now the contract for my flat does clearly say "no pets." however they gave us this updated contract AFTER we had paid our non refundable security deposit of several hundred pounds, and there was no way i was going to loose that money, so i just decided to keep qite about the cat a move in anyway. but then friday the landlord announced he would visit the next day (saturday). i paniced. then i called max and pleaded with him to take the beast for the day. he agreed, albeit not to happily, especially as i had to bring the cat over at 7:45 am, before work.
i dropped the cat off, made her a fresh litter box, and filled her bowls with water and her favourite soft food. i gave her half a tin of soft food cause i figured she would be a bit traumatised and not that hungry. but i put the other half on the tin in the fridge, and told max he could give it to her if she finished the first half.
max and his girlfriend lika went out to run some errands during the day....and when they came back, daria, one of max's flatmates and a sweet peasant girl from poland, complemented him on his good taste in buying...pate! max asked her nervously which pate she was referring to, and sure enough, it was the cat food. daria had apparently spread it on toast.
max and lika decided not to say anything....
30.9.07
20.9.07
the book killer
i have been doing a lot of overtime lately, specifically i have been doing "returns." when i have tried to explain to my friends what this means, they have all looked utterly horrified, so i thought i would explain the bad new publically.
the thing is, alot, maybe even the majority of books published every year in the uk end up being destroyed. yes, that is right, they get pulped.
the reason is that too many works are published every year and the publishers print runs which are too large for the demand, on the hopes that whatever book they just printed will actually sell. a book shop (at least the big chains) only pay for the books they sell, the rest are just sitting on the shelf, either waiting to be sold, or taking up space that could be occupied by a book with better chances of selling. and since all those books in the shop are technically not paid for by the shop, they can be sent back to the publisher, and this is often what happens. some publishers only ask for part of the book back (the cover with barcode normally) then the actual inside we toss in the bin. seriously.
so for example, when a book is on offer (like 3 for 2) we order lots of copies since whatever is on that offer has a good chance of selling (since the british public tends to buy whatever is put in front of them, on offer). when the book stops being on offer (which at some point is inevitable) it generally stops selling, leaving us with some 25 copies when we only need 2. the the 23 extras get pulped.
so my job is partly to walk around the shop and find those books that arent selling and send them off to their fate. this is actually a terrible task that no book lover should want to do, but i have to admit i sort of enjoy it. it is a bit like a puzzle or a treasure hunt. many of the ones marked for return have been on the shelves for years with out moving and are often misplaced, so finding them can be quite a complex procedure. it is amazing though, when i am hunting for returns, the time flies by.
the thing is, alot, maybe even the majority of books published every year in the uk end up being destroyed. yes, that is right, they get pulped.
the reason is that too many works are published every year and the publishers print runs which are too large for the demand, on the hopes that whatever book they just printed will actually sell. a book shop (at least the big chains) only pay for the books they sell, the rest are just sitting on the shelf, either waiting to be sold, or taking up space that could be occupied by a book with better chances of selling. and since all those books in the shop are technically not paid for by the shop, they can be sent back to the publisher, and this is often what happens. some publishers only ask for part of the book back (the cover with barcode normally) then the actual inside we toss in the bin. seriously.
so for example, when a book is on offer (like 3 for 2) we order lots of copies since whatever is on that offer has a good chance of selling (since the british public tends to buy whatever is put in front of them, on offer). when the book stops being on offer (which at some point is inevitable) it generally stops selling, leaving us with some 25 copies when we only need 2. the the 23 extras get pulped.
so my job is partly to walk around the shop and find those books that arent selling and send them off to their fate. this is actually a terrible task that no book lover should want to do, but i have to admit i sort of enjoy it. it is a bit like a puzzle or a treasure hunt. many of the ones marked for return have been on the shelves for years with out moving and are often misplaced, so finding them can be quite a complex procedure. it is amazing though, when i am hunting for returns, the time flies by.
