ON Saturday, after visiting the (closed) Victorian market, and looking for the pine shop in the (derelict) East Street Shopping Centre, my wife and I sought to console ourselves with a hot cappuccino, you know, somewhere interesting overlooking the water. After sitting in the car for 10 minutes trying to think of somewhere to go we went home.

Does ANYONE know where we could have had a coffee and a cake overlooking the sea, Solent, River Itchen, within ten miles of Southampton?

Never mind Spitfires and green lasers, how abut a waterside coffee shop?

IAN MARRIOTT, West End