belgium waffles.

(AUS) 26 August 2006

Coffee colonisers get taste for London

THE CURIOUS COOK

THE withdrawal symptoms are unbearable. You stumble off the plane at Heathrow after a marathon journey. It has been at least 24 hours since your last fix. Lurching dazed,desperate and confused through the grimy streets of London in search of your next hit, youhope the local dealers will deliver the goods, and fast. But there is no relief, only poor substitutes that cannot satisfy the insatiable stimulant craving.
For an Australian arriving in Britain for a short or long stay, the quest for a good flat white has long been excruciatingly fruitless. Sure, the teas are refined and the beer flows like water down the gullets of the bibulous Brits and most Australians who embrace the pubculture that still dominates English social life. But often the coffee is, to put it bluntly, execrable.
Accustomed to a superior brew, antipodean exiles have had to settle for the overpriced milky confections dispensed at Starbucks or mediocre offerings at chains such as Nero andPret-a-Manger that dot the London high street.Now redemption has come. A small crew of caffeine-crazed Aussies and Kiwis have banded together with no less an ambition than to revolutionise the stale, stodgy excuse for coffeethat has been served up in tea and beer-soaked Britain for centuries.Since it opened late last year in the heart of the theatre and restaurant district in Soho, Flat White Espresso Bar has thrilled the critics and customers who flock to the smallestablishment, where even Anzac biscuits and carrot cake are available to complement your double shot.
In the Financial Times, Tyler Brûlé (also the founding editor of Wallpaper magazine) listed Flat White in his "capital tips for London", and declared that "it only made sense that a bunch of Australians and Kiwis should be responsible for launching a tiny emporium that serves up the best coffee in London, and for naming it Flat White. Nestled in the middle of Soho's Berwick Street market, the only thing that's missing are tanned surfers in low-slung board shorts."
The praise was equally extravagant in the Independent on Sunday, in which expat Terry Durack crowned Flat White the best cafe of 2005, with backers who had "brought a much-needed triple shot of down-under cafe culture to London"."
Is this Berwick Street, Soho, or Victoria Street, Sydney? The caff is cute, casual and carefree, but the coffee is serious, a special blend from Monmouth Coffee is intense and clean-tasting, with a hint of sweetness. Can we yet be saved from the mint choc-chip frappuccino?"
Time Out magazine joined in, listing the cafe, across the road from London's hippest dim sum restaurant, Yauatcha, as the top coffee house, in its London best 50. When I arrive, I discover the hype is to be believed. Even the minimalist decor and gleaming coffee machine is a comfort for the homesick Australian cafe addict. As he offers me a full-bodied flat white that's easily the equal of those at Bills cafe in Darlinghurst, Sydney, or Caffe e Cucina in Prahran, Melbourne, barista Cameron McClure tells me he was appalled when he first tasted the poor-quality coffee in the British capital. "They don't have enough knowledge of the science behind the brewing process,"he says. "There were originally coffee houses in London, then tea took over after they colonised India. It is more of a pub culture here. But you need to take the winemaker's approach to making coffee."
Now McClure, a New Zealander who cut his teeth in Sydney cafes and restaurants, ministers to a clientele that is increasingly British, after the initial flow of expats. American actor Willem Dafoe has been a regular on his London stays, having picked up the flat-white habit while filming in Australia.
In partnership with McClure and James Gurnsey, Flat White is owned by Australian businessman and philanthropist Peter Hall. The executive chairman of Hunter Hall Ethical InvestmentManagement, Australia's leading ethical investment fund and chief sponsor of the SydneyFilm Festival, Hall spends half his year in London, often invading the kitchens of cafes around his home in Primrose Hill explaining to the bemused staff how a real coffee is made. His Flat White dream is in part a selfish one, driven by his desire to drink the samequality of coffee that he takes for granted in Sydney.
"Before, you couldn't get a good coffee in London," he says. "But we want to make a flat white a ubiquitous concept in Britain. We're trying to create a new coffee culture. So I found two coffee maniacs to do it."
Flat whites and lattes will set you back pound stg. 1.80 ($4.50), but staff will make coffee to order, such as the tangy citrus espresso McClure prefers.
The only disappointment at Flat White is the absence of Turkish bread with Vegemite, owing to distribution problems with local Turkish bakeries. For now, customers can contentthemselves with savoury muffins and dainty bagels filled with fresh roasted vegetables, cheeses and meats (such as haloumi and bacon), as they down their taste of Australia (and New Zealand) in the old dart, courtesy of the 21st-century coffee colonisers from the far-flung commonwealth.-Emma-Kate Symons

