Word of Warning — Weekly Warning

Dani Abulhawa on balancing the demands of work life with loyalty...

Day 5 – Monday 9^th March

On Mondays and Tuesdays the café is closed, but that doesn’t mean it fails to occupy public consciousness – quite the contrary, as I hope this week’s blog will show. I live in Manchester, but I work in Sheffield. When I got to the station on Monday morning, I had a little bit of time to kill and a runny nose (having cycled particular fast).

I went in to the Boots shop at the train station to buy my regular purchase of a packet of tissues, and when I went to pay, the woman who served me said, ‘that’s an interesting helmet’ and pointed to my shiny gold cycling helmet attached to the straps of my bag. ‘Yes’, I replied, and was about to give my usual speech about how it renders me very visible on the road when the woman interrupted and exclaimed, ‘Oh! I recognise you; were you in the café the other day?’ Instantly I recognised her as Alpen woman. 

She told me how much she had enjoyed visiting the café, on a whim, and how unexpected the whole experience was. She had just finished a long shift at Boots when her husband suggested they go and have a drink at what they thought was a standard pop-up café.

She had spoken to her colleagues and her boss about the café, and mentioned that her boss was planning on conducting a meeting with some people from head office in there, as a surprise. I really hope I’m in there when that happens.

Day 6 and 7 – Wednesday 11^th March and Thursday 12^th March

Despite my best attempts, I didn’t manage to get to the café at all on Wednesday and Thursday. Work really gets in the way of tea and cake, and art. But, I thought about the café and Hunt and Darton frequently. I wondered whether Alpen lady’s boss had had his meeting? I wondered who was sat in my seat, drinking from my previous cups – the ghost of my lips meeting theirs.

Day 8 – Friday 13^th March

I managed to get back from work with half an hour left of Friday’s unhappy hour. The lights were dimmed and the café tables were full, whilst Lowri Evans and Sara Cocker conducted a game of age concerns bingo.

I sat with John at the back of the café and waited for my age to be called out. ’27, 80, 34, 8, 19, 32’, ‘Yes!’ I shouted, at the same time as another woman across the café from me. Lowri asked me to tell her about something that is less good now I’m 32 than it was before. ‘I don’t seem to be able to recover very well from drinking too much anymore’, I said.

As closing time approached, Lowri and Sara, and Hunt and Darton began an impromptu karaoke to ‘Let’s Dance’ by David Bowie and the rest of us danced and clapped along. Hunt and Darton contacted the real Darton (who was at home celebrating her birthday) and we sang her happy birthday via FaceTime.

A man appeared suddenly from upstairs (I think it was the chef). I felt like I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to, like the wings, or backstage.

As I paid for my coffee I was given the final stamp on my loyalty card. Hunt gasped and said that I was to be rewarded. I laughed, nervously. Hunt and Darton took me outside and both got down on one knee (are they going to ask me to marry them? I thought). With outstretched ‘jazz hands’ they grinned wildly and produced a badge reading ‘LOYAL’. Darton explained that I should wear it at all times when visiting the café, and Hunt said that I would now be treated very differently.

Day 9 – Saturday 14^th March

I had to go in to work, so I vowed that I would get back in time for at least unhappy hour. I turned up to the café at about 5.15 and ordered a trio of sandwiches and my usual coffee. I was sat on Alpen lady’s table – in her seat – so I was quite close to the cakes. The guest waitress today was the wonderful Eirini Kartsaki, who sashayed from table to table administering massage, talking and dancing with patrons.

By the time my sandwiches had arrived – beautiful sandwich rectangles in a Jenga configuration (with the crusts off) – I had already been seduced away from savoury by a chocolate cake. So, I ordered a slice and something from the performance set menu titled ‘Africa’. Africa combined the poise and visual attention of a meerkat with the rhythm of a gazelle and the pace of a giraffe. I highly recommend this dish.

Later on, Martin the regular arrived, followed by Hunt’s Dad and step-Mum who sat with me at Alpen lady’s table. We talked about the difference between Manchester and Cambridge.

As the day turned in to evening and unhappy hour arrived things got stranger and more wonderful. The lights were dimmed, the microphone was on. Eirini spoke softly and lustfully of lost love on public transport, whilst others relayed disappointments of a more pedestrian nature. At the back of the café a young couple relaxing after a busy day shopping spoke of their unhappiness over a missed purchase of a designer handbag. Fortunately Hunt and Darton were on hand to convert their paper Zara bag into something more fancy.

In the midst of unhappy hour there was an interruption. Martin got up from his seat and asked Hunt’s dad for her hand in marriage (getting down on one knee himself). Hunt’s Dad declined on the grounds that he felt it would make Hunt very unhappy.

