Travelling is great! Work is . . .

. . . a bit fierce. That said, my lovely jubbly UK working set-up allows me a whopping 25 days' holidays, and I've always been one for taking them. Just as well, because I did something extremely stupid this evening at 8.40 as I planted my ass - none the shaplier, mind you, for having given up the bike in the bucketing rain - on a northbound tube. I worked out my hourly take-home wage. For a forty-hour week, we're looking at around £7.40 per hour. A fifty-hour week drops me to a truly uninspiring £5.90 per hour. Usually, it's somewhere in between. Yes, the books are great and the people are lovely and I'm very lucky, tra la. It's true.

Back to the positives. My pre-Christmas trips -hah! plural!- were to Brittany to see the Babbo do his Swiftian thing, and later, to Brussels. Originally, for the former, the idea was that we'd toodle over to Brest and enjoy the hospitality of the conference at a four-course seafood dinner. Not yer tradish Thanksgiving, but I'm a very forgiving person when it comes to epic quantities of shellfish. Instead, we got stranded in Paris thanks to the strikes, and also because life is hard. Imagine our horror when at midday the man behind the guichet said, 'Baaaaah, ouais. Le prochain c'est à . . . bon, c'est à 19h05.' Ooookay then.
'It could be worse!' piped up the Bearded One with a toothy grin. So we checked the bags and hit the streets.The weather was sunny, the pastries were plentiful, and Paris was Paris. Ok, so Thanksgiving dinner was a greasy turkey galette off my knees in the Gare Montparnasse, and I had to evil-eye a pigeon to keep my meal on its sagging paper plate, but somehow that was alright in light of having just marvelled at the most breathtaking chocolate shop in Paris. I won't mention it by name, as it may well be magic. On a road that cuts the length of the Île Saint Louis, it's a dusty, arty, exotic little cushioned wonder. Run by a quiet, skeptical-seeming chubby French granny and her younger similarly-shaped South Asian counterpart, all glitters and winks. They serve myriad herbal teas with tiny flowers in squat iron pots, tea towels made from sarees and a selection of flat, ganache-drenched tarts. How many could you have? So many. Oh, and, ahem, tartes au citron. They would be my personal favourite.

We sat in quiet awe with a coterie of equally hushed and bemused tea-house regulars. Grown men's eyes sparkled, and one leaned over to confide with no small glee 'C'est magnifique!'. Another chuckled at the disturbingly realistic chocolate dog turds and bought praline tortoises instead.

We got to Brest and an ebullient papa at midnight. The hotel was cuteness and did the job and Brest is French and, well, ugly. True to form, the Allies bombed the shite out of the place at the end of the war. But France is France, and, forgive me, it survives ugliness better than some other places I might mention. Not only that, but these Frogs are Celts, and you can't tell me that doesn't help matters. The people are friendly, the food is astonishing and the Nouveau Beaujolais was in. Life, in short, was good.

Life was equally good in Brussels, for many of the same reasons, with added beauty. Poor wee Brux gets a bad rap for hideous architecture, but dammit, I think it's charming, particularly at Christmas. My hosts, also charming, were somewhat the worse for wear with a shared fierce bout of the winter vomiting bug, but were valiant and successful in their efforts to entertain yours truly. Lots of shopping when we should have listened to the weather and museumed. It was most unnecessary and extremely kind, and we likes kindness here at parkbench. We also likes penne with pesce spada just in from central Sicilian Luxemburg and big bowls of carbonnade and the little squishy hands of friends we miss. Said squishy hands at Advent-time tend to hold squishy bonhommes for Saint Nicolas, and the local ones, the hand-owner told me with authority, were simply not up to the challenge.

Predictably, immigrants were soon on the scene, doing the job better.

Hampstead Heath

I never understood the glory of the Heath until this weekend, but autumn really does it.

Bwahahaha

So it's that time again, the point at which my inner Yank escapes and hoardes sweets, carves pumpkins and giggles with shy little ones on the door.This evening, we got yer typical ghouls, witches, devils, but we also got a vampire ballerina princess, a father and son phantom of the opera, a baby gangster, and a sparkly blue glitterbat. You have got to love it. Sadly, many here don't, because it's a Yank Import, and thus, just not good enough. Our Fearless Leader excused my enthusiasm because I'm a Yank. Erm, thanks. I tried to explain that trick-or-treating was part of a wider tradition of Mummers, Wren Boys and the like, one born in the British Isles, but don't think I made an impression. Another of my colleagues came out with his hatred of Hallowe'en, declaring it 'just not British enough'. We'll leave that speak for itself, shall we?

Pitcher's Mound

You work in publishing, you think you're immune to The Man. 'I work in the Arts!' you cry. MMMMMHmm. You work for The Man. In some cases, you are The Man. You work for a business, likely a big one, and you are a tiny cog in a big machine. Ultimately, I work for a company that makes machines, of a sort. I work for a company that makes missiles. Byron would not have approved.

Publishing is a business, so you end up trying to sell everything. You have a sales pitch for everything you lay hands on that inspires you. A submission comes in, someone reads the pitch letter. Either myself or the editor reads it, likes it, and pitches it the other. The editor pitches it to her colleagues. The colleagues read some of it, they like it, everyone pitches it to Our Fearless Leader. Everybody likes it. The editor pitches back to the author and agent. They like the pitch, the offer, they go for it. Long before the book is ready to go, editorial pitches it to the art department. Sales pitches it in-house to the sales team, and out-of-house to sell it in. Editorial writes copy to sell the book to the sales team, to the bookshops, to the punters. All the while, editorial pitches the whole package back to the author and agent as the best possible package for the item in question.

It gets under your skin. Then, all of a sudden, like an out-of-body experience, you find yourself pitching in your private life.

Friday night, I headed out for pizza with a little crew of sleepy friends. We went to Lorelei, a cheapie pizzeria in Soho. Laid-back, friendly and quiet, you get a tasty 7-inch for about £6, and it's BYO. You can stay for ages and chat, and no one gives you the noodge. The loos are spotless outhouses, which makes you feel like a little kid at camp. So, we're having some vino, and Christine says, 'Huh. There he is.'

She goes on to explain that there's a tall, wavy-haired studenty type in the corner, a man whom she sees all the time. She sees him about once per week, and now, she's not even surprised when he turns up. She smiles an enigmatic Scandinavian smile, and shrugs goodhumouredly.

I gawped.

