I'd just had the cleaner in as well. I bet you even God after 7 days hard work would have been a little wrathful if the Pacific burst its banks after he'd just paid £50 to a nice girl from Brazil to tidy up the Americas.
Phone rings: Ria asking if I want to go with her to the Barbican. I remember the ballet (Munch, silent scream) and think of an excuse, fast, but there’s no need to invent one. It’s on Thursday and I have to be on house duty waiting for another plumber to arrive so can’t go out in the evening.
Phone rings: Ria asking if I want to go with her to the Barbican. I remember the ballet (Munch, silent scream) and think of an excuse, fast, but there’s no need to invent one. It’s on Thursday and I have to be on house duty waiting for another plumber to arrive so can’t go out in the evening.
‘It’s Philip Glass,’ she says which in terms of a lure might be the same as a fly fisher offering a big shark with bared teeth to try and catch a salmon. I remember the night of Laurie Anderson at the Barbican and get that same feeling of dread that usually accompanies memories of being on a 7 hour flight during turbulence with a sleeping fat man next to you and an urgent need to pee. I’d rather go to the dentist. I’d rather stay home and try on clothes that don’t fit me until I cry which, come to think of me, is probably what I will be doing as summer seems to have decided to pay us a fleeting visit and I have nothing summery to wear except all my winter clothes minus the tights and the cardies.
Work life: It’s hot at work. Not hot, Jessica Rabbit, Brian Eno in a Jock strap hot, but too many people in too small a space with no fans hot. We open the window but all this does is allow the noise of building work from the block next door to assault our ears (currently the banging has stopped to be replaced by a drilling sound that reminds me of a cricket in the tropics. If someone stopped by my desk and asked to clean my sunglasses it wouldn’t surprise me.) and the smell of frying bacon from the Italian café downstairs. I begin to hallucinate – about gently lapping waves and drinks with umbrellas with a side order of full-English breakfasts when...
Phone rings: An agent. She wants to leave a message for one of the editors to call her back.
‘Go ahead,’ I say.
‘Do you have a pen?’ she asks, snottily.
No, I’m going to memorise it in sign language, tap it out in Morse Code and perform it later in Kabuki theatre. Of course I’ve got a bloody pen. I'm a receptionist not Derren freaking Brown.
I don't have a fan on my desk and I'm bacon crazed - don't ask stupid questions.
I rouse myself and pad around the office like it’s 1967 and I’ve just won the Eurovision Song Contest looking for air that isn't tainted by the smell of frying fat.
Work life: It’s hot at work. Not hot, Jessica Rabbit, Brian Eno in a Jock strap hot, but too many people in too small a space with no fans hot. We open the window but all this does is allow the noise of building work from the block next door to assault our ears (currently the banging has stopped to be replaced by a drilling sound that reminds me of a cricket in the tropics. If someone stopped by my desk and asked to clean my sunglasses it wouldn’t surprise me.) and the smell of frying bacon from the Italian café downstairs. I begin to hallucinate – about gently lapping waves and drinks with umbrellas with a side order of full-English breakfasts when...
Phone rings: An agent. She wants to leave a message for one of the editors to call her back.
‘Go ahead,’ I say.
‘Do you have a pen?’ she asks, snottily.
No, I’m going to memorise it in sign language, tap it out in Morse Code and perform it later in Kabuki theatre. Of course I’ve got a bloody pen. I'm a receptionist not Derren freaking Brown.
I don't have a fan on my desk and I'm bacon crazed - don't ask stupid questions.
I rouse myself and pad around the office like it’s 1967 and I’ve just won the Eurovision Song Contest looking for air that isn't tainted by the smell of frying fat.
‘What do you mean by that?’ asks one of the girls.
‘I mean, like Sandie Shaw.’ She looks blank.
‘No shoes,’ I say pointing at my bare feet before launching into a rendition of Puppet on a String...
‘No shoes,’ I say pointing at my bare feet before launching into a rendition of Puppet on a String...
