Cornish pasties get everywhere. In Athens, we used to listen to classical music from Berlin on the FM radio off the satellite. The programme was sponsored by the Cornish Pasty company. It was weird listening to their adverts in German.
But now according to the Guardian, pasties come with free WiFi.
"Hang on, I'll write it down for you." The woman serving at The Oxford Pasty Cafe in the middle of the city's covered market disappears into the small kitchen off to the side and comes back with the torn corner of a pasty wrapper on which she has written in red pen: "OPC 25 155 866."
As unlikely as it seems, this slip of paper represents a revolution in communications. It is a username and password and it provides 24 hours of high-speed internet access. But most importantly it was handed over for free with an "Oxford Blue" cornish pasty and a can of Coke.
Outside the shop, a folding blackboard offers free tea or coffee with any cake bought before midday and after 3pm, and the one next to it: "Free Wi-Fi internet available all day, every day." Both serve the same purpose, to attract customers, but the latter demonstrates that there is a new breed of customer out there: pasty eaters of the mobile internet generation.
I suppose I can just go to a nearby cafe now I know how to connect.
