I started drafting this in the Cafe Hawelka this afternoon, taking shelter from the Vienna heat. I hadn’t sat there for twenty-five years, and while its inspirational proprietor, Leopold Hawelka, died a year or two ago, it hadn’t changed in any obvious respect. The newspapers still lie on a table attached to wooden rods and the Brauner and the Strudel taste just as good. It remains, for me, a redoubt of civilisation. I left my Zoom recorder running too to capture all the clinks and clatters and smattering a of German and English.

Why? I was mitching from the International Conference On The Short Story In English. In the morning I listened to Swedish/Australian author Anna Solding read a haunting tale from her recent ‘novel constellation’ – now that’s a phrase, a good one, I’d never heard before today. And I listened to an interesting discussion about ways of disseminating the short story by, among others, bona fide Sweet Talker Jarred McGinnis. So far my own contribution to this gathering of some of the finest practitioners of the genre has been confined to spilling coffee over Tania Hershman (V. sorry, T, if you’re reading this – you’re not the first victim of my dyspraxic tendencies.)

And this afternoon I went out and about in the city with my Zoom, trying to capture sounds of Vienna for possible future use. And I got some good stuff I think. The Prater Gardens were particularly fertile territory, with everything from quiet soundscapes of wind-blown trees, cyclists on the path, with beach volleyball  and the occasional tram in the background to the hallucinogenic textures of the fun park. I could have stayed there all afternoon. It occurred to me that sound recording is, or can be, a little like fishing. But more on that anon. Meantime, does anyone know the German for sweet talk?