Latest / Bookies' Favourite / On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, translated by Katharine Halls, published by Peirene Press | Review | Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026

Transcript

On the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, translated by Katharine Halls, published by Peirene Press | Review | Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize 2026 · Bookies' Favourite

• 0:10
  Welcome to the Club, Boogie's favorite book club.
• 0:14
  We read literary shortlists and award-winning novels.
• 0:17
  We are currently reading the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction
• 0:20
  Prize Long List, an award recognizing the art of
• 0:23
  literature and promoting works of Heimard which have been
• 0:27
  published in the UK and Ireland. This episode we're discussing On
• 0:31
  the Greenwich Line by Shady Lewis, Translated from Arabic by
• 0:35
  Catherine Halls, Published by Pyrenee.
• 0:38
  The English translation was awarded.
• 0:40
  The English pen translates a word like many of the other
• 0:42
  books which have been long listed.
• 0:44
  I'm broadcast journalist Aaron, and I have not finished the book
• 0:48
  yet. I have got very close to
• 0:50
  finishing and so I'm going to engage in this conversation.
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  I have just been very busy, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book
• 1:00
  and I really, really wanted to have finished it.
• 1:05
  And that's why I'm, I'm letting myself join in on this
• 1:08
  conversation because I, I enjoyed it so much.
• 1:10
  I'm Colin. I think I maybe have a bit of a
• 1:13
  different view from you guys on this book.
• 1:15
  I like this book for the most part, but I actually think it
• 1:17
  kind of, I don't know, there's something about it that didn't.
• 1:21
  I don't know if I was just not in the right reading forum for
• 1:23
  it. I kind of found it a bit heavy
• 1:25
  and a bit of a bore at times. I like the way it was written
• 1:29
  and I think the the story and stuff in it was interesting, but
• 1:33
  I don't know, I'm hoping you guys can open my eyes to it a
• 1:36
  bit more. And overall, I actually think
• 1:38
  the book was really well written.
• 1:39
  Like I think it's a great book, just maybe at my reading if it
• 1:42
  wasn't wasn't the greatest. Hi I'm Hannah and I completely
• 1:46
  disagree with Colin. I thought I love this book.
• 1:51
  I thought it was so good. Like 8.
• 1:54
  There's moments where it felt so like deeply hopeless, but then
• 1:58
  it was also somewhat funny and like grim but and give us these
• 2:04
  uncomfortable moments to sit in. But like, I thought it was a
• 2:08
  really good novel. I loved her, like sharp and like
• 2:12
  short. It was in that way.
• 2:16
  Yeah. I So I picked it up, started to
• 2:18
  read it and I was almost mad at myself that I had to go to bed
• 2:22
  to finish it, like to go to sleep.
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  And then immediately the next day, as soon as I'd done what I
• 2:28
  needed to do, I picked a write up back up and just sat up for
• 2:30
  the rest of the night reading it because you just caught my
• 2:33
  attention that much. I don't know if it's also
• 2:35
  because I've been doing like lots of learning into like
• 2:38
  immigration and things the last like few weeks.
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  So I think maybe that has caught my interest.
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  But also the more I learned about this author, the more I
• 2:47
  was like fell in love also with the book.
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  There's just there's just an interesting person.
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  But yeah, love this one. Hi, I'm Lucy.
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  I I'm going to agree with Hannah and disagree with Colin here.
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  I actually find it was really quick read.
• 2:59
  I find it really engaging. I thought that it was, as Hannah
• 3:03
  said, kind of like really grim topics, but really engagingly
• 3:08
  written and really that kind of humor in, but dark humor maybe
• 3:13
  would be the way to describe it. But like, yeah, I thought I
• 3:17
  thought it was amazing. I got it on like the Friday I
• 3:19
  went and lunch to a packed supermarket to pick it up and
• 3:23
  then came back and like had a little bit red by the end of my
• 3:26
  lunch break. I was like, this is really,
• 3:28
  really good. I was like struggling to go back
• 3:30
  to work because I was like, I actually would love to just read
• 3:32
  this book. I just think he's really it's
• 3:34
  really funny. It's really heartwarming and I
• 3:37
  think it's very like hot top. Like I can't see any other books
• 3:41
  other than like kind of small boat getting much higher than
• 3:44
  this one. It's really good.
• 3:45
  To start us off, here's a quote from on the Greenwich line.
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  We seem obliged to take death seriously these days, to
• 3:53
  consider it an unmitigated evil that can't be justified or
• 3:57
  understood. The spoiler warning from this
• 4:00
  point onwards, if you haven't read the book yet and you're
• 4:02
  planning to come back to this discussion after you've done so.
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  So on the Greenwich Line follows somewhat cynical housing officer
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  in East London. He agrees to arrange the funeral
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  of a young Syrian refugee and through arranging this funeral
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  he ends up having to confront the harsh realities of that
• 4:21
  migrants do feast and trying to navigate this bureaucratic
• 4:25
  system in England. So, well, I guess after us
• 4:30
  sharing our basic thoughts there, I'm curious to know,
• 4:33
  Colin, why you weren't a big fan of this?
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  I mean, I think that I kind of struggle with this book.
• 4:40
  I think it was really well written.
• 4:42
  I actually really enjoyed this sort of flow of the book, but I
• 4:44
  actually think it was quite similar to me in Feeling to the
• 4:47
  Weasel and the Horror, which we read recently in terms of heavy
• 4:51
  content stuff that I kind of don't like to think about, don't
• 4:56
  like to talk about. I think it's important to have
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  these conversations, but I think there's a part of me.
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  I think I also just had a rough week.
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  So I think that didn't help all the the talk about all these
• 5:07
  different things and people falling through the cracks and
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  the loneliness and all the mental health problems in this
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  book. I was sort of like, this is come
• 5:14
  come with me at a time and maybe I would have appreciated better
• 5:17
  at a different time, you know, And I think, uh, This is why I'm
• 5:21
  sort of like, I think the book is in is really well written and
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  I think it's a great book, but it's kind of the enjoyment
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  factor, again, to me is really limited.
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  This is all we were talking about in the last episode and
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  with the weasel and the horror, like we could tell there are
• 5:32
  really, really good things with it, but I don't think any of us
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  really enjoyed it as as like enjoyed, enjoyed.
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  And that's kind of where I'm coming from with this because I
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  think the conversations that are being had and the characters in
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  it are interesting and getting a glimpse into this world, which
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  is obviously coming from the experience of the writer
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  themself. Because like, you know, a lot of
• 5:54
  that feels very realistic. And at first, you could could
• 5:56
  look at it and like, kind of laugh and be like, oh, yeah.
• 5:59
  Oh, very overblown. It feels like almost satire.
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  But I think it's not satire. You know, this is like genuine
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  sort of experiences that this person would have, would have
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  seen happening or at least heard of, of these sorts of things
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  going on, things going on. So yeah, that's kind of why I'm
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  not as fond of it as I think you guys are.
• 6:20
  Yeah, I think that it's kind of an interesting point that a lot
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  of the books that we read, it's like if they're dark, they
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  sometimes tend to have the the like obfuscating lens of it
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  being in the past. And the three books that we've
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  read for the the Queen Mary have been very modern horror, like
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  modern things. It's not even horror because I
• 6:43
  feel like horror almost has a different lens to it.
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  But it's like the mundane horror of just actual people's lives in
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  the world. And that sounds, it may be a bit
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  stupid, the mundane horror, but it's like these are things that
• 6:57
  are just happening constantly. They're not.
• 6:59
  Yeah, there's definitely that sense when you're reading the
• 7:02
  book of like, especially when he's talking about them.
