Would you like cultural imperialism with that?

All hail Lynne Rosenthal, who was thrown out of Starbucks for refusing to play along with all their silly invented language ('venti' indeed) - designed to push you into further sales while disguising the greed inherent in the ridiculously big portions - when ordering a bagel.

Now, you might think that anyone going into Starbucks is a willing participant in a charade of faux-Italian corporate bullshit and therefore can't really complain when they're asked to go along with it. And I'd tend to agree with you: if you start the game, you can't complain about the rules halfway through.

But really. Calling the police? The Hegemon has a franchise of a rival evil corporate poor-quality coffee monster, but the staff are cool. That's because they aren't 'baristas' (hurl) but the same women who work in the rather downmarket canteen on the other side of the building, disguised by a badge and baseball cap (despite the absence of a baseball pitch). They're quite unbothered by my requests for a 'small coffee' and would hopefully laugh in the face of anyone demanding a grande venti soya mochalattecino.

Let's go back to the days of a Marmite Sandwich and a Weak Lemon Drink for lunch.

Thanks to Em for the tip.

Milk with your icecap?

OK, it's not as bad as driving an SUV or flying off for long weekends, but your coffee habit is killing polar bears:

The carbon footprint of a cup of tea or coffee:

21g CO2e: black tea or coffee, boiling only the water you need 

53g CO2e: white tea or coffee, boiling only the water you need 

71g CO2e: white tea or coffee, boiling double the water you need 

235g CO2e: a large cappuccino 

340g CO2e: a large latte

Some of my colleagues consumer loads of expensive lattes through the day. What damage do they cause over a year?

Three large lattes per day, by contrast, and you're looking at almost twenty times as much carbon, equivalent to flying half way across Europe.

It's mostly the milk - which I gave up a while back, though not for environmental reasons. Every pint you waste drinking it could have made cheese!

I also gave up coffee - several a day at work meant I was completely spaced out in the morning, then felt ill and exhausted in the afternoon - more than once I crawled under the desk for a little snooze. I really hurt my head on the underside of the desk, waking up in a hurry when someone walked in during last summer. 

Now I mostly drink mint tea. At the moment, it's as environmentally friendly as possible: I use mint leaves torn from my own plant.