30.11.06

more lists

Wow, i didnt imagine my lists would be so popular, but within hours of posting them i started getting emails from random people agreeing and disagreeing with them. Hmmm. In any case, I have promised several people to make some more, and as I am now doing extra hours for the holiday season (and to get extra cash, obviously) I certainly have the time for more listing. Since these lists are composed primarily while I am at work, I thought this would be fitting:

Best Bookshops In The World.
1 gibert jeune, paris: this place is amazing. I can spend hours wandering about the buildings. And the prices are excellent as well. My favourite room is the top one in the section that is on your left as you are looking at the seine (with your back to the fountain). It has used and new fiction paperbacks, I can spend hours in there.
2.akateeminen kirjakauppa, Helsinki: also amazing. Just going inside is an experience in itself. The building was designed by the architect alvar aalto and is famous for its roof. Even if, like me, you don’t read finnish, it doesn’t matter, there are huge academic and fiction sections in Swedish, French, English, German, Spanish, and Italian.
3biblio globus, Moscow: going here is normally an uncomfortable experience, the place is always over crowded with smelly people, and the organisation and lay out is atrocious. Still, the selection is great and so are the prices.
4.plato, Belgrade: great atmosphere. A cool bookshop combined with a restaurant. Good selection, cheap prices.
5. Mamut, Belgrade: just down the street from plato, better selection, but not quite so cool.
6. waterstones, gower street, London: good selection of used stuff, in addition to the normal stuff that commercial book chains in England carry.
7.FNAC, les halles, paris : if you cant find it at gibert jeune cheaper, it will be here, in addition to all the cds, dvds, and digital stuff.
8. sajam knige, Belgrade: I think every book published in a south slav language can surely be found here in October. the problem is exactly finding it….the place is completely unorganised, and you need a map to navigate among all the corridors and stands.
9. dom knigi na arbate: as uncomfortable as biblio globus, but also with a good selection.

special mentions:
11. book market, Havana: really weird stuff turns up here. If you ever want a copy of la historia me absolvera, or Tania la guerrillera inolvidable, this is certainly the place.
12. Shakespeare and company, paris: I almost never buy anything here (why buy an expensive English book when you can get a much cheaper French one at gibert jeune next door?) but I always go in for a look. The building is great. This is exactly what I want my house to look like when I am old.

29.11.06

blue lists

sometimes at work i get to take over the travel section. my actual job is fiction, but everyone knows i love travel literature, so when someone else needs cover, they often let me do it. the other good thing about the travel section (besides the cool books) is that they arent man people, and they seem more considerate than the guys who go to fiction (or worse still: erotica) which basically means less straightening and tidying for me to do, and more time to look at cool books with exciting pictures. it was in this way that i became addicted to the lonely planets blue list 2007. i had flipped through last years edition (oddly titled blue list 06-07, i suppose they didnt realise how popular they would be) but the new one is even better. it provides all kinds of ideas as to where to go and what to do on your next holiday.
inspired, and trying to alleviate boredom, a collegue and i started composing lists of our own. here are mine.
Worlds Worst Airports
1. Paris-beauvais: for a city like paris, this is really just an embassament
2. tie: Moscow-sheremetevo 1: once coming back from africa it took me 3 hours to clear customs
Moscow- sheremetevo 2: the queues, the queues, the queues........
4. canaima international (venezuela): when i showed pictures to my mother, she asked if it was a native hut!!!
5. San josé (Costa rica): the smoking section is IN THE BATHROOM. just like in high school....
6. Rochester (usa): the guy at check in didnt know where "moscow" was. he then preceded to put my luggage into the computer with the wrong tags.....oh, and the airport is in the middle of a corn feild, and has some of the fattest people i have EVER seen.
7Adler (Russia): the last time i was there, they still insisted that foriegn passport holders sit seperately from russians while waiting for their plane.
8Tie: Washington: reagan national: the place just sucks. and it has no shuttle to dulles!
Washington: dulles international: there is no link to public transportation at all, and the airport is only accessible by car or taxi. there is no proper shuttle to reagan, although you often have to transfer from one to the other.once inside, the queues are absolutely enormous, and the duty free is HORRIBLE. there is not even anything edible to buy.
10.narsarsuaq (greenland): this place is just depressing. especially in april.