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  Something I found really sad was the was it is IT service user A
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  and how she's just the main character gets so into the fact
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  that she it's really important that all the papers and all the
• 7:19
  documents about her exist because that's all her
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  existence. So sorry, just for a wee bit of
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  back and more information. And the, the main character is
• 7:30
  called to do a mental health check on a woman called service
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  user A and she, I think she speaks Arabic, is it?
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  And so she's able to speak to the main character and he's
• 7:44
  going with a mental health nurse for this meeting.
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  And it's just, it's a really, really depressing meaning
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  meeting, sorry. And then later on we discover
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  that prior to that meeting, she has died and near originally
• 7:59
  we're we're led to believe that she's killed herself and but
• 8:03
  later on we find out that it is a boiler.
• 8:06
  Is it a boiler fire? And in the.
• 8:07
  Other. And she was, she was killed in
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  that. But I think that the main
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  character, the the mental health nurse Coyote is tall, tells the
• 8:18
  main character that she has committed suicide and that they
• 8:22
  need to cover up their tracks, that they were never there.
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  And he says we need to remove her from the system.
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  And the main character is very upset about that because he's
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  like that is her almost feels her worth is in the system,
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  which is almost like because he's been working in this kind
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  of system for so long and he understands that his job is a
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  threat and therefore his, his ability to stay in the country
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  is a threat. If, if everyone blames him and
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  the the mental health nurse Kod who's with him is very much like
• 8:52
  this will all be our fault. We will both be fired.
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  I want to retire. I want to go back to Nigeria and
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  live my life there. Have a pool like you, you know,
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  they're just covering and and I think the the main character
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  agrees with Cody and he is like this.
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  This is definitely what's happening there.
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  They're going to cover their tracks.
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  But quotes clearly just jumped to an extreme where he thinks
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  that the character has committed suicide, where she actually
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  turns out to have have died of like not, not, not not natural
• 9:22
  causes, but someone else's negligence in the in the housing
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  system. But there's something so sad
• 9:27
  about the fact that it's like he was willing, not willing to
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  because he he goes against Katie and he's like, I don't want to
• 9:33
  remove the the notes about her, even though it'll save his life.
• 9:37
  And this is that whole dead versus the living thing where
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  it's like he can bury her effectively and he can, you
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  know, it's not going to be anything on her to have this
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  legacy on the East London housing system.
• 9:52
  You know, whereas he obviously put such great meaning in the
• 9:56
  different notes that have been typed up.
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  And there's something really, I find really sad about that, like
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  the idea that even to him that that's so important, even though
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  if he, if he deleted them at this point in his knowledge, he
• 10:08
  would think, well, my life will be better.
• 10:11
  Yeah, it's, it's. And that is woven throughout the
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  whole story, the idea of like the living and the dead.
• 10:16
  Who is it more important to, to show respect to or to, you know?
• 10:20
  I I have to be honest, Lucy, whenever we each selected or
• 10:25
  choices from the long list, this was the book that I out of every
• 10:30
  book on the long list, this is the one that I did not want to
• 10:33
  read. And I was personally
• 10:36
  disappointed by the fact that it was your choice at that time
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  based off the blurb. But I have said this is actually
• 10:47
  an amazing book. I think it was written
• 10:49
  incredibly well. We get a sense of all of these
• 10:54
  characters like they're, they're so real and we can relate to the
• 11:00
  protagonist so well. The narrator we get a real sense
• 11:07
  of it felt real to me. Like modern day basic like
• 11:13
  console stuff in London sounds so boring to me.
• 11:17
  Like why would I care what is happening within for a council
• 11:21
  worker in like a borough of London.
• 11:24
  It's just not at all my my interest, but the way that it
• 11:29
  was written, I was extremely pleasantly surprised by this.
• 11:36
  And it was so funny. It's it reminded me of there's a
• 11:42
  Monster behind the door with the like comical elements written to
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  write and the way that this book sets it up.
• 11:50
  Every single thing you can tell he will say something's a good
• 11:54
  thing and you're like, OK, well, that doesn't make sense from his
• 11:58
  point of view why he is saying it's a good thing.
• 12:00
  But then he goes on to expand like, you know, it's a good
• 12:03
  thing because it's actually a bad thing in disguise.
• 12:08
  And like, I'm thinking about whenever he said, eh, was it
• 12:11
  when the Tories eh, like took control and he was like, oh, the
• 12:16
  work became so much easier then. And you're just thinking what?
• 12:21
  Like, how does that make sense that for migrants and for people
• 12:28
  working in, like, social housing, that the work became
• 12:31
  better or easier? And he was like, there was just
• 12:34
  so much paperwork that basically whatever work you did was
• 12:38
  redundant, which also meant whatever lack of work you did
• 12:41
  became redundant, too. Like, you could never be held
• 12:43
  responsible for anything because there was so much paperwork that
• 12:48
  we clogged up the entire system. So there was just so many
• 12:51
  elements of that. And like, wars were and just, I,
• 12:59
  I loved it. I loved getting the glimpse into
• 13:02
  Egypt. I loved the fact that I could be
• 13:06
  jumping ahead here, but I don't think we ever met any character
• 13:10
  in this. Or at least we didn't spend any
• 13:12
  considerable time with any character that wasn't a migrant.
• 13:16
  And everyone was from somewhere that wasn't London.
• 13:21
  Nobody. Nobody was native to London.
• 13:23
  So one of the my favorite things about the book was that I and I
• 13:29
  also thought that the author did really well.
• 13:32
  Is that almost like describing in a way?
• 13:35
  So everyone has come to London to like, live and work, but now
• 13:42
  it's like they'll never be, you know, on the inside of life in
• 13:47
  England. You know, they're always going
• 13:49
  to be seen as an outsider, but then at home, they don't really
• 13:53
  have that strong connection to home anymore.
• 13:55
  So then when they're at home, they're also somewhat of an
• 13:58
  outsider anymore. So they can see that life in
• 14:02
  England is good, but they'll still always, just always be on
• 14:06
  the outside, like, never in. I just thought he did that so
• 14:10
  well. I think going on your point,
• 14:13
  Hannah, I think the thing that I found made that so good was the
• 14:17
  fact that he's so he's a Coptic Christian.
• 14:20
  So he's been treated as an outsider in, in Egypt and then,
• 14:27
  you know, and he's not a Muslim. So he's treated very differently
• 14:30
  from Muslims. And then when he goes to
• 14:32
  England, there's all this part about him being treated like a
• 14:36
  Muslim. And it's quite comically done
• 14:38
  because he eventually then ends up having all the practices of a
• 14:42
  Muslim. He wears their clothes because
• 14:43
  he's like, they're more comfortable.
• 14:45
  He stops eating. Pork not drinking.
• 14:47
  Yeah, his stomach's not like enjoying it.
• 14:50
  And they. So he's like he becomes this
• 14:53
  stereotypical Muslim because everybody's treating him like
• 14:56
  it. And it's kind of like, it
• 14:57
  reminds me of like Protestants and Catholics.
• 15:00
  And in Northern Ireland, it's like when you go to England, it
• 15:04
  does not matter. Like if you're Protestant,
• 15:06
  you're Irish Catholic. It's your accent tells you.
• 15:09
  And no matter what you think about yourself or your own, like
• 15:13
  the sense of self, which does really annoy people.
• 15:15
  And I think that really comes out when he gets very angry at
• 15:18
  this New Zealander. Is it New Zealander, Canadian.
• 15:21
  And. New Zealander, Yeah.
• 15:22
  This New Zealander says something in Arabic to him, and
• 15:25
  he has this whole political reason why he doesn't like what
• 15:28
  he's saying. He's just, and he's like, this
• 15:30
  is an Islamic kind of thing. It's kind of a repressive form
• 15:33
  of language. And he's like starts hitting or
• 15:35
  he grabs him by the neck or something, something.