'You should blog it! What a great idea! You could blog -not the guy, now, because that would be stalkeresque- the places where you see him, with reviews,' I leaned in. 'You know, of restaurants, cafés, bookshops, films. Do you get it? It wouldn't matter about the guy. The guy, you know, he's immaterial. A conduit. Wherever you see him, you feature the place, in a sort of arbitrary guide to London. It would have to have pictures, and maybe ratings . . . '

I had a vision. I had a pitch.

My dinnermates thought I was nuts.

Nyuh.

Cooking with Booze

So, as mentioned, the fine folks at Snow Books have a clever scheme. You want a book to review? You want, sneaky sneaky, a book to review and then, GASP, you want to stick a bow on it and give it to someone for Christmas? Then you just go and have a look at the new books from Snow Books, and they pop the one you'd like in the post.

Why do some small presses always get it right?

I had a look, and sure, there was good fiction, fun fiction, scaaaary fiction, but I thought, 'Cooking with Booze? Yes, please.'



So, before anyone of my vast readership gets on their high, sober horse, this book is clearly not a serious exercise in gastronomic brilliance. It's, em, fun. That said, it is a cookbook, and yes, you can cook real, live boozy recipes and produce a tasty meal.

A gorgeous little gift hardback, it sells for a tenner and says 'give me to your friend, the lager lout, the wine connoisseur, the fresher, the cook who ruins a beautiful dinner by walking through the nineteen-hour process it took to make that beluga caviar filo parcel' in a little mischevious voice. Copious amounts of wine-stains adorn the cover and appear throughout the text, and although I might have been tempted to have fewer of the round ring-marks, the message of this package is 'nothing succeeds like excess'. Red-wine ends on nice paper, too - why do so few books sport lovely ends? Yeahyeah, unit cost. Aaaanyway. The author is George Harvey Bone, the alter-ego of a traveller, foodie and all-round up-for-it type who seems to be one of those arch, silly British types, hugely endearing and a bit over-the-top who do it all with tongue in cheek, a nudge and a wink, and a pint in their hand. Reminds me of our own authors, The Bart & the Bounder. (Actually, there might be two people behind GHB, it's hard to tell.)

Recipes are divided not by course or main ingredient, but, of course, by booze: wine, fortified wines, beer, cider, vodka, whisky, rum, brandy, tequila and other spirits and liquers. Now, no one I know has a liquor cabinet (or a drinks cupboard as I've learned it's called here) because they can't afford it. A wide variety of in-house alcohol is, you'd think, the domain of essentially tee-total relatives and city bankers. So no, you won't be able to make everything here, but, in the spirit of things (ha HAH), let the booze lead you to the food. You'd be surprised how much booze you own, or at least I hope you would be. A quick peek in my own kitchen revealed wine, half a bottle of ruby port, a gift bottle of limoncello, gin, a finger or two of pastis, a baby bottle of champers and a novelty shot's worth of absinthe. Plenty to get started with.

Many are even easy enough to whip up when you get home from the pub.



My favourites include Huîtres au Champagne, Baked Mackerel in Calvados and Hungarian Brandy Beef Goulash, which bears the note, 'don't be afraid to add plenty of paprika for that "I fancy another crack at the Ottomans" feeling'. There are some doozies, most of which, sorry, were born in the mid-west or the southern United States, including Beer Butt Chicken, Tipsy Sweet Potatoes (with marshmallows, Clinton-style), and Beer Brats, which would be tasty, but just make me think about foam cheese hats at football games.

Extreme dorkiness reigns in places, as well it should, cf. Mushrooms à le Carré, so named 'because they make me all Smiley'. I would love to share with Our Fearless Leader, who is both the good author's editor and a foodie, but I don't think I could bear to speak the words.

Some of the recipies make you wonder what the drink was for in the first place. A fine example is Advocaat. Have you ever, EVER seen ANYONE drink a glass of this yellow, egg-related Dutch abomination? Does one even drink it in a glass? Who knows. Bone gives us Advocaat Ice Cream. I see cream, sugar, alcohol and eggs. Sounds like a great dessert. Another would be the Harvey Wallbanger Cake and similar sentiments about Galliano, though why anyone allowed a cake mix to enter these pages I don't know. Make a sponge cake, people, it's not rocket science.

I see Mojito Cupcakes in my future.

Have a look at the Cooking with Booze blog here. Hey, Snowies, how about Cooking for a Hangover edition next? Think of the promos! The Amazon hook-ups! But you're probably way ahead of me . . .

Cooking with Wine. George Harvey Bone.
Snow Books. 978-1-905005-65-9. £9.99.

Getting work experience in publishingor'It's just not fair'

The time has come for a small rant about work experience. I am not choosing to rant now because of a particular candidate, but rather because I have a couple of years’ experience either being the intern or hiring them, and now seems like as good a time as any.

Work experience in publishing can be great. You can learn an enormous amount, make contacts and conceivably even get a job out of it. Regardless, you should only need to do this a few times before someone will look at all those lovely lines on your CV and give you a real job.

Until then, try to enjoy it. Remember, you're getting an insider's view of a very competitive industry, and that's quite something. It is, as they say, what you make it, so make the best of it. That's what this post is about.

I preface my rant with the following:

It is grossly unfair that publishing is underpaid. It is also unfair that the only way that you are likely to get a full-time job in publishing is to spend months working for free or damn near it. It is even more unfair that the whole structure of many publishers depends on a constant stream of free labour to get through the week.

Worse still, this is a system that favours mother-tongue English-speaking university students or graduates with parents living within the London commuter belt who can afford to not earn money for several months.

If you do not fall into this group, as I do not, you are likely to have a very hard time of it until you land your first paid job.

Unless you intend to single-handedly buck the system, I’d recommend getting over it.

So, assuming that you have resigned yourself to getting a work experience placement, bear with me while I make some recommendations, most of which apply to getting your first job, too. I do actually know what I’m talking about.

For your application:

- send it to the correct address
- spell the addressee’s name correctly, and, if unsure of the addressee’s gender, address your application with their full name, i.e., ‘Dear Sam Smith,’.
- proof-read your entire application, and get a literate friend to do the same for you
- send in your application as soon as you can; do not wait for the deadline.
- do not send in your application late.
- follow instructions: send in what you’re told to send in, no more, no less. If you have further materials that you would like to include beyond what is required, allude to them in your cover letter only, i.e., ‘writing samples available upon request’ or ‘my full design portfolio can be viewed at www….’ or ‘my books blog, www.booksblog.com...’.
- a one-page cover letter should be sufficient – keep it punchy and relevant.
- a two-page CV should do it, three if you’ve done amazing things in your 25-ish years. I would advise that you include any incidental work during college to prove that you did indeed work through college, even if it was just a bar job. Others may disagree.

