Shef

At last, normal coffee service is resumed. Whilst I’ve now made friends with this new induction hob thingy, I’ve not been able to use the moka since we moved house since it doesn’t approve of aluminium and nearly all of these things (the really expensive Italian ones as well as my own cheaper job from John Lewis) are made of aluminium. I’m not sure what the consequences of using aluminium on the hob are exactly but suffice to say they are dire at the very least. I actually got quite excited a couple of weeks ago in IKEA (and that’s not a common occurrence) when I found a pot made of stainless steel (those canny Swedes!) but that failed me too, threatening to leave an unsightly ring on the pristeen German-engineered glass surface. Finally, though, a combination of the wonders of the internet and very cheap Chinese engineering have come to my rescue, in the shape of the Shef, a dodgy £4.50 hotplate doohickey that looks like something I’ve knocked up myself in the shed but which actually does the trick. Hallelujah! Let’s celebrate with something lovely off Lloyd Cole’s rather wonderful new album (officially the most played release of 2013 so far in the Prime household…)