IT'S happened to all of us.

You go away for a two-week break and the first thing you notice on your return is a new coffee bar. You wonder how many more we can take and speculate that if the UK were sliced in half, surely 80% of it would now be caffeine. Never mind wireless, the wi in wi-fi must surely stand for "wired". It's a wonder any of us can sleep.

Sometimes it seems as if a slow invasion is taking place, a strange sci-fi drama in which we're gradually being colonised by Planet Costa. This week the company announced plans for more outlets, with Pret a Manger making similar noises, only in a sexy foreign accent.

Viewed from space, our high streets must look like a skimmed Milky Way, full of glittering Starbucks, steaming Ritazzas and the rest. We're still a democracy, but close to becoming a Coffee Republic, ruled over by the Emperor Nero. Perhaps we should all start speaking Latin – or latte.

One wonders where it will end. What happens when every available space is taken? Will Starbucks be forced to have a Costa concession within its stores? Will people go to Nero, but meet at the Coffee Republic inside? Coffee shops may become like retail versions of Russian dolls, with each one leading to a smaller concession inside until you find yourself sitting beneath a single bubble on the top of a thimble-sized cappuccino because this is the only space left.

Much of this is to be celebrated, though. Women quite rightly say that they feel comfortable sitting by themselves in these places when they wouldn't in a bar.

Coffee shops have become places of happy reverie, where you can be anonymous in a crowd. They have also become the new office. We've all seen people hunched over their lattetops – sorry, laptops – running through the afternoon's presentation. Why hire a meeting room in a hotel when you can do it here for free?

One can imagine a day when everything is reversed, when the "work" takes place in Costa and Starbucks and when that's done, someone says "Fancy a coffee? Your place or mine?" and they leave to go to what used to be their office, only now it's empty because everyone's in a meeting at Nero. Either that or we wake up one morning and discover that the entire UK has been wrapped in tissue and taken away-