I've got the movers in

It's true. After a whirlwind couple of weeks, the Bearded One has begun his new job Liffeyside today, the movers left this afternoon, the website goes live tomorrow, the ad goes into the trade rag on Friday and the business launches sooner than expected. All is - dare I say it - going to be ok. Leaving my job went well, in that people were really lovely, full of great suggestions and absurdly generous with the gifts, oi oi oi. I will be the best-outfitted impoverished translator in town. Enough to make you snivel into your cupcake, so I won't dwell - though I've learned an enormous amount, made great friends and had a good enough introduction to publishing to know what I want to do, careerwise, some, erm, obstacles notwithstanding.

Because that wasn't enough to do and because you really want a mini-break in the middle of your move, (gift donkeys, I know) I went to Marrakesh with the Production Diva.

And this was no ordinary trip to Morocco, no no - we travel in style around here, dontcha know. All expenses paid, five-star with beauty treatments style, Cointreau and tonic (try it) by the pool style. In all seriousness, this trip is the most generous gift I've ever received, with the exception of my education (€11,000 per annum for a four-year degree is nothing to sneeze at, and all thanks to being a Yank).

So, despite a 3am start and EasyJet *shudder*, we landed in Marrakesh in a spookily empty and spotless new airport and were whisked away to the Kasbah Agafay. Alarmingly, there are no suburbs in Marrakesh; you go straight from pristine-if-parched avenues with roses and posters of their fearless leader to the most grinding poverty with none of the typical frightening urban set-up of southern Europe; no HLMs, no estates - just rubble. Rubble and nothingness as far as the eye can see, punctuated by the odd cactus, goatherd or robed gent or lady carrying a small child - from where? To where? It's like an extreme and depressing version of the West of Ireland; you pass a farmhouse in the middle of the fields and see no other signs of life for twenty miles, until you spot an octagenarian on a bicycle. Hrm.

From there, we swerve off the road past a huddle of intinerant day labourers and into an olive grove, where we come upon enormous dantean gates and into the most spectacular gardens around a big red fort, all overlooking the foothills of the Atlas.

What followed was a completely surreal two days and two nights eating off of starched linens in olive groves, lounging by the pool, and enjoying watching a bunch of English people squirm at the thought of getting their kit off for the hammam ladies to scrub them with clay - as one of the ladies said to me in broken French, 'Don't they like to be clean in England?'


It was a good group, all of us quite up for the gorgeous food, lounging by the pool, and buffing and fluffing on offer, understandably enough, and that's exactly what we did. Pleasingly, there were Very Important Bods in the world of audiobooks (errrr?), consultants, people with 'people' and some mere publishing plebs like myself with saucer-eyed partners or friends in tow. There were also some minor celebrities, including a TV survivalist (although as his people were eager to explain, that's not really the image they're going for) and one of the actors from The Archers, whose Venn diagram of life does not overlap mine in the slightest, needless to say. The former was more fun than the latter, mainly because I knew something about him and his schtick - and, that in a laconic anitpodean kind of way, was up for a laugh.

'Hey', says the Survivalist's partner, grabbing a leaf from the beautiful hotel herb gardens, 'can I eat this?' 'Yep,' says he in a murmur that suggests there's more to it than that. 'Jesus, Ray, that was really vile', says she.

Having managed to shake off the shady and irritating guide laid on by the hotel, the Production Diva and I demanded that a taxi pick us up later, and headed off into the souk. Amazing how much more welcoming people are when you're not in a quivering group of foreigners whose collective presence emits a 'We're White and Frightened that You'll Rob Us' vibe, innit.

We met a baboush seller and his ancient father, heard midday prayers, were made temporary perches for tiny tortoises and a chameleon and bargained like it was 1999. In short, a successful trip, and further proof that I don't quite have what it takes to live the sanitised life of five-star luxury. I would quite like a chameleon, though.


I got back on Monday, sorted out the remaining pre-move chaos and today managed to nab 12 metres' worth of parking by 10.30 am. The movers, two lovely fellas from NornIrn, have the situation entirely under control and left this afternoon with promises to appear in Dublin in under one week. The Bearded One just checked in to say that he has a Blackberry. *sigh* I will well and truly get outta here in one piece. TFFT.

Looking forward to a quiet last day visiting some places I really like in London.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

A pleasant day in Camden

There's a first time for everything. Welcome to a pictoral record of my first truly lovely wander through Camden Town. Astonishingly, I was not pushed, offered hash, asked if I had some smack, or called a stupid whore by dodgy passers by. I'll let the pictures do the talking, and later, I'll chat about Shanghai Nights by Juan Marsé, recently published in paper by the ever-gorgeous Harvill Secker. Meanwhile... Go to see this astonishing coffee, um, roastery, where one quiet man of indeterminate origins roasts a short dozen different coffees in a sooty olfactory paradise.













