Coastalblog

You'd think I'd have learnt by now, wouldn't you. I've had a decade of things looking exceedingly bleak and then turning around rapidly. So it shouldn't come as a shock to me when it occurs. Only last week I was fretting over whether or not I could afford a variety of things, particularly with a large loan sat in my bank account like a big fat frog of potential disastrous debt. I was also swearing a lot at my new phone and it's irritatingly teenage interface (no, I have no desire to have big brother chat with like minded teens. I'm 29. And grumpy. I wish simply to MAKE AND ANSWER PHONE CALLS. No I do not wish to download that song where that gramatically-challenged bint bangs on about finding a place where she can boogie because "I needs me to party" and "I'm up in the party" and then have it as my bastard ring-tone. Parties are rubbish. I wish simply to MAKE AND ANSWER PHONE CALLS).

Presto chango, I'm offered another lecture this semester, increasing my income for the next few months by a third. Moving me instantly from hunting for coins to sitting back and drinking Sancerre on a gold cushion. Just like that. As an added bonus, I found my old phone. Hurrah!

So should this post have any point beyond me gormlessly waving my good fortune around it is this: crikey, things can't half change quickly. A tedious homespun homily for us all there, I think.

So I was reading an article about how golly gosh Lee Evans is appearing in proper theatre rather than just that Norman Wisdom thing he does that the proles like and goodness me he's actually quite good even though he lives in Essex (Evan's being marvellous is no news to those of us who've seen the little known British film Funny Bones, I won't go on about its wonderfulness but you really ought to see it, should you get the chance). And whilst I snorted at the notion of his ability coming as a surprise to anyone (he's done Becket for god's sake) I got to thinking about the little ways we define ourselves.

Ever since I was a small child I wanted to be a writer. Well, actually I wanted to be a footballer but due to my staggering physical ineptitude from a very young age I was fully cognisant that this wasn't going to happen, being last picked every single lunchtime will soon drive those dreams of Wembley right out of your head. For a brief period in my teens I thought being a musician was definitely the way forward, again the grim realisation of a complete lack of ability kiboshed that (though I do still occasionally hack at a guitar when I'm sure everyone's out of the house. I look forward to embarrassing my kids with off key renditions of Smells Like Teen Spirit in about twenty-five years time. You know, when they bring their prospective spouses round for tea). I was always pretty convinced that I'd end up as a writer, and I am, of sorts. Even the lecturing I do isn't a complete surprise.

That I might end up as a chef never occurred to me once; that I might wind up being a businessman is an idea the absurdity of which would have had me hooting with derisive laughter. Then again, the idea that I might have been married in my twenties would probably have elicited a similar response. But still, turns for the odd, one and all. Lee Evans would be proud.

One would imagine that in posting to a weblog there is a pact between writer and (potential) audience that there will be engaging content. Clearly there is only any point in posting when you have something interesting to say.

This imperative, sadly, is outweighed by the feelings of guilt at having a blog and not posting to it for a while.

So if we have a given value of g (for guilt) and divide it by a given value of of p (for potential interest engendered within the breast of the long-suffering reader) then crucially we still don't have anything that will stand up in court.

Sigh. I was arguing about OuLiPo over on I Love Books and it reminded me of the time I used to regularly read vaguely highbrow stuff...

Okay, that's slightly misleading. I've got Harry Mathews, Slavoj Zizek and the new Pynchon on my reading pile at the moment. I still find time to read, just as I still somehow fnd time to write. Just not enough. But when I'm lying in bed at the end of a bone-shattering night then my brain is a little too fried to cope with it.

