the view from behind the till

working in one of london, which i suppose means one of england's, major book shops, i get to meet a lot of famous writers. they come in to sign their books and give talks. some of them are really nice and some of them are utterly vile.
so here is some advice: if any of you ever become a famous writer, be nice to your booksellers. we are the people who decide where your book goes in the shop!!!! this might not seem important, but it is: the british reading public is pretty stupid, they buy what is put face out, in the front of shop, at eye level. this might seem absurd, but it is true. i have conducted experiments. if you take a book that is just filed under ordinary fiction A-Z, and bring it to the front of the shop, and put it face out so every one can see the cover, the sales will instantly go up by about 4 times. if you put on some sticker that says "3 for 2" or "3£ off" the sales will go up by about 5 times, and if you put a sticker proclaiming it book of the week, you will sell several hundred copies for sure.
and booksellers are only human, so if you come in an behave like and idiot, why are we going to want to put your book in a prime place????? it is simple: if you are an average range writer, and an ass, we wont promote your book, and it just wont sell.there was an incredibly obnoixous writer who came in last week to sign her book (which as far as i could tell, was about the troubles of women getting aid.....let her speak for herself!) she was rude to the whole staff, and treated us like serfs. she signed the books, left, and we promptly removed them from the front of shop table, banishing them to the section from where they wll sell one copy a week, at best. the reverse is also true. today, a young writer named Mike Stocks came in to sign his books. he was very nice and polite (ie: he queued liked a normal human being instead of pushing to the front shrieking that everyone should know who he is). he chatted with me politely, he asked me if i was a student, and what i studied. he even gave me a free copy of the book, signed in my name. when he left i moved his books to the front of the table. they should sell a bit more from there. i wish him the best, and i will read his book. if it is decent i will recomend it the next time a customer says "uh, i need one more book from the 3for2 table, what do you suggest?"
sometimes the writers dont come to sign, but just to enquire on sales. this is more rare, but it does happen. Michel Holman does this alot. he never even says he is the writer, but i recognise him by now. he is polite enough, so i am happy to provide him with the information. often the guys wo are not writing best sellers are more tolerable than the super stars, but that is not always the case. i had a writer of an average selling first novel come in the other day with his "PA" and behave like a self important twat, whereas donna leon (a massively successful crime writer) was perfectly pleasant, so there doenst seem to be a direct correlation between fame and success. or maybe there is: the nicer you are to your booksellers, the more inclined we will be to promote you and the more successdul you will be!

the latest

me: what happened while i was gone?
dragana: a woman found a bug on her book in Humanities 1, and she stood up and started screaming.
me: anything else?
dragana: no

budapest

i love budapest. i often regret the day i had to leave this place and i am always nostalgic whenever i find myself back here. or even when, elsewhere in some other city, i find myself hearing hungarian or seeing images of buda.
the weekend was a bit hectic. there was a three day conference with over 65 guys from all around europe talking about different topics. i met a lot of really interesting people, some of whom i hope to run into later at future events. we had free breakfasts and lunches everyday and i took advantage of the moment to eat like a pig. then the last night, when we were all exhausted but happy, we went to szechenyi baths. it was great: 9 of us relaxing in hot thermal bath water as the sun went down, brainless and fun.
whenever i come back here, it is easy to slide back into my old buda routine, in particular as many of my friends never actually left it. and so yesterday i got up and trotted of to the university. met with one of my old professors and then settled in the library for a good 10 hours. but it was not an uninteruppted stint. periodically people would come by and ask to go for a chat....then i had lunch with gabor, kati, domogoj and ana, later a coffee with camelia, another with viktor, then vlado. finnally, the evening ended in a caffee with marci and masyamba..the weather was perfect and we sat outside, drinking nice hungarian wine.the perfect holiday...