On receiving the offer:

- ask about any remuneration or reimbursements, the timing of payment, and what receipts, banking details, etc. you may have to provide. If what is offered is impossible (and I do mean impossible) for you to accept, you can decline the offer – no one should hold it against you.

- ask about dates and times, hours of work, etc.

- ask about the dress code in the office and anything that you should bring with you. Believe what they tell you, and do what they suggest.

- try to familiarise yourself with their list. If there’s time, ask that someone send you a catalogue or let you know where to find it online. If they’ve had a big hit, try to read it before you go.

For your first day:

- wear something in line with the dress code that is clean, ironed and conservative. Brush your hair. Women, do not overdo the makeup or the hair, and do not – I cannot stress this enough – do not wear anything too revealing. Need clarification? This means no cleavage, no short skirts, nothing too clingy and no shirts that expose your midriff, not even a little. Men, shave.

- wear comfortable shoes.

- wear layers. Offices can be boiling or freezing, and are rarely temperate.

- bring a packed lunch and money to eat out, and be prepared to forget about plan A if someone asks you out to lunch. Ideally, someone will, but sometimes people are too busy to take a lunch themselves, let alone give you the head space of a proper lunch out.

- aim to arrive five minutes early. If you’re earlier than that, kill time elsewhere – much like arriving early for a dinner party, it’s just stressful for your new employers to have to drop what they’re doing because you showed up half an hour before they asked you to.

- SMILE. Smile, and continue to smile for the rest of your time at the company.

- Introduce yourself. Ideally, someone will introduce you to the relevant people in the company, but if not, or if you come across someone whom you haven’t met, introduce yourself.

For the duration of your time at the company:

Smile. The best way to ensure that you are giving the right impression, namely, that you’re happy to be there and to be doing the work that you’re doing, is to smile.

Say ‘yes’. When someone asks you to do something, smile and say ‘yes’. If you have been giving multiple tasks simultaneously, smile and say ‘yes’ to whatever work you have been given to do, and ask which task should take priority. It is not your job on work experience to know how to prioritise your work, because your work is not your own.

Do not use your mobile or iPod. Don’t use your iPod ever, unless someone specifically says ‘while you are doing this endless heap of filing, feel free to listen to your iPod’. Even if you hear this, I wouldn’t recommend it. Someone who doesn’t know that this has been arranged will see you and assume that you are a disaffected teenage git.

There is one exception to the no-personal-technology rule: if you warn the person who hired you that you are expecting a call (from an employment agent or a HR department), and they say it’s ok, which they should, that’s fine. Turn off the sound, or put it on an inoffensive ring-tone.

Do not complain. Ever. If you are at the company for a longer period of time (one month or more) you may be able to speak to someone about the kind of tasks you’d be particularly enthusiastic to do, but you are not in a position to request a certain kind of work. You can but make it known that you’d be Very Interested to Read Submissions, or that you would Really Love to Work on a Publicity Campaign.

Volunteer. Another facet of saying ‘yes’ to everything, volunteering is a proactive way of saying ‘yes’. As you do not under any circumstances want to be seen sitting around with nothing to do, you're going to have to occasionally ask for work, or indeed, leap right in when you see something going on. Remember that if by volunteering you do someone a favour, they are more likely to pay attention when you express your Very Passionate Interest in X. If there is a launch coming up, ask if they need help selling books or passing canapés. If there’s a big mailing to do, an author coming in to sign books, or a sales conference on, tell the person organising it that if they need an extra pair of hands on deck, that you are happy to help. Be prepared for staff to tell you that you cannot help, because the task at hand is not one they can or will delegate. This is no comment on you. Stuck for something to do? Have you noticed that everyone seems to hate going to the postroom / making the tea / loading the printer / doing ring-rounds to lit eds / chasing couriers? Offer to do it.

Take an interest / ask questions. Don’t understand why you’re doing something or how your task fits in to the bigger picture? Ask. Try not to interrupt, sure, but when there’s a quiet moment, and there will be, ask. Concerned you’re bothering someone with your questions? Share the love and ask someone else. Doing so will help you to get to know more of the staff, and will get you noticed and remembered.

Ask for a reference. On your last day, ask if the company usually provides references, and if you might receive one. Alternately, if you have formed a particular working relationship with a certain staff member, ask if they would mind your listing them as a referee. If they agree, it is particularly important to ask what contact information you have permission to list.

Seem a bit prescriptive? You bet. Thing is, not only is all of this grossly unfair, it's also hugely competitive. You think that you're too good for photocopying and filing now that you have your Oxbridge first? That very well may be, but know that there are hundreds of others just as great as you on paper, and they don't think they're too good for work experience. Should you be able to walk straight into an editorial assistant / publicity assistant job straight out of college? Yes, you should. But realistically, that's very unlikely to happen.

Sorry, folks.

The week after

So, we didn't win, kuñardocz. I say we, and really I mean the esteemed author, you know, the one with the talent. The rest of us are but remoras, but we were, and are, remoras with vision. We have his backlist, so there's a happiness in that, and he's a nice, nice man, which is a relief, if I'm being honest.

The party, you ask? The party, to use a cute Britism, was ace. I don't need to tell you about it because this upbeat Kiwi reporter has done it in their national press - have a look. Most of us nursed the Booker of all hangovers, with fresher-like side effects and inefficiency to beat the band all the next day.

But we have moved on! Both Chinatown and Foolish Mortals pieces finally came out, though not in my preferred form, the mice made a disappearance, and some fun was had with friends and visitors, some of which involved takoyaki. Stellou of the East, well versed in these things, swore blind that these were octopus balls, and yes, it was normal that they still be moving. She swears that this has something to do with bonito flakes dancing in the heat, but she's clearly not to be trusted. Me, I think it was tentacles, but hey, I ate them anyway.

Aside from such minor concerns, I've been plotting for the future. I'm thinking of setting up an international, multilingual publishing services agency in the relatively near future, for which I'm seeking advice, requests for types of services needed, freelancers looking for work, that sort of thing. I've received some good feedback so far, and I'm planning to have a bit of a planning sesh soon. If you're interested and I haven't been in touch with you already, please do comment here and we can chat.

That said, I must stress that this plan is not going to be put into effect now; we're talking a year or two from now. Meanwhile, I have reason to believe that my working life will change rather dramatically, so I won't do anything but put the wheels in motion for the agency plan quite yet.

There's this book, see...

...and my office is a little bit excited. I have done little over the past weeks but put through ever more editions of this gorgeous item, but it will all pay off tonight, by damn, or so we hope. Please cross your bloggy fingers for Mister Pip!