Your friend, at this juncture, is genre fiction. Specifically (for me) crime fiction. Fantasy and sci-fi have their adherents (and I'm partial to a spot of Iain Banks from time to time) but really, when I just want to relax and I'm not up to anything overly taxing, you can't beat a brutal murder or nine. Which is why I, seventeen years late, am catching up on Ian Rankin's Rebus novels. And they're great, the prose can be a little clunky, and the use of ellipses somewhat baffling, but the character himself is so compelling that it takes me back to being a kid reading Dragonlance novels and rooting for the good guys; cleverly, Rebus is self-destructive and bloody-minded enough to engage the cynical adult alongside the enthusiastic kid (mind you, so was Raistlin).

The great thing about coming so late to the party is that I'm reading and enjoying them in the knowledge that there's a vast tranche of work out there that I've not seen yet. It's like knowng that there's a great big bar of Green and Black's in the cupboard. And with that sentence I acknowledge that this is the single most middle class post I've ever written, but such is life.

Two recent visitors have got here via google searches for "Lynx advert and culture", and, even more entertainingly "Kingmaker shirt" for which i am proud to note that I am number ONE on google. Higher than Kingmaker themselves. In your face early nineties indie!

Even more entertainingly the tories have scrambled to hail some page three girl or other as an "Environmental heroine" after she posed with her tits painted green. Yes, to highlight green issues. In your face Al Gore. I'd make a joke but they practically write themselves.

Those of you who know me will hve a pretty good idea as to why posts have been non-existent recently. Suffice it to say screaming hot pans, knives, hordes of drunks, tinsel. It wasn't fun. And let that be an end to it.

But whilst on the subject of catering I am given to understand that the french restaurant industry is in crisis, with restaurants closing at a rate of knots. Furthermore on the subject of catering I was recently harangued by a drunk guy who, when he discovered I was a chef decided to blame me for the high prices he'd recently been charged at another establishment, spitting slightly in my face as he made his point. I wonder if there were some way I could link these two pieces of information together?

Why, of course!

The french restaurant industry has been struggling for a while now. Some blame the overbearing hegemonic pressure of Monsieur Michelin, others the insidious influence of Le Big Mac. Those with half an eye on the glossy food supplements may opine that it is due to the rise of those dynamic Spaniards, attacking the French in a devastating pincer movement of tapas style eating on one flank and the dazzling technique of Adria and Arzak on the other.

All wrong. Dead wrong. The French restaurant industry is collpasing purely and simply because of France's enlightened labour laws, you know the ones, shedloads of holiday? 35 hours per week max? Dear me. There's just no way.

You see, as my drunken amigo of a few nights back failed to understand, restaurants don't make much money. The only ones making any money are the owner and the head chef; if the head chef is the owner then the sous might find himself on a decent whack, and the only way they are making any money, bearing in mind that they have chefs, kitchen porters, managers, bar staff and waiting on staff to pay is to pay them very little. For very long hours.

We dream of a 35 hour week, but in our heart of hearts we know it's not doable. 45 hours is a gentle week, 50-55 significantly nearer the mark for the full timers. I'm lucky, I work part time due to my lecturing. I only put in forty odd.

35 hours a week! If we were on that then you could add a tenner a head to the price of your meal straight off. Restaurants are staff-heavy. To put it into context we did forty covers tonight, fairly typical for a quiet january evening in a small bistro. Three chefs, one kitchen porter, a barman and two waitresses. That's seven staff, or more accurately, one for every 5.71 customers. On a Saturday night , when t's all kicking off there'll be eleven serving staff, six of us in the kitchen and two lads washing up. 19 staff for 140 customers or 1 for every 7.36 customers, given a rough figure of twenty pounds a head it takes one and a half customers to pay a waitresses wage for the evening, nearer two for the chefs. So on a saturday that's thirty one of the customers meals paying for wages alone. This is before we account for stock, rates etc etc.

Now, if we were to luxuriate in a 35 hour week we'd need to hire another three chefs to cover the total hours worked, or, in terms of meals served another fifty of those customers would be wiped out. The margins narrow further. And we're on piss-poor money. God knows what it would be like if we were getting paid well. Bear it in mind next time you raise your eyebrows at six quid for a starter.