‘I remembered the freezer from when we were kids. It had been important to us then, the site of many shameful boyish deeds.’
When I arrived at my parents’ house, on one of my occasional visits, I could tell straightaway that something bad had happened. There was a shifty moment before they told me–it was death, of course, and close to home. The father of one of my old friends had fallen down in his bathroom, and never…
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘When work is at mealtime, when is mealtime?’
Rebecca May Johnson on waitressing, hunger and eating at work.
‘What does that mean, vegan cheese? asks a lady who’d had no query about amuse-bouche.’
An extract from The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes.
‘it’s wrong / to let delicacies, even when suspect, go untried’
A poem by Natalie Shapero.
‘“Dolphin safe” labels on our tins are reckoned among marine scientists to mean next to nothing.’
Katherine Rundell on tuna and extinction speculation.
‘The recipe is a text that can produce spattering because it was spattering before it was language.’
Rebecca May Johnson on recipes, repetition and intimacy.
‘He chewed on the syllables until they sounded the way they did in movies.’