(UK) July 2006

COFFEE, AUSSIE STYLE

The flat white is a combination of steamed milk and espresso which is all the rage with the smart set of Sydney and Melbourne. If you don't fancy the long flight, you can try one at this friendly coffee bar of the same name in the heart of Soho. My friend did just that, finding her flat white similar to the cappuccino, but with less foam. I went for a delicious hot chocolate topped with a generous handful of mini-marshmallows. We lunched on roast aubergine and pumpkin panini and a bacon and Halloumi bagel from the small but delicious selection of sandwiches. To finish off, we had slices of delicious carrot cake and creamy and indulgent ‘sex on a plate', which would scandalize WeightWatchers groups from Soho to Surry hills. - Heidi Ruge

(US) April 2006

The Best of Brûlé

Tyler's London Tips

Admittedly, my standards have always been high, but I'm increasingly intolerant of fools
who throw garbage on the streets, children who curse like truckers, and a creeping tide of
bland retailers. But London is still worth calling home, if only for these five places.

4. Flat White
Flat White, opened by a bunch of Australians and Kiwis, serves the best coffee in London.
The only thing missing are tanned surfers in low-slung board shorts. – Tyler Brûlé



(AUS) April 2006

FROTH AND BUBBLE

Like many Australians who visit Britain, ethical investor Peter Hall lamented the lack of decent coffee and café life. Unlike most, he did something about it, he imported barista James Guernsey, who ran Mona Vale's 2Kf coffee bar. Together with fellow Kiwi barista, Cameron McClure, they installed two state of the art La Marzocco espresso machines in a little shopfront in the heart of Soho's Berwick Street Market. They did a retro refit and called it Flat White. Stylemeister Tyler Brulee of wallpaper* fame instantly proclaimed the coffee – an intense, clean-tasting Monmouth blend – the best in London, and the caffeine-driven clientele has included Australian visitors Gillian Armstrong, Neil Armfield, Simon Johnson and Bill Granger. – Terry Durack

(UK) April 2006

SOMETHING BREWING

Flat White gets scientific with their coffee to bring us the best cup in the capital

Arena has long held that if you ever have to order a coffee with more than two words or syllables (ie: a ‘limited-edition Easter gingerbread mochachino') things may have gone slightly awry in your life. Thankfully, a defiant stand for a simple, top-quality brew is being taken at Flat White, the new Soho café that has destroyed all-comers to produce London's best cup.

The term ‘flat white' is antipodean for a strong, almost foam-free latte. And since its recent opening, the café has drawn a near rapturous response from the (admittedly slightly seedy) virtual netherworld of coffee fiends who make up coffeegeek.com.

“There's a noticeable difference with the British coffee scene,” explains Cameron McClure, Flat White's New Zealander head barista. “The chain stores turned coffee into something you go out for. But in New Zealand the boutiques came first, and people are very particular about espresso. I genuinely believe that there'll be that switch over here.”

As well as the obvious signifiers of quality – top-notch organic beans supplied by the Monmouth Coffee Company and sensible measures as opposed to getting a gallon of froth – McClure attributes Flat White's superlative coffee to a scientific approach to the drink.

