Survival tips for a Brit in New York

New York's House magazine asked if I would write my ten survival tips for a Brit in New York, for one of their regular features. Now, I still consider myself the new kid here and cannot offer much in the way of street wisdom. However, I have so far remained afloat in this wondrous, eddying city for two years without developing a mid-Atlantic accent. I see this as a small victory and one which emboldens me to accept the challenge. So, here goes...
(And yes, there are 11. Don't know why.)

1)
Your Taste or Mine?
Sometimes one simply must have roast beef, treacle tart and a proper British cuppa. Fortunately, in the West Village there lies an Aladdin’s Cave of home comforts. You’ll even find HP Sauce and Bird’s Custard at Tea and Sympathy.
www.teaandsympathynewyork.com

2)
It’s a Dog’s Life
It is important to learn the difference between unfeasibly small dogs and portly rodents, otherwise you may offend Manhattanites by exclaiming, ‘good lord, sir, there seems to be a rat admiring your loafers!” Everyone here has a pocket dog and some of them are better dressed than we are.

3)
What to Wear?
In 1758 Samuel Johnson said, "It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.” In New York there is much to discuss. 24 hours can take you from blizzard to beer garden, so you’re going to need a wardrobe of Narniaic proportions.

4)
Say Hello To My Little Friend
As a resident, when your building superintendent comes to the door asking for his ‘tip,’ you should probably not do ‘the jacket pat down’ and claim you’ve mislaid your wallet. Yes, extortion, even at the paltry rate of 20 bucks a week, is alive and well in downtown Manhattan.

5)
You Are Where You Eat
Become a ‘foodie’ and invest in a Zagat restaurant guide. New Yorkers take their food very seriously - not surprising given that their apartments have Lilliputian kitchens, if they have one at all.
www.zagat.com

6)
Time You Got The Massage
After craning your neck at the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and the inconceivably massive skyscrapers of Midtown, someone ought to have the common decency to give you a good rub down. Make use of the massage parlours. They look scary, but they fix you.

7)
It’s A Numbers Game
Yes, it’s a cliché, but the accent works. However, this can be a double-edged sword in a city where the women can be predatory. So, next time you exclaim, ‘Cor blimey, Mary Poppins!’ have a fake phone number memorized, just in case the mutant at the bar overhears you.

8)
An Age Old Problem
You may have arthritic knee-joints, a parent called Ethel, and remember what you drank at the first gig the Beatles ever played, but the Friday night doorman is still going to make you prove your age. Always carry ID. It also helps you remember who you are after four martinis.

9)
Are You Not Entertained?
Accept that you will never truly understand American sports. It seems there are too many breaks, too many statistics, too much padding, an over-reliance on technology, and too many ‘fans’ munching on footlong dogs. It seems this way because it is this way.

10)
The Eyes Have It
Have another pair of eyes fitted in the back of your head. There are a dizzying number of beautiful, model-type women in New York. Try not to stare, cut peepholes in your daily paper, or walk backwards after they pass. It’s just not cool.

11)
Beauty Sleep
Here there is a pill for anything. New Yorkers work hard, play hard and sleep hard. Popping an Ambien before hopping into bed is commonplace. My friends claim they are not addicted and I believe them. I could pour this bottle of Jack Daniels away if I wanted to. Honestly. I really could.

Why, thank you...thank you very much.

Last week we enjoyed our first homemade (pre)Thanksgiving Dinner. Our friend Ron, henceforth to be known as Ron The Legend or simply, RTL, prepared a brobdingnagian* feast fit to fling you up a trouser size in one happy evening. The table groaned ‘neath a Turkey the size of…Turkey, its crisp skin glistening with rich promise as it basked, besieged by bounteous dishes; chestnut stuffing, spinach and sweet potato cake, Brussels sprouts with pancetta (or ‘bacon’ as someone heartlessly chirped), rich gravy, Ceasar Salad, home-baked apple crumble and real New York Cheescake. I sat strategically, opposite the host (in order that some of his arcane culinary conjury might rub off on me) and next to Aussie Trent, the wine virtuoso whose vision of Hell involves friends with empty glasses. Conversation reigned, wine poured, and one of our joyous 11 even gave thanks, happy to have traversed some difficult times.

Celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November, Thanksgiving is the traditional North American holiday when Families and friends gather around a festive meal to give thanks at the conclusion of the harvest season. It originated when the Plymouth settlers (who came to be called "Pilgrims") set apart a holiday immediately after their first harvest in 1621. They held an autumn celebration of food, feasting, and praising God. Apparently, they were particularly grateful to Squanto, the Native American and former British slave who taught them how to catch eel (er…thanks) and grow corn. This know-it-all also served as their native interpreter. I imagine he was like a silken-haired, feather-flaunting version of our own RTL, and probably threw a first-rate soiree to boot.

