Sweden, So Much To Answer For

One day I might find myself in Room 101. It could happen. The government adopted doublespeak some time ago and continues to bring in laws that it claims are essential to curb the ever-present terrorism threat but that also subtly change the way we live our lives without us even noticing. I know the terrorism threat is real but I don't see how a national ID card or the stealthy way the government is introducing laws that combat legitimate public protest is going to change anything.

Woah, calm down Ian! What happened there?! This was supposed to be a light-hearted rant about some trivial event in my life and suddenly, after years of apathy, I turned into someone who actually cares. Enough of that and back to the story....

Should I find myself in Room 101 I would, of course, have to face my worst nightmare. For Winston Smith it was rats gnawing his face (until he ratted on his lover. Ha! Pun!). I imagine others would face the same fate since rats are reviled by so many. At present, and I mean today at this specific time and maybe for a few days yet and no longer, I have no doubt what I would find should I have to enter that infernal place. I would walk through the door to find myself in a well lit room. On the floor would be an arrow and I would follow it. The room would be very large but various structures give it a maze-like quality that ensure that I visit every part of its huge area so that I don't miss any of it. The arrow guides me through the maze with thousands of other people. We would all be walking very slowly, sometimes retracing our steps back through the maze so as to reinspect some part of it that was previously missed.

I might as well stop waffling on in this ridiculous quasi-mysterious manner, I'm even boring myself now. I'm referring to Ikea, or as Dante referred to it, the Fourth Circle of Hell. I went there last night for the purpose of acquiring a few items for my bedroom. I left there in a state somewhere between despair and murderous rage.

No-one enters the Wembley branch of Ikea in a good mood. In order to get there you need to drive a few miles along one of the ugliest roads on God's Earth, the North Circular. It's grim, maybe London at its most unpleasant. Just make sure you don't take a wrong turn into Stonebridge Park....And then you arrive and, if you're lucky, it will take you less than 10 minutes to find a parking space before you wander into consumer paradise.

It all looks appealing enough to begin with. Everything is very well ordered and well lit and well spaced out. The goods are pleasing on the eye. Stylish, but not intimidatingly so. Populist, you might say. And certainly very popular judging by all the people there. You don't miss anything the store has to offer because you can't. There is a single route and you must follow it, deviation is impossible. And it goes on and on. Bland and inoffensive rules here and you will see every bland and inoffensive item the store has whether you want to or not.

I looked up Ikea on wikipedia and found the following information:

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was, as a teen, directly involved in the pro-Nazi New Swedish Movement (Nysvenska Rörelsen) until at least 1945, causing tensions when IKEA began opening stores in Israel.

It all now begins to make sense. The order. The uniformity. The brown-shirted staff (actually, I made that up. They wear a tasteful and non-threatening blue). It's a totalitarian utopia and we're all falling for it. Our desire for cheap yet stylish living room furniture is blinding us to what is really going on. When Hitler talked of lebensraum he didn't mean room for his master race to breed and live, he was referring to actual living rooms! Do you see!?

However, there is one area in which Ikea falls short in its ambition to become the flagship store of the extreme right and is also the main source of my hatred of the place. After about ninety minutes shopping I had decided upon a bookcase, bedside table and television stand. I collected them from the warehouse area and made my way to the checkout only to find a huge scrum of people all doing the same as me. I would have had to wait in line for a further half hour. It was 10.45 on a Monday night! Already tired from a few sleepless nights and irritable from spending time in consumer hell I took no time at all deciding on my course of action. I swore loudly, left the store and drove home without my goods. I thought efficiency was the one big thing that a fascist regime might have in its favour. After all, if Mussolini managed to make the trains run on time all those decades ago, then what would surely have been his favoured home furnishing outlet can open a few more checkouts!