“The most common mistake is either over-or under-extraction,” he says, “when the espresso comes through the machine either too fast or too slow.”

The operation's bedrock is two-state-of-the-art La Marzocco espresso machines, with double boiler system ensuring consistency in the brewing process. Luckily for his nerves/teeth/heart, McClure has managed to limit himself to just three cups a day (“although I'm tasting constantly”). A heroic achievement given the quality of what's on offer.

(AUS) 11 April 2006

The Times Cook in London and Epicure contributor Jill Dupleix has no trouble finding great pubs in her adopted home. But great coffee? That's what trips back to Melbourne are for.

“It's funny, having first moved from Melbourne to Sydney for six years, moving to London was a lot like moving back to Melbourne – the two cities have a lot in common.

But while London has some great pubs, there is no real café scene (except for one cute little Antipodean caff in Soho called Flat White). And you wouldn't believe it but it's hard to find good tea here in all but the best places.

My dream day would start with Café Racer, so I'd start there for either porridge or fruit or a toastie. Then I'd pick up some bread at D. Chirico in St Kilda, go to the farmer's market by the Yarra, and then get a tram over to Mario's in Brunny Street for a coffee.

Lunch would be sushi at Taxi, then dinner at the Rose in Port Melbourne: home-made dips with Turkish bread, amazing rolled moussaka with nettles and, best of all, a whole page of fish specials of the day.

I also miss Melbourne 's Greek and Italian influences: in the food, the way they run a restaurant, the friendliness, the service. Every time I go to Italy or Greece I feel more at home than in England.” - Sarina Lewis

11 April 2006 (click on logo to visit website)

If Tyler Brûlé says Soho's Flat White Espresso Bar serves the best coffee in London , who the hell are you to argue? Did he actually say that? What's with all these questions? Are you trying to make trouble for Mr. Brûlé or the Financial Times? Just sit down and enjoy your milky and perfectly blended espresso beverage.

28 March 2006 (click on logo to visit website)

Flat White

Apologies to any Aussies or Kiwis reading, but until now, I've been in the dark about how good your coffee can be. Specifically, the antipodean take on a latte called a flat white, which I had this morning at the cafe of the same name that's recently opened in London 's Soho.

Coffee Geeks have already been praising the place, saying it could serve the best coffee in the city. Personally, I'd give that award to the Monmouth Coffee Company, but the fact that Flat White buys its beans from them means it's a very close second. At £2 for the signature drink, it is on the expensive side of things. I'm not going to argue over a few pennies though when you get a well-made hot cup, with just the right balance of sweetness and bitterness that stays frothy to the bottom. Nice silver fern on top too.

The café itself is a little less busy and therefore a little more relaxed than the handful of Monmouth outlets. With music from the likes of New Zealand seven-piece Fat Freddy's Drop on rotation and ANZAC biscuits to snack on as well, Flat White's laid back vibe feels authentically Kiwi. That's no mean feat on a grey London tuesday with Berwick Street market right outside the door.

(UK)11-17 March 2006

THE INFORMATION– The 50 Best Cafes

“A ‘flat white' is an Antipodean-style coffee that doesn't quite translate here,” David explains. “Something like a close cousin of the cappuccino without the dense creamy head. I don't crave for too much from my years in Sydney, but I do miss that Sydney attitude that coffee should be made with care. This is my favourite place when I need that flat white fix – a perfect relaxed southern hemisphere style café without any of the jet lag.”-Terry Durack

(NZ) February 2006

LONDON CALLING

Lauraine Jacobs visits the capital of international eating

We stumbled upon Flat White, a new café set up by an Australian investor who has employed two Christchurch lads, Cameron McClure and James Guernsey, to dispense fresh coffee near Berwick Street market in a new concept for London. After three weeks the pair were making more than 300 coffees a day. A tiny selection of Kiwi specials is on offer: cute little cup cakes, savoury muffins, panini and vegemite on toast. In their second week, the café had a favourable mention from Tyler Brulee, founder of Wallpaper magazine, in his Financial Times column. - Lauraine Jacobs

February 2006 (click on logo to visit website)

Flat White

The only place in London (possibly the UK ) that serves a traditional Flat White

What is a ‘Flat White'?