Sexy stores such as Whole Foods might negate the once poignant observance of the seasons (you can get just about anything anytime nowadays – Spring Onions in November?) but the essence of the holiday remains affecting. Our lives, like the sped-up footage you see of traffic at night, headlights streaming like bright ethereal tendrils, are manic. Rarely do we take the time to stand back from the confusion and appreciate the things that we have, the parts that make up the happy whole. After years (my entire life, actually) of striving towards one goal, I have finally found my grail. I have a three book publishing deal with Transworld, a division of Random House. All feelings of guilt and unworthiness, those bricks that, as a creative and would-be author I have lugged around in my bag of dreams, I can now hurl into the abyss. I can now sit at my desk and write. Officially. It is at last, unbelievably, luckily, and most wonderfully, my job. I have many people to thank for this, from accommodating family and friends, to agents and editors, and if I was to buy them all a drink I would need to swipe Ms J.K. Rowling’s ‘Notebook of ideas for next book,’ just to afford it. And this is why Thanksgiving is one American institution I would gladly take back to Blighty and keep in my heart alongside Coca Cola, The Simpsons, Pizza, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, and those giant pretzels. (I don’t actually eat those giant pretzels, but I like them. I like them very much indeed). Not everyone has an RTL or even a Squanto (just as well if you don’t eat eel) but we all have someone to thank or something to be thankful for.

However, one thing I’m not giving thanks for is the cookie I bought from Apoo’s Kwik-e-mart last night. The label said Boston Cookie - I said ‘come to daddy.’ But after the first bite I knew something was wrong. Where were the feelings of joy and contentment that usually tickle my soul with the first munch of a cookie? I read the label. Carefully. Zero Trans Fat. No Hydrogenated Oil. Cholesterol Free. Vegan. And last but not least, Pareve, which, apparently, is Yiddish for ‘contains neither milk nor meat ingredients.’
No wonder it tasted like shit.


[*After Brobdingnag, a country in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, where everything was enormous.]

I know this Guy...who knows a Guy...

I flew back to Blighty last week to build a bonfire. And it was worth it. Had the flight been twelve hours instead of six it would still have been worth it. Because in a world that seems to change by the minute, traditions warm my soul like…well…a crackling fire on a cold November night. For thirty years my family has built a bonfire and sent fireworks skyward on November 5th. Every year, my father hurls poor old Guy into the flames, his own eyebrows singeing as he recites an ancient rhyme:

Remember remember the fifth of November

Gunpowder, treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder, treason

Should ever be forgot...

For any Americans wondering what the pagan hell I’m going on about, here is a brief history of a momentous English event:

After Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, English Catholics who had been persecuted under her rule hoped that her successor, James I, would be more tolerant of their religion. He was not. And so a small group of moustached malcontents decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament, hoping to kill the King and give the Members of Parliament a bigger raise than they could ever dream of giving themselves. The conspirators got their hands on 36 barrels of gunpowder (presumably from a man down the pub) and stored them in a cellar that…oh… just so happened…to lie beneath the House of Lords.
Perhaps some of the plotters began having second thoughts, because one of them sent an anonymous letter warning his friend, Lord Monteagle, to stay away from the Parliament on November 5th. (Dear Monty, you’ve been looking a bit peaky recently. Your beard, once the envy of all God-fearing Englishmen, has lost its lustre and that old cloak of yours was out of fashion when Henry VIII could still see his own toes. Frankly, people are beginning to talk. You work too hard, my dear fellow. Why not give yourself a well-deserved day off? A duvet day? Maybe fix that squeaky floorboard the missus has been moaning about. Do some gardening. Get some exercise, man. Enjoy some ‘you time’. Yours advisedly, a concerned friend. P.S. Seriously mate, don’t go to work on Nov 5th).
This letter found its way to the King (kings are nosey) and a chap called Guy Fawkes (now regarded as Britain's most notorious traitor) was discovered in the cellar when the cops stormed it in the early hours of November 5th. Unfortunately for him, he was tortured and executed most horribly. Put it this way, no one could accuse him of having no guts - not after the steaming pile was held up for all to see.
The Gunpowder Plot struck a very profound chord for the people of England. Even today, the reigning monarch enters Parliament only once a year, on "the State Opening of Parliament". Prior to the Opening, the Yeomen of the Guard search the cellars of the Palace of Westminster.
On the very night that the Gunpowder Plot was foiled, on November 5th, 1605, bonfires were lit to celebrate the safety of the King. Since then, November 5th has been known as Bonfire Night and is marked every year with fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire. Nevertheless, there has been a clamour from many sectors for Bonfire Night celebrations to be banned. In fact, this year, York, the birthplace of Guy Fawkes, did not hold a fireworks event. For years, huge crowds have gathered for official fireworks displays at sites including York Racecourse and the 13th-century Clifford's Tower. But this year the annual celebration was cancelled by the health and safety police, who blamed soaring safety costs.
Now, I imagine we are all aware that fire, and indeed gunpowder, can be dangerous. So can jumping from a very great height or putting one’s head in a lion’s mouth. Surely, as human beings, it is our recognition of and respect for potential danger that helps us survive. Yet, the way our society is going, all such judgments, and consequently decisions, will be taken out of our hands. What is the logical extension of this? That we will no longer recognize danger ourselves but will have to rely on a committee to advise us. We will also lose long-held and valued traditions (like Bonfire Night) and life will become ever more sterile.
‘Ah, but terrorists might get hold of fireworks and use them for evil,’ I hear you say. Well what was Guy Fawkes if not a would-be terrorist? Should we not celebrate his failure to cause death and destruction? If we were to end a tradition through fear of terrorism, then Guy Fawkes and his felonious fellows may as well have lit the match and waited for the boom.

