Everyone needs an addiction

I am at odds with the common thinking that substance addictions are necessarily a bad thing. Instead of being against addiction I fully support the concept of targeted addiction. You only need to remember the Roaring 20’s and the time of Al Capone to understand that addictions are hard to break and prohibition does not work. It simply enables dodgy characters to make heaps of money from the addicts. The ”hang over” of prohibition lives on in the sleepy suburb of Mont Albert. When we moved into our “new” house 33 years ago we were shocked to realize that to get a drink you needed to go to the sin pots of Camberwell or Nunawading.

So my addiction is to caffeine of the barista brewed variety. Thank goodness that the Italian and Greek immigrants brought their love of coffee and the skills to make it to our fair land. Having grown up on International Roast and Nescafe it was a revelation to have a brewed coffee and a Pizza at Totos in Lygon Street. Melbourne is the coffee capital of Australia and has its own hierarchy of coffee snobs.

This hierarchy was shown in sharp relief when I dropped into “Jim’s” for a take away brew in our environmentally friendly Keep Cups. While waiting for the magic to happen two young men came in packing heat and equipped with stab vests and other paraphernalia indicating that they were of the “Detective” stratum of the Victorian Constabulary. Four of their colleagues followed shortly after and the six “D’s” took up a table at the back of the shop. I passed on my dictum “that I never argued with people with guns” to Joel the barista, took my coffees and quickly headed in the direction of away. This was not the first time that we had seen well tooled men and women at Jim’s.

Down the road there is a coffee shop that serves the uniformed members of the force. The coffee is cheaper, the food is takeaway stodge and I would like to think that they serve the B/C demographic, rather than the A/B demographic.

So we rather enjoy being addicted to caffeine and sharing this addiction with the upper echelon of VicPol. Like Al Capone we have plenty of protection in case some namby pamby politician decides to make Victoria a caffeine free state.