the world is indeed small

i never forget peoples faces. the names go easily in and out of my head, but peoples faces stick there even when i dont want them to.
i welcomed in the new year 2003 at some odd party in zagreb. it was a dress up affair that involved spending a whole day on hair and make up. not really my thing, but i can put my self through such efforts from time to time. the party was fun. the weather was incredible, around 14 degrees, which seemed tropical after moscow. i hung around zagreb for a few days afterwards before heading off to budapest to hand in my applicaiton for ceu. (from there i caught an aeroflot flight back to moscow, arriving in the middle of the night, with the pilot informing us it was minus 30)
my friends zeljka and hrvoje helped me to zagreb train station as i was leaving. i stood in the doorway of the train and we made some jokes as we waited for the whistle to blow. next to us was a couple: a croatian boy and a hungarian girl who were saying lengthy goodbyes in english. i got on the train and ended up sitting next to the girl. we chatted a little bit, and it turned out she was a ceu student. she told me where to go to hand in my application and suggested a hotel where to spend the night. i took her up on the suggestion, turned in all the documents, and did not think about the train ride again, until yesterday when i found myself sitting at a dinner table next to this very same couple.
lovro and i ended up on the same panel at the conference i was attending. i thought he looked familiar but i couldnt think why. then after the conference we went for lunch with a group of others. his girlfriend dora came to join us, and it was then, when i saw the two of them that i remembered the couple from zagreb station 4.5 years ago. i asked them if they had spent new years in zagreb then....and then dora remembered me from the train. it was really odd.
the world is indeed small, frighteningly so

again, belgrade

it has been 5 years ow that masyamba and i have been coming together to this city, which i suppose makes it some sort of tradition.
we inevitably end up in the same places:plato, the book shops, narodna biblioteka etc..
and so we have spent the past several days, following a well established pattern of people and places.
i am always happy to be here (even if my stomach normally is not, to say nothing about my poor suffering liver) it is sort of like a mini moscow with better weather.
yesterday we woke up late, walked around various book shops, spent hours drinking coffee and then wine in various outdoor cafes, and enjoyed the sun. today we went to the institute of contemportary history (also a regular stop on out route) the the library....
sometimes it is good to have traditions....

updates

i havent written very much rescently. things have been hectic. i had been finishing my paper that i have to present at a conference in budapest.
which is actually where i am now. i spent some quality time at my least favourite london airport (luton) before getting a place this afternoon to buda. everytime i come here i realise just how much i miss the place. the year i spent here was the best of my life, and i still regret the day i left. maybe i always will.
but the travels dont stop here, at least not for now. in one hour masyamba and i are taking the night train to serbia, where we will arrive at an ungodly 6:30 am. provided the train is on time, which is unlikely.....when were serbian trains EVER on time?

on my readership

today was uneventful. it was a bank holiday in england, and i volunteered to work the full day, in order to get the double pay on offer. it proved to be a good idea, there were no big bosses around, and hardly any customers. so i stood behind the till and chatted with my collegues most of the time, and made about 125 pounds in the process. it is just a pity every day isnt like that!
then i cme home and happened to check my readership of this blog. for the first time ever, i found i had a reader on every continent, and in an odd variety of places. specifically: argentina, canada, australia, quatar, thailand, india, japan, kenya, morocco, russia, hungary, romania, serbia, portugal, france, germany and england.
ok, admitedly, i appear to have no fans in antartica, but i think that would just be too much to hope for.
thanks guys!

now i think i should get back to work...

mind, body, spirit

yesterday i was sent to cover the mind, body and spirit section of the shop. this is like the freak centre. i had worked there once befroe, several months ago, but in the meantime i had blocked from my mind just how strange the customers who go there are. this is the area where we stick all the strange books: self help, witchcraft, angels, talking to the dead, crystals, devil worship, and religion. within an hour of starting to shelve there, a man came in, sat down and started meditating in a corner. several witches were next, followed by a bag lady with snot running out of her nose. a freak show, in other words. but the real excitedment of the day came a few hours later when my boss came over and whispered we had a psycho slav in the art section. he asked me to go stand nearby and translate. i dont know if the guy was polish, ukrainian or russian, but i suspect ukrainian. he speach was slurred, which is what polish sounds like to me anyway. he kept repeating a litany of slavonic swear words, and screaming into space. sometimes he would fall on the ground, and make very odd faces. my boss called the police. the police came and used my testimony to arrest the guy ( it is asbosable to swear in public, but not to be just freaklike) and they took the guy away, presumably to test him to see what drugs he was on.
i was dissapointed the excitement was over, that meant i had to go back to m,b,s.

obituary

my computer died.
at one moment he simply stopped turning on. a black screen stared at me, responseless. i took him to the university computer centre, but they could do nothing. i took him to the brixton boys at work who pride themselves on being able to make ANYTHING jump start, but even they had no luck.
finnally, there was nothing left to do...other than buy a new one. sniff sniff
the past few weeks have sped by in a blur, with odd people popping into my life. guillermo came through london for a week, i hadnt seen him for ages. then thibault called last night to ask me for drinks: i havent seen the guy in two years, in what was a different life in a different country. then adam sent a text saying he is coming to london for the weekend, could i go for a drink?
everyone seems to be passing through london these day, definately not the time to be without a computer.