The Travel Critic

It is 7.30 on a Monday morning and the Starbucks team are ready. Four of them, finely tuned, a slick caffeine machine primed for battle. Orders fly, cups stack, names are misheard with military precision. You cannot fault them. They are sharp, cheerful, and efficient in a way that feels almost suspicious in an airport.

But the crowd, oh the crowd. This is not a Friday night. Not the stag groups in banana costumes, not the hens in sequins looking fabulous and knowing, deep down, that on the return leg the glamour will have wilted. No, this morning it is an airport full of smug, middle aged types jetting off to Tenerife in washed out M&S polos, congratulating themselves on dodging the school holidays. Honestly, worse than stag and hen groups. At least the stag crowd are ashamed of themselves.

The coffee, fair play, is hot. The service, genuinely friendly. The pastries, displayed with theatrical temptation, whisper promises of artisan indulgence but are in truth little more than laminated regret. Four pounds for a cinnamon bun that has seen more preservatives than flour is not money well spent. And yet, bleary-eyed and captive in the departure lounge, you will buy one. Because that is the genius of Starbucks.