This particular branch is quite British really, well as British as one of these shops could be. The members of staff are pleasant but not sickeningly so and the air conditioning is temperamental and likely to break as soon as the temperature gets high enough to actually need to use it. At one point I remember they released a helpful guide about how to order your perfect drink. This in itself shows how British we are as a nation. An American would never require such a guide, in fact I believe they might be taught how to order coffee before they are even taught to read (or perhaps I have been watching too much television again).

Anyway, I thought it might be quite fun to invent a few fun drinks to add to the helpful guide and confuse the staff!

Iced Vanilla Latte, extra hot!

Double shot of espresso, hold the coffee!

Skinny Cappuccino, hold the foam!

Or best of all….

“Could I have a cup of coffee please?” This is a good one because they stand there and wait for you to finish rattling off a list of requirements only to find that there are none. This question, as far as I can tell, is the coffee shop equivalent of a Zen riddle and can immobilise one of their assistants for hours at a time while they try to make sense of such a ridiculous question, and then ask you to be more specific.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this little story, this cautionary tale if you will, is that it seems as if Americans are taking over the world.

“That’s nothing new” I hear you cry. Well perhaps not, and to be honest it doesn’t really matter that much, but something happened in my coffee shop and it made me feel quite protective of this little grey island I call home. Please note I use the term coffee shop, NOT coffee house – you don’t live there and it isn’t made of coffee beans, you visit it to buy coffee!

So, I was in the queue (not line!) waiting patiently to by my coffee and cake and there in front of me was one of those people…. ‘Americans’.

There were 4 possible explanations for why she was so annoying.

a) She was just genuinely dense.

b) She was gloating that her coffee ‘house’ ‘back home’ sold lots more sparkly goodies than our crappy little rundown British version.

c) She was interested to see how long she could make the queue before they turned into an angry mob.

d) She really wanted to see me lose my temper and lamp her one. – Caffeine withdrawal can make me quite dangerous.

As she gazed aimlessly at the cake cabinet and the menu board, she seemed incapable of making any kind of helpful decision about exactly what it was she fancied. I can see the gravity of the situation, believe me. The choices are plentiful and it can take even the hungriest and most caffeine deprived among us pause to reflect. The problem, however, appeared not to be the amount of choice this woman had, more the lack of it.

Every sentence began with the phrase ‘Do you guys have…?’ At first it was quite funny, seeing the baffled American trying desperately to get her head around the idea of a shop only having 15 or 16 different sorts of cakes to chose from. But the comedy soon wore off when 5 minutes later she was still there, scratching her head and trying to find the Choca Mocha Whopper Doppa Muffins.

If it had been me behind the counter I would have shown her some British hospitality by making her go to the back of the queue while she made up her mind. Sadly the assistant was far too polite so the ordeal continued.

In my head we were already into round four! I had her arm up behind her back and was using my free hand to point her head in the direction of the menu board. “No they DON’T sell any arsing Triple Mocha Choca Hot Fudge Hold the Whip Skinny Ice Cream Sundaes or ‘insert sugar filled treat’. See!!!? There’s the fridge – do you see ANY? NO! Is there any on the board? NO! If you wanted that you should have perhaps taken a taxi from your house rather than an aeroplane to Great Britain! Hmmm?”

So, about four hours later, she’d finally settled for a skinny decaf latte with ‘whip’ and the queue of me and 12 other desperately dehydrated people behind me all thought there was an end in sight.

Oh no!

“Do you guys have ‘insert strange and exotic brand of sweetener that we do not have in the country, possibly because it doesn’t meet the safety standard’?”

Let’s go over this one more time shall we? If you can’t see it, they don’t have it. It’s not hard!

Girl behind the till: “No no, we have the sweetener out on display right there”

American Woman “Oh that’s okay, I have some in my purse.”

Well, thank god you didn’t leave anything to chance eh love? Imagine if you had flown three thousand miles without your sweeteners! And by the way… that thing that you are holding it in, for the duration of your stay, will be referred to as a handbag. Your purse is where you keep your money.

After that final irritation, the American went to sit down with her drink and left us all to get on with our lives. Thank heavens!

I should probably point out at this point, that I don’t dislike Americans. Please don’t think that I do. Some of my closest friends are American and most of them wouldn’t mind me telling you that.

No, I would be equally annoyed to find an English person in America visiting a British theme tea room (if such a thing exists) and asking if they have Earl Grey or Clotted Cream when it was blatantly clear to all around that they did not! If you want the clotted cream and the manky tea then go to the tea-room near your house. Equally, if you want specific sugar filled goodies and hot drinks that they sell in a ‘coffee house’ near you, get one! Don’t fly to another country in the hope of finding it there - that’s just stupid!