LITTLE FU***RS

My friend was mugged. To safeguard his anonymity and for his own protection, let’s call him Ben. Ben is an Englishman living in Philadelphia. Wikipedia informs me that Philadelphia is colloquially referred to as "the City of Brotherly Love." As far as I know, the brothers who stuck a gun in Ben’s face did not show him much love. Anyway, Ben’s a nice guy, and when he realised he only had $8.00 in his wallet he offered the two gentlemen his mobile phone too, as a kind of tip, I suppose. This IS America, and they HAD gone to a lot of trouble, taking time out of their busy day and…well…no one likes to disappoint a man with a firearm. Like most of the fun things in life, the mugging was over in seconds, but at least everyone got something out of it; the desperados walked away with $8.00 and a phone, and Ben got another day in which to appreciate the bronze statue of Rocky and run up the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s seventy-two steps, striking Rocky-like poses at the summit whilst humming ‘Gonna Fly Now’ and proving that every man can rise to the occasion, occasionally. The muggers said, “Keep walkin’ and don’t look back.” Ben didn’t look back, probably because he was firmly en route towards his next adventure. He’s that kind of guy, you see. Things happen to Ben. “As muggings go, it was quite a good one,” he said.

Ben is a photographer. A while back, in New Orleans the day before he was supposed to shoot Britney Spears (with a camera - sorry), some cops had the cheek to arrest him for Public Drunkenness and Lewd Conduct. (Messy. Pants round ankles, and I mean English pants, not American pants) In accordance with Louisiana State law, he was relieved of his possessions, stripped of his clothes (but they would NEVER TAKE HIS FREEDOM! Well, actually, they took that too) and locked him up for the night. Wearing a bright orange boilersuit he looked like a happy camper from Guantanamo Bay. This incarceration was a little problematic given his diary commitments. Fortunately though, one thing I’ve learned from the movies is not utter bullshit – he was given his phone call. Well, if you’ve only got one call and Britney’s number stuffed in your bum crack, what are you gonna do? He called Miss Spears’s people…who called their people…
He got out, but missed the shoot.

Ben’s most recent ‘event’ occurred last week. Those clever chaps with their cement trucks and tar-stained tools were outside his house, resurfacing the sidewalk at the bottom of his steps. Stepping out to admire the finished job, Ben was understandably perturbed to see the word ‘FUCKER’ scrawled across the barely dry cement. Some neighbourhood kids had dragged their dirty fingers through it the way we used to scavenge the cake mixture from the inside of mum’s mixing bowl. ‘Little bastards,’ thought Ben (presumably). ‘Now anyone who comes to my house will be greeted with ‘FUCKER’ and won’t know whether it applies to them or me.’ Well, not surprisingly, this wouldn’t do. No siree Bob. Ben located the workmen and persuaded them to return and smooth over the offence, which, to their credit they did. Then Ben spent the next four hours patrolling outside his house like an East German border guard with Restless Legs Syndrome (yes, according to my TV, RLS is a proper condition over here in the good old US of A). Though I suspect by then the little bandits were off causing mischief elsewhere.

And so, after all this preamble, to my point: Immortality (honestly). Whether they knew it or not, those little cement rascals were trying to secure their own immortality. They, like all of us, wanted to leave their mark, bequeath a little of themselves to posterity. My Norwegian grandfather was an artist. Whether the medium was paint or wood, the purpose practical or decorative, he would turn his talented hands to creating. As a result, even though he is no longer with us, so many things touched by him, brought into being by him, surround his family still; the boathouse he designed. Beautiful paintings that adorn our walls. Christmas decorations brought out with ritual deference year after year. Through his creations, my grandfather is eternally tangible.

Though his methods might differ, my father will achieve immortality, too. He took his own ambition and talents, mixed them with hard work and created a different world to the one he found; a world that will endure. Britney has her records and her fame. Ben has his photographs. The muggers have their reputations and rap sheets. I have my writing and five or six dodgy records (four of them hits, mind you) from my heady sojourn in ninetees Popland. Whether we realise it or not, we are all designing the things by which we will be remembered, if only through our day to day acts if nothing else. Surely there is no better example of our quest for everlastingness than procreation. Do we not have children because they are a continuation of ourselves?

So, let’s not be too hard on the miniature cement artists. They might be little ‘FUCKERS,’ but they’re just trying to make their mark.

It's All About The Spin

Father forgive me, I am a spinner. Hail Mary, full of pace…er…grace.

