bloody rain

anyone else get pelted by the hail balls falling at 11? or at 1? or right now? will it EVER stop raining?

updates

i wish i had some thrilling news to announce. i dont. i have just been working everyday. yesterday i was monitoring best sellers for a report. suite française, night watch, and interpretation of a murder came in first place.
i have gone on a fiction reading binge as well. i LOVED shantarum, it is not the best written book, but i fell in love with the protagonist and the story is amazing.....
the new book by khaled hosseini, a thousand splendid suns, i didnt like quite as much as the kite runner, but then i read it practically in one sitting, so i cant say it was exactly dull. there seemed to be a crowding of action in very little space, so at some parts it feels like reading a laundry list of information, but i still wanted to know how it would all end.... then i read restless by william boyd. apparently he writes all his books in the british library, but to my knowledge i have never seen him there. but then my collegue connar described him as "a bad tempered old guy with ruffled curly hair" which would effectively describe half the people in that place. restless was also ok....a pleasant easy read no masterpiece.
on a seperate note, i went with max to the exhibit at the barbican of alvar aalto's architecture. there was even a model with good photos of my ultimate favourite book shop (in helsinki). it was interesting.....but all of this means i havent done enough for my degree....time to get back to work.

your little african

i have been killing myself with work. i cant complain, it is my choice. we have been short staffed and my boss has asked me ot do a lot of over time. so i am working 7 days a week for the next bit. i got home tonight at 10 and i will be off tomarrow morning at 6 am. it sucks, but i need the money.
so today the boss showed me a note. it seems yesterday a big wig from the head office came in and i was the one who served her. it seems i helped her find a book and she overheard me pursuade another couple to buy something extra. i actually only vaguely remember this, we have been very busy and everything sort of blurs together in my head. but anyway. the big wig sent an email to the head of the company to tell them about "the sweet little girl with the south african accent" who had helped her. the note was forwarded to my boss. it seems i will be given vouchers as a reward. my collegues meanwhile are taking the piss. they have teased me ruthlessly about my south african/ australian accent since i started (litteraly, at the interview the boss asked how much more time i had on my commonwealth visa). when the letter was read out they nearly died. now they keep making me repeat "brown bread or white bread" to hear my accent. then they fall over themselved laughing. groooann...

happy new year

so we are now in the year of the pig. happy new year everyone!
central london was a zoo yesterday as everyone tried to participate int he festivities. there was a huge concert and it seemed half the chinese expat communities was there.
so all the best for the year of the pig!

books

ever since i got promoted a grade, i have been accumulating books at an alarming pace. this week i got at least one a day, free. i try to limit the amount of pleasure reading i allow myself, for otherwise i fear i would never finish my degree, but the number of good fiction books i have been given is staggering. i have a reading list that is practically a book long in itself.
this week i have been reading shantarum by gregory david roberts. or actually it would be better to say that i have been obsessively reading it. i have had to make deals with myself, like "ok i read 2 chapters of XXX (whatever i am supposed to read for school) then i get to read one chapter of shantarum" and so on. it is 900 pages but it goes by fast, and i have found myself desperate to know how everything ends, how he gets caught and forced back to australia and so on.
next up is a thousand splendid suns, the new book by khaled hosseini. it isnt out until 27 may, but i got an embargoed copy last week and i am really looking forward to reading it: i loved the kite runner, and this one looks to be good as well....then i have turkish gambit and some lighter stuff......the only problem is to find the time!

tv licensing

in britain, you have to have a license if you own a tv. it costs 133 pounds per year, and they are VERY strict about enforcing it. one of my russian friends last year tried to not pay his (thinking with russian logic that he could get away with that) and endde up getting a letter informing him that "advanced military detection equipment" had noticed that he did in fact have a tv, and thus was required to pay. he finnally got nervous enough that he paid up.
fine, as he DID have a tv. i, however, do not. the license people cannot seem to get this through their heads (or computer systems). so they keep sending bills. the latest one stated it required "immediate action" and threatened a 1000 pound fine should we not come up with the money. so i called the stated number to try to sort the thing out. this got me a automated system with 7 options, i had to go for the last "for all other queries press 7" as the automated system did not understand the concept of no tv. neither did the woman who finnally answered the phone, and asked "what is your license number?" to which i answered "i havent got a tv."
i spent the next few minutes informing the woman, that no, i havent got a tv, and no, no one in my flat has got a tv, and no, we dont watch tv. from the womans reaction, you would think i had anounced i had two heads and three arms. and the result? we will be inspected every 3 months to confirm this improbable situation! dont these people have better things to do?

the best of the books

all book sellers where i work have been asked to come up with their 20th century favourite books for a special to be run later this year. it is quite difficult to come up with your personal top ten on command. there are so many that i am sure i forgot as i submitted my piece of paper to the boss. when ever i do these things i am always overinfluenced by what i have read most recently, what i am reading now, what happens to be put in front of me, and so on. but here is what i came up with:
1. la vie devant soi (Gary)
2. 100 anos de soledad (garcia marquez)
3. broken april (kadare)
4. master and margarita (bulgakov)
5. les buddenbrooks (mann)
6. casa de los espiritus (allende)
7. god of small things (roy)
8. midnight's children (rushdie)
9. ubistvo s predumisljajem (selenic)
10. ohota na ovets (murakami)

and i have a huge pile in front of me waiting to be read.....

