No Way To Make A Living is a sociological space about work, generating discussion and exchange on what work, paid or unpaid, is like in today’s world

Earlier this year, I star­ted hanging around Billings­gate, London’s whole­sale fish mar­ket. I tell the fish mer­chants there that I’m try­ing to under­stand the whole pro­cess, of where the fish comes from and goes to, how it gets dis­trib­uted, who’s selling what, and more gen­er­ally what goes on at the mar­ket. It’s part of an…

What to wear? This is a fun­da­mental ques­tion of piano-tuning. As a piano tuner you will be in other people’s beau­ti­ful homes, walk­ing across their white car­pets, work­ing in their immacu­late liv­ing rooms or stud­ies. They expect you to be smart, but, on occa­sion, you need to rum­mage about in the filthi­est of instru­ments to…

It is 1973 and I am stand­ing in Ilford Sta­tion on a Sunday after­noon where the track used to be. I’m work­ing as a navvy and accord­ing to my payslip I am a plate-layer. We’ve been here nearly twelve hours already and the job is nowhere near fin­ished — we need to get the new…