• 15:37
  So he's really annoyed at this New Zealander and he can't
• 15:40
  explain it. And he like, he doesn't have the
• 15:43
  words to be like, I'm not like I'm just not a Muslim, you know,
• 15:46
  And he because nobody cares because they're just like, no,
• 15:49
  you are, you literally are. And then he just becomes one.
• 15:52
  And definitely tell that with with certain people who come
• 15:55
  back from living in England. I think that this book really
• 16:00
  gives us a sense that our main character, who obviously then is
• 16:05
  it a representation of others like him and just doesn't fit
• 16:10
  in. And you you could say that
• 16:13
  anywhere. And they again, so speaking
• 16:16
  about the character he's in, he's from Egypt, but whenever he
• 16:21
  speaks to other characters from Africa, they're like, you're not
• 16:24
  African because you're not, you're not black, black, like
• 16:27
  you're not African. And but then whenever he's like,
• 16:31
  he's not like Middle Eastern or like seen as like, and from that
• 16:37
  part of the world, because he's part of Africa, he's not seen as
• 16:41
  being Christian, even though he is Christian.
• 16:43
  And, and yes, as he said, he takes on these like Muslim
• 16:47
  practices, but he's not a Muslim.
• 16:51
  There's so many elements where it's it's just like he never
• 16:55
  fully fits in. And you could say that what
• 16:59
  you're saying, Lucy, about if you identify as like a British
• 17:05
  Protestant in Northern Ireland who goes to England, that's not
• 17:08
  the identity that people might attribute to you.
• 17:13
  But I would also say the same thing as if you are an an Irish
• 17:18
  Catholic in Northern Ireland and you go down South.
• 17:22
  Yeah. They will not see you
• 17:24
  necessarily as being an Irish Catholic.
• 17:26
  They'll see you as being a Northerner and and kind of
• 17:30
  connect you with with. I'm not saying that they would
• 17:34
  necessarily say that you're British or say that you're
• 17:36
  Protestant, but they will see you as being different when that
• 17:39
  might not be how you identify. Or often they'll be like this as
• 17:43
  Ireland. Yes, exactly.
• 17:46
  Whole of Ireland we're in and you're not in that.
• 17:49
  Yes, that's. Quite the yeah, you're something
• 17:52
  other kind of because since the split.
• 17:55
  But yeah, I definitely feel that it's like because Northern
• 17:58
  Ireland must be about 5050 in roundabout.
• 18:03
  Some are very close to. I think you can.
• 18:06
  I like it. It's it's not, but yes, you'd
• 18:08
  like basically like. And then even within that, it's
• 18:11
  like people's identities are so different, like what they
• 18:14
  actually see themselves as. And then they go to London or
• 18:19
  they go to Dublin and it means nothing like, and we are so
• 18:24
  obsessed with our identity and what it means to us.
• 18:27
  And then, you know, I definitely have known people.
• 18:30
  And on both of those scenarios where you're just like pal.
• 18:35
  But I think it's interesting because since I've moved away, I
• 18:39
  feel like I've felt the the people just if I said, you know,
• 18:43
  Irish, they'd like take that as at face value and they call me
• 18:46
  it. But then sometimes when people
• 18:47
  are calling me and I'm like, oh, then I begin to do the opposite
• 18:51
  thing where I'm like, oh, but like they do I feel that, you
• 18:55
  know, do I feel like that identity?
• 18:57
  Yeah, I like, that's too clean cut.
• 18:59
  Then it's like this is too, too straightforward and you've taken
• 19:02
  it at to face value. So it's probably the opposite
• 19:04
  problem of what's actually happening to the the the
• 19:07
  narrator, the story. But it's like, you know, similar
• 19:09
  identity is, is weird like that. Like we, we, we do kind of
• 19:13
  obsess over it, but then really it doesn't.
• 19:16
  It's not as big a deal as we we make it out to be.
• 19:19
  I'm like, yes and no, sorry to your point, Colin, because I
• 19:23
  think in particular here, it was such a fight for so long to be
• 19:27
  able be able to even identify as Irish, you know, So like, I
• 19:33
  think some people forget the privilege that we now have.
• 19:36
  Like I think for certain people, identity is such a strong thing
• 19:40
  because we've had to fight for so long to be able to be able to
• 19:44
  even label ourselves as one thing or another.
• 19:47
  So but now, like when we talk about it, I felt so proud to
• 19:52
  myself when I moved away to be able to label myself as ours.
• 19:55
  But then trying to do it in England.
• 19:56
  You got. Well, were you really from?
• 19:58
  And what part? And.
• 20:00
  Yeah, just made me feel like I've always had that struggle of
• 20:03
  like for identity of like I fit into nowhere in the way.
• 20:08
  Yeah, like if I identify one thing, someone else will say the
• 20:11
  other and. Yeah.
• 20:12
  Constant like turmoil in itself. But but like, there's the thing,
• 20:16
  I'm not saying take it for granted, identity.
• 20:18
  What I mean is like at home, we obsess over it, but when we go
• 20:20
  to other parts of the world, it doesn't matter.
• 20:22
  People don't care that much. Like today, it's nothing, you
• 20:24
  know? So why localized like for
• 20:26
  example, like when he's talking in this book and did the person
• 20:30
  from like, I guess I don't know, do we know what part of Africa
• 20:33
  they're from it? Was it Pepsi?
• 20:35
  Pepsi. No.
• 20:36
  Pepsi. Yes.
• 20:37
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:39
  Do we know where she's from? Regardless wherever she's from?
• 20:42
  And she's saying like, oh, you're not like Aaron raised the
• 20:45
  point like saying like, oh, but you're you're Egyptian, you're
• 20:47
  not like African or whatever it is.
• 20:50
  Do you know it's the same sort of where is my point?
• 20:53
  I got caught in the weeds here. No, I think what you were saying
• 20:56
  is like locally here we take it quite seriously, but like
• 20:59
  elsewhere, people might not have a strong.
• 21:03
  Like. Need to maybe assert their.
• 21:07
  Yeah, I guess it also falls down.
• 21:08
  He is assumed to be Muslim by the wider world, by, you know,
• 21:13
  the wider system. But the person who should
• 21:15
  understand it better, like this person Pepsi, who is from like
• 21:19
  some part of Africa is also being like, you're not, you
• 21:22
  know, even though they know more than minutiae and the the local
• 21:25
  sort of like, I guess culture between these, these different
• 21:29
  countries or whatever. They're also saying like, yeah,
• 21:30
  you're not, you're not part of this.
• 21:32
  You know, it's like, it's just the two different views, the
• 21:34
  world view, the world view of like you are this thing because
• 21:36
  we think you're this thing and we're going to make you this
• 21:38
  thing. Whereas really, even back home,
• 21:40
  it's like you're not this thing because because I say so and
• 21:44
  it's not the same as me. I think even on a larger scale,
• 21:47
  you could say it's similar to how we would say that we're not
• 21:52
  European because we're not, uh, like part of hold your.
• 21:55
  Horses hold your horses. Yeah, hold.
• 21:58
  That up all. Right.
• 21:59
  No, no, no. Singular, singular.
• 22:04
  OK, OK, sorry to offend everyone.
• 22:07
  I'm not saying that we're not European, but I'm saying that
• 22:09
  when we speak about Europeans, we're not, we wouldn't include
• 22:12
  ourselves in that. We would be speaking about
• 22:14
  Europeans as as continental Europe while.
• 22:18
  I always say like mainland Europe.
• 22:21
  Exactly. Being in stuff.
• 22:23
  We differentiate ourselves from Europeans while you will have
• 22:30
  other people from around the world.
• 22:32
  Like I'm specifically thinking N Americans who are just like,
• 22:36
  you're European, like there's no difference.
• 22:37
  And it's like, no, but but they're different.
• 22:40
  Like they have different plugs for the walls.
• 22:42
  They they have like different like ways they drive on the
• 22:47
  other side. They like there actually is so
• 22:49
  many cultural differences that yes, of course we're European.