Glastonbury Festival 2007: Muddy

Us Glastonbury folk (I think I can say "us", this was my fourth festival in succession) seem to like to place each festival in order of quality. My best was my first in 2003. This, by no small coincidence, was also a year in which the weather was perfect. It was sunny but rarely so much that it was uncomfortable. The weather has got steadily worse every year since then. Last time saw a deluge of biblical proportions, literally more rain than I've ever seen, let alone camped in. It made life difficult but by the Sunday, when Brian Wilson played and made the sun come out, the ground was pretty dry. This week saw one decent day, Wednesday, followed by four days in which it rained until around 3pm every day. The entire site was a quagmire. There was no escape. It wasn't my worst Glastonbury but my second worse and I don't know how I'll deal with it next year if the weather is the same. I've had enough wet and muddy Glastonburys.

However, like a dog's feelings towards its often cruel master, my love for Glastonbury Festival is unconditional and this will always be so. I have moments of happiness there that just can't occur anywhere else. There exists an atmosphere that I don't believe can be found anywhere else. It's a city where people approach life with an open mind, where they can express themselves in whichever way they feel knowing that they won't be judged. It's somewhere you feel anything could happen, something completely wonderful and unexpected. All you have to do is go look for it and you'll find it. And if all you want to do is get whacked out on goofballs or drunk on gallons of magic monkey juice then so be it.
Good things that happened this year include:

• Seeing Arcade Fire at their spiritual home


• Having our biggest and best camp ever - 12 of us! And managing to get camp fires on three consecutive nights


• Enjoying a few communal breakfasts of sausage sandwiches washed down with cider


• The Park - an excellent new area


• Seeing the Hard-Fi secret gig


• Having a group discussion on the fact that centipedes shoes would be in the style of those worn by Mr Noisy.


• Seeing Super Furry Animals at last
  
• And loads of other things that I can't remember right now

There were also gripes but most of these revolve around the weather and underfoot conditions. I can't complain about those two as a great deal has been done to improve drainage and the weather is under no-one's control, not even Michael Eavis'. There are just two things I believe he needs to address and that is that there are too many people now onsite and that there is no supervision for those leaving after the festival. Some people were in the car parks waiting to get out for up to ten hours with no idea of when they would leave. I, on the other hand, was out of the car park in around six hours. It would have been less than one hour but my idiot sister lost the car. We trudged around in the driving rain for many hours before she finally found it a mere 5 hours after we first left the site. I would have been angry with her but she was too distressed and I was too tired.

It's a shame that the weather has caused some of my friends to claim this is their last Glastonbury but I understand. I've decided to get a ticket next year but I won't go if the weather forecast is as bad as this year's. The amount of work you have to put in compared to the fun derived is becoming a bit much. I want to be able to sit where I please and feel the sun on my face. I don't like walking around the site having to look at the ground in order to not fall over in the mud. I don't like being muddy but I'll always love Glastonbury.

The Monkey on my Back

I intended writing this post last week, probably about four days ago. It was to be about something that I've discovered and become hopelessly addicted to but, due to my addiction, it's taken this long to get around to it. Even as I sit here I'm thinking about when I'm next going to use it. But I'm going to be strong. For about half an hour anyway.

I've drunk heartily from life's chalice and even taking into account my compulsive nature I've never been addicted quite so quickly to anything as I have this. The only thing that keeps me from using it all day is the fact that I can't use it at work. Thanks goodness. But I start using almost as soon as I get home from work. First I make sure that I get changed and do any tasks that can't wait. I know that once I start I won't be doing anything else for a while. Before I know it, night has drawn in and another evening has passed. I go to bed feeling the remorse of a true junkie: that I've wasted another evening but I know that tomorrow I'll start all over again.

So, how did this all start? It started how these things always start. Someone, a friend, tells you all about it. Then another invited me to join their group. Try it, they say, it's fun. They often do this out of spite. Yes, it is fun for a while, but what they really want is to feel less alone. They want others to share their addiction as if this somehow validates their own or lifts some weight from their shoulders. Neither of these things happen. All that happens is that one addict becomes two addicts.