It’s a hard knocks life: the longest short piece ever published

Me, I’ll write just about anything, on any schedule for anyone willing to pay me and print it, preferably with a by-line, but shit, let’s be honest… I don’t even care about that.

So far, this tactic has served me well.

The problem with this, and with being junior in these things in general, is that it is extremely difficult to know when exactly to say ‘no’, and when to say ‘wait, wait. You want that when??’. Or alternately, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know anything about Futurist German fiction / physics / the state of Vanuatu today’.

This was my situation when given Foolish Mortals by Jennifer Johnston. You see, I’ve only read one of her other sixteen novels, and that was insufficient for the task at hand. So I did some research, read some lit crit, read past reviews (bad form, I know, but I wanted the critic’s perspective), I hit up the family expert on these things for information, the lot. As you would. As you would, particularly when stuck for time. I then squeezed it into the original 800-word limit – big mistake. This is not the kind of review I usually write (it’s relatively more important than my standard tiny thing that no-one reads), so why I thought that this was going to work, I don’t know.

It didn’t.

Rewrite number one: with the suggestions of Bogglingly Kind Editor, worked in all manner of detail on characters, places, specifics, and as full a critique as I could manage of how this novel sits within her oeuvre to date. Can I do this? Can I, Hell. I can’t remember the last time I wrote 1,000 words on anything, except here of course, but that hardly has to be coherent. It was an ungodly mess.

Rewrite number two: also probably a mistake. Sent Rewrite 1 off to the family expert, presently situated on the east coast of the U.S. That, folks, means a time difference, and resulting lateness to submit on my end. I have never, ever, ever been late to submit any written work to anyone. It also entailed her having to edit extremely quickly, which is unfair, which created a contagious panic. What’s more, the family expert is (obviously) much more able for this than I am, and could do this standing on her head.



Submitted, now at 1,200 words…






…aaaaannd returned.

Rewrite number three: now cut back down to close on the original 800 words. Picture added, Herself in the glasses, no doubt, though just a grey rectangle in my pdf at the moment. Also, text is now ‘lopsided’ as the Bogglingly Kind Editor kindly put it, from the cut. I’ll be rewriting it this weekend, which is not what I wanted to do atall, though I am now more terrified than ever to get it wrong.

More to the point, despite kindness, I am quite sure that the BKE will now never give me anything of this length / placement ever again, which is extremely depressing.

Bespectacled Chinaphile, are you reading? Brace yourself for your début!

Bad writing, good writing, big decisions

Please, please stop what you're doing and read what is now likely to reign as the worst poem ever written in the English language, as reported here in the Guardian. It was unclear from the article who exactly decides the prize-winner or how, but clearly, they're not wrong.

I'd say read it over your coffee break, but it's so laugh-out-loud bad that it might be inadvisable.

Better still is the good-humoured rant devoted to it in the Guardian blog, in which readers wrote in their least favourites and duked it out amongst themselves.

A propos, the Bespectacled Chinaphile was ranting last night about the Poetry Society Café hitting him up for a £1.50 membership fee with his latte; seems to me he should pay up and see if he can't best them at their own game if these are the results of their labours. Not only is the BC not a poet, he's also not a spook, so really I'm a bit disillusioned. That said, we're now going to be freelancing for the same paper, which is quite exciting, though this is but one of a list of absurdly impressive credentials for this all-singing, all-dancing son of a publisher.

Next day, back in my favourite Brity daily, and charming Andrew Motion, (one of whose poems appeared in the aforementioned blog, *eek*) wrote the warmest piece I've seen in 'Writers' Rooms'; he seems to have actually cared about its writing, given it some time and made it count. Others, like Famous Seamus in the same column, have catalogued their bits and bobs, though I love that the boards of his desk were 'polished by the soft shiftings of a century of student schoolmistresses' - yeah, because that would help you focus. You can hear the gabardined bums scoot.

Mum, on her annual pilgrimage of the faithful to the Dublin Theatre festival, reported back that all is not well, that much of it was uninspiring and stale, and that the focus on the working class and immigrants is worthy, though a few pieces that examined something a little closer to home for the audience might be just the ticket - New Ireland needs a kick up the arse, and this was not the Festival to do it. That said, Sebastian Barry's The Pride of Parnell Street was a success. I saw it here in Kilburn at the Tricycle and thought it extremely moving, though weak in places, and so ran most of the reviews. Karl Sheils is a powerful one; I realised that I'd seen him in Beauty in a Broken Place (Abbey), This Lime Tree Bower (Project) and indeed in Intermission - but will someone tell me, is he Brush's son? Also - Radio Macbeth was reported as being thought-provoking on language and expression, so I'm sorry to be missing it.Meanwhile, back at our lovely flat, the kitchen has been ripped up to dry out a leak from next door... long story short, we're looking at rubble, loud, hot machines and eventually, builders, a process that will last until the end of February. This is a major drag, and seriously unfortunate time-wise as it covers the winter months, the ones during which you'd most like to be comfortable at home. No one's fault, and the wonderful landlady has continued to be helpful, supportive, and hand back large chunks of the rent.

This is all well and good, but it's hard in that, sorry, it's another thing that just hasn't turned out as I'd hoped. Granted, I don't need a lot of encouragement in this arena, but really, we have to decide what's going to happen next before I lose me marbles entirely. No need to skip town just yet; I'll give it a year and a bit, as planned. I need a good location, hence photos on this post from our August trip to Brussels. Brussels is a definite contender, a city where they do, at least, have a sense of humour: I do need something to look forward to and plan for, and we're going to work on where we're going next and for how long. Initially, I thought it enough to be somewhere lovely and potter along in our next phase, but maybe that's just not true. I should probably plan to be doing something engaging, and that needs forethought, particularly if you're looking to do it all in a second or third language. Really, I think it's time for me to go home, but I'm up for fantastic master plans, too.

Answers on a postcard to parkbench.

Reviewing Dublin

So last week, I packed up and rocked out all happy-like for a few days at home. Flying at lunchtime on a Wednesday, let me tell you... why have one seat when you can have six?

Arrived to an office with a view across the Green and on to the Dublin Mountains (I can't even know where to start on that one) a humus wrap and a smiley Brendan, friend and fearless editor of the Dublin Review and the resulting Dublin Review Reader. The launch of the Reader was my excuse to come over, but God knows I don't need one. I can't imagine how pleased he must have been, and how mortified to be lauded by the likes of Colm Tóibín. Mortifying, but deserved. All the great and the good were there, but better still, it was a pleasingly young crowd to boot. Finally met Claire Kilroy, who's as lovely as billed by our own good selves here, and naturally by many more important people. Met a girl whose family house we once rented, which was extremely surreal. The whole thing got a nice write-up and photo in the paper (shout if you need help with the link).