Worst Airline
1Air rutaca: i dont think this one flies anymore actually. i hope.it had a big crash shortly after the last time i took it. i think it went bankrupt after that.
2. KrasAir. they are based in krasnayarsk, what more need be said?
3. Canada 3000: They stole my camera! and they have a horrible slogan (we're leading the way, nous sommes au sommet)
4. air transit: why, when air canada is so acceptable, are all the other canadian ones so bad?
5. JAT: the mysterious flights that never take off....
6. Air india in the 1980s: it might have improved. but i still have nightmares of the stench.
7.delta: this is a personal vengance, they lost my luggage 3 times
8. ryan air: we all know, the service just sucks.
9 Aeroflot in the 1980s: things have improved today on the international services. but once years ago we landed by accident in poland....our tickets said germany......
10. Balkan: do these planes EVER leave on time????do the pilots even have watches?

Most Entertaining Airline:
1 Aeroflot: they let my cat run around the plane, and served her a meal.ok, i gave the stewardessa some money, but still....it was appreciated.
2. Cubana. the inflight movies are incredible. i can never decide which is better: the revolutionary accomplishments of the health care system, or the revolutionary accomplishments of the education system. both are riveting.
3. estonian air. they serve incredible fresh meals with REAL plates and REAL cutlery and fresh baked rolls. even on 45 minute flights from St petersburg.
4. air rutaca (before the crash). the flights were terrifying, but the cute pilots always let good looking young girls sit in the cock pit with them, which i admit was kind of cool, even while i feared for my safetly.

27.11.06

yuck

i hate romance literature of the georgette heyer variety. unfortunately, however, other people seem to like it. so it was announced yesterday that we would have to make a seperate display of it in the shop. three whole bays or nothing but romance literature, gross. in the end it turned out kind of funny. my manager is a scottish guy whose goal in life is to be a policeman in glasgow. he is working here while his girlfriend studies, and then it is on to police academy. hardly the ideal person to be organising a display on romance literature. while emma and i shelved, he stood and read out the backs of the covers in a mock serious tone, complete with phoney sighs and swoon.at the end it seemed a whole section of the shop had turned into a pastel sea. it looked absolutely hideous in my view, but, hey, i just follow orders dont i? fortunately, last friday one of the guys made a james bond display, complete with all the bond books. it looks way cooler and at least gives me something more pleasant to look at when i am at work!

24.11.06

photography

went with max to see "in the face of history: European photographers in the twentieth century" exibit on at the barbican. it was pretty comprehensive, running from the first world war up to the present. i really like the collection by boris Mihailov. his "red" series really captured the kitschyness of the soviet union. max loved the pedantic sayings visible in the backgrounds of many of the photos (ex: kto chitaet, tot mnogo znaet") he swears they didnt have such things in poland, which i find astonishing, maybe he was just too young to remember. i have always thought such things were just an automatic part of the socialist experience, have seen these sorts of phrases plastered on walls and billboards from moscow to havana.....but maybe the poles escaped? the modern photos were really great, especially from the perspective of technology, it is amazing how far cameras have come in the last few decades....it all makes me want to go out and buy a new, great, expensive one....if only i had the money!

on the subject of max and poles, he told me a good jokeover coffee at the barbican cafe:
what is the difference between E.T. and a Pole in london?
E.T. spoke good english, had his own bicycle, and wanted to go home.