• 22:53
  I'm not disputing that. But we don't necessarily
• 22:57
  identify ourselves as you might say, Germans, Spanish, Italian,
• 23:01
  French. Swiss, I know how you're just
• 23:04
  yeah, you're not doing what Pepsi did.
• 23:07
  No, no, but but am I? Do I have a weird perspective on
• 23:13
  that? I I feel like I.
• 23:15
  I think it's since I've moved away and met more Europeans, I
• 23:17
  now consider myself more strongly European.
• 23:20
  I think because if I was from Britain, or if I define myself
• 23:24
  as that, I don't think I would, You know, it's, it's weird.
• 23:27
  I think because Ireland is so connected to Europe, like with
• 23:30
  the EU and, and all those things, I think I automatically
• 23:34
  will say I am European. But I think when I wasn't living
• 23:37
  it, when I was living at home, I didn't think about it as much
• 23:40
  like that. I differentiated a bit between
• 23:42
  the US and the damn, you know. I feel European in the sense of
• 23:46
  I'm European like. Really.
• 23:50
  There we go. Full stop.
• 23:51
  That's I like it. You.
• 23:52
  You. Wouldn't.
• 23:53
  I'm part of. I've never lived anywhere
• 23:57
  outside of Europe, Yeah. But, but would you consider
• 24:00
  yourself European in terms of culture?
• 24:06
  Well. Like I think, I think well,
• 24:07
  Europe, Europe is a broad spectrum, so very.
• 24:10
  Of course, yes, in. Europe, like you're going up to
• 24:12
  the Euro mountains in Russia. So there's there's a very
• 24:15
  different things. But like Lucy, like for example,
• 24:17
  you wouldn't assume you wouldn't be like, oh, I feel more
• 24:20
  American than I feel Spanish. Like you were you're you're
• 24:22
  different, but you're European. You know, it's, it's like.
• 24:25
  Yeah, I do. Yeah.
• 24:26
  I think then it's like culturally, I actually don't
• 24:28
  think Europeans are as different as we think, because I don't.
• 24:31
  Know if. We're doing European law,
• 24:34
  European Union law and studying it and being like, we're
• 24:37
  actually, there's not much like our ways of government, our ways
• 24:40
  of well, actually some, some are different, very different.
• 24:43
  But it's like, I think our, I, I would say OK, like we get more
• 24:46
  TV and things from America, but I would say that we're as people
• 24:50
  may be more similar to other Europeans.
• 24:53
  It's just the language barrier. But I don't.
• 24:56
  Yeah, like America seems quite foreign to me.
• 24:58
  Yeah, exactly. I agree.
• 25:00
  I agree. I'm not saying, I just want to
• 25:02
  make clear that I'm not saying that we would identify as being
• 25:06
  American. I'm just saying that we've, I
• 25:09
  feel like we differentiate ourselves from the rest of
• 25:12
  Europe. I think you're right that a lot
• 25:13
  of people in Great Britain and Ireland would differentiate
• 25:19
  themselves. I think the language wise,
• 25:20
  because the former kind of colonies of Britain all speak
• 25:23
  are, a lot of them speak English.
• 25:25
  So we'd identify ourselves with the Anglophone world.
• 25:29
  Is that the word? Anglophone, Yeah.
• 25:31
  The the that world as opposed to, you know, but I, I would
• 25:36
  definitely see our, I would maybe actually see us as more
• 25:39
  similar to Australians and New Zealanders than I would
• 25:42
  American. Yes, Yeah.
• 25:43
  No, I agree with you on that. I wouldn't.
• 25:47
  I would still see myself as European.
• 25:49
  Yeah. And I think also.
• 25:52
  European people in America, like they're talking about the Irish,
• 25:55
  the Italians, the English, the yeah, I'm not talking and.
• 25:59
  I think, yeah. Another interesting point is
• 26:01
  like I have Maltese friends and they all like, it's a very
• 26:05
  Anglophone sort of country, you know, like they a lot in English
• 26:09
  is, is like their their main language or whatever.
• 26:12
  And I think their accent, the food they eat, it's not that,
• 26:15
  but they still very much I like, I wouldn't say that they
• 26:18
  identify as British, not at all, but they are Europeans who are
• 26:21
  in the Anglophone world. And I think the fact that so
• 26:24
  many young people know across Europe, speak English, it is it
• 26:27
  is made it even more open to everyone feeling like they are
• 26:32
  one in the same. Like all the European friends I
• 26:34
  have, like they feel like, they feel like me, you know, they
• 26:37
  don't feel like separate. Whereas I think Americans do
• 26:40
  feel a little bit different to how I think, how I view things,
• 26:44
  you know? I think as well when we were
• 26:46
  reading Perfection, it's like that could be that that's just,
• 26:51
  that's just our like being a millennial like.
• 26:54
  Yeah, exactly. I don't think there's any if you
• 26:56
  if, if you'd have told me that book was originally written in
• 26:59
  English and it was based in London or somewhere, I wouldn't
• 27:01
  be like, oh, Londoners going to Berlin.
• 27:03
  I wouldn't be like, I wouldn't doubt it for a second.
• 27:06
  None of that. I would go, oh, well, that's not
• 27:08
  what someone from England or someone from Ireland would do.
• 27:10
  I'd be like this is this could all be applicable to most places
• 27:14
  in maybe Western Europe. Yes, I do agree with you.
• 27:18
  I was literally about to say myself that this conversation at
• 27:22
  least is now making me draw a connection business between on
• 27:26
  the Greenwich line and with perfection.
• 27:32
  It might have to do with big metropolitan areas drawing in
• 27:36
  people from like migrants from all over the world, specifically
• 27:40
  Europe in Europe. And so like that makes sense.
• 27:45
  But I think London is also a different beast in terms of the
• 27:51
  people who go there because like I said, I don't, again, you guys
• 27:57
  can correct me if I'm wrong, but we're dealing or protagonist is
• 28:01
  Egyptian, we have Syrians, we have somebody from Nigeria, we
• 28:06
  have somebody from Eastern Europe and we have a New
• 28:11
  Zealander. Did I say that already?
• 28:15
  Like we do have such a wide cast of characters and I liked the
• 28:23
  fact that, uh, whenever we got a little bit of back story in
• 28:29
  Egypt and there was the story about the new neighbors had
• 28:34
  moved in and had beat up or bullying a child and the mother
• 28:39
  was like the Syrians. The, like the Syrians have
• 28:43
  arrived and they're like doing all this bad stuff.
• 28:45
  And then they were like, we're not Syrians.
• 28:47
  Like, what are you talking about?
• 28:48
  We're from like Upper Egypt. And it's just funny how everyone
• 28:55
  brands people like as being from somewhere else.
• 28:59
  And it doesn't matter where you're actually from, you're
• 29:02
  you're branded it by the the locals.
• 29:06
  I think interesting that you raise that point of this story
• 29:09
  too, because I think that also then ties into the more on a
• 29:12
  world stage, like we know of Syria from the refugee crisis,
• 29:15
  like we, we've heard about it for years.
• 29:17
  You know, there's big pushes for it across charities, but also
• 29:21
  news stories. Like it was a big piece of news.
• 29:23
  And even still today, I would say with all the, the, the stuff
• 29:27
  about reform and all these like awful sort of treatments of, of
• 29:30
  immigrants and refugees, people still, I think think of Syria as
• 29:35
  like the cornerstone of that, which I mean, it's, it's one of
• 29:38
  many, many places that this is happening or coming from.
• 29:41
  And I think it's funny because in that part of the book, it's
• 29:44
  such a real honest understanding of how people would just brand
• 29:48
  people as like Syrian, because that's all they're hearing.
• 29:50
  That's what they're being fed by mainstream media to think.
• 29:52
  You know, I think it's so interesting.