After staying up until five (fine choice), I then met the Ex, who thought my state hilarious because it's usually his. Later, in the same coffee shop, I met the only editorial staff member of New Island press. Sorry, did you follow? The ONLY editor or editorial anything for a list spanning history, memoir, travel, lit crit, women's studies and fiction, thirty strong per year. Thirty. Now, as she modestly said herself, some are in series, many are rather straightforward... but I know a few people on this more monied side of the publishing waters who might learn something.

She explained that, of course, they don't have plans to expand, but I would have fallen off my chair had she said otherwise. She did suggest that I freelance on copy-editing and the like - I can't imagine that one could make a living like that, but what, as I ask myself daily, do I know. I think a better plan might be to convince an existing house to give me reign to do a fiction list, and dammit, Janet, I still want to do the MPhil in Literary Translation at Trinity (TCD, not Trinity, Dublin... we are not an Oxbridge outpost, dahlink). I can't get enough of their webpage and how it bears the practical, approachable, multiple-hat wearing mark of my favourite professor, Cormac Ó Cuilleanáin, who fosters the kind of interdisciplinary view of academic study seen in American degrees with none of the accompanying bullshit. But clearly, he's an interdisciplinary kinda guy.

I then toddled down to Wicklow and thought too much. Dangerous, female and generally ill-advised, thinking too much, particularly about the unknowable, vaguely near future is completely exhausting. The whole mid-week weekend left me shaken and wanting to relocate home to Dublin for good, now, and I don't know what to do. It's hard to have a night of the kind of working life you want with a combination of people you've known and loved for years and people you'd love to get to know, and then get back on the plane, alone - I do wish that the Bearded One had been with me. As people like to remind me, I have an interesting job with great potential on a good and growing fiction list in an old, famous publishing house, I've landed some great reviewing gigs, I live in a bustling city with lots to do that's also close to home, I'm coming on for four years with one of the best men on the planet who is kind, intelligent, adoring and adored. After one of the worst years on record, we have made a happy heap in a cheap, beautiful flat in a leafy bit of the city, 20 minutes from work, rented to us by a wonderfully warm publishing grande dame. Friends from all over regularly fill the house. To welcome me home were white peaches and pomegranates in the fruit basket, and a pastel de nata from the Portuguese deli.

PDG, right? Right.

Still, bring on November '08 and the decisions that it will bring.

Moonwalking in Chinatown

So, funny as, yours truly has reviewed two whole plays for a paper. Oh, yes, P. Bench, theatre reviewer extraordinaire. I've been going long enough, and I know what I like... and I know a bad play when I see one, but does this qualify me? Probably not.

At any rate, the more recent of the two was Moonwalking in Chinatown put on by the Soho Theatre on Dean St.

Basically, it's textbook (oh, yes, I read one) promenade theatre, toodling as it does through the real, live streets of Chinatown with no less than four separate audiences, mobile crew and rotating actors in an hour-long show. The beginning needs work! HOT, people, it was hot. The wait was long. We stood on a landing looking at goldfish-like officeworkers who had no choice in the matter. There was no water, or air, and there were old people... ugh. And there's a bar, a NICE bar downstairs. Sort it out. Otherwise, on with the show, make a long story short, we were handed colour-coded tiles and led out under coordinating lanterns.

We were one with the actors, confused them for us, for passersby, for lunatics, whatever. The stage was shopwindows, supermarkets, smelly back alleys and beatific courtyards (yes, they can be) in the middle of high-priced real estate. It was a silly story, really, but they did a slam-bang job of it and we all learned a bit about things Moon Festival and Chinese.

But I'll tell you what we didn't come away with: a MOON CAKE, people. Come on. Is stellou the only one to provide?? Or am I going to have to haul my white, ill-informed beeehind down to Chinatown to sort the lotus seed paste from the cured ham? Because I can tell you, it won't be pretty. And how will I avoid the damn duck eggs? Where is that clever, bespectacled chinaphile? You know who you are. And I bet you know the real word for a chinaphile. So I went cakeless. Really, it would have been the perfect end to a fun night, but hey.

I commend the fine folks at Soho Theatre for putting it all together, t'ain'tabeen easy. Likewise, I'm impressed by the web gear for this show: a ‘moonblog’ which is cute, but could be a little rougher around the edges, along with mp3s of interviews, and some of the cast even announced their availability on facebook for chats after the show (soho bananaboy and duriangirl among others). This is exactly the sort of thing that theatres should be taking on: make it different, make it lively, and for Chrissake stop flogging half-dead donkeys up and down the West End.

MacNeice 100 today

It's been another long, not-so-great day, so let's have a bit of this.



Dublin

Grey brick upon brick,
Declamatory bronze
On sombre pedestals -
O'Connell, Grattan, Moore -
And the brewery tugs and the swans
On the balustraded stream
And the bare bones of a fanlight
Over a hungry door
And the air soft on the cheek
And porter running from the taps
With a head of yellow cream
And Nelson on his pillar
Watching his world collapse.

This never was my town,
I was not born or bred
Nor schooled here and she will not
Have me alive or dead
But yet she holds my mind
With her seedy elegance,
With her gentle veils of rain
And all her ghosts that walk
And all that hide behind
Her Georgian facades -
The catcalls and the pain,
The glamour of her squalor,
The bravado of her talk.

The lights jig in the river
With a concertina movement
And the sun comes up in the morning
Like barley-sugar on the water
And the mist on the Wicklow hills
Is close, as close
As the peasantry were to the landlord,
As the Irish to the Anglo-Irish,
As the killer is close one moment
To the man he kills,
Or as the moment itself
Is close to the next moment.

She is not an Irish town
And she is not English,
Historic with guns and vermin
And the cold renown
Of a fragment of Church latin,
Of an oratorical phrase.
But oh the days are soft,
Soft enough to forget
The lesson better learnt,
The bullet on the wet
Streets, the crooked deal,
The steel behind the laugh,
The Four Courts burnt.

Fort of the Dane,
Garrison of the Saxon,
Augustan capital
Of a Gaelic nation,
Appropriating all
The alien brought,
You give me time for thought
And by a juggler's trick
You poise the toppling hour -
O greyness run to flower,
Grey stone, grey water,
And brick upon grey brick.

-- Louis MacNeice

Dorma Pavarotti

Today, Luciano Pavarotti died. Every paper bore his name, and every radio station woke us up to his voice.

But here in London, the Italians got it right, as Italians are want to do. I was flying on my bike, thinking about Florence, and I heard it.

