'Simple man. Simple tastes.'
That is what I have decided shall be written on my epitaph.
Yet to hit 30, I am slowly coming to the conclusion (which will no doubt have changed in a few months) that my traits, my likes and my dislikes, were set in stone from the moment I was old enough to use my newly protruding fangs to bite my mother's ankles.
Forty Five's lovely exterior with outdoor seating for a sunny day (Image: Findlay Brown)
Apologies to my poor mother aside, my joys are not to be found in anything particularly outlandish.
There will be no gold-plated Fiat Puntos or horse-drawn carriages at my wedding. No dinners at Salt Bae's restaurants if I can help it.
A perfect day out will not constitute fox-hunting or being hunted by a fox. Instead, find me a nice café with a terrace, a book I can performatively read and, if fate smiles down on me, a decent coffee to go with it.
If you are anything like me, ambulating down Lancaster's King Street, you might have noticed a charming spot about halfway up a stone-strewn side street.
Don't worry if you missed it, because Forty Five Records is about as well advertised as Guy Ritchie's latest B-movie caper, In The Grey (I had no idea it existed either).
However, should you decide to exert your quads for just a few seconds, you will be rewarded for life.
Just two tables adorn the slabbed floor outside this hideaway. The façade is emblematic of the architecture that I hold so dear about Lancaster.
Seemingly haphazardly laid stone is the antithesis of new builds, whose perfect assembly causes a pang of distress in some deep-seated part of our psyche.
Iced coffee and a croissant ... get my tailor on the blower (Image: Findlay Brown)
Inside, simple wooden tables and benches are tightly packed together, providing an opportunity to peek at your neighbour's choice of book (I would never).
The confectioneries are few but all killer, no frilly filler. I opt for an iced latte and a croissant. But not before I notice one of two things that separate Forty Five from its neighbours.
Vinyl lines the wall, hanging above a record player. Upstairs, a room is dedicated entirely to the once-seemingly terminal art of consuming music.
You can flick through the classics, the forgotten and the absurd, able to give any a listen on another record player.
Not only a local mecca for music discoverers, Forty Five is woven into a movement trying to form communities for aficionados and the curious alike, advertising all manner of gigs and events.
A bastion of what the slightly pretentious might label 'third spaces', where people from all walks can breathe the same air, unknowingly exchanging beliefs and opinions through an osmosis that can only occur via physical proximity.
Forty-Five's crusade does not end there. A recent ban on laptops was not a way to punish students or Jacob Rees-Mogg's own Freddy Krueger, remote workers.
Rather, it was an attempt to forge community whether we like it or not. Also, to not depend on one coffee bought every four hours.
As a beloved reader once posited, 'Another café visit in Lancaster from Findlay, what do I pay my subscription for?'
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Well, it is hopefully to show those who feel worn out by the continued spread of the dead-behind-the-eyes Black Sheep coffee shops, which occupy spaces like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
And of course, to keep my tailor in business, who provides weekly widenings of my trouser waist.
Cheers Benny x
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