• 29:54
  Like that's a really minutiae, minutiae sort of take on it that
• 29:57
  they would be thinking that, you know, I think it's it's it just
• 30:00
  shows that she Lewis has a really good grasp on on people
• 30:05
  watching almost like understanding people and how
• 30:07
  they act. I think as well on that plan a
• 30:10
  point with that story, the thing that really I love how honest he
• 30:13
  is about the fact that he's so happy when I think it's that the
• 30:16
  Palestinians come in and he's like, there's a rung lower than
• 30:19
  him as like a Coptic Christian. He's like and he and he really
• 30:23
  takes a great joy in it. And I think there's such an
• 30:25
  honesty about that. And there there was a line as
• 30:28
  well that I thought was really honest.
• 30:29
  And it's in the 1st page was sorry, the 1st chapter where he
• 30:32
  says there are many immigrants in a similar position to myself
• 30:36
  who've arrived in this country or wherever else and immediately
• 30:40
  wish they could close the door behind them and throw away the
• 30:42
  key. And that was something that is
• 30:44
  that kind of very honest. But he doesn't want to, he
• 30:48
  doesn't want, he knows logically that he shouldn't have those
• 30:51
  thoughts, but he he does want that because he's like, I
• 30:55
  imagine he can see like, oh, everyone's going to get start
• 30:58
  getting annoyed at immigrants and then all of a sudden it'll
• 31:00
  be him. And he, he's this to everyone's
• 31:03
  to, to all appearances, this Muslim man.
• 31:06
  And then they seem to really, that's the thing that they
• 31:08
  really seem to hit. So there probably would be this
• 31:12
  fear and this kind of like, I don't know, trying to be like,
• 31:15
  Oh no, I'm, I'm not. And then just kind of feeling
• 31:18
  like, right, OK, I am. I don't care anymore.
• 31:20
  This book really resonated with me the way small boat days.
• 31:24
  I made those kind of connections in a way because to me, both
• 31:28
  these books have quite a big like political like argument in
• 31:34
  them in a way. And I really like that this book
• 31:38
  highlights like that decade of like the Tory party being in
• 31:42
  government and the austerity that it created and the idea
• 31:46
  that like migrants and stuff are like thrown into that.
• 31:50
  And it's so grim. And there's it feels like
• 31:52
  there's no way of getting out. And you know, the way that we
• 31:56
  joked about earlier, talking about all the paperwork and all
• 31:59
  like that. And it's like all these extra
• 32:01
  layers. So no matter what they do, and
• 32:04
  they will never be able to like, try and climb out of it.
• 32:07
  Yeah, this hit and get out. And it's just so, I don't know,
• 32:13
  like, I think this book really hit more, like I said, when I've
• 32:16
  been doing like immigration law this week.
• 32:19
  And when you find out things that like the rate of human
• 32:22
  trafficking in, in the north is like, is absolutely escalating.
• 32:26
  And you're finding out about all these people in these situations
• 32:29
  or when the law changes and, and people have no idea now that
• 32:33
  they have like no rights. And it's like, I, I think people
• 32:37
  forget we're all human beings. And if we were handed, you know,
• 32:41
  the same situation as others, like surely we would want to
• 32:43
  move or try and survive better. And then when you land like
• 32:48
  somewhere like here, and then you find I it's so much harder.
• 32:52
  You sorry. It's more like this idea people
• 32:54
  make out that like people just come here and are handed
• 32:56
  everything and it's so easy. And it's like when you read
• 32:58
  books like these or you read small books, it's like this is
• 33:01
  not the reality at all. Books.
• 33:05
  Does that have maybe like a political meaning or something
• 33:08
  really deep? I don't know.
• 33:09
  They just really hit with me and they stay with me.
• 33:13
  Yeah, I. Just this one will stay with me
• 33:15
  this. Is yeah, I think, well, like, I
• 33:19
  like what you said and I think the whole thing with service
• 33:21
  user, a service user is like one of the most interesting things I
• 33:25
  think in the book, because the fact we were talking about like
• 33:27
  let the dead bury their dead or whatever.
• 33:29
  Like in how this, the narrators fight so hard to maintain her,
• 33:34
  her in the system, the system that is never going to go
• 33:36
  anywhere. There's, there doesn't seem like
• 33:38
  there's going to be any progress.
• 33:40
  Uh, and it can be on a dime. You can be like, you know,
• 33:42
  deleted from the system as easy as that, You know, this, these
• 33:45
  people, all these, uh, refugees, immigrants, whatever they are or
• 33:49
  have all fallen through the, the cracks.
• 33:50
  And the only thing that is keeping them, giving them any
• 33:53
  sense of meaning or, or purpose in, in this country is being a
• 33:57
  name on a record in some folder and some, some sort of system,
• 34:01
  you know, And I think that's such an interesting way to look
• 34:04
  at it because he fights for that.
• 34:05
  And I love the moral quandary of is he going to, uh, give in and,
• 34:11
  and do with, uh, do what Coyote, uh, suggests and like, uh, you
• 34:16
  know, scrub the system. Uh, but I like that it kind of
• 34:19
  doesn't. Well on that he is very much
• 34:22
  aware. Like, no, I'm going to, I'm
• 34:25
  going to fight and I'm going to keep things as they are no
• 34:27
  matter what the repercussions of this are.
• 34:28
  I think it's really interesting. And it's so like, so I thought
• 34:32
  initially when I read it, he would scrub the system because
• 34:35
  he doesn't care in a way, because when he's asked to help
• 34:39
  out with this funeral, it almost seems like such a big burden and
• 34:42
  like, does he really have to do this?
• 34:44
  And you know, why should he? So I initially thought that he
• 34:47
  would be like, yeah, scrub the system, you know, that way.
• 34:51
  But like, I really loved that he was like, no, I'm, I'm not, you
• 34:55
  know, I'm not going to do it. But I was going to flip back a
• 34:58
  bit earlier when we talked about even saying service user A.
• 35:02
  So I know of work terms, like why you obviously don't have a
• 35:05
  name. But now I realized we never know
• 35:07
  her name. It's never asked.
• 35:09
  She's never like really humanized in a way.
• 35:11
  Like we hear her story, but there's no there's no name given
• 35:15
  to her. It's such a strange way of
• 35:17
  telling her story as well. It's like we never quite know
• 35:21
  what's going on. We don't know if she's if
• 35:23
  someone's just been lazy in the writing of her story or we don't
• 35:27
  actually. We have to just take it for
• 35:29
  granted that what these people have said has been 100% accurate
• 35:32
  and it definitely knowing the struggles and strains the system
• 35:35
  is like we have no ability to know.
• 35:38
  I was wondering if we just go back to in that story where he's
• 35:42
  like a a kid and he's been bullied by the the other
• 35:46
  children on this road. And it's kind of like he's he
• 35:49
  finds joy in the fact that he isn't the bottom of the rung.
• 35:52
  I really felt that paralleled by the story on the bus with the
• 35:56
  Scottish man. So there's like a Scottish drunk
• 36:00
  guy and he is like hurling abuse at everybody on the bus and he's
• 36:04
  each while he's trying to get money from every on the bus and
• 36:06
  there's big signs and don't give anyone any money.
• 36:08
  And the main character can like smell a call on his breath and
• 36:11
  he's like, I'm not, he's, he has no cash on him.
• 36:14
  So he just doesn't give me any money.
• 36:15
  And nobody's acknowledging him. No one's looking at him, no
• 36:18
  one's acknowledging him. And then he all of a sudden
• 36:20
  starts shouting at the main character and calling him like
• 36:25
  derogatory words that you would call that that are used for
• 36:27
  Muslims and the main characters. Like I think he, he almost
• 36:31
  knocks him over or something happens at the end.
• 36:33
  Sorry, it's been, it's been 2 weeks since I've read it.