To see for yourself pop along to Flat White and sample Kiwi-inspired cafe culture at it's finest.

Every drink gets the ‘latte art' treatment, from Cappuccino's to Macchiato's they never fail to impress me.

As well as coffee there are traditional kiwi home-baked items (including Pavlova) as well as a growing selection of beverages and other imported luxuries.

If ever there was a home away from home then this would be it. Check out the funky lightbulbs, the retro mirrors and the service with a smile (and a strange accent to some)

Get yourself along pronto - you won't be disappointed.

(NZ) 1 February 2006

Smell the coffee

Kiwis should wake up to the potential of the flat white

There is, I understand, an established principle to the effect that you can throw all the weighty, serious stuff you like at media audiences; and then discover that what really gets them fizzed up is something quite trivial.

I demonstrated the principle for myself on my blog recently, when, between posts leading with commentary on the select committee inquiry into TVNZ and the care of the mentally ill in the community, I complained about being served a bad long black (no crema!) in a trendy Wellington cafe. I noted a story in the Listener that observed that you still couldn't get a decent coffee in London , excepting that it be at a New Zealand-run establishment.

It was all on. I received, and published, about 10,000 words of anguish and ecstasy from New Zealanders in London , Aberdeen , Liverpool , Switzerland , Sydney , Spain , Montreal and Los Angeles . There were tales of sipping brews in Brazil, Cuba, Vietnam and Utah (“uniformly disgusting coffee”) and the good oil on the best coffee on home soil (take a bow, Toasted Espresso of Barry's Point Road, Takapuna). People didn't just care, they cared a lot.

This preciousness of the palate would once have been seen as repugnant to the Kiwi character. This was, after all, a place where restaurants were virtually illegal, where we made a practice of boiling to death the world's finest ingredients. In Democracy at Ease: A New Zealand Profile, a book to which I often find myself referring, former British Liberal MP David Goldblatt bemoans “the plain fare and even plainer fetch and carry of the normal feeding machine of this country” in the 1950s and expresses his anguish at forever being fed “the same dull sandwiches”. He doesn't say so, but it's safe to assume that you couldn't get a decent coffee either.

Yet now, in 2006, you can get a decent coffee in parts of the land where you can't even get TV3 reception. That fact is largely a consequence of the efforts of a group of oddball entrepreneurs who began opening cafes in the 1980s and then moved onwards and upwards into importing, blending and roasting their own beans. Caffe L'affare, Sierra, Karajoz, Miller's and the others — they all started small.

Many of them took a further step: into the supermarkets, where their products displaced imported brands. Others developed businesses in the most unlikely places: at this year's New Zealand Coffee Festival Awards (contested by no fewer than 40 roasting companies) the big winner was Kerikeri-based Max Coffee, which took three of the eight prizes.

These entrepreneurs have forced middle-market players to follow them or miss the boat. They have created vibrant, bustling city institutions like Cafe Astoria and Caffe L'affare. They have largely fended off the mediocre, multinational chains that spread like weeds in most Western cities. (There are 162 Starbucks stores within a five-mile radius of the top of London 's Regent Street ; about the same at many points in Manhattan . In Auckland ? A few, largely in shopping malls and strictly for squares.)

The coffee crusaders have also done something less tangible but more notable: they have created a national culture so vigorous that when expats dream of home, they dream of long blacks and flat whites, made properly.