Today was the day that ice cream trucks blared Nessun norma as they did their rounds.

Shortie of the Week

It's been a while, but in the interim, American author Grace Paley passed away. I must admit that I never read loads of her work, but then, what I don't know would fill a room... for although A.M. Homes is not my favourite, Dan Schneider seems a bit harsh on the Laura Hird site. Homes did at least a twofer on Paley, here in 1998 and in the Guardian yesterday.

But we're democratic here at Parkbench, so go on and look her up yourself for your short fiction reading this week. Her greatest hits include 'Goodbye and Good Luck' (a popular title for her obit in lots of papers) and ‘A Conversation With My Father’. Really, she seems to have been a sweet, introspective, thoughtful type of woman, as suggested by this charming interview - somewhere in there the suggestion that we should have known more of her and her writing, though I suspect that at 26 I may be exactly the wrong age to have been introduced to her work in American highschool.

But most wonderfully, do please go and listen in to the writer herself through the links to past interviews and discussions on NPR in the States - nothing does it like audio.


Alternately, read the single most astonishing collection of short fiction of recent years - Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan. I was thrilled to have met her last Christmas, and she gives off those eerie waves of genius. That's all there is to it. I hope someone lets me review it, and I will do so here soon.

Brief escape

So, I forgot to tell you - we went to Scotland. Glasgow, then Edinburgh, just at the end of the Festival. There were trains, plates of butterfish, mussels, opera singers, mimes, shops, friendly people, and one tiny, warm, blue hotel room. There was a very intriguing traditional pastry - a rhubarb pastry, to be exact - with plain, thin pastry, filled with stewed rhubarb.

There was also a concert- the Smashing Pumpkins, to be precise, and the Bearded One went to a higher place. Markets in the sunshine selling pretty dice, smelly soaps. Amnesty campaigners dozing in the breeze. Understandable, cause or no cause.
And vaguely amused old ladies watching a Canadian street performer exhaust himself for money.

Such an amazing wee hollyday.

And, I got to catch up with an old friend, an opera singer, as ever... and sometime pool shark, as ever.

Irish Publishers, learning to compete?

As part of an ongoing debate about Irish publishers' birthright to the Irish market, hackles were raised a while back by CLÉ president, Tony Farmar, with this article in the Irish Times. Should you not have a log-in for the IT, I'll quote the salient points in italics.

-The average European country publishes four times as many titles per head as we do. In terms of titles per million of population, Ireland is actually the weakest performer in the whole expanded EU.

- Unprotected either by language or distance from Britain, fewer than one in five literary and general books sold here are Irish-published. As far as books are concerned, Ireland is still part of the British Empire.

-There are four historical and structural reasons for this situation:
the powerful British publishing industry
Irish authors find British publishers difficult to resist
the radical shift of the terms of trade in favour of retailers
the Irish are reluctant book readers

Reading between the lines, from this I understand that Irish publishers don't know how to compete. Here, the President of CLÉ, compliments the Brits on their "honed marketing skills and deep pockets". Having seen a couple of truly unremarkable marketing and publicity campaigns by small Irish houses, and heard the moans of the smaller-circulation Irish press on their difficulties securing review copies, I wonder why CLÉ is not lambasting some of its own members for failing to make the most of what resources they have, or indeed, as an educating body, why they themselves don't endeavour to teach small presses how to hone their own marketing skills with an aim to, you know, making money, which they could then invest in future titles.

As for the Irish not buying books, 10% of books sold on the two islands are sold in the Republic of Ireland. Try that one on for size, population-wise. Ever see the clever Irish-themed tables at (UK) bookshop chains like Waterstone's and Hodgy Figg? UK booksellers, and increasingly Irish ones in city-centre Dublin like Eason's, Hughes & Hughes, Books Upstairs and the like, have come to realise that summer sales skyrocket thanks to... you guessed it, the Yanks buying books on holiday.

And every so often, we get a window into a displeasingly familiar way of thinking, with left-fielders like, "There is, of course, no knowing what unconscious Anglicisations are necessary to make Irish writings attractive to English tastes". Impossible to know where to begin with that one, so I'll leave it be.

In response to his own question, 'So what can be done?' Farmar comments,
The ideal structure of a viable publishing house is one that synergises the skills, interests and risks of different types of publishing. The hectic life of a Christmas best-seller sustains the long-term risk of "high art" literary publishing. Irish publishers are keen to develop more literary publishing, but this has to be done in the context of a healthily balanced set of activities.

Although the stories we tell ourselves in high literature are important, they are by no means the only way in which people's understandings and social capital are fostered. Not everyone has the mental stamina for John Banville or Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. Less refined, more mediated books spread culture in its widest sense to a bigger audience. Books on such topics as local history, political issues such as "Boston versus Berlin", having a baby here, Celtic prayer, GAA, folk music, and our experience of cancer, are the "long thoughts" of a nation, for which locally published books are the uniquely appropriate medium.

Indeed. As someone who routinely scans Irish publishers' webpages for jobs, I can tell you that local history, health, the GAA and local and political histories are the mainstay of more than half of CLÉ's members, so that appears to be nothing more than back-patting - absurd, to my thinking, because this is Real World Business 101. I wish that I could comment on the sales of such titles, but I do know that they have absolutely no appeal for foreign rights sales. I would love to talk to someone in the know about rights sales in Ireland, as I know that they bring in a decent amount of income for publishers everywhere else in the world. I beleive that the expression is 'money for old rope', but maybe our situation is unique.

The promotion of a vigorous service by local publishers to local writers would seem to be an obvious responsibility of the Arts Council. However, the Arts Council's remit is to "literature", and it is unlikely that any possible widening of that term could include publications on looking after an elderly parent or proportional representation, however culturally useful they may be. We therefore need - as has been evolved in Canada, for instance - an approach to supporting publishing because of its wider contribution. Recently, Michael Ondaatje, the Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist and poet ... has acknowledged the "dedicated nurturing" that Canadian publishers, supported by their Book Publishing Industry Development Program against a similarly "over-mighty neighbour", were able to give him and authors such as Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, Carol Shields and Rohinton Mistry.

This is simply nonsensical. He says that he wants a widening of the terms of 'literature' as decreed by the Arts Council, and that we should look to the Canadians for an example. But what about that list does not say 'literature' to you? OK, Yann Martel is YA, but literary YA, and Carol Sheilds might be forced into 'women's fiction', but commercial they ain't. Literature IS art, that's why the Arts Council happily supports it. Commercial writing, as he outlines above, is the kind that makes publishing houses money and affords them the luxury of publishing literature. Looks like the Canadians have this one figured out just fine - why don't we?

