Not that Steve McQueen, another one.
On a day out in Grimsby, on a photo-journalism exercise, we happen upon a funky little cafe on the docks. I am often amused by the throw-away words on throwaway cups and this cuppa proved to be as good an example as any.
“A coffee blog from 1642. In Bartholomew Lane, on the back side of the Old Exchange, the drink called coffee is to be sold in both the morning and at three o’clock in the afternoon. Coffee is a very wholesome and Physical drink having many excellent virtues: closes the Orifice of the Stomach, fortifies the heat within, helps Digestion, quickens the Spirits and make the heart light. Coffee is good against Eye-sores, Coughs or Colds, Rheums, Consumption, Headache, Dropsy, gout, scurvy, Kings Evil* and many others”.
*(SCROFULA was known as the “king's evil” in Europe, where the royal touch was believed to cure the disease until the 18th century).
Elsewhere around the town Grimsby is festooned with decent graffiti, including a tribute to the late, great Steve McQueen who, when he wasn’t racing cars, making films or being unbelievably cool, was manager of the Ice House. So, for Steve McQueen fans and “Great Escape” obsessives he really was “the Cooler King”.
Actually, not that Steve McQueen. Another one.