21.11.06

the peoples taste

since working in a book shop, i have learned alot about what new fiction is out there. everyday i get to shelve all kinds of books, read the back covers, and my knowledge of the genre is expanding rapidly. pity i just dont have the time to actually read all the books i get to shelve. there is a lot of good stuff out there, and as soon as i get my discount, i will be buying book with every last penny i have got. however, i have also learned a lot about what english people read. twoof the three big selling and over-producing authors i hadnt even heard of until i started working. the one i had heard of is Georgette heyer. i knew of her as my mother (who has dodgy literary taste) reads her books. they are awful: basically they are bodice-rippers dressed up as historical romances, so respectable middle aged women can buy them without feeling they are doing something "dirty." one of the other big selling authors, phillipa gregory, is exactly the same. but these middle age types buy both writers' works up in mass quantities. i have to reshelve both several times a day. what i find especially odd though, is that these novels, set in England during the time of the empire, (think jane austin period) are bought in particularly large numbers by black women. i really am a bit puzzled by this point, as neither the gregory nor the heyer books seem to make any effort to appeal to such and audiance: the world the aim to depict seems pretty white and, frankly, exclusionist to me.
then there is bernard cornwall. i suppose he must be the most successful, since middle aged men buy his stuff too (in addition to women). his Sharpe series fly off the shelf, even in hardback edition.
utter insanity.
the other thing i have learned is what kind of people buy pornobooks.
i am not talking here about soft porn, i mean the hard core nasty stuff. (the bookshop where i work as a section hidden in a corner selling the stuff, and we dont even bother to reshelve it correctly in alphabetical order, as it would be immpossible to maintain, people take books of the shelves and, in their shame to be caught, shove them back in any place they find)
so anyway, hard core porn is purchased predominantly by two types of people:
1. respectable looking business men wearing expensive suits and ties, of all races and backgrounds, aged 35 and over
2.equally respectable middle age women, generally over the age of 45 or so.
this job has clearly been a truely illuminating experience.

16.11.06

urban foxes

I live in an attic. It is basically a (very) little room that was tacked on to the top back of a typical English terraced house. It has a good sized window which looks out on top of two long rows of the backs of other terraced houses. So when I look out my window, I see endless chimneys and mini-gardens stretching as far as my eye can see. This gives me the occasional view into other peoples lives. During Diwali, I could seem some Indian neighbours lightening of firecrackers in their yard with limited success. I can see teenagers drinking routinely. And I often see dogs running around and cats running up trees. So I was initially not surprised when I heard my furry companion start to make teeth grinding noises and growl at something outside the window. I looked up and saw something furry moving on the roof closest to mine. I assumed it was a cat. But then, as I looked closer, the creature seemed….well bizarre. I put on my glasses and looked again. Definitely not a cat. Way too long a body, and too bushy a tail. Still, it took me a few minutes to realise that the animal moving elegantly across the roof was a FOX. I have seen foxes before, of course, but normally in the countryside, near people’s cottages or dachas. Once in a very rare while my father will report one terrorising the bunnies in his garden. I had no clue, however, that several tens of thousands of foxes are resident in London. I decided to ask about. Iain, who knows the history of everything, claims that they have been here since the war. They got hungry in the nearby counties and migrated into the city. It seems they are a highly adaptable species and thus quickly became adept at climbing of rooftops to look for new unexplored rubbish bins and so on. The city authorities are well aware of their presence and see this as no threat. Britain is rabies free country after all, so unlike in other places where foxes are seen as diseased and dangerous, these ones are relatively harmless, provided you close your rubbish bin tightly. Iain claims he once saw one strolling down Oxford Street, weaving in and out among the crowds, just like a dog. This seemed far-fetched, but then Paul told me that one once followed him down the street on his way back from sainsbury’s. he had meat in his shopping bag, and the fox kept trying to swipe at it! The fox in my back yard has made a few repeat appearances, to the great annoyance of my own furry friend, who sees this as an infuriating assault on her territory. I wonder what she sees when she looks at the fox? And bigger, strange version of herself?

