My 'local' Starbucks

I read an interesting feature in the Independent earlier this week about one journalist's love of Starbucks.
Read it here

Basically, the reporter embarked on a tour of as many Starbucks in London he could in one day and reported back on his findings - unsurprisingly his commments were not good.

There were a couple of startling facts - London apparently has the second highest density of Starbucks in the world, with 455 branches.
There are 9,481 branches worldwide, all offering a sort of McCafe culture.
Now I'd never set foot in a Mcdonald's 'restaurant' but I'm more than happy to sit in a Starbucks for an hour or so - in fact, it's where I am right now.
Clearly, Starbucks is doing something right.
I agree with the journalist, it's not about the coffee, which is typically bland and bitter.
Partly it's somewhere to hang out, alone or with friends. Britain has not been blessed with great social nexuses (is that a word?) apart from pubs.
Yes, Starbucks has killed off many local cafes and greasy spoons but the fact is these were by and large dreadful places with sticky floors, plastic table mats, and the odor of lard lingering in the air. Great for a sausage sandwich, awful as a crucible of conversation.
Let's not kid ourselves, there's no Parisian left bank-style discussions underway in your local Starbucks - well, certainly not in mine, here in Kew.
But at least you can sit in relative tranquility for 30 minutes in a chair that doesn't look and feel like it was once part of a patio set.

I suppose there is also an appeal to places which are so uniform that they transport you to a state of anywhere-dom. I could be sat in San Francisco, New York or Buenos Aires right now.

The only differences I have spotted is in the food on offer. The panini and sandwiches for sale in the US, for example, are so loaded with sugar it is like sucking on a bag of Tate and Lyle.

The pictures hanging on the walls here in Kew are straight out of the Starbucks production line.

There are a number of arty sepia-tone pictures of city scapes. I have no idea which city it is/they are because to know would be to break the illusion of anywhere-dom.

The same bags of coffee, mugs, flasks that you see in every Starbucks are also for sale here. Does anyone buy these things?

So why am I here? The opportunity to be psuedo-social when in fact I am on my own. People watching is always fun. I'm still in love with the idea I can surf the net in my local cafe. I can entertain the notion that when I step out of Starbucks, I'll be on Market Street in San Francisco and I'll grab a trolley car over to North Beach.

That's a pretty intoxicating illusion.