Dear reader,

It is my most sincere hope that this missive finds you in good spirits.

For those among you whom I have not yet had the pleasure: good day, good day, and well-met to you! My name is W. Skeleton-Boney, Esq., and it is a most sublime delight to make your acquaintance.

I trust you have already been informed of the present obligations of my brother, the impresario known to you as Mr. Skeleton; he is regrettably committed due to pressing obligations re: the establishment of his newest business concern, a cinema in the minor hamlet of Winnemec where he resides. And so I am sure you are aware that he has prevailed upon me to briefly helm this humble newsletter—O! doughty vessel navigating this vast and stormy sea of trivialities!—during this week of his indisposition.

And so, without further ado, let us cast off! Together we shall fathom the murky depths of this vast ocean of Knowledge; together we shall discover what mysteries, surprises—& dare I say, delights?—lurk in these sibylline waters.

Trivia 1

Let us begin our journey with a hot cup of joe, shall we?

Most coffee one comes across these days is, I am afraid to say, pure dross; in many cases it is little better than weakly flavoured water. Nowhere can this sorry state of affairs be more robustly seen than in the near-exclusive use of robusta beans in the manufacture of that spuriously named product known as “instant coffee” (I question not the rapidity of its preparation, but its gastronomic classification).

That is not to say, however, there is no place for the robusta bean. Au contraire! Or should I say al contrario? For the humble robusta constitutes one in ten parts—or perhaps as much as one in seven—of the coffee beans that comprise many a fine Italian espresso blend, wherein the robusta’s bold basso profundo serves as sophisticated counterpoint to the finer, richer coloratura of what other cultivar of coffee bean, which accounts for more than half of global production?

Trivia 2

Speaking of Italian coffee ... I can still recall a summer’s afternoon spent sipping an espresso macchiato in the piazza outside Caffè San Marco, listening to Umberto Saba and Italo Svevo debate the finer points of their respective theories of the psychological novel while a young James Joyce watched, a cryptic smile creeping across his face.

Of course, the city was not Italian at the time. No, Europe’s great City of Coffee still served as Austria’s main port in those days. Yet war had already broken out across the continent, and I can hardly boast that it was a feat of presentiment to suspect that things might soon change irretrievably in that city upon the tip of the Adriatic.

Can you name for me the city of which I speak?