15.11.06

meetings and museums

my aunt came into town yesterday for a very brief visit enroute between the cotswells and florida. she flys through like this a few times a year, normally intransit between the cotswells and somewhere else (last time it was botswana!)
we had a ggreat day going through various museum exibits. first we went to the holbein at the Tate britain, which was interesting and well put together, although i cannot say that i am realy a great holbein fan. comparitively, i liked the Vélasquez show more.
but then we hopped a cab to the V&A, where we saw an AMAZING expo on renaissance italian interiors. i hadnt been expecting very much out of it, since it didnt really sound like my sort of thing, but i was completely impressed. the exhibit showed tuscan and venetian style houses between 1400 and 1600. it concentrated on how they were constructed and what purpose each room served. the emphasis waas on everyday life and its rituals, and i really learned a lot about how people actually lived then, their habits, their hygeine and so on. it was truely fascinating.
after the show, we went to the V1A restaurant for lunch and overate (of course) and then briefly back to my aunts hotel for tea and so she could change her clothes for a meeting she had to go to....the holtel was expensive and incredible as always, and my aunt always gets the best service imaginable, since she works in the travel industry (and is thus in a position to recommend various hotels to many rich people). afterwards i went of to work and my aunt to meetings and some musical. it is fun to have visiters from time to time!

13.11.06

monday monday

now that i have this new part time job, i look forward to monday mornings. for most people, including previously myself, it was the other way around. Monday is normally the dreaded start of the work week, not the end. but i work all day on saturday and 6 hours on Sunday, so monday has suddenly become relaxing. i can sleep in, read, make a huge breakfast, and do everything else i didnt find time to do at the weekend. like writing blog entries.
i did eat and drink well this weekend. friday justin and i went to an excellent (but not cheap) restaurant near angel. the food was refined, with subtle tastes that seemed a bit different in every bite. we then saw the Prestige. it was ok, but, well.....that is about all.
saturday i worked my long shift. i enjoy it though. the job is light and entertaining and i have very funny collegues. however, i really end up speaking five languages in every shift. and after 8 hours i have the feeling my brain is turning into kasha. the head of financial matters in my branch is from ukraine (we speak russian). one of the two collegues who is assigned to the same section i am is from mostar (we speak, um, serbo-bosnian?). a huge number of the customers who come in to the place are tourist, with the overwelming majority being french, spanish and german. the germans inevitably speak good english, but that is not true for the other two nationalities, and since i am the only staff member who speaks french (which i find wierd) and one of the few who speaks spanish, i get to talk to these people. it is fun, but i get confused sometimes. yesterday, i was giving directions to an elderly argentine lady when the bosnian asked me a question....to which i responded in spanish....then later i told a spanish woman that the toilet was upstairs and "levo" which i suppose didnt make much sense to her either. oh well. hopefully my brain will adjust with time. but things seem to be ok, saturday after work the boss took me out for drinks in a nearby pub...and outdrank me easily. i had four glasses and practically stumbled home and into bed.
yesterday chester (who lives with justin) made an amazing roast at their house. so after work i went over and ate like a pig as part of what seems to be emerging as a glutinous sunday routine. the vegetables were amazing and chester even opened the special bottle of wine he had (apparently) been guarding for some time. i waddled home and fell asleep, content.

8.11.06

caught in the act

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I went to the toilet to brush my teeth and wash my hands and so on. But when I came out of the bathroom, I had a bit of a surprise. Our bathroom is adjoined to the kitchen, so when I opened the bathroom door I had a full view of the kitchen, and thus an excellent view of the spectacle that was unfolding: in the two minutes it had taken me to brush my teeth, my furry friend had:
opened lemurana’s drawer where she keeps her food.
climbed inside the said drawer
located the container of luso cod that was inside
attacked the container of luso cod with all her furry strength.Fortunately, I caught her in the act and thus was able to save both the cod and her digestive tract from what would otherwise have surely been a disastrous situation.

views of east london






7.11.06

down to work


so now that i have a job with a fixed (more or less) schedule, i have started to get going on what i am actually supposed to be doing here, ie my research. i have finished a draft of my first chapter and am waiting for my supervisor to approve it...i sent the email ages ago, but i havent heard a word back and i dont know if that is a good or a bad sign....but , well, i will wait.
meanwhile i have started reading my primary sources. i have nearly 50 kilos worth. they all arrived by special post delivary to justins house. they arrived primitively wrapped in brown paper bags held together by string tightly tied by babushka hands over the summer at the post office at chisti prudi. they are now on my over filling IKEA book shelf, waiting to be read. so i start this past weekend. i figured it was best to start at the begining, so i took the oldest one, from 1810 and started reading. the reading is a bit slow, although it is picking up now that i have got used to the different spellings and slightly different words. had the writer lived today, i think he could have been tried for inciting racial hatred at the least. in the last chapter he spent the night sleeping in a field, after he discovered that the owner of the (only) inn in the town where he found himself was jewish. i cant wait to find out what he writes when he actually reaches his destination: the ottoman empire.
more to follow

