What we are doing, and why we are using coffee spoons to do it

A welcome note for readers of the Coffee Spoon Auditorium.

If you’re reading this now, it might be that you’re wondering what this little curiosity is in aid of and what the people responsible had in mind. (If you’re not reading this now, you might be enjoying a dry little chuckle at me addressing a sentence to someone who by definition can’t read it, but then of course by definition you can’t.) Hopefully the purpose, and indeed the value, of this exercise will become apparent as it goes on, but I thought that a little piece to introduce the concept, and myself, would be appropriate.

Firstly there is the name, the Coffee Spoon Auditorium. The Coffee Spoon part of it you’ll see here as well, and possibly in print too if we catch up to our own ambitions. There’s always the risk with titles that, as with jokes, song lyrics and metaphors, a lengthy explanation will open up a hole through which the indefinable element that makes it special will escape, so I will attempt brevity. The inspiration is a line from T.S. Eliot’s wonderful poem, ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’, which runs, “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”. From the moment I read them I loved those words, less for their intended meaning (which, with this poem, is endlessly debateable), but for their perfectly expressed imagery. Eliot, with nine entirely common, workaday words, was able to evoke in me a pleasure of the most sublime nature.

And this, I have learned, is where I gain most of my pleasures: in the little, often unregarded snippets of the world. It can be a thought well expressed, the sense of achievement (my own or another’s) from a tiny personal victory, the taste of a new idea or a debate settled by a shared conclusion. Some of the best come from strangers, doing the things that only human beings do, like dancing to the background music without noticing or laughing at a joke they overhear at someone else’s table. I am also endlessly fascinated by life’s parade of absurdities, some amusing – official signs resplendent with malapropism, self-defeating self-importance – some mind-shatteringly woeful – sports reports topping news broadcasts while recessions go unnoticed, or an immigration minister suspending a man’s visa and then claiming his exit from the country is suspicious behaviour. I think about these things, turn them over in my mind, and if they won’t leave my head on their own, I’ll grab a friend, buy a cup of coffee and attempt to share the weight of them between us. In extreme cases I’ll go so far as to pin them down on paper. In such a way, I take the events and ideas, big and small, that make up my life, measure them out, and pause a moment to stir them in.

And so we come to the Auditorium, where the more interesting results of this process can be shared. As the name implies, we’re hoping to fit as many people as possible here, all contributing their own voices to the general clamour. In addition we have, appropriately, the Addendum (this thing), where we put the thoughts that don’t fit in the Auditorium but that we hope fit somewhere. You don’t have to read this part to enjoy the rest; think of it as a DVD bonus feature.

So please sample what we’ve written. You might like to grab a coffee to enhance the experience. Or a cup of tea (if that’s more your … well, you know), a glass of wine, a hot chocolate, a G&T, a fruit juice, or even one of those iced frappe drinks the young people are so fond of. Most importantly, we’d like to hear your opinions. You can tell us what you think of the stories. You can tell us what you think of our opinions. You can even tell us what you think of the name.

Make yourself at home.

Henry Nicholls.