A long lunch at Squid Row

Yesterday. Top of Symonds Street in Auckland, a former post office: a good place for conviviality.
 

Present: Chris Bell, Mark Broatch, Peter Grace, Jonathan King, Paul Litterick, Rob O’Neill, Chad Taylor, and me. 

Topics: the Film Commission (Chad, Jonathan); the Frankfurt Book Fair (Chad, me); how our e-books are selling (Chad, Chris); the point of e-books (all of us); the state of our friends’ PhDs (Paul, me); praise for Kelly Ana Morey (Paul) who was the most disruptive student one of us had ever had (me); how hard it is to be a freelancer with the spikes and dips in income, mostly dips (seven of us); how the man on the land has never been the typical New Zealander because this has always been an urbanised society (all of us, led by Jonathan); and at the end it was me and Peter talking about bookshelves.

It was striking that here were eight middle-aged men – educated, professional even if only media/arts – and just one of us has a steady job. Then again, he works for Fairfax so will have a Plan B. And because he is smart, Plans C, D and E.