It turns out that users are everywhere. In the week that I've been using I've found that loads of people I already knew are also using. They had previously never spoke of it. Indeed, you don't ever know whether anyone is a user until you join their world and start using it yourself. And it's the social aspect that is most enjoyable. So long as your friends are using it then you will always find some enjoyment, regardless of how fleeting and empty that enjoyment is.

So, what now? Well, I've acknowledged my helplessness. That's supposed to be the first step but, to be honest, I don't really care. I'm addicted and I don't care. I'm going to continue using it when I get home from work and maybe even before I go to work in the morning. As long as there are others there with me I'm going to continue using it and damn the consequences.

My name is Ian and I'm addicted to Facebook.

Whole Days Throwing Sticks into Streams....

Towards the end of my previous post I listed reasons why the media might want to keep Madeleine's story prominent. One reason I forgot to include is that our media likes to scare us. This is clearly a tactic that sells. We don't see headlines such as: "Public healthier and living longer than ever" or "Our kids have never been safer". These headlines don't sell, despite their undoubted truth. It seems that people are largely interested in hearing about how dangerous the world is; it's as if this information gives some us perverse sense of security. We want to believe the worst and we can't be happy unless we're in a collective state of agitation.

I'm an exception to all this. It's true that I believe that we, as a race, are screwed. But this relates to the self-immolation that we will surely provoke in a short while by refusing to treat our planet with the respect it deserves. However, all that will happen with or without my permission and I'm quite relaxed about it. When it comes to safety on a local level I firmly believe that, in my part of the world at least, we are better off than ever before.

Okay, that's easy for me to say. I'm an adult male and although my demographic is more likely than any other to experience the effects of crime I'm confident enough to walk the streets without worrying. Maybe if I had a child to worry about then I'd think a bit differently. Well, it's true that I'd certainly be vigilant. But I'd like to think that I'd give my children a bit more freedom than is seen to be acceptable today.

This study really upsets me. I live next to an infant school and am well aware of the large amount of parents who take their children to school (often in SUVs but that's another matter) but I was astonished to learn that only 9% of kids walk to school on their own compared to 80% in 1970. There are loads of reasons for this but one of the main ones must be fear. If it's not fear of what might happen to one's child then it's fear of being labelled an irresponsible parent for letting that child out of one's sight for a few minutes. This is very sad. I can't find any official figures but would be very surprised if children were in any more danger from being attacked or abducted than they were 35 years ago. And there are half as many children killed in vehicle accidents every year than there were in 1922 despite there being 25 times more traffic on the roads.

It's now early June. It's warm outside and the sun doesn't go down until late. Next month the schools break up for six weeks. It's this time that was so fantastic to me as a child. I could play football in our close (no through traffic so the only danger was grazed knees and elbows and this happened frequently) or go cycling with my friends. We might meet at someone's house in the morning and spend all day doing exactly as we pleased. We would explore our environment and discover things and have the kind of fun that only a child can have and be home in time for tea. This no longer happens because their parents are scared. This means that there is an entire generation of children that are growing up having missed out on some of the most vital of formative experiences. Children no longer go out to play.

At some point there has to be a backlash. When today's kids get older and realise that they were cheated of a proper childhood then maybe there'll be a greater understanding of what children need. Maybe the next generation of children will consequently have more freedom. Yes, there are risks. But there will always be risks and these risks are minuscule compared to the rich experiences and life-lessons that can be learnt if children can just be given a little more space. A life spent wrapped in cotton wool is no life worth living and the climate that children are brought up in right now isn't a place to which I'm in any hurry to introduce anyone.

The News Today is that there is No News

What makes one human being more important than another?

From where I'm sitting I can reel off the names of those humans who are most important to me. It's easy. The list includes my family and friends and then maybe those that I've not met but whose art brings me happiness.

