Having recently been rendered a man without a girlfriend effectively, I have sought refuge at a cafe nearby, with a copy of Dawkins' atheist discussion (the title is so distasteful that I refuse to type). The cafe owner, despite being very friendly and kind and all, I suspect, has given me a wrong change ($1.50 rather than $6.50). As I was neither equipped with solid evidence to dispute the transaction nor prepared to incur expenses of a tiresome and embarrassing scene, I made peace with myself in consideration of her hospitable and unsolicited offer of extra glass of tab water.

What really annoyed me was the choice of music.

The usual so-called 'chill-out' music that features repetitive electronically-created drum beats plus another repetitive line of melody that looms in the air like garlic in Chinese stir-fried beans. I find this sort of music not only distasteful but also disruptive to my otherwise smooth, relaxing Sunday.

Of course, it's my fault. Who really listens to classical music in a cafe. If there was sufficient demand, I'd find a cafe that played Mozart, Schubert or even Chopin (I bet it would be his nocturnes), this world being capitalist and all. But no. Nobody really listens to those composers. Even where the majority of customers consists of silver-haired gents and ladies, the choice of music inevitably tends to be some old jazz tune or Sinatra at best.

It is somewhat disturbing that I nevertheless prefer those old tunes over the meaningless drum beats.

I wonder if there were some other cities where the cafes would play classical music. Perhaps in Vienna. But I suspect even in those cities classical music is being played for tourists, not the local inhabitants.