And in keeping with this sensual overload, we have the audio...

and the gastronomical,
with some beautiful Moroccan stews in the nice bit of the Camden Lock Market.

Close Quarters

So, one of the reasons that London smells, you will agree, is that quarters are close. Flats are small, offices cramped and tubes stuffed. It's not so much a problem as a fact of life, like living in one of those fold-down apartments in Tokyo.

Having decided against moving, myself and The Bearded One resolved to love our flat more, which is easy enough, considering that at £210 per week with no council tax to pay, it's a steal for a teeny one-bed on two floors with the aforementioned weenie patio in its fantabulous location convenient to work and friends. So, friends should come round more, and did last night, which was nice. Seems we could manage twice as many as we had in the end, so watch this space, party central.

Downside? At the moment, however, I'm huddled on the less pleasant of the two floors, because my Scary Neighbour is upstairs with The Bearded One. The Bearded One, like most boys, has a long fuse for people, unlike myself. Scary Neighbour is a large, strong, loud man in his thirties who, we can tell from being on the patio, likes to scream abuse at his wife. OK, so sometimes she screams back, but very rarely. Scary Neighbour, an equal oppurtunities screamer, also shouts filth when he's alone. He is, I believe, unaware that we know either of these facts. As sorry as I feel for the wife, what confirms his craziness in my mind is that he plays out entire fictional arguments at the top of his voice out the kitchen window while he does the dishes alone in his apartment.

I object to being forced to know these sorts of things about people.

Thought to beat for the coming week

Courtesy of George Simkin.

And so this is Christmas...

A quickie on the personal blog backlog before I cover the rest.

Christmas with The Bearded One took us to the South Bank for a frosty stomp, then an old-school sushi-chase and tickets to a truly kinked-up Cabaret. (Good work, Captain J.)

 

Christmas was spent quietly in Old Country, fresh air, sea, duck, wine.

Went to a litterati party, no less, up a boreen in Blackwater on Stephen's Day. Gorgeous and surreal. One prizewinner, one serious contender, a poetry editor, half a small, dysfunctional press' board, some artsy bigwigs and the prizewinner's family including a funny dentist who hated her job, and her brother, who fell three stories from a Barcelona balcony and was put back together with metal.

Then... New Year's with fabulous friends in Dublin. Amazingly, of the twenty people in the room, say, 17 of them Irish, all had been living in, were living in, or were moving to London.

Et me voila.

Back in business

So… here we are. February.

It’s been a busy few months, and I return with my tail between my legs. I think I’ll do a few separate entries, rather than one big behemoth job.

I last wrote in November, when I faced harsh truths about working part-time:
1. You can’t live on a part-time publishing salary in London, no matter how much freelance reviewing you manage to land.

2. If you do work part-time, and your company has use-it-or-lose-it holidays, you have plenty of time, no money, and holidays you must, well, use or lose.

3. Holiday days carry more weight when you’re part-time. If you work a three-day week, nine days of holiday means three weeks off.

I could have just handed them over to The Man, but I was having a lousy time and determined to sit around in my bathrobe and eat discount bonbons in Norf London if it came to it. A girl’s gotta do…

But that would have been grim- my own sugar-laden company can only amuse for so long. Instead, I spent a week toddling around London, seeing the sights, meeting the mates, reading through the stack.

Then, I thought about where else I could go. I had to have accommodation supplied, under the circumstances, so I considered the options, and found myself back in the town of my birth. Very odd to be back, and odder still as I it was the first Thanksgiving in eight years I had in the States.

My cut-price where’s-the-catch? trip took me from Gatwick to Detroit to National Airport. Not Reagan. National. Got it?

At any rate, I spent most of it inhaling a copy of I Served the King of England by Brohumil Hrabal (Vintage, 2005). A slim volume with a decadent, mouldy brown cover sporting a dusty 1920s scene in a plush hotel, waiters, flappers and wealthy gentleman sunk into velvet banquettes, hiding in snugs and dark wood panelling. Hrabal’s was not a name I knew, but Milan Kundera called him the greatest writer in their country. If it’s good enough for Kundera, it’s enough to knock the rest of us sideways. It is essentially a picaresque, but not of the sunny, blond-haired, rosy-cheeked, dirty fingernails variety. The book opens with a young, poor man helping his resourceful grandmother with her rather unusual work: she profits from the profits of others, as visiting salesmen up on their luck toss their old, worn shirts, socks and jocks out the window into a stream. There sit the young man and his grandmother, who wait, heron-like, ready to lift them out, wash, mend and resell them down the ladder of working men. Soon, the boy seeks to come up in the world, and gains employment as a waiter in one of Prague’s old hotels in a day when waitering was a career, and only the observant, the skilled and the discreet could get ahead.