• 36:34
  But he, he knocks him over and the guy's like he's really
• 36:38
  rattled by it and. It's kind of like when he
• 36:41
  attacks but does he punch him or something because he won't give
• 36:47
  him money? Yeah, it's like the guy's really
• 36:49
  like using racist kind of abuse on him.
• 36:52
  And he's like, but it's kind of that thing of, I thought it was
• 36:56
  kind of parallel to the first story where it's like that guy
• 36:59
  who obviously has a really low web in his life.
• 37:02
  He's like, there's someone here that I can that I am higher than
• 37:07
  on this hierarchy. And that's this immigrant who he
• 37:10
  doesn't know anything about, obviously, but he's like, he's a
• 37:13
  Muslim clearly. So he starts, you know, and then
• 37:16
  the guy phones his Egyptian friend who's trying to organize
• 37:20
  the funeral and stuff and he tells them about the story.
• 37:22
  And the guy's like, what do you expect?
• 37:25
  Like you're in, you know, you're in this country.
• 37:27
  What do you, what do you expect them to call you something
• 37:29
  different? And he's like what I think he
• 37:32
  uses a derogatory term for someone from Pakistan.
• 37:35
  And he's he's kind of like, are you annoyed because he thinks
• 37:39
  you're Pakistani? Like that's the kind of argument
• 37:42
  they're having. And it's I just find that bit
• 37:44
  really like he's he knows the joy that it is to feel like you
• 37:49
  could be above someone else, but he also knows what it's like to
• 37:54
  be that person at the bottom and be like, this person perceives
• 37:56
  that I am. I am the lowest rung on this.
• 37:59
  And I just thought that was really well done and like the
• 38:01
  humor as well in which it was treated and the conflicting
• 38:04
  thoughts and the idea that the main character doesn't really
• 38:06
  know what he thinks about the whole thing.
• 38:08
  I really love that. But.
• 38:09
  I just want to add 2 corrections.
• 38:13
  Earlier I had said that the mother had said that they were
• 38:17
  Syrians. She actually said that they were
• 38:20
  Palestinians. So just wanted to correct that.
• 38:23
  Also, Pepsi is not from Africa, she is from the Caribbean.
• 38:28
  The novel kind of brings up that idea of like, it doesn't really
• 38:31
  matter who you are as much as like those who are in the par or
• 38:36
  those who are above you, you know, in this hierarchy that
• 38:39
  think you should be. I think he demonstrates that so
• 38:43
  well throughout the novel. Yeah, I think there's
• 38:45
  hierarchies all over the show, especially like within the work.
• 38:47
  It's like he knows he's in the bottom rung and he's like, if he
• 38:50
  does nothing wrong, they are going to use him as a scapegoat.
• 38:54
  And and your man QD really points that out really well as
• 38:59
  well. I think so.
• 39:01
  The part that you're referencing, Lucy, must be in
• 39:04
  the last couple of chapters because I haven't got to that,
• 39:07
  where there's a drunk Scottish man on the bus asking for money.
• 39:11
  I think that's interesting because you have a homeless
• 39:19
  Scotsman who is like obviously like part of the UK and this man
• 39:27
  is in a worse position than our protagonist is.
• 39:32
  But he sees himself as being better and can dish out the
• 39:38
  insults, can dish out the racism and everything's don't go his
• 39:42
  way. But really in his own life, if
• 39:45
  he's homeless, if he's asking for money, he's even though he's
• 39:49
  a presumably white person and it's but he's less well off than
• 39:57
  this migrant is. This invisible hierarchy that
• 40:00
  will always be there. So like, he's at the bottom of
• 40:03
  it, even though he's better off. Like he has his own home and a
• 40:07
  job, you know? And he's like, OK, but in the
• 40:12
  eyes of the drug person, because he's not white or from London or
• 40:16
  whatever, he's going to be like below him.
• 40:20
  I think it's also interesting how this book really gets into
• 40:24
  that. Everyone wants to figure out how
• 40:28
  they can use each other, but nobody wants to be responsible
• 40:33
  for anything. And everyone wants to be in a
• 40:37
  position where they are given power, but they don't want to
• 40:43
  actually hold the power that that means that they are held
• 40:48
  responsible. And so you have our protagonist
• 40:52
  who just shows up to these mental health meetings because
• 40:57
  he has to like sign off on paperwork, but he doesn't
• 41:00
  actually do anything. And he's like relinquished of of
• 41:03
  the authority there. And he's been contacted by this
• 41:12
  contact that he has in Egypt who's like, can you look after
• 41:15
  this Syrian body? And he's like, do I have to
• 41:20
  like, is there kind of a way out of doing this?
• 41:23
  Like, hopefully I get to wash my hands off it.
• 41:27
  And, and there's just so many levels of like, nobody wants to
• 41:34
  be actually involved in any of it.
• 41:37
  So that they're all just like, look, it's out of my hands.
• 41:40
  Even in whenever Coyote in is filling in all the paperwork we
• 41:48
  have our, our protagonist, who's like, you know, this woman is
• 41:52
  not senile. You know that, that she has more
• 41:55
  sense than the two of us put together.
• 41:57
  But just because she isn't answering the questions that the
• 42:01
  NHS wants answered, just because she's feeling their test,
• 42:06
  because English isn't her first language and because she comes
• 42:10
  from a different background. So she doesn't know what a
• 42:13
  kangaroo is, she doesn't know what a Unicorn is.
• 42:16
  But that doesn't mean she's lost her mind.
• 42:18
  And Coyote is aware that she hasn't lost her mind.
• 42:21
  But he's just like, yeah, but it's like all a bunch of box
• 42:25
  ticking. So, like, he doesn't want to
• 42:27
  fight for her. He doesn't want the
• 42:28
  responsibility. He's just like, look, bring it
• 42:31
  up with the NHS if you want things changed.
• 42:34
  Like I, I'm just doing my job here.
• 42:36
  And so it is interesting to see how all of these things are set
• 42:43
  up to help their their main goal of these like organizations is
• 42:50
  to help people, but everyone within their roles try their
• 42:56
  best to avoid actually doing the help and to be able to tick the
• 43:01
  box to say that they've done their work, but their work has
• 43:04
  not actually had any kind of positive impact.
• 43:08
  What did people think of the title on the Greenwich line?
• 43:11
  Because we get that scene with is it is it cutie?
• 43:15
  Is that how he says name? Yeah, I think so.
• 43:16
  So we get that scene with Cutie and we get with our protagonist
• 43:20
  and they meet like on this Greenwich line and.
• 43:24
  And it feels like such a good point in the novel, you know,
• 43:26
  because it's being like, this is what has happened, you know, can
• 43:30
  you like, we should erase, you know, the records and things
• 43:35
  like that. But I just, I know this is so
• 43:38
  silly, but I never even thought about this Greenwich line even
• 43:42
  existing. I feel like I am so naive at
• 43:45
  times. But this almost idea of like one
• 43:47
  side is East, one side is West. Like I'd, I had never even
• 43:51
  thought about that. And it took me such a long time
• 43:53
  to be like, oh I get the title now.
• 43:56
  I feel so stupid. Greenwich Mean Time.
• 43:59
  You guys, Yeah. I I knew of crunch mean time and
• 44:03
  I knew that it was based in London and in Greenwich.
• 44:06
  I knew all of that. No, the title.
• 44:10
  Just just to clarify, it's Greenwich Meridian, yeah.
• 44:14
  Oh sorry, what? Did I completely make that up?
• 44:16
  Is that another thing? Greenwich Mean Time can be used
• 44:19
  or the the the actual time zone. Yes, that's what I meant the.
• 44:23
  Name of the line is the Greenwich Meridian line.
• 44:26
  OK, OK, two different things, but yes, OK.