My lone wolf forays, prowling the gym, pitting myself against treadmill, dumbbell and my own inner demons, are over. I now partake in a group activity and a very sticky one at that. In a dimly lit room reverberating with seven trillion decibels of the kind of high-energy electronica usually only absorbed by Ketamine-soaked ravers, we sit on stationary bikes and peddle with impotent fury. We unashamedly swamp the floor with gallons of sweat and bring our hearts within a beat or two of bursting. Other than filtering through US immigration, it is the most incredibly intense way to pass 45 minutes you will ever encounter.

Back in Blighty things are different. You go to the gym because there are bits of you that keep on moving even when the rest of you has stopped. Or you go because you drink like Oliver Reed and feel guilty enough about it to spend the rare sober moment in shorts and trainers, trying to recapture that essence of being a 14 year-old in the school sports hall with more energy bouncing around inside than you know what to do with. Maybe you’re even one of those strange types who maintain that the treadmill can trounce a hangover. (Though I believe there is something deeply psychologically wrong with these people. On some level they are running away from themselves. At seven miles an hour. With a five and a half incline). Here in NY, exercise is executed with a ferocity only equalled within the dating scene. Lithesome lovelies and fibrous fellows suck it up, shake it down and pound it out, even though they already posses the kind of physiques that inspired Michael Angelo (And Michael Barrymore). Pilates and yoga classes are stuffed full of flexible men and women who will never know the agony of having an itch they can’t scratch.

I believe there is something else at work here. These people clearly don’t have physical hang-ups hanging them up. So why do they push themselves so hard? Perhaps exercise is their therapy, an antidote to the work hard, play hard, screw hard New York scene. Everything about Manhattan is intense, an attribute particular to island metropolises. Her inhabitants exhibit the same frantic behaviour as the ever-increasing bacteria confined in a science lab Petri dish.

Our spin ‘guru’ is charismatic, which is probably why an overflow of would be worshippers wait in line on the off chance that someone doesn’t show. He barely peddles at all, instead striking statuesque, sometimes contorted poses and hurling motivational phrases with the strange but alluring combination of drill-instructor-come-Buddhist mentor. He reminds me of those Italian traffic cops who dance on pedestals amidst crazy August rush hours. Except, our guy comes with a Lycra membrane and a 200 Watts Per Channel Amplifier instead of a whistle. The first time he ardently added “get up and get up and riiiide!” to the thumping soundtrack I laughed a little. I looked around the room for someone with whom to share a bemused ‘what the hell…?’ look. No takers. No one else seemed to think there was anything untoward going on. ‘Holy crap’ thought I. “Have you come to riiiide?” bellowed he. “Have you come to riiiiiiide? Now show me how you riiiide!” No reaction (other than riiiiding). Just bent heads and whirring peddles. ‘It must be an American thing, I thought.’ Then a couple of the riders actually ‘whooped.’ Yes, I was horrified. I would have jumped off my bike and promptly left, had my feet not been stuck in the straps.

That was then. Now, I get to class early. I set up my bike with the psyched-up precision of an athlete before a big race. When the spin ‘guru’ looks at me I peddle faster. Can’t help myself. I want to please him. I have never whooped, nor will I. But what if a whoop slips out one day, just a little one, in the heat of the moment? How would I live with myself? What would my British friends think?

Father, forgive me, for I am a spinner.

Facebook Facebook Facebook

When I was at junior school it was like this: You hung around with your chum. You did everything together. You copied each other’s homework. You dipped the spare lost property plastic recorder in the disinfectant jar (some posh kids had wooden ones) You Day Traded - ‘one for ones’ with monster munch crisps at break-time. You fought with rulers (my friend John had the greatest weapon a nine year old boy could have – a metal ruler). You discovered bad words together, (some of which you wrote on each other’s pencil cases) picked gravel out of knees, played soccer with tennis balls, knocked conkers out of trees, and compared marks of glory - otherwise known as grass stains. Then, without warning, your pal was quietly whisked away, confiscated like a pea-shooter in the playground or a porno on the back seat of the bus. Maybe his parents moved house. Maybe he couldn’t keep up academically with the other kids, (thank god they never rumbled you!) or maybe he’s still counting to one trillion billion squillion behind that old tree at the far end of the playing field. Either way, he disappeared. Abracadabra. Gone. Back then there were no mobile phones, no email addresses. You didn’t have the technology that kids these days have to keep in touch. One day you were best amigos, Batman and Robin, Danger Mouse and Penfold, Rod Hull and Emu. The next, you were forging new alliances with the cold-hearted calculation of a Columbian drug lord. Or maybe you just had a short memory. Or a new football. And for all intents and purposes you never saw each other again.
UNTIL NOW.

Perhaps you’ve made your stand. Perhaps you’ve declared, “I’m not joining this Facebook thing. Not on your nelly. No way, Jose.” If you have, I admire you. It’s more likely, however, that you’re already trapped, and not even Steve McQueen could escape over the fence on a Triumph 650 motorcycle. Once you’re in there’s no getting out (as they say here in New York’s Little Italy). Facebook is stickier than the quicksand in an old Tarzan movie. It will suck you down, leaving nothing but your hat sitting on the surface; the only sign you’d ever existed in the real world.