From this unremarkable start opens the most charming, exquisitely-written tale I have read in years. Though it never leaves Prague and surrounds, the boy has an education beyond his wildest dreams, as lush, exotic and glittering as the most colourful travel lit. Hrabal writes sensually, not sexually, about the boy’s first encounters with the garish women who frequent the hotels, as he ‘covers their laps with flowers’. He captures awe surrounding the prime minister’s misleading dinner for three, as the staff twigging with varying speeds to the non-existence of third diner as man and mistress tumble, sweetly into a pergola in the gardens.

There is an air of magic to this book, and though I know that the term ‘magic realism’ can turn people clean off, there is nothing here as blatant as Garcìa Marquez or Angela Carter. It is as if the magic has just left the stage, leaving just a twinkle in its wake. Here, the King of Ethiopa arrives with his full entourage, and a banquet is created the likes of which Bohemia has never seen. The near-orgiastic scene that erupts as the camel stuffed with x, stuffed with y and flavoured with all the spices of the Orient is cut and consumed is loud, sparkling, funny and mesmerising. There are more such scenes, but I won’t spoil it for you. (If you’re interested, another blogger, waggish, has run through it comprehensively)
What’s more, I was so astonished by it, that I threw my copy across the living room in Washington at my father, and left it there, demanding that he read it. Oi, you people who don’t read modern and contemporary fiction – get to it.

As to my time in Washington, it was lovely, filling and all those good things. Met up with the Best Friend, and thinking of happy nights in Addis in King's Cross, introduced her to some first-rate Ethiopian in Addams Morgan, and sampled some fabulous but pricey mojitos. She is muchly missed, but there we are. Also, did some wandering in the Old Country of the outback of North West DC and relearned my driving skills all over again. Relaxing. Not London. Good.

London Days

So aside from the obvious reading, writing and whathaveyou, I spend more time in London outside than I have in any city in the world. I've lived long-term in four, so I think that this is pretty revolutionary. Most of it is to do with biking, which I discovered partially through necessity in Dublin. Whenever I reveal that I cycle through London most days, I'm met with astonishment- so dangerous, so nasty in bad weather, etc. I've found the eponymous small pleasures of this blog hard to come by in London, but cycling in London is something to smile about. Sure, Florence wasn't half bad either, for sheer beauty... but cobbles, ach. Although the tube goes practically everywhere, the buses are fantastic and the overground connects you to everything, public transportation here is hideously expensive and relatively time-consuming. I mean, Hell, I'm in work in less than fifteen minutes, and much more importantly, I could be home by 5.45.

The same was true in my last job, which had the (only) added benefit of a daily roundtrip down Regent's Canal.

It was all coots, geese and ducklings.






Good stuff, and sure beat Hampstead Road at rush hour, but you can't complain.

But the real benefit of cycling is being outside. You get to know your way around, you see things from a different perspective and after a few months, you've soaked up enough vitamin D to keep the SADs away at least through the other side of Christmas. It also gives you great, low impact exercise, which is, as we all know, the only kind of exercise.

The Bearded One has turned to cycling, but also to sport. This surprises me, as he was not a sporting type before, which suited yours truly grand. But, like myself, he finds that London gets to him, that our semi-subterranean flat lacks light and air in the wintertime, and so cricket, football, basketball and now baseball... all are to be played, watched and enjoyed. Nyeh, what the Hell.

My other new-found hobby since moving here, related to quality has been gardening. (See photo...) "You can afford to rent a place with a garden?! On a publishing salary?!?!?" Um, no. We have a slender slice of air and sky, sunk in the middle of North London between the converted flat at the back of a shop and the whitewashed brick wall of the picturesque row houses perpendicular to us.
It's fantastic. We love it- flowers, pots, palm tree, candles, tiny table and chairs, and a laundry line.


And, meet the real cause of this rant: my renewed appreciation for the natural world has spurred on a complete obsession with Bill Oddie's nature shows. Ok, ok, so many of you will tune out right about... now. Mais bon. It's true! He's lovely. And a conservationist, and genuinely enthusiastic about not just nature, but British nature. I find this encouraging. And now, oh, yes... Mini Oddie on your desktop, ALL THE TIME. I have no words. You need it. You want it. Doitdoit.