If I was to try to think of this question in an objective sense then I'd probably go for world leaders. Then campaigners and activists of all kinds, people who try to make a difference to their environment, thereby influencing the lives of others.

But in reality I've no idea. I'd really like to think that the answer is that no one human being is more important than any other. I'd hope that's how God sees it too.

There is, however, an industry that decides which human beings are the most important every day and that industry is the newspaper industry and that human being is the one that appears on the front page. It's a tough call. Each paper is aware that it has to print stories that appeal to the current readership while trying to attract new readers. They also have to try to attract new advertising revenue. Each seems to have worked out what to wheel out on a on a slow news day:

Daily Express - Princess Diana
The Star - TV Reality show stars
The Independent - Environment expose
Guardian - Big business expose
Daily Mail - Anyone who isn't, or isn't aspiring to be, white and middle class is scum and a danger to us Mail readers, the silent moral majority.

Recently, however, there has been a pan-newspaper consensus on what constitutes a front page story, what constitutes an important human being. What our nation's media (this includes TV)has decided is that the most important story in this country for the last 28 days is the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. She has become the most important person in the world, judging by the amount of exposure her plight has received. She, in this country, is more important than the Queen, the Prime Minister (and the PM in waiting), and all of our sports and pop and movie stars (which I'm sure no-one has a problem with). She is more important than genocide in Darfur and every other tragedy that is occurring anywhere in the world today and I have a problem with this.

Now follows a disclaimer, obligatory for anyone expressing any kind of cynicism at the amount of exposure that one girl's disappearance has caused. If I was her parent I would want her image on every front page, every back page, every TV programme, billboard, passing car, lapel badge etc. I would want her name on everyone's lips, in everyone's consciousness. I can't imagine the pain they're feeling and hope that in the event that their worst fears come true that they can somehow move on with their lives with Madeleine's siblings.

But I'm not her parent. I have other concerns. I'm just a person who reads about her in the papers every day hoping for new information. So far there has been none. A man was questioned by police and then released without charge, so far his only crime seems to have been that he looked a bit suspicious. His glass eye probably didn't help. And that has been the only news in the month since she first went missing. Every day her story gets top billing and every day the story is that there is no story. Not even my beloved BBC can hold its head high here as it has been guilty of the same speculative and sometimes libellous reporting - think of Robert Murat and the frequent comments on the adequacy or otherwise of the Portuguese police.

So why is she still front page news? The simple answer is that I don't know. But here are some possible factor:

- She's young and photogenic. Let's not mess about here; if she wasn't a pretty, young white girl with attractive middle class parents there would not have been all of this exposure. Sukhpal Singh from Stockwell would not have got the same treatment and you can be sure that there would have been more outcry at the parents leaving their child alone.

- Her parents have used the media fantastically well.

- Portugal is a nice place to go to report on a story.

- The public still want the story and so none of the papers want to drop it. This is a difficult point to evaluate as there is a very fine balancing act between a paper and its readers regarding demand for news: the public demands certain stories but the media can also create these demands where previously there was little interest. I think that there is still a huge amount of interest in the story although this may be waning in the face of a complete lack of new information.

This last point could absolve the media of its blanket coverage, although not its mawkish style. If the public wants a story then the papers will provide it regardless of whether there is a story at all, it would be stupid not to. It's just a shame that we're left with the strange phenomenon whereby the public and the media exist in a symbiotic relationship that is entirely dependant on the amount of grief that members of that public feel for a child that they've never met. How long can this go on? Did we collectively grieve for this long when Princess Diana died? I'm not sure we did.

What I've written here is pretty unfocused so I feel I should summarise:

- Madeleine's plight is a tragic one, especially to her family.

- But, for the rest of us, life goes on.

- So let's continue to pray for her safe return

- Although I don't see why the Pope should get involved, unless this is the new Papal strategy for every family in the McCann's position.

- There are few things that we like more than a good old collective grieve. We are clearly, as a nation, emotionally retarded.

