A Different View
Café cottons on to the notion that time really is money
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
There’s a new café which has recently opened its door in London, attracting an unprecedented amount of publicity in the process – because this facility make you pay for how long you stay there, not what you drink.
Ziferblat, which already has a chain of ten cafés in its native Russia, has opened in east London, where it provides tea, coffee and Wi-Fi for nothing – but it’s 3p a minute to sit there.
So those who linger all day over a cold cup of coffee which end up incurring the cost of a slap-up dinner – while those who speed through their mid-morning cuppa will suffer nothing more upsetting than a scalded palette.
Ziferblat translates as clock face, and the whole thing works on the basis that, on entry, you pick up a clock from the cupboard, noting what time it is and then paying truppence for every minute you’ve been there on your way out.
You could be in and out in a minute if you’re really quick at drinking coffee and you’d even have enjoyed the free snacks as well. But even if you waited for an hour, that’s only £1.80 – a fraction of the price you’d pay in a more traditional coffee shop.
The difference is that you have to make your own coffee, using the in-house expresso machine but equally you’re welcome to bring your own food and heat in and eat it….all while the clock ticks up another 3p a minute.
It’s an idea that you’d love to see catching on here – ‘everything is free, except the time you spend there’ – and not just within the burgeoning café culture, but right across the board.
You could, for example, charge people who paw through the papers in a shop and then leave them back in a heap having half-read them for free, so that no one in their right mind would ever actually buy them.
Ditto, book shops – no more free browsing. If you want to rifle through a book you’ve no intention of buying, then at least you can offer up a few cent for the joy of holding someone else’s novel in your grubby hands.
People who got to pubs and order pints of tap water could now have all the uisce their bladder will bear – but in future they’d be paying a few bob for just standing there.
Those who just want to use the loo can now do so without the barman staring them out of it like they’d actually destroyed their own trousers – but they’ll have to pay the price for the number of minutes it has taken them to complete their ablutions.
A welcome side-effect of all this would be that pub bores would become a thing of the past because it would be too expensive to hang around – and we’d all get a barstool for the duration of our stay because the turnover of drinkers would be like a well-greased engine.
And it goes on – shoppers who go into clothes stores and try on items to be sure they fit, and then go home and purchase them on the internet, could be charged for the time they’ve taken up in the fitting room.
It wouldn’t make up the price of the garment, but it might level up the playing pitch – and at the very least make the internet generation value the face-to-face service they have on their own doorstep.
You could also see the growth of a whole new range of new shops – places to charge your mobile for a few minutes, for example – where you’ll find that time is, literally, money.
But the biggest positive about this concept is that it stops people vegetating in the one spot all day – all of a sudden wasting time comes at a price.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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