The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham News and Links for Tuesday, November 14

good morning good morning

Trigger warning: The below entry makes a handful of passive references to alcohol

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It is sometime between 10 and 11am on a Sunday morning in Cardiff. My accomplice and I shuffle into a restaurant promising breakfast and, mercifully, coffee.

“Do you have drip coffee?” I ask, unmasking my Yankee identity.

The waittress answers the question with a blank stare.

“Just get an Americano, mate,” my accomplice tells me.

Five minutes later a cappuccino is placed before me. It takes me no more than two minutes to empty it of its contents.

That was how my Sunday in Cardiff began.

We arrived around 6pm the night before after making stops at Stonehenge and Bath. We reckoned it a good idea to check out the live music scene. It was a Saturday night, after all.

After about 20 minutes we slither into the city centre, whose circuitous roads are barren save for the droplets of rain.

“Where is everyone?” we thought. And so we trudge on.

At a certain point we were faced with two choices: continue straight or turn right (Robert Frost and all that). We headed right and then, out of nowhere, it appeared that all of Cardiff - no, all of Wales - has descended upon St Mary Street.

What we witnessed there was absolute carnage. At 7pm we heard rugby chants, saw a man throw up on the floor and then fall out of his booth, saw one heavily intoxicated woman cry into the arms of another and a hen do parading through the square.

Later in the night we would see on the sidewalk the first act in producing an offspring.

After fuelling up at Nando’s, we dove into the Brewhouse already at near-capacity at 8pm.

Some clues hint at how this madness came to be: Wales vs Barbarians at 2pm. Live music beginning at 1pm. By our estimations, my accomplice and I arrived at least eight hours late.

And this is how the night proceeded, with a euphoric and intoxicated anarchy. In bars, in pubs, in McDonald’s and on the Cardiff strip.

Save for the five hours of sleep, I escaped relatively unscathed. The same cannot be said for my accomplice or much of Cardiff.

A disquieting sun illuminated the bay that Sunday morning, bodies moving not on their own power but that of the ocean breeze. It had nearly propelled my accomplice into the wall of the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament.

I wear my aviator sunglasses to hide my sunken eyes. My Americanness has already been exposed. Let it shine in all its glory, I think to myself.

It’s wonderfully calm around noon. We accept that most people are still asleep, considering the amount of people still causing havoc at 3 that morning.

Perhaps the rioutous frenzy that had engulged the city only hours before now is also recovering.

What a glorious morning it is to be hungover, I say. Really, it was. It just so happened that almost all of Cardiff would not be outside to enjoy it.

Because, unlike us, they didn’t have to check out of their accommodation that morning.

Please drink responsibly

Fitzie’s track of the day: Guts, by Budgie

And now for your links:

Dan KP on Ange Postecoglou, Giovani Lo Celso and the James Maddison void

Manchester unites to honour Sir Bobby Charlton

Cesc Fabregas named interim manager for Italian club Como

Is this the worst Premier League relegation battle ever?