I read that Facebook’s (23 year old!) inventor, Mark Zuckerberg, was offered $1 billion for the thing. He rejected the offer. Rumours have it now worth $10 billion. I think young Mark should pack up his Dungeons and Dragons, take the cash and run, whilst he still has legs, before mankind evolves into a race of pale, flat bottomed torsos speaking in ones and zeros and with eyes on the ends of our fingers for sticking firewire leads in the back of computers. Or before Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has us all too busy building fallout shelters to ‘poke’ each other with our cyber finger. (I assume it’s a finger?!)


As I said, once you’re in, you’re in. And it can be wonderful making contact, rediscovering faces, times and places. But it can also be a bit, well, embarrassing. An old friend ‘Facebooked’ me recently. He is a super intelligent, charming guy. But, seeing him again, all be it in the virtual world, reanimated ghosts I had thought exorcised long ago.
All I could think of was the time when we were youngsters and he cycled round to my house to show me his new bike. I fetched my dad’s toolbox and to his surprise (and horror, no doubt) proceeded to take the bike apart, bit by bit, stunt-nut by spoky-doky. (I’ve always been a better deconstructer than constructer). Now, thanks to ‘Facehook’ the sight of my friend WALKING back down that lonely road, laden with pieces of his new bike, is once again etched into my mind. Today a girl FB’d me. The last time I saw was over fifteen years ago when, on one drunken Friday night out, my friends and I threw her in a skip (dumpster for you Americans). I think it was her birthday, or something.

All this goes to prove that I am evil. It also shows that Facebook has a talent for bringing a blush to our faces. It has also driven the last dirty great nail into the coffin of social protocol. You make contact with someone you haven’t heard from for 10 years and before you know it they’re throwing sheep at you, biting chunks out of you, poking you, challenging you to games of Paper, Rock, Scissors, and inviting you to be a Werewolf.

It’s all rather strange and addictive and…well…fun. My favourite application is Scrabulous. I am in New York and currently playing against my brother, who is in the UK. I am losing. As my friend Rob put it, my brother is on a roll and pulling words out of his ass. Priorities have been shuffled. Time no longer has any meaning. Food has lost its appeal and my greatest hope is that the letters
Y O U L U C K Y G I T turn up in my tray soon.

Rosh Hashanah, the horn and New York Fashion Week

Fashion week just hit New York. Like an ocean wave it rolled across the city and drew back to oblivion, having cast a scattering of strange creatures into the urban grunge. And here they linger, odd and beautiful and otherworldly.

NY is, at any time of year, extraordinary in its abundance of beautiful people. During Fashion Week it is a neck-cricking nightmare in which lampposts need health insurance. I believe the sheer variation of ethnicity accounts for this. Aesthetically blessed folk of every shade and flavour are sucked into the Big Apple like dust up a Dyson. Here they create themselves, their pallets comprising innumerable nail bars, beauty parlours, hair salons, gyms and massage dens. Looking good is a professional sport in New York. Even I, a humble boy from the English shires, have done time in vibrating massage chairs having my feet washed and meticulously pruned as though they were two Bonsai trees. This is an admission I do not make lightly. Where I grew up, brushing your teeth is considered an unnecessary extravagance. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean.

The only city I’ve ever known to compare as favourably on the ‘Good-Looking : Good-God Get Away From Me!’ ratio is Oslo in Norway. But there, due to a more limited gene pool, there are fewer surprises. There is a certain look. It’s like a pick ‘n’ mix where someone has filled the bag with just his favourite sweets. Though, if blond hair and blue eyes is your only 'bag', you perhaps shouldn’t go on about it too much. Someone else once had that fetish. He also had a thing for knee length leather jackboots.

Back to NY, it isn’t just lithe-limbed models that mingle with the masses. Rarely a day goes by when we don’t see a card-carrying member of the Hollywood elite, from De Niro to Orlando to Thurman, mooching around, soaking up the unique NY atmos. We even caught Dustbin Trousersnake munching a burrito in the local café. Last Saturday I was browsing in the nearby Ralph Lauren shop (which was loaded with lumberjack chic) when I saw a one of Tinsel Town’s bright young things sitting in the corner, cell phone on stubble, jawing mutedly. Now then, thought I, he’s either Spider Man or the gay cowboy. Undecided, I left the shop, joined Sally and related my celebrity spot. Well, I hadn’t quite finished telling her when she ran off down the street, towards Ralph’s. Lumberjack chic must be quite the thing, I thought.

Later that day we were on our way to a dinner party in the Flat Iron district, when we saw Larry David, the 60 year old Emmy winning actor, writer, comedian, producer and film director, from the critically acclaimed comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm. There was no running. Not even a quickening of step. Hmm…maybe Sally’s legs were tired from earlier.

