Delivering My First Paper at Literary London 2009

It is said that, ‘when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life’, and feel I must state that I am exhausted after the two-day conference, therefore curtailing Dr Johnson’s statement about the city’s appeal. Yesterday I delivered my first academic paper on eighteenth-century London literature. It was to a floor of academics, proffessors, and PhD students from all across the world (literally) who had come to the Literary London conference held this year at Queen Mary University in order to deliver their own papers, and to hear others.

Of course, I was the only MA student who was at the conference, so I felt incredibly overwhelmed, and out of my depth to start with. On the first half of the first day, therefore, I only observed, and didn’t ask any questions. As Thursday progressed, however, I came to realise that as these lecturers and professors were just as enthusiastic, and just as excited about London as I was, and discussing my ideas with them not only gave me new ideas, but caused me to realise that age-old realisation that every academic comes to at an early part of their career: I was not alone in my field. I therefore began to engage with them more, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. It was so fun, and engaging. All of the lectures were like the best lectures you would have attended during your undergraduate years. Truly inspiring, and I extrapolated lots and lots of ideas for my work-there is a lot of eighteenth-century material I had not known about prior to the past two days. Was so refreshing to hear about London in such diverse, and new ways. Very refreshing.

As much as the conference was enjoyable, having heard a number of speakers deliver their respective papers, I must admit that as Friday drew near, I began to dread giving my own paper more and more. I fully prepared myself, preparing a slide-show, and a handout. Having prepared myself, I went into the Arts lecture theatre to deliver my paper. It went very well, Proffessor Markman Ellis stayed to hear my deliverance, which was very nice of him-considering that he had already read my paper twice! Having Markman there made it all the more exciting to be delivering a paper in such a monumental lecture theatre, commanding a space which had been inhabited by the likes of Anne Janowitz, David Colclough, and other such QM lecturers and professors. The slide worked well, as did the handout, and the questions I was asked in the Q and A session which followed were even more enjoyable to answer.

It was truly a monumental occasion. I had delivered a paper at the Royal Shakespeare Company on teaching Shakespeare prior to this, but I do not really consider that as having ‘delivered a paper’, because though it was on teaching, and was delivered to a floor of Shakespeare academics, it was not on the literature I wish to further research: 18th century London literature. I hope that regardless of where the ever-flowing tide of life takes me in the next two, or three years, it returns me to the shores of Queen Mary. Its where I feel I belong, where I wish to grow old and retire. As much as I love this city, QM is my ‘London’ in reference to Dr Johnson’s aforementioned statement regarding the city.

Gentlemen

I just discovered that 'gentry', is actually a shorter word for 'gentlemen'! Yes, it is not as if I discovered electricity, or Penecillin, but back off, I am a literature student! We don't save lives, we culture people, for without culture, there is no life.

The Perfumer's Touch!

It is said that if a person comes near a coal-man, the likelihood of going away with one’s clothes sullied in some way, was quite high, and that if a person goes near a perfumer, he would most probably come away with some sense of fragrance on him. This truly seems to be the case-even if one does have ideas of insubordination in mind.

I had met a lecturer for coffee in the British Library the other day (well, Expresso to be more precise), and decided I should take a walk in the city. I therefore walked to Oxford Street, to remind myself about the act around which my dissertation evolves; that of walking the street. During my walk, I heard a street-merchant selling his product at the top of his voice. In the eighteenth-century, such a phenomenon would not have seemed strange, nor would it have seemed to peculiar in the market stalls of London. It did, however, seem bizaare that the man was using such a method of advertising his goods in Oxford Street; bearing in mind that he was in the most famous high-street in London, I wondered why he felt the need to, and therefore took a closer look. He was a perfumer. Well, not just any perfumer, he was a prominent employee of The Perfume Shop in Oxford street, which was holding a ‘one day promotion.’ Being an avid fan of The Real Hustle, I thought to myself, ‘we are living in an economic crisis, how could The Perfume Shop, of all places, have a “one day spectacular?” Something was not right, and I therefore took it upon myself to warn the people not to fall for the scam which was about to ensue.

