Those stone spheres atop the entrance columns haunt me - not because they're beautiful (though they are), but because they represent a confidence I've never known. I keep thinking about the Watts Bros as I sip my £5 flat white beneath their name, feeling the irony pulse between us like the shared joke no one's laughing at.

The arch does something physical to my attention, dragging it upward then inward in a way that feels almost algorithmic - except it was designed when algorithms were just mathematics, not behavioural manipulation tools. The columns wear their decorative capitals with the unselfconscious pride of men who never had to worry if their architectural choices would play well on social media.

WATTS BROS still reads clear against the brick, while the Nomad coffee shop sign glows beneath - the old and new sharing uncomfortable quarters. Those folding chairs outside look like they're waiting for permission from the building to stay permanently. They won't get it.

Between the carved details and weathered brick lies an entire manual of certainties my generation never inherited. Each shadow falls exactly where Victorian builders meant it to, teaching lessons in depth to anyone who'll look up from their phones long enough to notice.

The Watts brothers put their name in stone because they assumed a future would exist to read it. I can't decide if this makes them naïve or if it makes us tragic - we who put our names on platforms designed to disappear, who document everything and build almost nothing.