The dinner conversation that night came round to the other event to occupy New York recently; Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year and day of judgement, in which God judges each person individually according to their deeds, and makes a decree for the following year. The holiday is characterized by the blowing of the shofar, which is a ram’s horn. Shofar so good. But then I learned that many companies allow all employees two floating religious days to take as and when. This got me wondering what I would do if I worked for a big corporation, me being a heathen and all. I decided there and then. I want Pancake Day. I want two Pancake Days. Then one of the dinner guests reminded me. Every day is Pancake Day in America.

Oh, and by the way, just so as you know; it was the gay cowboy.

What Seams important at the time...

My trousers don’t fit. More specifically, a pair of baby blue cords, that even now lie abandoned and ashamed at the top of an already plump bag earmarked for the local charity shop. I wore them at my 30th birthday party. It was a raucous affair, an event for which only a fool would have worn anything even approaching constricting, due to the huge potential for social suicide. Having said that, one friend wore nothing at all for much of the evening and caused a bit of a stir, but that’s another story. This grand occasion was two years ago. Now, the button and eye of those once glorious cords will, alas, never meet again. At least, not around me. There’s more chance of Justin and Britney getting back together.

I remember my mother warning me, as I sat swilling beer like a Viking, that once you hit 30 your metabolism slows down. Slows Down? It finds a small dark corner of your soul and curls up and dies. But then, as you stand assessing, wishing you had bought your mirror from the same shop the wicked queen in Snow White bought hers, the temptation springs eagerly to mind. “I’ll keep them,” you say assertively, “I’ll get back into them. You’ll see.”

Now, I’m not knocking optimism, but who are you trying to kid? You’ve got more chance of learning German. And here’s the thing - sometimes you just have to let go. Relish the past by all means (I mostly live in the 9th Century) but don’t dwell on it. As for the future; yes, there is, I suppose, a slim chance of getting back into that shirt or those trousers, providing you’re willing to give up the things that make life so damned enjoyable, but if you’re constantly dreaming of that magical moment, you’ll miss the day you’re in. A shame, seeing as it won’t come round again.

My trousers don’t fit, not even vaguely, but being 32 is wonderful. For me it’s always been a powerful age, and age of achievement. Alexander the Great had conquered the known world when he died at 32. Bruce Lee had mastered the finer points of beating the crap out of people, and Jesus Christ had done a whole bunch of stuff in his spare time, including raising the dead (allegedly), turning water into wine (handily), and founding Christianity.

Alexander The Great is one of my heroes, for too many reasons to go into now. Whilst I’m fairly sure I won’t be achieving any measure of his glory anytime soon, (after all, conquering seems to be frowned upon these days) I am marching resolutely towards my own ambition of having a novel published. Furthermore, I’m blessed to have two of the best literary agents in the business fighting to make it happen. Of course, it’s still a tall order. Only one half of one percent of novels written make it onto the bookshop shelves. But I am enjoying the journey. Each and every day of it.

With odds like that to beat, and with such dreams to fulfil, the loss of my baby blue cords is of very little consequence. It’s nothing but a pile of…well…pants.

Words beginning with the letter 'B'

So, we were offered a slice of a Hamptons house-share this summer. For those of you who have somehow managed to survive thus far in life without knowing of the place, allow me to enlighten. The Hamptons refers to a collection of hamlets and villages on the east end of New York’s Long Island. Known as a playground of the rich and the famous and rich, the Hamptons has appeared in numerous movies, including 'Something’s Gotta Give' (one of my faves) 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,' and 'The Nanny Diaries.'

"This is as may be, Giles," I hear you say, "but was that really all it took to convince you to part with a hefty wad of greenbacks in exchange for cohabitation (and thus the inevitable bathroom conflicts) with a bunch of folk you don’t know from Adam? Tch tch, Giles, didn’t know you were so shallow." Well, hold on just a minute. My reason for signing up was, I believe, based on a sound and universally acknowledged truth; New York City in July and August can be a stinking, claustrophobic monster and hotter than Satan’s armpit. If the chance to abscond to the seaside pops up over a dry Martini, then by god you take it! The rich, beautiful, famous people are mere garnish, like the pickle that comes with your burger – it adds a certain something but it ain’t why you chose your meal.

We went. Four weekends. I had to share a house on the beach with five girls and my friend Tom. It was tough. Anyway, the Hamptons is strange. There are trees and grass and quaint farmers markets and beaches and the ocean and a few good restaurants and even a windmill. There are some big houses, but most of them look like they came flat-packed with an allen key (hex key for you Americans). It is very quaint and pretty but it’s not posh. Not really. You’ll drive along a wide stretch of road with the sea on your right beyond a verdant verge, and on your left you’ll come across a roadside shack swarming with the well-groomed. There they all are, grown-ups on the prowl, desperation to copulate coming off them in clouds, sucking mashed banana, Baileys, and Colada through straws. And you join them. Sucking eagerly, as though your life depends on it. Then, when the sun has gone and the Atlantic whips up a chill breeze, the same folk drive off (yes, even after two hour’s boozing) only to ‘reapply’ and reappear at the local club, which, by the way, is deadly, in the way that a female scorpion is deadly. A friend said excitedly of the place, ‘you only have to show up.’ I think he was being pessimistic – they’ll get you in the line outside.