6.11.06

exciting new job (ha ha )

so i started my new job over the weekend, and am now on day three.
basically it is like being back in secondary school. i used to have a lot of these kinds of service jobs. i had thought i had put them behind me when i got a BA, but it seems not. so i am working at a book shop, as a salesgirl. my last sales girl job finished nearly a decade ago in 1997, if i remember correctly. but one has to eat, and this is what i got. that said the work is brainless and even kind of fun. almost everyone is is a student. most of them are doing degrees in dubiously employable fields such as creative writing and arts semiotics, and generally at universities i have not heard of. there are a number of would be future writers among the employees. but everyone seems nice and friendly, and they all know a lot about literature, so at least they make for interesting conversation. the funny thing is the head of finance for the place is russian (from ukraine actually, but ethnic russian) and so i had all my training in russian, which i thought was a little surreal in a bookshop in central london. but, hey, she likes me, and keeps saying how amazing it is that i speak russian, so i am not complaining. actually i get to speak all kinds of languages int he place, since there are tourista from allover, but especially france and spain (there are germans to, but they inevitably speak impeccable english) i even helped a serbian couple yesterday.....they bought 120 pounds worth of agatha cristie.....wierd, huh?

4.11.06

cambridge II

so i went up to cambridge yesterday to check on the situation......paul is doing very well, he is hacking away at his thesis, i was even treated to a sample of it over a few drinks at the eagle. btu our other friend is not doing so well. it is sad to get a to a point in your life and realise that you have failed to do the things that you really wanted to, and to spend all your time regreting that. but there is nothing paul or i can do to help him, other than to be there and listen i suppose, and to not encourage activity, like falling in love with the vicar's wife, that seem certain to lead to disaster.
cambridge meanwhile, looked absolutely beautiful. it was cold but sunny and i had almost forgot what a really lovely little town it is. i also forgot (well not really) how many good book shops there are there in very close proximity. i even managed to get the last from david mitchell, in hard cover edition, for all of 2 pounds, which suits even my limited budget.
on the subject of books, today is my first day of work, and i can see i am going to be learning about the book selling business over the next few months.
details to follow.

1.11.06

another cambridge soap opera

i am not even in cambridge, but the soap operas of the place still reach me. having survived the TTB scandal of last semester, it seems an even juicier one has emerged: I.N. is having an affair with the vicar's wife from the theological faculty! and here i thought these things only happened in made for the BBC movies, but no, the stereotype of the sex starved vicars wife turns out to have a firm basis in reality, and the speces is alive and well in cambridge. the only problem is that i am now watching it tear my poor friend apart as he is courting what clearly seems to be to be disaster. i fear he has actually got attached to this female......and cambridge is a small town and the academic world is even smaller, so every one is in everyone else's business all the time. little can be kept secret and gossip spreads quickly. so i am very worried about the outcome of this and the ramifications it will have on my friends sanity. i think i might have to go up soon myself and regulate.
in the meantime, i am heading off to the pub to celebrate my new employment with max. max has been tolerating my unemployment woes for sometime. he had a very peculiar cure for unemployment: crawling in a ball under the bed. as it is a very cat like thing to do, i didnt object too much to the suggestion, but i do wonder how on earth he came up with such an idea....but then he works for an NGO that deals with children in conflict situations (palestine, georgia) so i guess maybe that is the stuff these NGOs get up to in their theory training. who knows?
but the next time you are feeling down, try it: crawl into a ball under the the bed and stay there a while. then let me know if it works, i am curious.

my new digs