He then goes on to compose a laundry-list of demands for the Arts Council, suggesting among other more sensible ideas,
privileging Irish-published books in public libraries and other institutions. The EU rightly sees books as the backbone of national cultural identity, and is prepared to allow otherwise iron rules, for instance in competition law, to be waived in their favour. In terms of literature, but particularly funding new literary talent and initiatives, I couldn't agree more, but folks, publishing is a BUSINESS. The people who run publishing houses must heed Farmar's advice and learn to balance what sells with what's art, and publish accordingly.


And as ever-on-the-ball Eoin Purcell points out, it's only going to get worse in terms of the British Invasion, but the subject was closed for the moment as far as the Irish Times were concerned - my letter to the editor, below, wasn't published.

"As a recent (and hopefully short-term) Irish expat working in the British publishing industry, I share Tony Farmar's frustration with the state of Irish publishing in his article of June 20, 'Is Irish publishing on the edge?'.

I would, however, like to point out the exodus of home-grown authors to Britain is not the only drain of Irish publishing talent. In addition to the 'obvious advantages to being published in England', it is short wonder that Irish authors are so sought after by well-established UK presses when the ranks of these same institutions are increasingly filled with young, talented Irish staff.

When in 2005, armed with an honours degree and considerable relevant experience, I found myself unable to find paid employment of any kind within Irish publishing, I relocated reluctantly to London for a graduate trainee scheme. There I joined the Society of Young Publishers, where I was surprised to be greeted by their large Irish membership as part of an ever-growing circle.

Apparently, I was not alone, and most had left when confronted by the financially strapped, closed world of Irish publishing.

I am proud and indeed relieved to have since secured a full-time editorial position in one of those prestigious publishing companies to which Mr. Farmar refers. I enjoy my work and benefit from working on a challenging and diverse fiction list in a highly respected publishing house, but I look forward tothe day when I can return to apply my skills to the works of Irish authors. I hope that publishing houses in Ireland heed Farmar's advice, but that they also attack the task of developing their lists to balance literature, commercial fiction and domestic non-fiction with titles of international interest, which might help to generate profit through improved sales of foreign rights. Furthermore, the industry must address its continuing failure to publicise, market and distribute their books effectively abroad.

Then, rather than bemoaning the success of their British counterparts, Irish publishing might welcome home experienced Irish staff and create suitable publishing houses for our great Irish literary talent."

Periodic Plump for Independent Everything

It's that time again, time to rant and rave about the neglected glories of small, independent presses. I am, of course, not alone in my ranting - when am I ever? tschaah, never - as witnessed by the fine folks at Branching Out, a resource for reader development. What peaked my interest is their Independent Press of the Month page, in which they present a well-informed page on whatever press has taken their fancy. This month, it's Peepal Press, which specialises in Caribbean and Black British writing.

Admirably, particularly because the independent presses needn't be integral to their programme, Branching Out also makes a point to highlight the functionality of the press' website, which is extremely important; the LEAST a small press can do is set up a decent, functional and hey, attractive website. It's a small investment, and one that small Irish publishers would do well to make. Some, like Maverick Press with their myspace page, have led the way, along with Liberties Press, but so many others have fourth-rate websites or none at all.

Likewise, while we're cleaning house on all findings indie, I've finally found an independent Irish bookseller online, which I intend to use for all gifts etc. going home. It's the web branch of Dame Street's Books Upstairs in Dublin.

With the sad closure of Greene's Bookshop's city centre shop in Dublin a while back (not dead and gone, though, they've moved to *gack* Sandyford, have a look at their websitehere), something should also be done for those who prefer to purchase in the flesh (paper?), there's this website listing of Irish independent bookshops Books Upstairs in Dublin.

Will keep up a list of interesting independent publishers and sellers in the lists to the right, starting with the amazing Snow Books/and their lovely staff blog. They're doing something very clever, bringing the bloggers directly to them rather than having to go out and find them. At any rate, hopefully I'll doing a better job on the indie list than I have of the short fiction posts, *blog guilt blog guilt*...

Fishies

Like most mere mortals with bad salaries and high rents, I live in Paperback Land. This means that I read all books (other than those I work on) a year after they come out, when they're cheaper, more colourful and more plentiful. If you have somehow, like myself until recently, managed to miss Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, you should know that it is indeed a book to be judged by its cover – and title. OK, so that's not the Yemen, but throw a girl a bone. Anyway, the book really does do what it says on the tin… of salmon. Schnar. A serious-minded fisheries scientist thinks that he might have to walk away from his career rather than get involved with a daft government-backed scheme to beat them all: taking Atlantic salmon to the wadis of the Yemen to please a rich Caledoniaphile (oh, yes) Sheik and provide a good photo-op in the Middle East for the PM. There’s a nice narrative sideline regards the bigger political machinations of the scheme involving a send-up of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell that’s more Yes, Minister than West Wing, though it does get a bit bogged-down halfway through. Eventually, the good scientist, trapped in a loveless marriage he never realised was miserable, finds that his life lacks meaning and adventure. Soon, he is flying around the world to learn about holding tanks, cooling systems and how to trick fish into adapting to desert life, while dodging his increasingly enraged wife, a sycophant spin-doctor and a backstabbing boss. It’s charming and funny and really just a straightforward middle-aged picaresque. Highly recommended for some fun, easy reading. And of course you already knew all that, but Hell, no one reads this anyway!

Finally, we found a new joint

Much though we love our tiny piece of Kentish Town, we are moving up the road to leafier pastures. In an unusual but hopefully fabulous arrangement, we'll be enjoying our own floor of a little Victorian house on a hill, complete with private garden. Living room and bedroom, each with big sash windows, big and bockety kichen/diner, tiny bathroom with bath, and best of all, bricked patio garden with raised beds which runs the length of kitchen and bath and around the bathroom with a little pergola. The landlady, one-time publishing grande dame and now involved in human rights (!) lives upstairs. She travels a lot, as do we, so there will be relatively few weekends in which we're all there together. The catch is that there's no division between our space and hers, other than the stairs, but it's all very private, really, and others before us have done it for years at a stretch so it can't be bad. Here, look what I drew! And the best part of all this? We're still on all the same bus routes, all but one overland, and we're still even on the Northern Line. Oh, yes. And, it's £200 per week including all bills except for phone.

Shortie of the Week

I've been on me hols, hence the radio silence and the lateness of this post! So really it's ok...

After an epic tour of the American South, beginning with an unplanned but lovely overnight in Virginia, Hilton Head, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia and finishing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, I'm back and exhausted.