To more wholesome things. We took our bikes. They’re not normal bikes but cruisers, complete with fat tyres and flame paint job. Mine is called the Rat Rod and if James Dean or the devil himself ever rode a bike it was a bike like the Rat. We thought it would be great fun, halcyon even, to pedal around in the countryside, the sea air against our eyelashes, our hair playing innocently in the kind breath of summer. And all this happened, my friends, it really did. But we couldn’t help but feel that our trusty bicycles weren’t fitting in. Perhaps we should have taken the Ferrari, or at least the BMW. Because, despite the quiet, wide, shady lanes and shorts weather, one does not pedal in the Hamptons.

We barbecued and drank Rose and played in the sea, and I, miss-timing a gargantuan wave, swallowed a pint of the brine and promptly threw up. Tom lost his shorts to another disorderly wave, giving the Hamptons a taste of good old, white as death, hairy English arse. Which was nice. Our housemates were hospitable, hot-blooded…and hot. The weather was beautiful. We saw Sarah Jessica Parker in the fish section of the supermarket.

But best of all, Tom and I discovered, whilst lying on the beach, that all the best words begin with the letter B. It’s true. Beach. Bikini. Bonfire. Boobs. Beer. Babes. Bacon. Think about it. Barbeque. Bacardi. Burrito. Bitch. BBC. Baboon. Bugs. Biscuit. Bed.

And my favourite. Bum.

All in all, I think we’ll miss our Hamptons summer sojourn. Would I do it again?

Bet your Bottom Buck I would.

Back in Blighty

So, I’ve just returned from the ‘Visa run’ to London, having secured a further two years in the Land of the Free. There’s nothing like ‘standing in line’ for five hours at the US embassy under the cross hairs of a Heckler & Koch MP5 Submachine gun to make you feel…well…free. Still, with the green tape finally re-stuck (one can’t help but imagine it would have been much easier to fill my pockets with fajitas and hop over the Mexican border) I was free to make the most of being back in Blighty. Our quarters – a somewhat sterile flat off Tottenham Court road. Opposite the ‘End’ club, the location was anything but sterile and a lot like mucky. Used needles and empty Special Brew cans cluttered the gutter, creating a rain-faded urban flotsam and jetsam, but that was the best thing about the view. We made the mistake of opening the blinds. A man was squatting, dropping a mud monkey onto the pavement. We closed the blinds. Onwards and upwards, we booked a table at the fabulous Asia de Cuba (St Martin’s Lane Hotel) and were savouring some incredible food when my sister’s eyes suddenly widened with abject horror. We turned to see a man peeing up the window (damn that trendy one-way glass) and when I say we saw it, I mean we ‘really’ saw it, the way when you look at a lightbulb, you keep seeing it even after you close your eyes. Same thing. We got free doughnuts as compensation. Doughnuts? They may as well have given us a plate of frankfurters. What was going on in London, I asked myself. Then the latent entrepreneur in me stirred. Forget youtube.com. What about youpooed.com? People send in pictures of themselves building a log cabin, cooking butt pudding, cutting rope, laying wolf bait, in famous places around the world. L’Arc de Triomphe, Statue of Liberty, London Eye. I can see it now. Unfortunately. Then, thankfully, I pulled back from the brink. We’ve already got Big Brother.

more soon...

There's a rat in Hell's Kitchen

There are 8 million people in the city of New York. It has been claimed that there are 8 million rats, too. Seems fair, I suppose. Everyone gets a rat. But the truth may not be so neatly quotable. It is now suggested that we each have 12 rats. I hardly know what to do with mine. Well, not that I could do much with them now seeing as they’re dead, but I’ll get to that shortly. It’s not hard to figure out why rats thrive in our cities. In just one year a female can produce 285 new born rats all nibbling about in no time. Add to this our disposable lifestyles and the amount of waste accumulating on street corners and you see the tail clearly. Also, as individuals we have become so far removed from food preparation and death generally that few of us could stomach the act of whacking a rat with a shovel. One glimpse of the varmints and we shriek and flea…sorry, flee. One can only assume that rats have lost all fear of humans.

But now, in a land where sharp-toothed creatures rule the night and roam the streets, two men will stand tall against the terror with strong hearts, true grit…and a spade.