15.9.07
the beach
i first bought the beach (the novel, by alex garland) around the time it came out. i was around 18 at the time, and i completely identified with richard, the hero. like him, i spent a lot of my teens travelling to odd destinations, derooting myself from all people and places. richards pull is south east asia, mine was more south america, but as in his case, there were times where i got myself so lost in oblivion i wasnt sure where i was or what i was doing there, and there were sinister people and dark moments that punctured the "holiday"in technicaly sunny places. i use "holiday"in brackets since that is not really what it ever was in my case, unlike in richard's.
i remember buying the beach while passing through heathrow airport in transit, probably between moscow and montreal, the places where i was supposed to be living in those days. that was about 10 years ago, before domodedovo opened. back then, british airways still flew out of sheremetevo II, and they had this wierd schedule if you were trying to get to north america. you left moscow in the early evening, arrived in london in the early evening (thanks to the time difference), spent the night in a dodgy hotel attached to the airport (which you couldnt leave, as you hadnt gone throught british border control, which i suppose explains the barbed wire i dont think i imagined seeing). then the next morning a hotel alarm woke you and you went back to terminal 4 to continue on to canada. i was always grateful i got off in montreal. once that plane reached the western hemisphere, it became something like a bus in the sky, stopping at carious canadian cities along the way. after montreal was toronto, and i forget what came next. so i bought the beach at one of those airport bookshops (wh smith? waterstones?) and took it with me to the airport hotel to pass the time. i remeber ready it over the cheap "continental"breakfast we were given for lunch. it lasted me until dorval airport, and i was pleased.
after that, the film came out. i went to see it and was totally disappointed, that film really sucked despite having an all star cast. maybe the book just cant be adapted to film, although i blame the bad script. the film mixed my memories, and i forgot about the book.
but the book hasnt gone away, it is still a big sucess in the publishing industry, i know that now. when all the booksellers in my company were asked to choose their top books of the past 25 years, it made it easily into the top 25, alongside gabriel garcia marquez and margaret atwood. then recently penguin (the publisher) decided to realise a special edition series of books commemorating their anniversary (i forget which one...75 maybe?). the choose 36 titles and republished them in the original old-school format. and of all the "significant"works of the better part of the past century, they choose the beach. and then nostalgia overwealmed me and i had a sudden desire to see if 10 years later the book still impresses me as it did, or if it was just part of my teenage phase.
but no, the book is amazing...to me at least. i could see why someone else wouldnt like it, but i again read it nearly in one night.
and now i will put it one my shelf, maybe for another 10 years...we shall see.
i remember buying the beach while passing through heathrow airport in transit, probably between moscow and montreal, the places where i was supposed to be living in those days. that was about 10 years ago, before domodedovo opened. back then, british airways still flew out of sheremetevo II, and they had this wierd schedule if you were trying to get to north america. you left moscow in the early evening, arrived in london in the early evening (thanks to the time difference), spent the night in a dodgy hotel attached to the airport (which you couldnt leave, as you hadnt gone throught british border control, which i suppose explains the barbed wire i dont think i imagined seeing). then the next morning a hotel alarm woke you and you went back to terminal 4 to continue on to canada. i was always grateful i got off in montreal. once that plane reached the western hemisphere, it became something like a bus in the sky, stopping at carious canadian cities along the way. after montreal was toronto, and i forget what came next. so i bought the beach at one of those airport bookshops (wh smith? waterstones?) and took it with me to the airport hotel to pass the time. i remeber ready it over the cheap "continental"breakfast we were given for lunch. it lasted me until dorval airport, and i was pleased.
after that, the film came out. i went to see it and was totally disappointed, that film really sucked despite having an all star cast. maybe the book just cant be adapted to film, although i blame the bad script. the film mixed my memories, and i forgot about the book.
but the book hasnt gone away, it is still a big sucess in the publishing industry, i know that now. when all the booksellers in my company were asked to choose their top books of the past 25 years, it made it easily into the top 25, alongside gabriel garcia marquez and margaret atwood. then recently penguin (the publisher) decided to realise a special edition series of books commemorating their anniversary (i forget which one...75 maybe?). the choose 36 titles and republished them in the original old-school format. and of all the "significant"works of the better part of the past century, they choose the beach. and then nostalgia overwealmed me and i had a sudden desire to see if 10 years later the book still impresses me as it did, or if it was just part of my teenage phase.
but no, the book is amazing...to me at least. i could see why someone else wouldnt like it, but i again read it nearly in one night.
and now i will put it one my shelf, maybe for another 10 years...we shall see.
