Learning to Drink and What Came After is an irreverent take on a life that has been lived across the pages of The Times , within the darkly glamorous haunts of Soho alongside artists and criminals, the lofty world of Mayfair auction houses and behind the scenes at The Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. As the first female leader writer on The Times , Geraldine was embedded in the heart of Fleet Street, ultimately building up to a daring but unsuccessful management buyout attempt. Geraldine's background as a statistician led to her being The Times' key saleroom correspondent, where she was instrumental in uncovering scandalous financial irregularities in the auction houses and some of the most notorious forgers of the era (such as Tom Keating).