But is that all there is? A cluster of small and medium-sized businesses, trading exclusively on home turf? The London experience suggests that perhaps it's time for another step up. Quite a few of my readers declared London 's best cafe to be the Flat White in Berwick Street , Soho . It is owned by New Zealanders, who unabashedly play to their countrymen by serving the best of the Edmonds Cookbook (Anzac biscuits! Ginger crunch!) and etching a silver fern into the creamy top of their flat whites. Others nominated The Providores (Kiwi chef Peter Gordon's place) or just establishments where a New Zealander was known to be piloting the espresso machine.

As a New Zealander who writes for The Economist pointed out to me, Flat White has already received very warm notices from the likes of the Financial Times. There would seem to be potential to take it to the world. But how? The Australian-owned Muffin Break chain has stores throughout Britain , but seems to have quality-control problems related to its franchise model (“They make a dreadful long black,” my Birmingham correspondent advises).

Here's my plan. While Italy will always be the true home of the espresso, there's a case for saying that the best coffee-with-milk in the world is made in New Zealand . So why not bring together the country's largest export business and its small espresso entrepreneurs? One side would provide distribution, marketing and capital, the other would bring taste, style and individual character. The stores would enjoy the benefits of corporate backing without the crushing mediocrity of the franchise model.

You heard me, Fonterra: go to it. And when you open your first, brilliant cafe in London , you can fly me over. I'll tell you if the long black is good enough.-Russell Brown

(UK) 20 November 2005

THE SUNDAY REVIEW

After 12 long months of intensive research, reigning Restaurant Critic of the Year Terry Durack picks the big winners – and losers – from the British culinary scene.

2005 Reasons to eat out
Best Coffee

Is this Berwick Street Soho, or Victoria Street Sydney? Antipodean partners James Gurnsey, Cameron McClure and Peter Hall have brought a much-needed triple shot of down-under café culture to London. The caff is cute, casual and carefree, but the coffee is serious – a special blend from Monmouth Coffee is intense and clean tasting, with a hint of sweetness. Can we yet be saved from the mint choc-chip frappuccino? – Terry Durack

(UK) 8-9 October 2005

Capital Tips: top shops, services and places in London

Best café

It only made sense that a bunch of Australians and Kiwis should be responsible for launching
a tiny emporium that serves up the best coffee in London, and for naming it Flat White.
Nestled in the middle of Soho's Berwick Street market, the only thing missing are tanned
surfers in low slung board shorts. –Tyler Brûlé

(UK) September 2005

NEW SOHO COFFEE SHOP

It's been a bumper season for new coffee shops in Soho, with espresso purveyors popping up with greater frequency than tarts' cards in phone boxes. The latest is an Aussie-run place. When we visited it was hotter than the Nullabor Plain because the air-con hadn't arrived (it's promised for a few weeks' time), but we were still able to appreciate a damn fine cup of coffee and genial staff.

(click on logo to visit website)
FLAT WHITE

The large numbers of Aussies and kiwis who live in London have been known to raise a few grumbles now and again. One of the major grievances has been the lack of a ‘flat white'. No I didn't know what they were on about either. The antipodeans contribution of caffeine consumption is in fact a very tasty coffee, much like a cappuccino with less froth. Two bright Kiwis have spotted the gap in the market and set up shop in Soho.

Flat White getting discussed at the Edinburgh Book Festival (UK) 23 August 2006

http://www.shauny.org/pussycat/2006/08/flat_white.php

Monday night I went to the Edinburgh Book Festival for a session called 'Tips On Getting Published', my attempt to seek inspiration beyond self-publishing avec photocopier.

A lot of people turned up for the Tips. They filled the hall and sat up straight in their chairs. They opened their notebooks, clicked their pens and waited to be filled with information. I just had some tissues and a box of mints. Amateur!

On the panel was a literary agent, three publishers and a lawyer. They expelled much wisdom about queries and manuscripts and money (or lack thereof) and agents and enthusiasm, and the crowd dutifully scribbled it down.

Then it was time for audience questions.
"Please keep your questions nice and general," requested the host.