New York!

My previous post ended with a short note on how I was a little apprehensive about going to New York on my own and within ten minutes of arriving in Manhattan there was the perfect illustration of why I felt that way. I left my wallet in the taxi. Fortunately, or maybe because I'd just given a generous tip, the driver alerted me to my idiocy and my week was saved. Further examples of my stupidity include: leaving my unfinished Philip Roth on the plane to New York and leaving an Elmore Leonard, my Roth replacement, on the plane that took me home. I need a nanny, or just someone to slap my face every know and then and tell me to wake up.

The Paramount Hotel was cool as was my room, if a little small. But the bed was comfy, the air-con worked and it had a great shower. It was situated just 100 yards from Times Square and that is where I first headed. It was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Piccadilly Circus is the obvious reference point for an Englishman but there's no comparison really. If you somehow magnified Piccadilly Circus by twenty and force-fed it hallucinogenic drugs then a similar effect might occur but I doubt it. There exists a complete sensurround of noise, colour and odour that is quite exhilarating and dizzying to the newcomer. I wandered around Times Square and its arteries for about an hour before deciding that what I really needed to do was get a drink and so I settled in the Playwright on about 49th. It looked as though it might have a British influence and I desperately needed something familiar to cling to!

I was served by a girl with an Irish accent and there was soccer (I was in America. I've since reverted to calling it football) on the big screen which was very reassuring. So reassuring that I stayed for ages. Karen from Kilkenny was very helpful and gave me a big list of places at which I might like to drink and eat, all separated by district and with a street address. Armed with this information I decided to visit some of them and had a great time. I talked with interesting people and sampled many of New York's draught beers and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

The next morning I awoke at about nine. I was fully clothed and without even the slightest recollection of leaving the last place I'd visited or even of entering or walking back to the hotel. It's a wonder I wasn't mugged or violated in some other terrible way but also comforting to know that my homing instinct is still quite sharp. I felt absolutely terrible but had a full day ahead of me and didn't allow myself to wallow in my discomfort for long. The plan was to get the Subway to South Ferry and walk from Battery Park to Central Park, an ambitious target and one that eventually proved overambitious.

Here is what I saw and did over the next few days:

The Korean War Veteran's Memorial is in Battery Park. Beneath your feet as you walk around the memorial is information on casualties suffered by the different countries that sent troops to the war. I discovered that UK forces experienced 1078 deaths and 1263 missing in action. Netherlands had two deaths, as did little Luxembourg. Curiously, the Italians suffered no fatalities.

I walked through the financial district without stopping too long at Ground Zero. I've never been anywhere especially to see something that is no longer there. You're forced to try to visualise what was once there and it's near impossible to do that without also visualising the collisions and the collapses and I felt that it was morbid to do anything other than briefly pay my respects.

I spent some enjoyable hours wandering through Chinatown, Little Italy and SoHo. I liked the way that these districts had strict boundaries and left you in no doubt where you were. One side of the road you might be able to choose from the largest selection of Korean porn outside of Seoul and then you cross the street to be greeted by moustached men with greased back hair, each imploring you to eat pasta in their undoubtedly fine establishments. Someone somewhere was playing the theme from The Godfather. I didn't eat in Little Italy and neither did I buy porn in Chinatown. I did spend a few dollars in SoHo, however. Nothing big but a few t-shirts and shirts and pj's for me and my loved ones and all at outrageously low prices. The Paul Frank shop was cool and played Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire and The Who. It was if I'd sent them a playlist in advance. I also found some fantastic book shops but had already bought about six books in America and thought I should quit that particular caper as I'd probably lose them all anyway.

By now I was really aching. My hangover had completely got the better of me and I'd somehow sustained a knee injury that made walking difficult. Nothing else for it but to get back on the Subway and head uptown. The Subway is excellent and, as with every city I've visited that has an underground train system, it puts London's to shame. It's cheap, clean and doesn't require you to travel half a mile underground to access it.

