27/27

So, I'm getting old. Don't laugh. I am now distinctly closer to thirty than twenty, and it doesn't feel good. It feels a bit like staring into the gaping void of a new business and a new degree. It also feels like it's time to go home and set up shop properly.

The friends, they really pulled it together on this one. The party was fancy dress, the theme was London. There were pop stars, hated politicians, a daft prince, one great fire, some ghoulish pie-bakers, and a small lost bear. There was a gallant Arab gent, some hard rockers, a gay bespectacled candle in the wind, the actor who baked pies himself, and a good old-fashioned hooker. The winners in my mind were the Squares, Lester and Russell - a charming couple, if a little well-starched.

Possibly the most daring was fellow Norf Londoner, your favourite extremist cleric and mine, you guessed it . . .



The evening also brought a new shiny stack of reading to my groaning, tiny bedside table: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath, and, oh yes, How to be a Domestic Goddess by Unmentionably Dreadful and Yet So Very Tasty in the Cakes Department (not to mention the production values, oooerrrr).

Not a bad haul! Also, I got a star - what should I name my star? I've added a poll next door >>>>>>

Never content, I am still hankering after more, possibly foreseeing my new book-buying future once I leave the hallowed halls of publishing in-house. I give links to sites, reviews and some surprise book shops just for anorak fun.
For All We Know by Ciaran Carson (Gallery), Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey (Picador), the original text of A Tranquil Star by Primo Levi (spotted in Engrish in the New Yorker) China Returns to Africa, Eds. Christopher Alden, Daniel Large and Ricardo de Oliveira (Hurst or through The Times) and the new Dermot Bolger in a whopping great NYT review and Sebastian Barry, mentioned in an odd piece in The Economist and this in the Indo
with the only unflattering photograph I've ever seen of the author, who is quite the handsome devil.

It will all be rather a lot to pack, but that, as the relocation-allowance-bequeathed among us say, is for the movers to deal with.

Nothing daunted, and heading into my last month of work in London!

Prophesize with your pen

Today was a big day. After two and a half years at a very lovely London publisher, I handed in my notice.

It's an odd thing, quitting; many in the office acted as if they'd all written down their own predictable reactions, pitched them into a hat and passed it around the office. One, usually peculiarly perceptive to changes of mood in the office was shocked. Another, usually too quietly overwhelmed by doing three jobs at once to muster much enthusiasm burst into the biggest honest display of sadness, elation and genuine interest I've seen in an English workplace (sorry). Finally, the one who said 'YOU B*TCH!' when I left my last job in the company gave really helpful advice on the website demo. The big wigs were supportive, but likely thought my plans a small enterprise.

The enterprise, you ask? Yes, you did.

I'm going back to Dublin, back to college and back to languages. Then, I'll be setting up an agency of freelancers: editorial for English-language publishers and translators for foreign-language publishers/agents. I'll be writing about that elsewhere and this here blog will remain fairly personal and fairly anonymous.

Meanwhile, will be finding good respectable freelance staff and lining up some, urm, work.

G'day Nice Lady, Aaaaaright . . .

A few years ago, working in a central location too awkward for Dublin's pathetic public transport network to handle, I took up cycling in a serious way. I was inspired by my time in Florence, where cycling was the norm and a carefree, easy sort of thing - much like life there. I'm an unlikely candidate for city cycling - by which I mean physical activity after insufficient coffee, followed by a daily commute awash in sweat and mild danger; it's not really my bag. But, against the odds, I came to love it, and a good thing too, because it has become one of my favourite aspects of our life in London.


Drink and cycling, however, don't mix; you only have to hit the cobbles in Piazza Santissima Annunziata once to drive it well and truly home. So, on the days I have hot plans after work, I bus or tube it.


The only part of taking the tube that is any good at all is the walk down, during which I think about the day ahead and nothing at all. By the time I get to the station, I'm in a world of my own. ‘Aaaaarrrrriiiightnaaayssssladyaaaarrrrriiiight’, twinkles my favourite Big Issue seller. Everyday, the same routine. He never misses me, or any of the other nice ladies, even when I think he's busy making change or lighting a cigarette in the wind. I can be on the other side of the turnstile by the time I hear it, ‘Aaaaarrrrriiiight . . .’.

Sometimes, I try to sneak through without him seeing me, just to test him.

The great thing was that he moved during the day, selling at the supermarket where I often grab lunch-makings, so the pleasure was twice mine. 'I gets lonely, you know . . . missing all dose naaaysladeeeees'. Who can argue with that?

The thing is, he was beaten up and hospitalised the other week. It took me a while to check up that this was true, but it was. He told me himself when he got out, nothing daunted:

'They waited until I was at the end of my day, you know. They wait for the money. And then they come. But it's aaaaright, you know. They didn't get nuffing from me.'

Beating up Big Issues sellers. A new low for London, I have to say it, but let's hear it for the man in question. He's back on form, charming the ladies and selling the zines - but now I only see him at lunch. I miss my morning greeting.