One may ask how a 29-year old erstwhile lawyer from the colonies has ended up reporting to you from the desks of Finch Towers – a place for celebrities, mavericks and indeed, princesses. It’s a good question actually and one I frequently ask myself. The most straightforward answer is that there is madness in their method and perhaps just a little method in my madness – but I get ahead of myself – so let’s start at the beginning of my wild ride to Finchland.

My first meeting with the proprietor was a case of six degrees of separation. Many years ago his wife Sydney looked after an old school chum of mine and through the thread of hushed rumours I learned that Mr Finch was looking for writers.

“That’s me, right?” I asked myself, unconvinced? The mirror stared back blankly and requested that I stop talking to myself again. I mean a writer is what I had been desperately trying to be since packing up my Bondi-blonde beach life in Sydney, throwing five years of corporate law to the wind, and moving to London (for the second time in my short life) to fulfil my creative destiny. I gathered that Mr Finch had started up a publication combining his passions in life – film, fashion and his friends. What a gig! Potentially deep waters, perhaps even shark infested, but I wanted to take my chance to swim with the big kids so I was going to have to muscle some inner confidence – and wing it.

I’ll be honest – I hadn’t actually heard of Charles Finch (gasp) so I did what any intelligent, resourceful and entrepreneuring young gal in my situation would do and turned to my cyber-BFF “Google”.

Success! The first link provided me with his short but impressive bio. “Son to legendary actor Peter Finch”, blah blah, “grandfather climbed Everest with Mallory”, blah blah, he’d had stints writing, directing and producing movies before setting up his agency Finch & Partners. The guy sounded pretty damn cool (and the black and white photo of him smoking a cigar with mischief twinkling in his eyes confirmed it).  And I have to admit, I was just a little reassured to know that the person who’d be interviewing me had embraced at least twice as many careers as I have and I was sure he wouldn’t describe himself as flaky?

So, after a quick shot of vodka (I’m allergic to Fosters), yet another layer of lip gloss and donning the prettiest of my non-corporate yet semi-conservative dresses…(who knew what dilemmas I would face in the post-legal world without the security of the uniform suit) I was standing before the man himself. Words like charming or charismatic don’t quite cut it when it comes to Charles Finch. His office alone is testament to the sort of cult of personality that he enjoys, decorated with an eclectic mix of glories from his past. And as I took it all in, trying my best to liken receiving handwritten letters from Emma Thompson (as Chas does) to receiving a summary judgment, I swore to myself that I’d lay down the life of my first unborn child for the opportunity to work for this man (sincerity has never been my strength, I’m told).

But this very small part of FQR is meant to be about me, not Finch, so I’ll stop there before I continue to gush like a school girl. After a quick glance at my CV, he asked me the all important questions any prudent employer should enquire from a potential employee – what is your star sign, what do your parents do, and does Cate Blanchett know she has a Doppelgänger  (did I mention he was charming?). Given that Finch has escorted Our Cate (all Australians can claim her as their own) down the red carpet a number of times, I felt the gloss had performed its role in the proceedings.

Finch clearly isn’t scared of Scorpios (Leos never are) because shortly after this meeting I was marched from Heddon Street to Charles Street to meet our esteemed Editorial Director at one of his favourite establishments – the Mark’s Club. Of course I felt totally at home there, the sole female antagonist amongst a room of grey-haired Mayfairians, quietly nursing a G&T while I waited.

I was nervous but relieved when a man with dashing brown locks entered the room and introduced himself to me as Nick Foulkes. Nick is enigmatic and, again, I’ll stop there. I don’t know whether he has my game totally figured out or is just as surprised as I am that I found my way to Finchland – suffice to say the jury’s still out and I look forward to seeing how it all unfolds.

So while I have a little bit to learn about the penchants of the Mayfair gentleman (Rubinacci, Berluti, Turnbull & Asser have all suffered the indignity of my Googlisation) – as Managing Editor of Finch’s Quarterly I’m convinced my years of legal training should hold me in good stead (cough cough) and that I can offer just a little bit of structure to an otherwise organic process, grown purely from love.

I am not about to start enforcing us to record how we each spend every six minutes of our day (I must confess I was terribly bad at this and officially branded a “time delinquent” by my former firm).  And I’m certain that even if I tried to do so it wouldn’t go very far at Finch Towers – although it would be interesting to know how Mr Finch spends every six minutes of his day.

So I’ll sign off now but there’s more to come as I unleash myself from the strict discipline of legal ritual and embrace the FQR way.

First stop – Charles’ infamous Bafta Party – to work, of course.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 6th, 2009 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Finch's World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.