I landed back in Times Square and walked the rest of the way to Central Park. It was a relief to get into the Park after the chaos of the city. Its calm ambience is your reward for having endured the the sights and sounds of Midtown Manhattan. I found a spot in the shade of a tree and ate the salad that I'd bought in a Little Italy deli before sitting back and feeling some kind of bliss. All around me was life being lived at a far easier pace than I'd seen for a day and it looked all the more pleasurable for it. Near me were a couple of men playing bongos. Occasionally people passing by would stop to dance in the sun. In England they probably call the police. There were baseball and football games being played, roller bladers, cyclists, joggers and walkers. It was lovely.

I could have stayed all day but time was limited and I had one more thing to do before I could head back to the hotel for a much needed nap. I took the Subway to 110 Street and found Tom's Restaurant, better known as Monk's Cafe in Seinfeld. It was a pilgrimage I had to make even though I felt pretty underwhelmed when I got there. By now I was exhausted and headed back to the hotel and slept.

At around six I made the short walk to the Rockefeller Centre. I decided to visit the observation deck in the GE Building rather than the trip up the Empire State Building because, well, you can't see the Empire State Building from the top of the Empire State Building.

A glass roofed elevator ascends at great speed and you step out of it having climbed seventy floors in thirty seconds. The view as I stepped out onto the rooftop was one of the most beautiful I've seen. Right in the middle of a vast ocean of concrete and glass lies Central Park, looking like quite the most tranquil and fertile place imaginable. Its importance to New York is quite obvious from this vantage point - without it madness would reign. Then I walked to the other side of the building to look towards Downtown Manhattan and was greeted with a sight that was (coming up: a word that is overused but is applied literally here) breathtaking. The tops of the proliferation of skyscrapers form what looks like an uneven looking floor. Standing proudly above them all is the Empire State Building and it's magnificent. I stood staring for several minutes in a vain attempt to try to take in everything in my field of vision. I actually stayed for the best part of an hour. I don't know why, all I did was stare. I just couldn't move but eventually my stomach told me it's time to stop gawping and start eating.

I didn't do much in the evening. I couldn't, I was exhausted. I made a half-hearted effort at shopping in Macy's but it was all too much. I saw Times Square at night and watched the Yankees win for the first time in ages in an Irish bar somewhere. My back ached and my left knee felt like someone has been hitting it with a hammer. I needed a good night's sleep and hoped to wake up refreshed and not fully clothed.

How and why I woke at 7am is a mystery. My back still ached and my knee still hurt. In fact it quickly became apparent that I'd be doing far less walking as I did the previous day. Are you supposed to get arthritis at my age?

I took the Subway down to SoHo and bought some more cheap clothes and realised SoHo is like Covent Garden. There are plenty of great places to shop but other establishments that I wouldn't enter for fear of death-by-withering-look from a snooty shop assistant. I hadn't made it to Greenwich Village the previous day so headed in that direction. I was already tired and it was barely midday but in my defence it was pretty hot. I had a couople of slices of pepperoni outside a pizza joint and contemplated whether or not I'd just walked past the house where Cliff Huxtable and his family lived. It wasn't.

After I'd spent some quality time wandering around I took the Subway uptown to get my ticket for the evening's show. There's a fountain opposite Radio City Music Hall and I sat there for a while with office workers on their lunch break and made notes in the sun and cooled my hands in the water. The temperature was as hot as at any time in Myrtle Beach. The summers here must be unbearable.

I felt quite sad. I knew that I'd have to return to the hotel for some rest before the evening which, since I was flying home the next day, effectively meant that I'd done all of the exploring that I was going to do. There was, of course, one last thing to do, the reason I came to New York in the first place.

