Whenever I find myself involved in a which-coffeehouse-is-better disputation over um, coffee, I have always, always insisted that Starbucks is second to none. Over the many years of being a hapless victim of commercialism, I developed an emotional affiliation with Starbucks not because of their coffee or food, they are no better than most crap you can find in other coffeehouses out there anyway, but because Starbucks practices the “We don’t really care if our coffee tastes like piss, we will surely be friendly enough to make you forget about it” philosophy. The staffs and baristas of the Starbucks outlet I frequent even greet me by name whenever I walk in, and that is the sort of personalised service you will be hard pressed to find in say, basically anywhere else except for I don’t know, whore houses?