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.