I quickly realised that anything I would have uttered was drowned out by the huge megaphone in the man’s hand, through which he was yelling, ‘£30 for 6 top quality perfumes! Only £30 for 6 top quality perfumes! That is £6 each, ladies and gents!’ The had gathered a small crowd, with 10 people waving £30 in the air. The con was, to all intents and purposes, most definitely on. Each of these people were given a bag, and told they would now receive their goods. So far, I remained a ‘man of the crowd’, to borrow a phrase from one of Edgar Allan Poe’s tales. I did not engage, and remained an intrigued spectator. I watched as the employee began to tell these 10 people how they had ‘bagged the deal of the century’, and would receive 6 perfumes for the price of just one of them: £30. He then bought out these ‘top quality perfumes’. Now, I grew up with aftershave, and can distinguish my Kourus, from my Calvin Klein. Its one of those things, and felt it my duty to finally engage in the spectacle occurring in front of me, rather than just remain a ‘spectator’. Making my silent apologies to Joseph Addison and Richard Steele (composers of 18th-Century periodicals The Spectator), I turned to the last of the 10 customers who had decided to part with £30. He was a young man, who thought (like the other 9 ‘marks’), he was getting a great ‘deal’. He told he so. I began to destroy the myth the employee of The Perfume Shop had created, telling him, ‘you know, these perfume bottles contain 5% perfume, and 95% water.’ Understandably, he did not believe me, and I did not expect him to. At this point, the shop’s employee with the megaphone picked up the first of the 6 perfumes and said, ‘Obsessive for men, I am giving you, for £6 each! Here you all go!’ He put one in each of the 10 people’s bags. I picked up a sample of this ‘Obsessive’. I took the hand of the man I had been talking to, and said, ‘here, smell that’, spraying a bit on his hand. He smelt it. ‘it smells brilliant.’ I instructed him further, ‘wait for two minutes, smell it again.’ He did: ‘the smell is gone.’ By this time, the man with the megaphone was telling everyone about ‘Beauty for women! £6 each, everyone gets one!’ He put one of these into the bag of each of the 10 people. I picked up the sample of this, and sprayed a bit on the man’s other hand: ‘here, wait two minutes and smell your hand again.’ He did: ‘its…gone…I think you were right.’ We did the same for each of the 6 perfumes, as each of the 10 people were handed out bottles containing what was clearly water, for the most part. The man grabbed everyone’s money (including the £30 the man I was talking to was holding), and yelled, ‘ok, sale over! Goodbye everyone!’

Then he looked at me, and pointed his finger. ‘You sir, don’t go ANYWHERE, we have something EXTRA-SPECIAL planned for you!!’ I seriously gulped. The employee had an entourage of two bulgy men, and thought, my game was up. He had obviously seen me informing the man of the ‘scam’, spraying the perfumes one-by-one on his hand, showing him how they contained water. Why had I been so self-righteous?’, I asked myself. I had not even been able to save these people from a scam, and now I was about to get a serious ass-kicking, from a very well-fragranced man, and his entourage! I thought, ‘ah well, at least I’ll go home bleeding, but smelling nice.’ The employee came towards me. I gulped once again. This is it, this is the end, I told myself. The employee, strangely, stuck out his hand. I hesitantly shook it-maybe this is how well-fragranced men begin fights, I told myself, but then he said, ‘thank you SO much for being our official sampler, I watched you spraying each of our 6 fragrances on that man’s hand with such enthusiasm, you really helped me make the sale today, your spraying attracted even more attention, we sold more than the 10 bags!’ Oh dear. ‘Here, this is especially for you.’ He gave me my gift: two batter-operated romantic candles, and these two desk-photo-holders for a husband and wife. Thanks so much again my man, you really helped today!’

I decided to cut my losses, and head off: ‘no problem’, I said backing off, ‘…anytime.’ I then got the next bus home, while trying to make sense of what had happened. He must have seen me talking to the man, spraying each of the 6 perfumes on his hand with enthusiasm and consistency, and talking some more, but had not heard what I had said due to his big megaphone! He thought I was helping to advertise his products when really, I had opposite intentions in mind! What this little adventure reminded me of, was the sheer importance of being able to hear and understand the spoken words of others. Had he so much as heard an inkling of what I had said, he would have most definitely wanted to give me a well-fragranced beating! Hearing, and understanding the English language, never seemed more important.