‘Papa! what’s money?’
Paul Dombey, Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens
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‘Despite money's protean nature, however, a lot of people persist in believing that it should stay much the same and are dismayed when it doesn't.’
‘Papa! what’s money?’
Paul Dombey, Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens
Sign in to Granta.com.
‘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.
Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranges from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He is the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviews regularly for the Sunday Times.
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‘Like all money, Bitcoin is valuable only to the degree that people believe in its value.’
Photography by Danny Franzreb, introduced by Atossa Araxia Abrahamian.
‘My Czech family’s house stands on a geopolitical rift: it occupies a place the political storms sweep through, uprooting everything that is settled.’
An essay by Anna Parker.
‘From a dish washer to an author who writes about washing dishes.’
Memoir by Ilija Matusko, translated by Jen Calleja.
‘He cleans. Cleans the sink, cleans the plughole, takes out the sink strainer and cleans the underside.’
Fiction by Valeria Gordeev, translated by Imogen Taylor.
‘Only from a distance does the observer understand the object that remained an enigma from close up.’
Fiction by Deniz Utlu, translated by Jackie Smith.
‘I had been living abroad for twelve years and I was gaun hame, maybe forever, maybe a month.‘
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