It's entirely possible that I've mentioned Stella's Coffee Haus before. It's one of my favourites in Denver, despite its lack of free high-speed internet service for patrons.

It's what looks to have formerly been a private house, and so it has many rooms in which one can lounge whilst getting seriously agitated with caffeine. Unless, that is, you're one of the wussy big-girls-blouses that doesn't do the shaking man's drug of choice.

So, after dinner with a friend, I popped into Stella's, fully intending to grab a coffee and head home with it. For some reason, I forget what, I ended up getting a seat and staying a short while.

There was the usual funky beat going on in there, together with enough students to constitute a lecture audience. I resisted the temptation to give one, however.

Of course if this were Britain, said students would be down the pub, not drinking coffee. However, due to the Dickensian licensing laws of Colorado (and most of the US) you can't legally buy a beer until you're 21.

By the time they hit 21 of course, said students have been at college for so long, without legal recourse to alcohol, that then often end up trying to play catch-up for the preceeding years of alcohol-free college.

By contrast, British students, will have been steadily drinking themselves under the table, legally, since the age of 18. We start 'em young in Europe. Of course I actually bought my first pint at the age of 15, but that's another story.

Of course you can buy a gun in Colorado as long as you're over 12 (days old).

It's perhaps a measure of how puritanical Colorado is as a state, that its student populace were there, on a Friday night, studying. I mean, it was Thursday night! You know? The start of the student weekend? Party time.

And I'm not talking about the so-dorky-they-never-party contingent, either. No, the Beautiful People, and the Not Completely Plug-Ugly People, of DU were there, each armed with a laptop computer.

Given the lack of internet access there, they could only have been using their computers to write papers.

So I sat there, the oldest person in the place by a good 10 years or more, and read the paper. If I'd been wearing a flat cap and had a small dog with me, I'd have felt more into my role as the 'old man' of the place.

Instead, I chatted with Tim via text messaging. He was on a train from Budapest to Venice.

So after such a jolly time, I left Stella's, passing three SWAT team cops getting coffee at the counter. They were disappointed that Stella's doesn't sell doughnuts, but luckily kept their tear-gas grenades to themselves, and didn't try to storm the pantry. I returned to the car, which, because of my original plan being to just grab a coffee and leave, was parked in the "Loading Only" zone.

Quite how none of Denver's finest, spotted this transgression is beyond me. I mean, you only have to fart in the wrong musical key in Denver and you get a ticket. I'm sure I read somewhere that there are bylaws you can be ticketed on for the offense of "Looking At A Police Officer A Bit Funny", and "Not Having A Broncos Bumper Sticker".

On the upside, at least the policemen weren't staring to look younger.