1 {scene: Sunset, on board a ferry in the Mediterranean}
1 Prof. Jones: I can't believe you made us rush on to today's ferry to Tripoli without a decent meal.
2 Monty: There's a dining room on board. And you grabbed some panini! And rum babas for dessert!
3 Prof. Jones: Yes, but the cafe wouldn't let me take a cup of coffee to have with them.
4 Minnesota Jones: Someone should invent some sort of "take away" cup for coffee.
4 Prof. Jones: Now there's an idea.

I first experienced rum babas on a trip to Italy some years ago. I've since tried to find the same delicious sweets locally, and there are a few cake shops that make them, but somehow they've never come close to tasting as good as the ones I had in Italy.

There's something about travel food that makes it so much more exciting and interesting than anything you can get at home.

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2025-03-16 Rerun commentary: Hopefully it's clear that they're standing on board a ferry deck, looking over the guardrail out to sea. And not just standing on a bit of land.

I checked and it seems that paper cups usable for coffee were invented no later than 1907. One Lawrence Luellen invented the modern paper cup in that year, and went on to found the Individual Drinking Cup Company in 1910, the predecessor of the manufacturer of Dixie Cups, the most famous brand in the USA. (Though essentially unknown here in Australia. I don't think I've ever met anyone who had any brand awareness whatsoever of paper cups.) The first paper cups were used, however, for drinking water, not coffee.

Further research reveals conflicting stories of when take-away coffee first appeared. Some peg it to the 1950s or 1960s, which is well after the setting of the Cliffhangers theme. But I found one article that claims that take-away coffee began "two decades later" than.... actually it's not clear. Either two decades later than 1907, or two decades later than "the Spanish pandemic that erupted about ten years later". So either the late 1920s or late 1930s. Which is early enough for take-away coffee to have already been a thing by the time this strip is set.