bastards

The UK Hot 40 is blaring from a flat-screen TV whose frame is still covered in shrink wrap. Enrique Iglesias just took a big tumble down to position 27. I'm surprised there is still a channel out there showing music videos. I didn't know, to be honest, that there were still music videos to be broadcast. But what surprises me even more is that Enrique’s song – title, lyrics and all – was washed clean before being aired in the UK.

Just a few weeks ago, I heard the same song in France – where people are apparently expected to be ignorant of foreign lyrics or not liable to be offended by the inanities of pop music – as Tonight (I'm fuckin' you). In the UK, it's lovin'. Says the same thing, but sounds better, you might say, but then why not say it in the first place?

Yesterday, Intermountain Healthcare rejected an email response I had sent to a friend working there because of the word bastard, which my friend had used to describe the guy who had stolen his mountain bike that was locked inside his garage. I had unwittingly quoted it in my reply and was advised that the offending word needed to be removed before the email could be delivered. I have to say I was aghast.

You've got no mail!

I'm using Gmail as my email provider, so maybe I shouldn't make a big fuss. Google scans my emails already and places content-related advertisements next to them if I open them on gmail.com. Intermountain Healthcare is probably within its legal rights to do the same. But it would be good fun to indignantly complain to them for not protecting me from abuse by their employees. Since they're already scanning email traffic, they might as well do it properly – and piss off those staff that don't subscribe to tight-assed Mormon restrictions on speech.

Writing this I'm sitting, you might have already guessed, in a coffee shop, leisurely, with nothing to do and my legs up. Outside the window, the detritus of the street is blowing by. The bus shelter forms a meeting point of sorts for the down-and-out. I'm in an area that's famous with Imperial students for its unique combination of proximity to college and affordable prices. North End Road is nevertheless not a place of urban hipness, and there is nothing collegiate about it. On the contrary, the cheapness of the area attracts the kinds of people you'd be reluctant to meet during the day and afraid to run into at night. People don't hang out here.

However, mildly out of place opposite West Kensington tube station, is the coffee shop where I'm presently enjoying a steaming cappuccino and free wireless internet. I've come for inspiration. Sometimes, the lowlife in the street spills into the coffee shop. The homeless scour the tables for muffins left behind half-eaten, the delusional engage in high-pitched diatribes against invisible forces, and yobs from the estate down the road warm up for a night of turf war. There are stories in all of this, no doubt, but today is a calm day. People come and go, but they look like you and me and behave the same, civilized, boring.

The locale used to be part of the fast-expanding Coffee Republic chain before it overheated and went into administration about two years ago. Creative debt and ownership reshuffling led to the emergence of a leaner chain that includes an improbable fully branded hotel lobby outlet in the Quality Crown Hotel on Cromwell Road. The branch in North End Road was sold but retained, beside the name, all original features and looks and feels as before. It is now called Coffee 4 U and is run, like each one of the newsagents, off-licenses, internet cafes and grocery stores up and down the street, by a family of hardworking immigrants, each trying to make its fortune in a bold economic struggle.

When I ordered my coffee, the resemblance in the foreign faces behind the counter was uncanny. The oldest son mans the till, while the youngest gets his first idea of business just by soaking things up – when he's not distracted by his matchbox cars, his games-enabled telephone, or the TV blaring the UK Hot 40. Wholesome Adele is on top of the charts for the third week in a row.