I like the idea of paying double in ‘helpy hour’, but there’s no way I’d do it (2024)

You have to love the Belgians. And not just for the frites, the chocolates and the beer. No, after being truly hammered by the pandemic and frequently named as the country in the world with the highest death rate from the virus per capita (Donald Trump even said so — and he never lies), Belgium has come bouncing back with an altruistic blast of pure economic optimism called “helpy hour”.

Yes, helpy hour. It’s not a misprint, but a nationwide initiative for the hospitality industry that was launched recently by the Federation for Cafés in Belgium. It is defined by a 60-minute period in the trading day of cafés, bars and restaurants during which customers pay twice as much for their goods as usual. It’s a pun, obviously, on happy hour and it means that café patrons, for example, can — for the cost of two coffees — buy one coffee and pair it with the unquantifiable sense of pride that comes from knowing that they are helping to lift an ailing commercial sector back on to its feet.

I like this idea. I worked for years as a waiter and I can only imagine the fun that you could have while wrestling the payment plates away from helpy hour customers as they reluctantly release a tenner for a watery cappuccino and smile through gritted teeth while wishing the business a speedy recovery. At least I liked this idea until I recently visited my local chichi café for the first time since lockdown began.

The place had been transformed into the designer version of a post-Covid coffeehouse paradise. It has been fitted, floor-to-ceiling, with bespoke hardwood-framed hygiene screens, tastefully stained and lightly varnished, and surrounding immaculately polished thick Perspex sheets. I couldn’t hear the staff, of course. It was as though they were trapped inside a patisserie-based exhibit at the Natural History Museum. The masks didn’t help either.

Through a combination of hand signals and unashamed bellowing I nonetheless managed to order a flat white and an almond croissant, and was directed — with a certain officious charmlessness (slight tension in the voice, acknowledging the ultimate threat of death, no matter how slim, that now hangs over every commercial interaction) — along the carefully demarcated (more hardwood screens) one-way system to the pastry pick-up point.

My flat white, however, was soon waiting for me at the coffee pick-up point at the other end of the counter, which necessitated a brief and highly apologetic journey the wrong way down the one-way system, an apparently volatile act that sent the chichi coffee shop into the equivalent of Defcon 1 (audible gasps, shouts of “Two metres!” and punters diving for cover under the brioche buns, as though I had been carrying in my arms a live and bubbling cauldron of Covid-19).

I made it, with more apologies, out of the building and passed a long incoming queue of caffeine addicts, standing two meters apart, some in masks, some not, but all projecting that gloomy mien of postapocalyptic resignation. At which point, on the verge of tossing my coffee and croissant into the bin (all that stress, doom and angst will dampen any appetite) I had an epiphany — I don’t, it transpires, go to the café for the goods. I go for the ambiance, for the trifling banter with the owner and the chance to pass a word or two with a neighbour while flicking through the morning papers.

Now that all of this has been surgically removed and replaced with screens, one-way systems and barely suppressed hysteria, I have no interest in patronising my once-favourite haunt. If you take the café out of the coffee, in other words, what are you left with other than a mucky brown drink accompanied by some sugar-coated carbs? And for that, alas, and even if the helpy hour movement makes it over here, I will never pay double.

Greeks bearing nonsense

The Greek Orthodox Church seems to have a serious problem with yoga (probably not doing it right? Or maybe it went straight into the “intermediate” class and skipped “experienced beginner”, when it should really have started with “level one, beginner”).

The Church’s synod recently announced that the practice was “completely incompatible” with the Christian faith (they said it was basically Hinduism in Lycra). Last year the Rev Metropolitan Nektarios of Argolis (his mates call him “Metro”) stated: “We make a confession to God. This is the same thing that people do during yoga.” Hmmm.

As someone who has practised Christian confession and yoga, my instinct is to say: “Poppyco*ck! They’re completely different.” And yet, when you think about it, and really meditate (relax, Metro! I mean in the Christian sense of the word) on the issue, they are, in fact, the same.

Both, in my experience, are practices during which you spend your time wishing you weren’t there, convincing yourself that it’s good for you and hoping that you don’t fart.

Me, Rod and the plod

Penny Lancaster’s decision to join the police, who are making global headlines for all the wrong reasons, was certainly eye-catching.

The 49-year-old wife of the gravel-throated rocker Rod Stewart is joining the City of London police and has said that being a crime-fighting law enforcer comes naturally to her.

I felt that once, when I chased a teenager who tried to steal one of the kids’ bikes from the drive. The cops came and they were super-impressed. They didn’t say anything, but I could tell just from their eyes that they thought I was a ledge.

Although I’ve heard nothing from them since. They don’t write. They don’t call. Was it something I said?

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