13.9.07
guests
jeremy showed up in london. i hadnt seen the guy in nearly 4 years. it is really amazing how time flies. he is here for a few days only and making the most of it. so even though i am in the painful process of editing my latest chapter, i dumped my studies and went off to play tourist. actually that is something i definately dont do enough. i dont feel i know enough of london for the amount of time i have now spent here. and event the places that i do know change so much that i would have to keep going to them regularly to really stay on top of things. the museums do a great job changing around exhibits all the time, so everytime i set foot in, say, tate modern, the place looks totally different.
today jeremy and i did the british museum and the national portrait gallery. i use the word "did'" but actually it is impossible to do justice to those places. they are both so massive and hold so many collections that my mind starts spinning after a few hours nad i cant take things in any longer. but i wanted jeremy to at least see what is here in london. i feel obliged to do touristic justice to whatever city i am living in.
and actually, despite all its enormous problems, london is a good city for tourists. living here it is easy to forget that, and i need the odd visitor from time to time to remind me. the state museums are excellent and free. you can wander in, have a look and leave without feeling you have to see everything and get your money's worth, which is exactly how i feel everytime i go to anything in paris, for example. there are loads of parks and the centre of the city is pretty walkable. plus the natives are fairly benevolent. it is not like moscow where the police see a tourist and immediately dollar signs ring up in their eyeballs. so i enjoy the occasional touristic run of london. i think i need to do it more.
today jeremy and i did the british museum and the national portrait gallery. i use the word "did'" but actually it is impossible to do justice to those places. they are both so massive and hold so many collections that my mind starts spinning after a few hours nad i cant take things in any longer. but i wanted jeremy to at least see what is here in london. i feel obliged to do touristic justice to whatever city i am living in.
and actually, despite all its enormous problems, london is a good city for tourists. living here it is easy to forget that, and i need the odd visitor from time to time to remind me. the state museums are excellent and free. you can wander in, have a look and leave without feeling you have to see everything and get your money's worth, which is exactly how i feel everytime i go to anything in paris, for example. there are loads of parks and the centre of the city is pretty walkable. plus the natives are fairly benevolent. it is not like moscow where the police see a tourist and immediately dollar signs ring up in their eyeballs. so i enjoy the occasional touristic run of london. i think i need to do it more.
5.9.07
at the travel agents
i walked into my regular travel agent today. they already think i am crazy, but i am used to that.
"hello, i am going on a strange trip and i need a ticket, but it is kind of wierd and i dont know if you can do it."
the woman looked at me slightly patronizingly and asked what the ticket was. when i told her i wanted a mercosur air pass to get me to chile via paraguay and that i would be making my way to rio via the falklands...she asked me to come back the next day, as apparently she needed to speak to a manager.
i am looking forward to this latest strange plot in my head. my dad and i are going off on this odd trek together, and he has already got his maps out and is pouring through his old spanish grammar books. that is what i like most about travel actually: planning it and preparing for it is half the fun.
"hello, i am going on a strange trip and i need a ticket, but it is kind of wierd and i dont know if you can do it."
the woman looked at me slightly patronizingly and asked what the ticket was. when i told her i wanted a mercosur air pass to get me to chile via paraguay and that i would be making my way to rio via the falklands...she asked me to come back the next day, as apparently she needed to speak to a manager.
i am looking forward to this latest strange plot in my head. my dad and i are going off on this odd trek together, and he has already got his maps out and is pouring through his old spanish grammar books. that is what i like most about travel actually: planning it and preparing for it is half the fun.
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