I‘ve been homesick all my life: I felt homesick growing up and I feel the same way now, not unhappy, not aggrieved, but never entirely at home either, not as people are in the world of Meet Me in St Louis or The Lavender Hill Mob. If being congenitally homesick is a modern condition then it’s on…
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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.
‘The world comes down on your head if you don’t tell people what they already believe to be true.’
Andrew O’Hagan on truth, journalism and fiction.
‘Human nature is not improved by concealment, especially when it comes to the past.’
A short story by Andrew O’Hagan.
‘A lot of journalism was in danger of becoming ‘celebrity writing’, in the sense that the writer and his conscience could become the story.’
‘The men were quiet. They said nothing for a minute and the sea at my back was calm and almost imaginary, but you could hear the waves coming to wash the chalk cliffs from under us.’
‘Every time I drink a glass of claret it goes straight to my face.’
‘Your problem is not that you misread signs; it’s that you see them everywhere.’
