Attending the Filming of Late Night with Conan O'Brien

I had been up the Rockafeller building on the previous day. I think it says a lot about the international hatred in this world that security has to be so tight within the buildings. The security was almost as tight as an airport post 9/11

Being as this was a premium venue in the USA, there was the obligatory taking of 'photos, even though we didn't want them. Seems a terrible waste to me - but I suppose it must be economically feasible or they would stop doing it. The views from the top of the Rockafeller building were amazing. Despite all the talk of the economic downturn, you stare out over a tremendous amount of wealth, when you look over a New York skyline.

The activies going on within all of these enclosed spaces probably have far reaching consequences for the lives and livelihoods for people all over the world.

I was in the same building the next day to take a tour of the NBC film studios. I went with Titus Auberon, Catherine Lennox and Hawthorne Poorhouse. The tour was quite interesting, and the best bit was a chance for two of the group of ten or so of us to make a mock news item and weather broadcast. I reluctantly agreed to be the weatherman when Titus volunteered. As a group, we were a bit backward in coming forward.

They must have been short of people to form the live audience, because we got free tickets for the filming of tonight with Conon O'Brien. I'm obviously just not with it, because all the music flashing lights and manic activity was just a little bit too much for me. I guess that show business.

The warm up guy was good and Conon seemed amazing. Although being a bit out of touch with youth culture, I didn't recognise most of the celebrity guest. Amazing show, great music and a bit of banter. Great fun.

Could it only happen in New York, I'm not sure. But if memory serves, that's where it did happen.

I remember when rock was young........

.......New York.

Always interesting traversing from smaller cities to larger one. I think urban geographers study these things and I'm quite amenable to the notion that there may be an optimum size for a conurbation.

We stayed in the International Hostel at first and then moved the next day to a cheeky little place at harlem. I suppose you might call it a boutique hostel. Far too civilised for me. But even itinerant bums need pampering sometimes.

The walk through the New York snow was very satisfying as we moved from one hostel to another.

I forget the sequence, but shortly after this we ended up in a bar, where they were doing Karaoke.........Jean-Jacques started off with a good rendition of a beatles song. I had not done any Karaoke since I worked with some Japanese language students in the late 90s. But I felt a bit cheeky.

I'm a great Elton John fan, so when I saw the musical menu there was no choice.

There's something cathartic about belting out Elton John at the top of your voice. I wandered if my friends looked slightly frightened as I walked down after them and sat down to consume my beer.

That song is an absolute belter. Thank you Elton John. Thank you Bernie Taupin (he's from Lincolnshire - just over the border).

In search of yummy mummies

I love going to Museums and Art galleries. It's strange because I'm often quite justifiably accused of being a philistine.

So I wanted to go to the Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) in Boston before we left.

I bumped into another character. Let's call him Hawthorn Poorhouse.

It was Martin Luther King day, so I suspected the MoFA would be throbbing with yummy mummies, and very unusually I was correct. I have a professional interest in refurbishment projects at Museums so I'm often more interested in the lighting and the fire-evacuation system than the actual.

So Hawthorn Poorhouse and I went for a coffee and to plan our trip. I got a pen and marked out where I thought major items of mechanical plant would be, in addition to likely gathering points for yummy mummies. Hawthorn may have been a bit bemused by this. Not sure.

The yummy mummies often also seemed to be thinking man's crumpet in many instances ("don't make mummy shout"). One of the few times, when my plan came together.

I even quite liked some of the art.

The profound importance of kindness and courtesy

When in the right (or wrong?) mood I sometimes behave in a quite bumptious manner. Normally it is with people that I know well. Often it occurs at work (where I may need to steamroller things through, to protect my own commercial interest). Occasionally this gets me into trouble either with people that I love (and therefore must respect) or people with whom I'm mutually interdependant at work.

Sometimes, on reflection I think that it would have been better if I had just not been bumptious at all. Not sure.

Yesterday I met someone who I have known for a long time. He was sometimes around when I was a little boy. As far as I can tell (and the guy can't possibly be perfect - surely we all have our failings), he is only ever and always kind and courteous. I think he must be a firm believer in absolute truth, he goes to great lengths to clarify things.....