In honour of the highlight of my trip, this week's short fiction is Savannah native Flannery O'Connor's 'A Good Man is Hard to Find' (1955).

Shortie of the Week

The inaugural Shortie is short fiction from the New Yorker earlier this month: 'One Minus One', by Colm Tóibín.

Read Short Fiction, Dammit

I work in a publishing house on the fiction list, so I know, live and breathe the truth that short stories don't sell. It is true. It is indisputable. And I'll tell you something else: it's absurd. I cannot understand why, in our saw-it-on-my-RSS-feed, soundbite-luvvin' world that people cannot and will not get their heads around the short story. It is the ultimate in potted brilliance. It is the thirty-minute lunchtime workout, the Coffee Break Spanish, the breakfast-in-a-shake of literature. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. A double espresso with no time to stir the sugar, down the hatch, crumple the paper cup and move on, gets your heart racing and out into the world. How can it NOT appeal to commuters, new mothers, travelling salesmen, teenagers and those who love to read but haven't the time? It never ceases to baffle me.

So, in the hope of inspiring a little appreciation for the gorgeous morsel, the tiny square of sticky baklava, the perfectly round pork-pie that is a fine piece of short fiction, I'm going to go out there and find one every week and post it, right here. And just to keep up the visuals, I'll include a parkbench original to complement the broader theme of the work.

Watch! Next post coming up... now!

Want some dorky, book-related fun?

We all do. So, I read about it somewhere or other, and had completely forgotten about it until I started thinking about the Clutter Monster living on the lower floor of zee tiny abode. At home, you know, in a country where people appreciate books, second-hand shops in big cities thrive, and are run by pleasant people. Here, however, my charming, once-read review copies get sneers from snotty booksellers near Leicester Square who flog Italian first editions of Godot and spell Beckett's name wrong on the shocking price tag. I saw it. So, in lieu of lugging them back to Dún Laoghaire as I often do in exchange for dinner-money (bag of books = €10-15), I thought I'd set them free.

Book Crossing is an extremely sweet and seemingly very popular idea. I'm linking to it along the right-hand side here forever more. Basically, you sign up (no big deal), register your books (add the ISBN and they do the rest), and then leave 'Release Notes' describing how you set your book free. You could leave it on a café table or throw it onto a passing barge.














All you have to do is tell eager bookcrossers where you put it. Did you leave it in a tree in Primrose Hill? On the 46A bus to UCD? Or did you pass it off to a friend? Dedicated souls are signed up to email alerts for areas they're likely to be near, so that they can even go hunting to see if they can beat random passersby to the book. Though you can pass off books to people you know, it is SO MUCH more fun to hide them in the wild! Ziploc bags are recommended, as are post-its on the cover declaring that 'This book is NOT lost! It's free! For you!' or some such enthuse... Then the curious passerby picks it up, and hopefully reads it, and logs back in to the website that bookcrossing.com has associated with that very book to say: 'Found your book! Love it / hate it / gave it to my sister / passed it on at the newstand of 4th and Delaware in Cheboygan, Michigan / on a vaporetto heading to St. Mark's in Venice'. So, ok, my books, though picked up, have not been reported back on, but I live in hope. And anyway, it's fun, and if you leave your books hidden in public, you feel like you're nine and on a treasure hunt, which is no bad thing.

Give your old books new life and send them on adventures. :)

Turkish Delights

A month on, much has happened. Job happiness has been further secured, I've turned twenty-six, made a small name for myself with a great London literary agent, and most importantly, been to a new city, a new country and a new continent.

Not sure what to start with, so I'll go with Istanbul and the, er, aforementioned Turkish delights. The Bearded One has nine months of Turkish under his belt, and neither of us had the least notion how popular this would make us. Everywhere we went, we met the sweetest, most enthusiastic people I have ever come across- certainly as a tourist. I was concerned about dressing modestly and the whole routine, and found that though I was wise to watch my Ps and Qs, we were welcome everywhere we wanted to go, and met and saw a whole swathe of Turkish society. The hotel, Hotel Turkuaz , was located in southern Sultanahmet, near Kumkapi and the Marmara coast in a neighbourhood that did not look like a likely tourist spot to say the least. Alive with the sounds (and smells) of stray cats like the rest of the city, and home to a politically but not religiously right-wing community, it was extremely poor, with most of the houses subsiding into the ground at distinctly non-right angles. It was a shame to see, because the hotel (which is indeed turquoise and not pink as it appears on the website- other photos are bang on) is a gorgeous example of Ottoman architecture, and there were a few others standing proud.It looks a little bit like Louisiana to me- tall and creaky, wooden, though tongue-and-groove, not clapboard, and full of curliques. It was run by the charming Maria, a cat- and turtle-loving Romanian. Nothing was too much trouble, though at times her advice regarding boring bits like ferry schedules warranted double-checking. The resident turtles, Fatima (pictured below) and Osman (camera-shy), oversaw epic and non-varying breakfsts in the chilly courtyard: eggs any way you like 'em, gorgeous, wet feta-like cheese, dried olives in oil, sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, brioche, bread, butter, more cheese and jam. And as one astute elderly frenchwoman muttered on our last morning, 'Mais ecoute: il faut manger les crudités le matin, parce qu'on n'aura pas des autres durant la journée. Eh? EHH?' I got her, alright, with her little-old-lady subtlety. She was a legend: intrepid and nothing daunted, she was eating her crudités le matin AND learning Turkish at the age of seventy-five. But I digress: seeing the sights requires all the energy provided by our brekkies, so we took plenty of pit-stops along the way.
Beyoğlu is the place to be in the evenings, and check out the little boreens at the right-hand side at the base of İstiklal Caddesi, where the old tram terminates. We found a tiny, slightly dodgy-looking cafe, where the owner happily skipped up a death-defying ladder to settle us down in a tiny, cushion-filled erzatz loft for beers and 'cigar-shaped' cheese borek. No taps, no oven- just bottled Efes and gorgeous home-made food made, I suspect, that morning by the owner's mother and heated up when orders came in. Tasty, friendly and cheap. Live music started below, and a vacated table for two opened up, so were helped back down to reality to join the 12-strong crowd. Plates appeared out of the tiny kitchen, and that one amazing night happened, the one you always have in a holiday, the one that could never be reconstructed in the cafe that could never be found again. I'll leave the sights to speak for themselves, I guess, and recommend a great website on Turkey: pretty it ain't, but yer man's info is unparalleled for its accuracy and breadth, and we can thank the Turkey Travel Planner for a lot of our planning beforehand. We'll have to go back, as we could spend a whole 'nother week on boats seeing the islands.