One last brew for the road?

At 10.45am on Saturday 18 February 2012 you may have felt a little disturbance in the Twitter force, a thousand tweeps crying out for coffee before being suddenly silenced. The Tim Peaks Diner mashed its last brew, served its last special and closed its doors for the final time.

Tim Peaks. Twitter branch. Closed. — Tim Burgess

For those who've never replied to Tim's regular early morning "Morning tweeps x coffee?" and been served a virtual beverage and a personal reply, Tim Peaks seems like the most surreal and silly thing ever to have happened in cyberspace.

But for those who gave their custom to this metaphysical, metaphorical cafe it was with a heavy heart and a slew of sad songs on the jukebox that they said goodbye when Tim Burgess hung up his apron to return to rock and roll duties with The Charlatans et al. While it lasted the diner was a little bit of lovliness, fun and community to make you smile at the start of each day.

Tim Peaks Diner sat alongside the listening parties Tim hosted, working his way through the Charlatans back catalogue as fans got a chance to ask questions and share in his memories of the stories behind the songs.

The diner also did that magical thing and went from being purely online to existing, for a couple of hours, in the real physical world as listening party and diner collided at Fopp in Manchester. It also did a roaring trade in branded mugs to raise money for Trekstock and had its own cartoon strip drawn by Aiden Smith. See, it's not all fun and pretend frothy coffees - the power of the diner was harnessed to motivate us all to do something good!

Over the months the number of people asking for a coffee, or a tea, a strawberry switchblade or Terminator eggs grew and grew. The time that Tim dedicated to his Twitter followers must have been immense and so it's somewhat inevitable that eventually it would have to come to an end as his real life demanded his attention back.

Of course as a great man once sang, all things must pass, and the diner has had its moment. While it might not be opening its virtual doors each morning the community, I think, will go on.

For me, it's with a tear in my eye but a smile on my face that I say goodbye. I'll miss those morning tweets and the thrill of other diner goers sticking an amazing tune on the jukebox. When I see real life Tim sing with The Charlatans this summer, I even anticipate a moment when I think I catch a glimpse of cartoon Tim standing to the side of the stage, apron on, percolator in hand, tapping his foot and watching also.

But its just au revoir to a concept rather than goodbye to the creator. Tim promises he'll still be around online and I hope he'll throw an occasional song on the jukebox and maybe join Twitter for a coffee, rather than serving us one.

Anyway, here's to you Tim, a rock and roll icon and owner of the best darn diner that never there was; so long and thanks for all the tweets x

The Tim Peaks Diner will take on its magical physical form at Kendal Calling this summer and you can still stick stuff on the jukebox by sending a tweet with a YouTube link to #timpeaksdinerjukebox. And you can still get your Tim Peaks prints from Proof Spirit.