• 44:30
  And the title I had actually originally thought was this
• 44:35
  shows my lack of knowledge of London.
• 44:37
  I thought the Greenwich line was maybe like a tube line and I.
• 44:40
  Think it is Oh OK, I. Think it is yeah as well.
• 44:43
  I think it's both. OK.
• 44:46
  So I thought that it was going to have to do with the area that
• 44:50
  all of the story took place in that it's on the Grants Line,
• 44:56
  which I guess it does. Maybe if if again, I'm not
• 44:59
  familiar with the geography of London and very well, but it
• 45:04
  would make sense that all of this is basically based within
• 45:07
  this one part of of London. They they talk about how this is
• 45:12
  this and it's an arbitrary line that the world has agreed to be,
• 45:15
  you know, the in between and where, where time starts or
• 45:18
  whatever. I think that just it just
• 45:20
  coincides with all the things that people are saying one thing
• 45:23
  and that means something to one person, But like there's no
• 45:26
  definitive rule or agreement on who these people are.
• 45:29
  Like even the fact like a refugee, like why do we call
• 45:32
  them in ref A refugee when like they these are people who are
• 45:36
  fleeing conflict. And if unlike we are all one
• 45:39
  species, you know, these arbitrary lines of countries and
• 45:42
  stuff that that stop people from having the right to live and to
• 45:45
  write to the right to claim like homes or anything like this.
• 45:48
  You know, it is it's all these made-up Greenwich lines.
• 45:51
  Like we're just all agreeing to agree that this is where we
• 45:55
  demarcate the difference. Yeah, I think that's such an
• 45:58
  interesting. I feel like the only reason I
• 46:01
  know, like avoid the the Greenwich Meridian line is have
• 46:05
  you ever seen Philomena Kunk? She did a thing on time and she
• 46:10
  did a whole episode where she was there and she's standing
• 46:12
  like between with her leg on one side and one of the other.
• 46:15
  Have you seen a picture of the line?
• 46:17
  It's so strange. No.
• 46:19
  And it's like, it is. So as Colin says, it's so
• 46:21
  arbitrary. It's like this, these people
• 46:24
  from London have just decided that this is the way the world
• 46:28
  works. And I think that that's also
• 46:29
  another kind of theme in it is like everyone's trying to get to
• 46:32
  this place and it's only really big because it decides things in
• 46:38
  the world. It's like it can go OK, time
• 46:40
  starts here. Yeah, almost like this is the
• 46:42
  center of the world. Yeah, yeah, kind of saying that.
• 46:46
  And then it decides what's E, what's West, you know, and no
• 46:50
  other country has can go kind of well, actually, you're W me or
• 46:53
  you're EI mean. It's like this is east, this is
• 46:55
  West. This is the way the world works.
• 46:57
  And it's, it is, as Colin says, it's just so arbitrary.
• 47:00
  But it's like they have the ability to make this arbitrary,
• 47:03
  like they're making these rules. Here.
• 47:05
  And you just have to fit into them and like, often people
• 47:08
  don't, you know? It makes me think about in South
• 47:10
  Korea or sorry, North Korea, the world.
• 47:13
  The world maps are North Korea at the center of the world as
• 47:18
  opposed to the other. Like our, our athletes are very
• 47:22
  much like, you know, you're Eurocentric like theirs is like
• 47:26
  North Korea is like the middle. I think that's not just a North
• 47:30
  Korea thing. I think that's all around the
• 47:33
  world where they have their country or their continent at
• 47:36
  the center, so. Down for Australia?
• 47:40
  Opposite, I'm for sure. Exactly.
• 47:44
  So yes, it is. I get what you're saying, Colin,
• 47:48
  where I think a lot of the world would recognize our version of
• 47:52
  the Atlas and but eh, we wouldn't necessarily recognize
• 47:58
  the Atlas that other eh, parts of the world might use.
• 48:01
  I was in Hiroshima and I was talking to these really old and
• 48:08
  they weren't really old, but they were older than a lot older
• 48:10
  than me and Japanese women. And they wanted me to point on a
• 48:15
  map where I was a globe, sorry, where I was from.
• 48:19
  And I like kept pointing to Belfast and they were like
• 48:22
  London, London. No, not London, but they ever
• 48:30
  look at it also. It took so long to be like, and
• 48:32
  they were like Ireland eventually and I was like, Yep,
• 48:36
  Yep, we're fine, We're fine as long as it's not London.
• 48:41
  I think one of the things that stood out to me in this.
• 48:45
  Now obviously I didn't read Weasel, but comparing this to
• 48:51
  Small Boat and to There's a monster Behind the Door, our
• 48:57
  protagonist doesn't have an identity isn't named, which I
• 49:01
  find an intriguing trend and it could just be a way that we can
• 49:07
  all then place ourselves into the main character because they
• 49:10
  they aren't named. Did you guys have any thoughts
• 49:14
  on that or find did you notice that?
• 49:18
  Yeah, well, I only was thinking when I was looking back over it,
• 49:21
  I was like, is he named? I was like, Oh no, he's not.
• 49:23
  But I think that there's, as you said, it's like I find those
• 49:27
  characters almost. I think there is a relatability.
• 49:29
  I find I find the main character on in the Greenwich line
• 49:33
  extremely relatable. Some of the weakest sides that
• 49:35
  he said. I was like, this applies to me
• 49:36
  even though we have none of the same life situations.
• 49:39
  I I do find maybe you do relate more to a character whose name
• 49:43
  you don't know and is you're completely immersed in their
• 49:45
  perspective on life. And I think it also works well
• 49:48
  with the comedy of, of I think obviously small boat has little
• 49:53
  to no comedy, but monster behind the door is very funny.
• 49:56
  So I, I love that style of how that's how you tell a story kind
• 50:00
  of. One of my favorite parts of this
• 50:02
  book, one of the funniest parts to me was when the police
• 50:07
  officers in Egypt are talking to the Syrians and they're talking
• 50:13
  about how much they love Syrian desserts and sweets.
• 50:18
  And they're so thankful that like all the unrest happened in
• 50:23
  Syria, that Syrians had to move all over the world.
• 50:26
  Because now the world is so grateful that these Syrian like
• 50:31
  delicacies have reached them. And I mean, they, they do say
• 50:35
  something like one man's like war is another man's like
• 50:40
  treasure or something along those lines.
• 50:42
  And it that I think just boils down what this book is where
• 50:48
  it's looking at. It's taking actual like horrible
• 50:52
  negative scenarios, but then being like, oh, well, this
• 50:56
  person benefited from it. So it was all worth it in the
• 50:59
  end. In such a comical way of like
• 51:03
  people actually looked at at the world that way and justify
• 51:07
  actions and see these like small things that benefit their own
• 51:16
  lives and they're like, OK, well, it was all worth it
• 51:18
  because I got what I wanted out of it.
• 51:21
  I feel like there is a bit of humor where it's like everybody
• 51:23
  accepts the food because it is better than the food we have.
• 51:28
  You know, even that guy, the New Zealander, he's like the Cotton
• 51:30
  Manor, whatever he was called, he was like so biz to like, you
• 51:34
  know, talk about Egyptians and stuff and talk about the
• 51:37
  pyramids and all. And it's like, is hearts in the
• 51:39
  right place? But he still is a bit racist.
• 51:42
  Do you know what I mean? It's like, and I suppose it's
• 51:44
  distinguishing between people who are where you could
• 51:48
  probably. And I think the main character
• 51:50
  is like, I don't want to explain why what he's doing is annoying
• 51:54
  or offensive or how it's just painting every Egyptian in such
• 51:57
  a broad stroke of being Muslim or being like.
• 52:02
  From thousands of years ago. Yeah, from being Cleopatra or
• 52:05
  Ramses. And he's kind of like.
• 52:08
  The character was so annoying though.