cops on the tube

so yesterday there was a racial incident on the victoria line. a hasidic jew got on at seven sisters, sat down, and started reading the economist. the doors of the tube shut and suddenly a guy appears and starts shouting "hey jew, they should have put you in an oven...." and he then went on to say that he loves palestine with all his heart, they are his brothers, zionists are agents of the devil, and so on. his speach no doubt would have got more detailed, but there was no time. out of the blue, a well- dressed man in a suit and tie, who had been sitting accross from the jew and reading a paper, popped up, opened his coat to reveal that he was armed, and waved his police badge. he said simply "i am a member of the police and if you do not stop abusing that men, you will be arrested." the guy paused for a second, and the whole train stopped to watch him. then (guess he wasnt too bright) he started yelling at the police officer and saying all kinds of crazy things to him. consequently, he did get himself arrested and escorted off as we rolled into finsbury park.
they have been claiming for some time (since the bombings) that there are undercover cops working on the tube. i always assumed that this was just propaganda, but it seems sometimes it is in fact the case! the cop was well dressed, but his words didnt match his suit, he had the accent of a tough london guy, which left a bizarre split image in my mind. wierd.

ways to annoy a book seller!

Here are some phrases guaranteed to annoy a person who works in a bookshop. So the next time you go to buy a book somewhere, don’t even think about saying them! Erase them completely from your vocabulary. (I have been ill, but went into work, cranky, yesterday)

1. I am looking for a book, but I don’t remember the author or the title……(so what am I supposed to do? Do I look psychic?)
2. Where are the toilets? (I get this about 10 times per hours, despite well marked signs all over the place)
3. how do I get to harrods/ 10 downing street/ Buckingham palace? (no, a bookshop is not the same as a tourist bureau, how do people manage to confuse the two?)
4. where are your dvds? (I work in a BOOK shop)
5. how does the 3 for 2 work? (ok, if you ask once it is ok, but some people just don’t get it and think that you need to buy three copies of the same title. Mind you, there are huge signs explaining this, but it seems some people just have brains)
6. nice t-shirt (no, it isn’t, and you damn well know that!)
7. why isn’t XXX on the shelf? It is a bestseller! (I have no clue why people come in and insist a certain book is a best seller. Trust me, I can see our best seller list on my computer, and those of our competitors, and if my computer tells me that the book has sold zero copies at any branch in the country in the past 8 months, really, it IS NOT a bestseller)
8. Why don’t you have the paperback edition of XXX? My wife bought it at your shop in New york/ Amsterdam/ Heathrow airport. (it is simple: when the paper back comes out, the hardback gets taken off the shelf and sent back to the publisher. Yes, sometimes some books come out in paperback in special airport editions earlier, or the come out in different countries. That is because different countries are DIFFERENT. I don’t expect every customer to know about the shipping back rules, but why do they stubbornly insist that something is out in paperback when IT IS NOT!)
9. but your branch at XXX said you have 1 copy! (sometimes our computer says we have a book and we don’t. there is no point in getting irate about this. I promise I am not trying to hide the thing from you. Normally what this means is the thing got nicked. There is not much I can do about that!)
10. can you go to your other shop and get me a copy of XXX? I have a plane to catch in 2 hours! (what do I look like a dog? I cant just go out of the shop to another part of the city to fetch a book!)
11. this is probably too complex for you but….(don’t be patronizing to book sellers! Every single one of us at my branch has a university degree, and most are doing masters. Actually, I think at least half the staff is made up of MA students!
12. when does the offer end? Really you can tell me….(if I am not telling you when it ends, it is because I DON’T KNOW, not because I am trying to help my company’s sales. These things are decided by guys at the central office. So don’t wink or nudge me, it wont help)

Sorry for the ranting, but these have been bothering me for some time now!!! So the next time you go to your favourite book shop, please be polite to your bookseller! If you are looking for a book, know at least the title or the author, but preferably the ISBN, and don’t be offended if the thing is not there! It is not the booksellers fault!)

sleeepp

i cant get out of bed. i have no energy

groan

i wasnt feeling well yesterday when i woke up. i had had a late night the evening before, trying to write the acknowledgements for my book (which is apparently off to press on monday) and i had some uni-related stuff as well. so i woke up with a headache and a sore throat. but this would have been fine had it not been for the postman. he came to deliver a package for our neighbours, an enormous package apparently filled with food from someones mother back in italy. the package was large and heavy, and i had difficulty grabbing onto it, so razvan came out to help me with it. and of course, at that moment there was a huge gust of wind which slammed the door shut, leaving razvan and i on the street. he was in jeans and socks, i had on my pyjamas. we spent the next few hours trying to think of ways to get in. the fire brigade doesnt deal with these things, we established, and neither do the police. the neighbours in the tyre shop suggest we try to break the door down, but neither of us was strong enough for that. next we tried unscrewing all the bolts in the door frame with the hope of being able to get to the lock that way. no luck. finnally a lady came from the council who had the number of someone who had the number of our landlady. but the landlady said she was 2 hours away....all of this and i had to go to work! in the end, i borrowed a leather jacket and dodgy trainers and some trousers from the italiand (who eventually showed up) and ran to work like that.....and now i feel like crap. i went to the doctor this morning who diagnosed an infected throat. rrrrrrrrr....