“The world will burn”, cries the vintage-clad university students from the rain-soaked footpaths of Piccadilly Circus. Environmentalists perch here daily, representatives of the millennial generation of prestigious London universities waving cardboard signs with Sharpie scribbles, squaring up to the suits of the financial district. Amazing how these worldly 20-something year olds have the confidence to bully the people of London into listening to their cries of global warming, while donned head to toe in fast fashion brands produced by a poor Indonesian child in slave labour. Righteous, indeed.

These students are lucky today; they just missed the rain. The concrete paths are already steaming in this oppressive heat, the evidence of the humidity-lightening monsoon showers evaporating into thin air. For spring, it truly is unseasonably hot. Steam warps around the see-through plastic-caped tourists travelling in packs like wolves, peak caps and sunglasses poking out from brilliant purple “rainmacs”, available from Sheila outside the Piccadilly Street NatWest bank for a steal at £20 each. Seemingly these American tourists haven’t quite grasped the currency exchange rate between these two great countries.

Tearing my eyes away from the doe-eyed tourists creating a pedestrian traffic jam, I reach down for my espresso cup from the frosted glass of my table for one. Raising it to my lips, I spot a Sky news reporter across the road, setting up with her cameraman. She is resting her jacket on the camera, using her hands to waft under her arms. She has turned her attention to her makeup, using little pieces of cotton to dab the beads of sweat adorning her upper lip. I recognise her; she is new, Alice Something, delegated to the heavy streets to save the national treasures from leaving the studio. I hope, for her sake, she might make it to the silver screen eventually.

She’s glancing over her shoulder, microphone at the ready. I follow her gaze, through the English Greta Thunbergs, to a queue, on the other side of the circus. I pause mid-sip, when I spot sleeping bags and camping chairs, and young women filming themselves laughing and talking into their phones. To my right, I spot Emira wiping the table beside me, her hair wrapped up into a loose bun held together with nothing but a pen for taking orders. I turn to her, curious about the queue of screaming teenagers across the street. She looks up from her cloth, and exhales deeply. “A new Krispy Kreme pop-up shop. They’ve had a guest list for their grand opening for weeks; these young women (shaking her cloth in their direction) are queuing in case someone doesn’t show up”. Looking at the 3 empty tables outside this cafe, I drain my cup and ask Emira for another. She smiles, and goes back inside.

I’ve been coming to this cafe every day for the last 2 years. Emira and her husband Omar moved to London back in February 2018, with little more than a dream to open a cafe and their lifesavings from Turkey. Their cafe was an all-in-one; downstairs housed the barista machine and a fridge stuffed to the brim with pistachio baklavas and milk sweets, alluring aromas of cinnamon, cardamom, and fresh coffee rolling out of every cup served. The inside of the cafe had little space for more than 2 people queuing at a time, although I never met another soul here bar myself. Upstairs, Aiyla and Mustafa did their homework and played with great explosions of laughter and delight, unaware of the box cafe slowly dwindling in funds. Emira, in my opinion, serves the greatest cup of Turkish coffee in this town, yet all it takes is a new doughnut to draw the masses. It is the people like Emira who will suffer at the hands of corporate-level doughnuts.

It is a sad reality that this is the new world we live in; young people in 80s shirts trying to change the world, people living through their cameras, struggling to make ends meet, whether you are a Sky news reporter or a humble coffee shop owner. What we need, more than ever, is a new perspective.

Someone coughs into their scarf while passing me.

My phone buzzes with news of a new pandemic spreading to England. How right you were, University of London students.

The world will burn.