Well, it's the first day of Spring, and I can't sleep, so this seems like a good moment to come out from the WW closet by posting the first chapter of my novel, City of Dreams.

I look forward to hearing all your feedback, whether good, bad or indifferent. I should flag up now that I am leaving for China on Thursday, but that has nothing to do with anything you said!

Please share your thoughts with me.

Al (aka Adele).

By the way, I would also love to hear you views on the following:

If you hear that someone is an investment banker, are you immediately predisposed to dislike them? Do you think it is Cockney Rhyming slang?

Please let me know!

Adele.

Every morning I travel into London alongside many analysts and investment bankers and such, and I have to say on the whole most of them seem to be cocky arrogant twats. Don't ever be fooled into thinking that these people are even particularly smart because they're not. You may think that I'm being jaded here but I also have experience of these companies gleaned from open days, when I was a fresh from uni graduate.

I remember one session for a company that shall remain nameless particularly well. It was hosted by a very attractive young women who had by all accounts been selected purely on her looks alone! Now I do not make this statement lightly it was only after a fairly lengthy conversation with her that I decided that she was nothing short of stupid.

The rest of the session comprised of her telling us how great it was to work in an office with glass walls, where everybody was under 40 "We don't like grey hair" was a particularly memorable statement of hers. She blathered on about not having to sit at the same desk all the time and many other childish trivial points for nearly the whole of the session. I could go on and on but I won't. Unfortunately many of the companies I looked at were the same.

Anyway enough of my ranting as this has absolutely nothing to do with writing and I hate getting myself all riled up about these things.

Geoff

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By the way are you an investment banker?

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Oh well I guess I put my foot in it there, but I can only go on my own experiences I suppose.

By the way are you an investment banker?

Erm, yes! Although currently out of the business with no immediate plans to return. If you have the time and/or inclination, take a look at the piece I've uploaded. I would be very interested to hear your view.

Adele.

Oh well I guess I put my foot in it there

Not at all, Geoff, yours was exactly the kind of response I was hoping for. When you inhabit a certain world - or in the case of the City, bubble - it's hard to know how you are perceived from outside.

Thanks,

Adele.

Out of interest Adele, having worked in the sector do you find that many are cocky and arrogant?

Geoff

Oh yes! It's the home of world class arrogance. And there are many examples of this trait and its destructive effects in my book.

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on City of Dreams. I was very nervous about uploading this, as I imagined that a novel with a background of investment banking would not be to the taste of many on WW. However, I think it's a setting with some very good dramatic possibilities, where people are pushed to extremes. And they do say, write about what you know...

Your thoughts have given me some very good pointers for rewriting and fine tuning. I think I'm going to be very busy for the next few months with this and other projects, including the China trip, so apologies in advance if I seem to disappear. Phew, it almost feels like being back at work! Although, as I keep reminding myself, when I was in the City, I almost never went out on Sunday evenings, and was usually in bed by 10pm.

Tonight though, I got to stay out late drinking Margaritas and then seeing the very amusing Starksy & Hutch (watch out for the dragon and disco scenes - if they don't make you laugh, then you need to check if you still have a pulse).

I rather like my new life as a writer, and hope it has some shelf life.

Thanks once more for your help. Goodnight and sweet dreams, everyone.

Adele.

I know its probably very shallow of me but when I hear “Investment Banker” the rhyming slang does spring to mind.

Grinder

Hey Al,

I'm very pleased that Starsky & Hutch has got a good review from you...I'm dying to see it. I've only seen the trailers and they cracked me up and I was hoping it wasn't one of those movies that put the only funny parts of the whole movie in the trailer and the rest was shite. Hmmmm...Shallow Hal comes to mind - the worst spent £3.75 I ever spent on renting out a DVD.

Enjoy your time in China, writing, drinking, and sleeping late!

Grinder, I thought as much. Particularly as you are one of my Yorkshire compatriots (I grew up in Leeds). As I child, I know that my own views reflected those around me: Southerners,were all smarmy gits who should not be trusted. And as for investment - or merchant, as they were then - bankers, when I was a very bolshie Sixth Former, I won £25 in an Observer essay competition, for writing that the problem with Britain was that the brightest and the best didn't want to get their hands dirty doing useful things like engineering; instead they all wanted to be merchant bankers.

However, not long after that I met a very glamorous Tory who convinced me (rather easily as it happens) that capitalists had more fun. And the rest is history.

Adele.

Nahed, not only is S&H funny, it also really made me want to dance! So much so that I rushed to the gym this morning and went to an 'MTV inspirational moves' class which, even though I was rubbish at it, was enormous fun.

Since then though I've been running around doing pre-China chores, not helped by Nat West somehow losing the Chinese and Hong Kong currency that I ordered from them, despite having debited my account last week. What a bunch of bankers!

Must disappear once more as I've promised to finish some translation work for the Italian friend who so kindly had me to stay a couple of weeks ago.

Happy writing,

Adele.

Adele,

Following on from our other discussion, you certainly gave me a lot of food for thought.

The whole Satre thing is very interesting though I still think I have some interesting things to say (I would wouldn't I!)

Maybe investment bankers aren't all that bad afterall

Geoff

Geoff, old Jean Paul wrote some good stuff. I really think that reading La Nausée (which you can get in translation as Nausea in Penguin Modern Classics) would be worthwhile for you given what you’re writing about. As I said, the study of mauvaise foi, literally meaning 'bad faith', or deluding yourself and living inauthentically, is one of Sartre’s major themes.

Enjoy!

Adele.