There are many stages to go through when you're running late for work.

• First is the fear - "Oh my God! That means I can't leave till 5 tonight" at which point you look :(


• And then comes denial - "If I run for that tram I'll only be a couple of minutes late."


• And then finally acceptance - "Screw it, if I'm five minutes late who cares? It's not like my work is important. I'm probably only going to spend the first hour blogging anyway. In that case, I may as well stop for a coffee."

So with that in mind, I walk into Starbucks holding a crisp ten pound note and join the two person queue just as some guy leaves the cash register. "You have forgotten your card!" says the cashier in a strange Anglo-German-American-Australian twang (Mental Note: I must go on a course for recognising accents - it turned out the 'Austrian' Trainer from the other week was from Isreal). "It's still authorising...."

We wait and the queue grows.

"Technology today, it's supposed to make life easier isn't it?" she says trying to make small talk. Her comments fall on deaf ears as he is too busy using his Blackberry. She takes my order.

We wait some more and the queue reaches the door.

The woman two behind me tuts loudly. Although, since she is wearing a knee length skirt, mid calf boots and just below the knee socks, which show a shocking two inches of lilly white knee / leg, she is no place to criticise anyone. However, since I am wearing my emergency back-of-the-wardrobe-goes-with-every-suit-I-own shirt I am probably manning the catapult next to her in the glass house. (I am wearing this shirt due to a) a toothpaste incident with the shirt I was supposed to wear and b) it was supposed to be laundry weekend last weekend)

"This doesn't seem to be working...." she says.

We wait some more.

Now I put down what happened next to either the fact that they've started using the Red Christmas cups and the spirit of the season came over me or the fact that my drink is getting cold on the end of the counter; "How much is it?" I say, "I've just been to the cash machine and I don't mind paying for it if it gets things moving."

"Well I can pay cash if that's easier" says the guy. There is a stunned silence as he gets a roll of about 20 ten pound notes out of his pocket and takes one off.

I finally get my drink; it's cold.