I eyed the machine at the edge of the bar. One of those hot nuts machines. No one eats those. I see them and imagine one really good, pushy salesman who did the rounds of every pub in England. Marginalised, I assumed it was defunct from disuse. But then I saw, in a quiet moment, the bloke behind the bar, solemnly unsheathing from plastic the little paper cups, and then stacking them in two piles on top of the machine. He moved paper cups from pile to pile until he had two symmetrical stacks.
I was impressed, but I resolved the next time I go in there to check the heights of those piles.
