Fuel for Thought

I popped into Fuel in Withington for a meet up and coffee (far too early in the day for a Belgian ale).  It's a great little addition to my inner city village, and alongside Solomon Grundy across the road almost single handedly lift the main drag into something a little more interesting than your average village.  As a village it's admittedly a little rough around the edges, but the fantastic community spirit and bohemian dens like this make up for the 'seen better days' places.  Given a year or two, this will be even better...the spring clean started a couple of years back and is seemingly on hold due to the 'wall street crush'.  It boasts the fantastic olde pub that is the Red Lion, so personally it would be a hard place to leave, if I ever had to...and in reality it would most likely only be a mile or two down the road.

I'm sure an old Phil Spector track was playing the background of FUEL, that or a similar sounding tune which just so happened to remind me of a Ronettes song (da do ron ron).  It appeared that I'd left my ears on the kitchen table that day (I often do when making high calibre coffee).  FUEL is known for it's love of Folk Music and Vegan/Vegetarian leanings (the successful Red Deer Club hold nights here).  So perhaps it was a variant on a folk and 60's soul I heard, twisted 180 degrees round to sound like Ronnie Ronette/Spector.  It sounded lube all the same.

A mash of coffee, discussions on business/creative ventures and life felt exciting even with the rain teeming it down onto the tarmac marble effect pavements outside.  Almost...almost felt like resuscitating my decade long fixation with vegetarianism I let go of several years ago.  They do good veggie food in here, but now wasn't the time to chow down gracefully on their wares.  That would have to be another time.   

Upstairs there is a room which you can hire out for parties.  I've been to a couple here and for it's size, it's a perfect venue: much better, in my opinion than those old church halls which make my brain curl up and adopt the position of a frazzle crisp.

Yes – Phil Spector.  A documentary (a very rare documentary and interview with the man) is to be aired over the weekend.  I'm looking forward to it, but I'd almost forgot to note it down till the 'fragrance' of his wall of sound at least, hit me in FUEL.