I started a new job today here in London, a modest one, with a matching salary. It is as a market researcher at Investoraccess, a trade publisher for the private equity industry. I am pleased. It will get me out of bed and will pay the bills, almost.
The people there are nice. Unfortunately, there isn't a shower. I had been hoping there would be as I was planning to cycle but get very warm cycling and could have done with a shower. I will give it a try, will rub myself down in the gents and see if that cools me enough.
Old habits die hard and so do joys. In writing this, I am returning to an old rhythm and pleasure. I used to work in financial publishing in London, as a journalist (1986-1997). I would return home in the evening, cook my dinner then settle down to write for a few hours. That is what I have done this evening. I wrote on art then and, later, on my thesis subject which had in part to do with art. I don't know what I will write on now. I am writing this, and that is a start. If I get the same rhythm going again, come home, eat and write and find pleasure in writing, subjects will come to me, I believe.
I am back in an old place in myself, but it is also a new place, and I like it here where the old and the new threaten to dance together.
Two things I noticed about work today. The hours are long, and people work harder in this industry than I remember them doing. At 5.15, everyone was still working. I was puzzled. I had looked rapidly at home last week at the draft contract of employment that David H. had sent me and had noticed that there was a hour for lunch. If work begins at 9, I thought as I looked around at my colleagues at 5.15, and if there is an hour for lunch, then at least some people should be gone by now. I have looked at the contract again this evening. Hours of work are 9 to 6. The lunch hour is not included. Then it was. But that was 1997 and this is 2006.
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