I stand long and watch a juice seller in the cobbled, market streets of Istanbul leading up to the Ayasofia. His waist-height, three wheeled, rectangular wooden cart serves as the perfectly constructed and balanced platform for his art and his trade. As a robust business model it cannot be faulted.
On either side of his central fruit crusher equipment are equal piles of washed oranges and pomegranates. Taking two fruits from each pile, he juggles them briefly in an effortless display of cocktail barman's circus brilliance. The fresh fruit globes fall with a satisfying plop into a hand and are lined up one-two, one-two on his scarred wooden chopping board. A lethal blade flashes four times and the eight halves tremble gently on their backs.
Then each half section is placed juice side down on a circular metal pyramid resembling a small, ringed bee-hive - and summarily executed. I notice that the executing lever is in the form of a metal cross whose inverted cup presses down firmly on its mosque dome shaped counterpart. Into a small tin cup beneath, a fragrant juice trickles.
'One lira Turkish,' he proffers a single cup of his freshly-squeezed, transformed essence of life's goodness. What price a few precious drops of life-taken, lifeblood juice?
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