• 52:11
  I feel like as a white person and being interested in other
• 52:16
  cultures, I felt a bit called out by that guy.
• 52:20
  Not that I would I'm I don't try and do accents because that's
• 52:23
  one of my but I probably would be like, Oh my God, are you?
• 52:26
  What do you guys think of Rameses?
• 52:27
  The second he was a piece of work for like, I actually don't
• 52:30
  know anything about Egyptian stuff, but like, you know, I
• 52:33
  mean, I do feel like kind of like being really interested in
• 52:36
  culture. And then it's like, you still
• 52:37
  don't get it. You still don't understand.
• 52:39
  It's like people who aren't from here.
• 52:40
  And then they are like, I'm really into like the and then
• 52:43
  they say something, you're like, it's not exactly true.
• 52:45
  You know, what you said is not right.
• 52:47
  But I like it's OK. It's like the fetishization of
• 52:52
  other people's history and culture and the fact that this
• 52:55
  man was like, I'm, I'm basically like, like you guys because I am
• 53:01
  the mummifier. And it's like, oh, this is so I
• 53:06
  understand what you're saying and like, you're not wrong with
• 53:08
  the connections that you're drawing, but don't say it like
• 53:12
  that. It's, it's just, it's so blunt
• 53:14
  and he, he has no, uh, like acknowledgement of the way he's
• 53:19
  delivering it. And it just comes across as so
• 53:25
  ignorant. Other cultures are fascinating
• 53:27
  and I feel like it is kind of hard to know where the line is.
• 53:31
  Cultural appreciation rather than appropriation.
• 53:35
  Yeah, I do, kind of. Walking, walking the line,
• 53:38
  walking the Greenwich Line between the two.
• 53:41
  Now let's give this book a reading out of five stars.
• 53:44
  I'm going to go first. This is a 5 star to me.
• 53:50
  I don't dish out five stars very often, but it felt like it was
• 53:56
  very similar in tone to Flesh. But I think it did what Flesh
• 54:04
  wanted to do to a better degree and in less words, in a shorter
• 54:11
  pH count. And now I know it wasn't the
• 54:13
  exact same story and I'm not trying to conflate migrants
• 54:17
  living in London as all the same, but it's just a lot of
• 54:21
  the, the themes and the tone that it had was very similar to
• 54:26
  for me. So yeah, this is a full on five
• 54:30
  stars. I haven't even finished it, but
• 54:33
  I am definitely going to finish this today.
• 54:36
  And yeah, I I absolutely love this.
• 54:39
  This is my winner so far. It's better than small boat and
• 54:45
  you know what about you guys? I think maybe my score might
• 54:49
  might surprise. We will just because of how I
• 54:52
  was talking things about things earlier.
• 54:54
  I really like the themes in this and I think the writing is
• 54:56
  really well written and I really enjoyed our conversation.
• 54:58
  All the things that's brought up.
• 55:00
  I'm going to give this a four-star.
• 55:02
  I did enjoy it, but I think like again, I like I was saying, I
• 55:05
  don't think it hit me at the right time, but I do think
• 55:08
  there's a lot here that is to be admired.
• 55:10
  And I while last time I was saying like, Oh, my enjoyment
• 55:14
  dulled my score for the weasel and horror, I think it's kind of
• 55:18
  the opposite in this case where I'm like, my enjoyment wasn't
• 55:21
  great for this, but the book itself shown through in a better
• 55:25
  way to make me still appreciate it beyond like how much I
• 55:28
  enjoyed it. So yeah, or start for me and I
• 55:31
  am in terms of winning. I don't know yet.
• 55:34
  Like I really don't know. I think it's, this is definitely
• 55:36
  I think up there, but I I'm excited to see what the other
• 55:40
  books are going to be like. For me, this is a four-star
• 55:45
  really, really enjoyed it. It's up there with me for a
• 55:47
  small boat. I just liked how I like sharp
• 55:51
  and punchy it was and I eat certain things of it, you know,
• 55:59
  it's left me with like thoughts and it's lingered, you know,
• 56:02
  even though I've read this like 2 weeks ago, it's still like,
• 56:05
  and the fact that it aligned up with me learning new like
• 56:08
  different bits of law. And I think for me, sometimes
• 56:13
  the books that have a little bit more of like a real relatability
• 56:18
  or like something that I'm very into politics and listening to
• 56:22
  the news. So I'm often current first.
• 56:24
  So when those two things align and for me, I think sometimes
• 56:26
  they hit really hard and I'd of the part we've we've read small
• 56:32
  boats squeeze on the horror this one and I've spoiler again, read
• 56:36
  ahead and read our next one. But for me, not that I think
• 56:41
  about it, I would like this one to win.
• 56:45
  Yeah, I think this is like 44.5 I I struggled to hit put it
• 56:53
  above small boats. I think what Small Boat did was
• 56:55
  kind of like it's, it's very like its scope was quite narrow
• 57:01
  and it really did what it was trying to do really, really
• 57:03
  well. And maybe this scope was a bit
• 57:05
  broader and a bit more rambling. And I think I'll maybe struggle
• 57:10
  to remember bits and pieces, but I remember thinking this is a
• 57:13
  fantastic book when I was reading it.
• 57:14
  Like really, really good. And I don't know how it stands
• 57:18
  with Small Boat, but I think Small Boat is excellent as well.
• 57:23
  The next book we're reading from the long list is Spit by David
• 57:26
  Brennan, published by Epoch Press Check out our social media
• 57:30
  for our full reading schedule. We're reading three more books
• 57:33
  before the winner is announced. Read along and share your
• 57:36
  thoughts on Instagram at Bookies Favorite Book Club and you can
• 57:39
  also e-mail us at bookiesfavoritebookclub@gmail.com.
• 57:42
  And favorite is always thought with AU.
• 57:45
  We've got some bonus episodes coming, too.
• 57:48
  There are a couple of special interview episodes from the team
• 57:50
  who brought you the novel Eden Shore, which has been long
• 57:53
  listed for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction for
• 57:57
  2026. Aaron and Lucy have recently
• 57:59
  wrapped up their chapter by chapter read along of the novel,
• 58:02
  and they also spoke with the author, Oshing Pagan, as well as
• 58:06
  the narrator of the audio book and the artists who worked on
• 58:09
  the cover. We also have some bonus content
• 58:12
  for this award examining last year's winner, and we'll
• 58:15
  hopefully be speaking with some people involved with that award.
• 58:18
  Also, Aaron's just launched a new podcast in which he reads
• 58:21
  book series to completion. Hannah is the guest for the
• 58:24
  first episode, which was released last month.
• 58:27
  They launched with On the Calculation of Volume, which was
• 58:30
  also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize last
• 58:32
  year. Check out the novel series
• 58:34
  wherever you listen to podcasts. We've covered other award
• 58:37
  winners and shortlists, including the Booker Prize, and
• 58:41
  we will probably be covering the International Booker Prize again
• 58:46
  this year. Which long list was just
• 58:49
  announced? Subscribe on whatever podcast
• 58:52
  platform you're listening on so you don't miss the next
• 58:54
  episodes. You can find me at Aaron Rice
• 58:57
  Media on Instagram. You can find me Colin at C under
• 59:02
  Score, F under score Rights on Instagram.
• 59:06
  You can find me Hannah at Certified Book Yapper Hannah.
• 59:10
  You can find me Lucy at Books 2026 Books with AZ.
• 59:17
  Share this episode with the book lover you think would like this
• 59:21
  book. Read the podcast. 5 stars, and
• 59:24
  let's end on a final quote from On the Greenwich Line.
• 59:28
  I came to see the hidden meaning in databases and networks and
• 59:31
  archives and all other systems of digital immortality on which
• 59:35
  we left our imprint each day, often without realizing it, and
• 59:39
  almost always with an insouciance born of
• 59:43
  shortsightedness.