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.