"You were talkin' about libel," growled a large man with shaved head, "Well, say you just got out of prison and you've done a memoir about bein' in prison and in the memoir you talk about people who're still in prison... can they sue you from there?"

Then someone else piped up, "How much would it cost me to send you my manuscript? Is it going to be expensive?"
"You mean like... postage?" asked a baffled publisher.

"Yes!"
The stereotype of the tightarsed Scot won't be dying out any time soon.

We went back last night see David Sedaris. I'd never been to an author reading before so this was a brilliant place to start. SJ got me hooked on his stuff many years ago, so I admit to getting the dopey Fan Girl grin as he read his stories. And he was extremely charming and hilarious during the audience questions too. It's one thing to be a brilliant writer, but to be brilliant out loud, without cigarettes or weeks of editing too? Bonus.

Afterwards, I joined the typically lengthy but civilised queue to get my book signed. I was anxious and wanted to spew, because a girl in the audience had asked Sedaris about the most stupid or irritating thing fans have said to him. He said book signings can be nervewracking for all involved, because you have just a few seconds of contact and you feel some sort of pressure to say something interesting. Apparently some smartarse will always say to him, "Do you talk pretty yet?" and it drives him demented. So what was I going to say? Love your work? I didn't have delusions of being funny or engaging, I just didn't want to be a starry-eyed dickhead.

I was distracted from my angst by an evil triumvirate of journalism students behind me. They made me shiver with their retro shoes and carefully careless hairdos. I pegged them as second years, because they were still in that Holier Than Thou phase of a journalism student's career in which all you can do is MOCK STUFF, or tell the world of your disdain for The Media with its unethical chequebook-weilding practices and how you will Never Be Like That, because you are a real journalist with Integrity!

(This phase ends when you graduate and soon realise there's nae jobs and perhaps you shouldn't have been so hasty in turning down that cadetship at the Hicksville Herald.)

Once they had argued which university had the superior student newspaper, they discussed what they were going to say to David. Should they approach as a trio, or go separately?

"If we go up together and say something collectively brilliant, maybe we'll appear in his next story!"

"Yeah! Although he might blend us into one character. With boobs, two penises and six legs."

"Brilliant!"

More interesting was the veterinary student waiting in front of me. She was making efficient use of her queuing time to study. First it was something about cells with intruiging blobby diagrams, and then she moved on to a page of case studies.

Female intact dog presents with dullness, lethargy and vaginal discharge. She was on heat eight weeks prior.

What the hell was an intact dog? You'd presume it would have to be intact if it had managed to present itself, especially if lethargic. But what about the discharge? Is that terminal?

I scribbled down the case as I peered over her shoulder, word for word; because I had come prepared with a notebook this time and I had make use of it somehow.

I was so busy pondering the plight of the intact dog that I forgot to think of anything interesting to say to David Sedaris, and before you could say "dullness and lethargy" it was my turn.

"Hello!" I said.

"Hello!" said David Sedaris.

He asked my name and I said Shauna and he asked how to spell it so I said S-H-A-U-N-A and he said M-A? Shauma? And I said, No it's N-A you know like Shaun with an A attached. He said Oh I see then asked where was I from. I said Australia and he asked whereabouts in Australia and I said, Oh just a country town that nobody's heard of.

And then he said, "I like those flat whites you have in Australia ."

"Oh yeah! Flat whites. You don't really get those over here do you."

"Actually I think there's a cafe in Soho that does flat whites, it's called -"

"Flat White! I heard about that!"

"Yeah!"

"It's all those Aussies in London ," I mumbled helpfully, "They really need their flat whites."

And then followed what I perceived to be a pained silence. We were all out of words, so he handed my book back.

They always say you should never meet your heroes. Whenever I read a David Sedaris book from now on, I will remember that vaguely uncomfortable expression and my complete... flat whiteness.

I slinked away and the three Journalists of Tomorrow stepped forward. I should have told him about the dog with the vaginal discharge. That could have been interesting.

signed!

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