She looks at me as if I'm on crack. And then I remember that I am probably the most senior, junior member of staff in the entire history of publishing. This girl wasn’t even born in 1967. She wasn’t even born in 1977. She has no idea about Sandie Shaw and her stocking-footed singing. It is true to say that Pedantic Press is mostly populated by a host of young women who waft around being multilingual, beautiful, glamorous, mostly blonde and well under thirty. One really is a model. The others just look like them. I feel I should be singing ‘Memories’ from Cats, raddled old tabby that I am, 'alone with my memories of my days in the sun…’ Just now in the kitchen one of them told me she was happy her husband wasn’t a banker as she didn’t want to end up hating him and divorced at 35 when she would never find anyone else.
Ahem.
Fifty. Barefoot. About to be divorced. Fill in the rest of the sentence and be glad dear girl I’m not wearing really pointed shoes to kick your ankles.
The office is also hot on the talent front. Authors are positively flowing through the doors - it's a strain trying to keep all their books permanently displayed in pride of place in author appropriate order. Once upon a time I went to the so called Presidential residence in Gaza - really just a horrid breezeblock building with rooms the size of aircraft hangers where foreign dignitaries stayed when they visited, and Mrs Arafat was having the same trouble whipping down a picture of Tony and replacing it with Kofi Annan.
She went to the souq and bought the towels they dried their faces on by her very own fair hands, you'll be pleased to know.
I'm letting Damon Galgut, who is here from South Africa to launch The Imposter, use my desk which is almost as exciting as discussing household linen with Mrs Arafat. I'm being very sycophantic and asking him to sign a copy of the book which probably breaks all the cool rules of working in publishing, but I don't care. If our author Christopher Hope ever comes in, I'm going to get him to sign my t-shirt.
Anand Menon was in yesterday and Iain Stewart, a fellow Jock with a requisite Radio 4 soft accent and looking all cool and television presenter-ish, arrived half an hour ago with his agent.
If only I’d known, I could have put on a bit of lippy, or – you know – shoes.
I gave them all my sweetest smile, however, and then did what I do best:
‘Coffee, tea, water anyone?’
I put my shoes on to take it into the room, but who am I kidding, I might as well have walked in backwards - with all those blonde babes around, nobody is going to notice me unless I swim up from the bottom of their cup with a sugar lump between my teeth.
Ahem.
Fifty. Barefoot. About to be divorced. Fill in the rest of the sentence and be glad dear girl I’m not wearing really pointed shoes to kick your ankles.
The office is also hot on the talent front. Authors are positively flowing through the doors - it's a strain trying to keep all their books permanently displayed in pride of place in author appropriate order. Once upon a time I went to the so called Presidential residence in Gaza - really just a horrid breezeblock building with rooms the size of aircraft hangers where foreign dignitaries stayed when they visited, and Mrs Arafat was having the same trouble whipping down a picture of Tony and replacing it with Kofi Annan.
She went to the souq and bought the towels they dried their faces on by her very own fair hands, you'll be pleased to know.
I'm letting Damon Galgut, who is here from South Africa to launch The Imposter, use my desk which is almost as exciting as discussing household linen with Mrs Arafat. I'm being very sycophantic and asking him to sign a copy of the book which probably breaks all the cool rules of working in publishing, but I don't care. If our author Christopher Hope ever comes in, I'm going to get him to sign my t-shirt.
Anand Menon was in yesterday and Iain Stewart, a fellow Jock with a requisite Radio 4 soft accent and looking all cool and television presenter-ish, arrived half an hour ago with his agent.
If only I’d known, I could have put on a bit of lippy, or – you know – shoes.
I gave them all my sweetest smile, however, and then did what I do best:
‘Coffee, tea, water anyone?’
I put my shoes on to take it into the room, but who am I kidding, I might as well have walked in backwards - with all those blonde babes around, nobody is going to notice me unless I swim up from the bottom of their cup with a sugar lump between my teeth.