Yesterday we found rats nesting under a tarpaulin on our roof. After losing the stare-out, we did what any self-respecting Manhattanites would do – we called the Supers of our building. Along come Willy and Harold, the two characters who have looked after 204 Elizabeth Street for forty years. Harold is old. Willy is considerably older – 80, I think. We asked if they could possibly, in any way, for a fistful of dollars, dispose of the tarps. We failed to mention the tarp’s residents. I’m not proud, but as I understand it, guile is a quality of sorts. Up they went. We sat at our desks…working. Then came a peel of laughter through the skylights; the kind of laughter which rises from the depths of a man’s belly when his lifelong pal does something ignominious like, say, jump out of his skin at the sight of, oh, I don’t know…a rat. We cringed. Then, by the time my wince had evolved into the smile of an evil genius, Willy and Harold burst into the office laughing like naughty children. Willy was lampooning Harold’s squeamish assaults and Harold was haranguing Willy’s pitiful tally. Nevertheless, between them they had nailed 9 rodents! 9 flat, splatted rats. I have the photo evidence to prove it. No mean feat given our inherent fear of the toothy, cocksure critters. Indeed, Harold still had that 'I’ve seen Hell’s asshole' look in his blue eyes when he blurted, "I was in Nam but I still can’t handle no damned rats."

Nevertheless, a victory all be it a small one. Humans 1 – Rattus rattus 0.
Now then, only another 95,999,991 to go. Where’s that shovel?

The Real McCoy

Thanks of portly proportions to everyone who was kind enough to leave some words on my message board. I admit that when launching the site I considered inventing notes of encouragement and praise of my own work. After all, who in the world has better reason to promote RAVEN than I? Apart from Dan my agent, perhaps, and he’d have too much integrity for skulduggery like that. Anyway, I resisted the urge to counterfeit and I’m glad. It would take a more inventive writer perhaps than I to come up with the notes currently scrawled on my message board! Besides which, I reckon there’d be the whiff of concoction in the air if I tried. Which brings me to the meat of this blog; genuineness. Authenticity. Bona Fide…ness. Whether something is or is not the Real McCoy. And how cupcakes can lead to violence.

We currently have friends visiting New York. On their first evening we went for dinner. It was a Sunday night and the Meatpacking district was a ghost town but for a few jaded revellers on the wrong end of a three-day bender. It takes one to know one. After a passable meal, Sally whistled a yellow cab to a skewing halt and we all jumped in, our destination Café Wah, a Greenwich Village music venue once shaken by Hendrix and stirred by Dylan. We pulled up behind one of those brawny black American cars that would struggle to mount a British speed bump, and Driving Dad was pointing out to his kids the treasures inside Magnolia Bakery. It’s where the Sex And the City girls buy the cupcakes they clearly don’t eat. Fatefully, Driving Dad had failed to notice the lights had been green for seven tenths of a second and in New York that’s an eternity. Our driver was quick to enlighten DD with a sharp blast of the horn. Windows slid down. Gestures discharged. Words ricocheted. Nothing abnormal. But then our driver questioned DD’s manliness and before we could say ‘cor blimey, Mary Poppins’ both drivers were grappling like grizzlies at a salmon spawning. We sat in the car for another thirty seconds before I suggested evacuating the vehicle, which we did, getting a better view of the fray from the sidewalk. One minute previously, our cabbie was chatting to us about some popular eatery, and now he was rolling around in the middle of the road with a man who had merely wanted to show his kids the cupcake shop. We moved on. Cops showed up, not an hour later as would have been the case back home, but immediately, as though they had come from...well...the cupcake shop.

Interestingly though, not a punch had been thrown. There had been chest bumping, wrestling and rolling, but no punches. It was not, shall we say, the Real McCoy. It was a sham, a contrivance, and yet it drew a crowd like a Tehran stoning. The fight was, like a New York shop that just sells cupcakes, a gimmick. Mind you, just around the corner from me is a shop that only sells rice pudding. Hot or cold, in various flavours, rice pudding. Gimmick or not, somehow it works. It’s always busy.

About my message board...maybe I could leave one message…just a word. Or two.

Short Summer

Girls are wearing summer dresses or the latest short shorts (which are just like the old short shorts but a bit shorter), yellow cab drivers are leaning on their horns like depraved Roman Emperors on silk cushions, mobster’s moms and street-smart old-timers are setting up camp on the sidewalk, sunglasses continue their bid for face domination, and the sky is that deep, endless blue that promises nothing but idle heat. All this can only mean that summer has plonked his old suitcase in Manhattan and means to rest up awhile. Not before time, I hasten to add. Having survived my first full New York winter, I greet the sun on my face as a thirsty man salutes a crisp, cold beer, and have decided we shall see much of each other over the coming months. Central Park, that vestige of nature holding back the dusty grey metropolis, beckons, and my compadre Tom knows Eden the wheeler-dealer with the ice box of beer. Never would have thought Tom held the key to Paradise! The other great thing about the park is the assortment of eccentrics who gather there - from the oddballs who’ve just roller skated out of the 80s, to the mostly naked fiddle player who stamps around under the bridge like an man-eagle doing a rain dance. But my favourite is Turtle Man, Defender of the Innocent. He wears a mask and cloak and even has turtles, though whether they’re innocent or not is hard to say. If you ask me, those little guys look shifty, like they know something you don’t.

So, all hail the New York summer. It will squash us like ants and send us scurrying into shops, cinemas, bars, even gyms, anywhere that boasts Mankind’s greatest invention… air-conditioning. But for now it’s all about the summer dresses. And the short short shorts.