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Comment by eftpotrm | Hacker News Reader

A slightly tangential point from that article but...

I'm in the UK - Derby, specifically, though I've known other areas well too - and I've never seen people working for more than a short period (say, 30 mins max) out of cafés. Never.

I can see it may well be good networking advice. I can see it'd be more sociable than my current spare-bedroom-office setup. But I've never seen it done to have any indication it's viable in the local café culture.

Serious question. Any UK'ers, midlands in particular, actually do this? Where do you find is actually good for this?

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Not quite the midlands but in Brighton I've done this and know people who do it regularly. A kind of middle ground is a co-working space, these are sort of like offices that are available for freelancer user, you sign up for a anything from a couple of days a month to full time then you just show up with your laptop. I find it a really great way of working, being independent but still having lots of others around who also create stuff.

<plug>The co-working space I work from in Brighton, The Skiff, is expanding. Anyone from around Brighton in the UK interested in co-working should definitely check it out: http://theskiff.org </plug>

At the risk of pointing out the obvious : Why don't you ask the cafe owner whether it's Ok if you hang out for most of the day at a table - and whether they'd prefer you to pay via regular coffee purchases, or they would be comfortable if you just gave them (say) GBP10 for the morning, etc. Make sure the place has the right vibe before you pick it for the 'long term', and that you make plain that you're happy to play by their rules...

Well, yes, but for something that seems to be standard advice yet I'd never seen in operation, I was curious if I was missing it actually happening or whether it was more a localised phenomena. I think I've got my answer :-)

I'm in the midlands and no I haven't. But then the midlands is not so much a 'new media' place like London / Brighton are.

No, granted, but then like I say, I've moved around a bit. Milton Keynes (where I was before) is hardly olde worlde but café working seemed absent there. For that matter I used to be in London very regularly on business and I never saw it there either, and that's probably the biggest centre for 'new media' in Europe.

London is big. You have to be in specific places. The "New Media" part of London is East End - a lot of it centered around Shoreditch, though you'll find pockets elsewhere.

But you'll find people working in cafees etc. all over. Check out the Starbucks opposite Centre Point next time you're in London - it has (or had, at least, last time I was there) office desks..

I'm in London, and at least one Starbucks even have office desks in it... Don't know about the rest of the UK.

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