Radio City is quite unlike any music venue I've ever seen. It certainly beats Brixton Academy. Due to dire warnings of body searches and confiscations on my ticket I didn't bring my camera into the venue which is such a shame as my clumsy descriptions can never do it justice. It feels like a living, breathing Art-Deco museum; you get the feeling that the interior hasn't changed since it was built (I could be very wrong, I have no idea!). The lobby features huge chandeliers hanging from a ceiling four floors up and a winding, sweeping staircase to the upper levels. The most startling things were the bathrooms, or Gentleman's Lounges. They featured ante-rooms that resembled the Red Room in Twin Peaks. A large dark marble (granite? I dunno. It looked great though) floor with luxuriant armchairs in each corner greets you before you enter the loveliest bathroom I've seen anywhere. And that includes homes and hotels. I'll remember this place next time I'm in the men's room of a London club, having waded through urine-soaked floors to wash my hands only to have an attendant attempt to charge me for the privilage of being handed a paper towel.

Then there was the small matter of the band. I've used enough words already on Arcade Fire so I don't really need to say much here other than that they were magnificent and they alone justified my journey here.

And that's about it. I went for a few drinks after the the show to try to help take stock of what I'd just seen and heard, not just that evening but over the preceding few days, and then to bed.

I took the train to JFK the next morning. It was quick, clean, easy and cheap. I arrived home about 12 hours later, exhausted but very happy and thinking that no place has ever made me feel so small and insignificant and yet so much a part of something incomprehensively big and wonderful.

I love NY!

America #2

Myrtle Beach is characterised by, among other things, diners and shops. These establishments generally subscribe to the idea that, in order to best make us aware of their existence, they should make their frontages big and bold. All of this goes on for quite a few miles along the coastal road and it gets a bit much after a while. It isn't pretty.

Travelling south on Highway 17 you notice the shopfronts becoming less gaudy. You pass through a few pleasant looking towns. Georgetown in particular, with it's antebellum (before war - look at me learning Latin!) houses, was very pretty. That's as long as you stay down by the waterfront and try to ignore the steel works. After this there is about an hour of countryside before you reach Charleston and it was during this time that I felt that I was really seeing America for the first time. There's a fantastic feeling of well being to be gained by driving (or being driven - Becky was driving) in the sun in the American south with the radio playing Lynryd Skynryd and other rock classics, like a nostalgia for something not yet experienced. Some kinda wonderful.

Charleston is where the first shots of the American Civil War were fired. The city has retained much of its architecture from before that period and has encouraged later buildings to fit in with the existing surroundings. The result is a real step back in time, the kind of place that I could not imagine existing here, although modern encroachments are apparent and will probably only get worse. It's also very beautiful and has joined the small list of places where I'd be happy to live should England drown. (Though I don't imagine the local alternative music scene to be up to much but, hey, you can't have it all)

Becky and I ate She-Crab Soup and Fried Green Tomatos (a tasty first for me) in a restaurant that had the names of famous diners engraved on small plaques and nailed to various tables. At my table, quite thrillingly, the Beach Boys had sat! We then went on an entertaining and informative guided tour by horse drawn carriage before taking a slow walk around and then settling at a hotel's rooftop bar. It was one of the few occasions in a place up high where I've felt that the view wasn't as good as at ground level. I think that's a compliment. I had a very enjoyable day.

At this very second I'm watching Fox News ("Fair and Balanced" If you say so...). In Dallas last night one woman was killed when struck by lightning and another drowned when her car was swept away by flood water. We don't get that in England, that's real weather. We think it's an emergency if a roof leaks. And now Fox News is reporting the outrageous news that gas is hitting $3 a gallon. $3 a gallon! Ours is $9 a gallon, deal with it!

I'm still enjoying every minute here but New York is looming quite close on the horizon and if I'm honest I'm a little nervous. I have the guidance of my hosts here but will be all alone in the big city. I'm not worried about my personal safety or in fact anything specific at all, more that a developed sense of initiative a) would be useful in New York and b) is something I'm lacking. I know everything's gonna be cool though.