Day 10 – Sunday 15^th March

Unhappy hour.

I agreed to visit Derby with Dave on the proviso that he would go with me to the café at the end of the day (he is a little uncertain about the idea of a performance café).

We got back at 6.30 only to realise that the café had shut at 5pm.

I liked the look of the empty café, chair legs poking upwards.

I couldn’t even take a picture because my battery had died. 

Artist and academic Dani Abulhawa has challenged herself to try and visit the café everyday - here are her thoughts... keep reading to see if she makes it!

Day 1 – Thursday 5th March 

I entered tentatively, unsure of what to expect and was greeted with a kind hello by two women wearing pineapple fascinators on their heads. “Are you taking-away or staying?” 

I ordered a coffee, was asked to take and seat and told that it would be brought to me. I chose a two-person table against the wall and sat facing the door, adjacent to a couple who were at either end of bigger table, one eating a bowl of Alpen and the other tucking into a meat roll. The woman eating Alpen was familiar to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on how I knew her. 

My coffee was served in a big circular cup with hearts all over it and a saucer. The milk was in a little jug in the shape of a cottage. 

There was a very inviting table of cakes and several large chalk boards against the wall detailing things like, ‘breakages’, ‘takings’, ‘complaints’, and ‘covers’. 

I was asked if I wanted to choose the next record to play and picked an exercise record by – I think – Jane Fonda. 

On the tables were instructions for ordering, getting the attention of Hunt and Darton and rules of tea-drinking etiquette. There were also instructions for games you can play with the food. 

When I paid I was given a loyalty card and received my first pineapple stamp. 

This place is a bit out-of-the-ordinary, but still a working cafe peppered with absurdity, and then there are sudden moments of arrest, for example the moment when Hunt and Darton got up and stood in the centre of two tables (one of which was occupied by patrons) and performed a short signaling routine at each other across the café. 

I thought about the fine line between ordinary café and theatrical performance that this project treads, and then I thought about how much of ‘ordinary’ life is also treading this line.  

Day 2 – Friday 6th March

After getting back from work to Manchester train station, I decided to pop in again at the café. It was sexy day. 

Hunt and Darton and the other people working in the café (whose names I don’t know yet) were all wearing aprons with naked torsos on them, and with a hole in the area around the crotch. Hunt mentioned that she liked these aprons because there was an ambiguity about the torso’s gender. 

As it was sexy day there were two stand-out options on the cake table; one was a giant penis-shaped layer cake, complete with icing ejaculation, and the other was a tray of glorious pink nipple cakes (with cherries for nipples). I went for the penis, and in particular a slice from the balls end. 

As I sat eating it, I struggled a bit, not able to completely shake the idea of eating actual penis from the cake penis I was eating – you eat with your eyes.  How much of the pleasure of eating, I wondered, is actually based on thoughts about the dish? 

Day 3 – Saturday 7th March  

I had completely forgotten that today was Pigeon Theatre’s take-over of the café, so not only did I get two cups of coffee and the biggest glass of chocolate and banana Nesquik, I also got to do some smell identification and memory tasks with Pigeon’s Anna Fenemore and Gillian Knox. 

I was pleased to hear that the penis cake had been completely sold out. I was keen to find out which end people had gone for. Apparently the balls end was the most popular and I had a good discussion with Hunt and Darton in which we hypothesised the findings. The balls were covered in chocolate shavings, and constituted the bigger part of the cake, so we decided there wasn’t much scope for a psychoanalytic reading of people’s choices. 

Today, my table had the delightful Scots Guard Captain and Bear ornaments, complete with green snooker-table tablecloth.

Day 4 – Sunday 8th March  

I had a very short window for a trip to the café today. 

I ordered a coffee and said I would like a piece of the Oreo cake that had been dutifully made after a young girl requested it the day before. As it was ‘You Do It Day’ I served myself. 

Whilst I was there, a friend happened to come in with someone I didn’t know. I ended up sitting with them around the table that Alpen lady and her husband had been sat on earlier in the week. 

Every time I’ve been in the café someone I know has been there. It’s strange, but then the café caters for both the geographically situated community of Manchester city centre (near the train station) as well as the performance/art/festival community who are more dispersed. 

The mug I was given was in the shape of a large mouse head. I think it may have been the same mug that Alpen lady’s husband was drinking from, which was odd since I was also sat in his seat. 

I kept thinking about one of the signs in the café on the wall. It reads ‘semi-socially engaged’. I like the way it comments upon an arts/performance jargon and suggests that the café adopts an undefined status as ‘socially engaged’, not proclaiming a particular kind of social efficacy or smugness. 

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