I love going to see this guy. But always when we part, I feel the same thing.

I can only ever feel, that I have made a terrible cock-up of my life. And I must do better tomorrow.

I think that the world would be a better place, if we were all a bit more like my kind, courteous friend.

Supporting the Boston Red Sox

I've never really been into ball-sports. Mildly interested in football now, since working for a contracting company in England, where I felt like I should know something about sport to assist me with conversational gambits at work.

I really wasn't mad-keen to go on a trip to the see the Boston Red Sox. But Horatio was going and it was a nice day (although as cold as the baltic) for a walk. On the way I met Benedict-Alexander, who has turned out to be a thoroughly splendid fellow. More on that later.

No doubt the purists will hate me for this. But it seems a bit like cricket to me. Don't really understand cricket at all (although I realise that someone hits the ball, and then they run and that is a good thing), but I love to sit in the sunshine and watch it whilst drinking beer.

But as often seems to happen in the USA, the tour-guide was brilliant and by the time we left the stadium I felt like a Red Sox fan (albeit a plastic one).

If I recall this correctly, around this time I was feeling a bit down-hearted that I'd managed to let thinking man's crumpet get away. But a night out in Boston with Benedict-Alexander and Jean-Jacques soon sorted that out. Jean-Jacques is another splendid fellow. More on him later........?

An encounter with 'Thinking man's crumpet...'

I've been amused for some time that, despite my own cognitive failings (they are myriad and annoying) - I've often been attracted to females that in English culture (at least) would be described as 'Thinking man's crumpet'.

So I went out for a pint in Boston and bumped (not literally) into Petulia Tabatha Fitzgerald-Astor. What was really weird was that she came from a part of the world where I didn't even realise that they thought at all. It meant that I had to realign my prejudices......

Obviously any encounter with thinking man's crumpet is for me - always and only - a spectating event. I think it may have been Denis Thatcher (husband of Mrs Margaret) that once quipped 'better to keep one's mouth shut and be thought a fool, than to open it and prove one is...'(I paraphrase).

So I listened to the blues that was playing in the bar where I was and observed.

Sadly Petulia Tabatha Fitzgerald-Astor was leaving the hostel the next day (I saw her leave), so that was that.

Must improve my cognitive function, such that I am competent to approach suspected 'Thinking man's crumpet' on first encounter....

These are the Shadowlands: Rehearsal for reality

With apologies to C S Lewis.

I used to listen to the lyrics of this song as a teenager. I suppose he was trying to paraphrase the great man:

These are the shadowlands,
Rehearsal for reality,
These are the shadowlands,
If you and I could only see,
That these are the shadowlands.

I've made several abortive attempts to read one or two of C S Lewis' books. I think that I may be a bit too stupid (may be I'll have another go one day).

I probably ought to be shot for trying to paraphrase such a fine purveyor of the English language (According to Wikipedia he was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford and then the Professor of Medieval and Rennaisance English at Magadalen College, Cambridge). But what I take from that is that occasionally despite all the terrible, desperate, evil, soul destroying things that go on in this world; we may occasionally get a glimpse of a wonderful heavenly thing. Here on earth.

That's how I felt as I watched the sun glinting in the freshly fallen snow and dropped snowballs onto the frozen river with Horatio, as we walked over the snowy bridge from Boston to Cambridge, MA.

I'm not even sure that the feeling even relates (necessarily, always) to beauty, either......I've had it whilst walking to my car after an eight hour shift in a warehouse in a grimy, horrible, stupid industrial estate......

I'm going to the pub tonight, and my first toast will be to C S Lewis.....

When is it acceptable to hire a muscle car?

Needless to say if you really want to minimise your carbon footprint (few of us actually take it seriously) then air travel is a complete no-no. I gather that travel by boat is one of the better ways to traverse the seas.

So my travel is totally non-sustainable. I flew from Edinburgh to London, London to Boston, Overland to Orlando. Flew from Orlando to Seattle, flew from Seattle to San Francisco.

It all depends how you feel about inconsistencies in - all of -our lives. Those who would have us give up eating meat, and dairy products probably have the moral high ground (at least I don't know enough about food production to formulate a decent counter-arguement). I eat meat, because I enjoy doing so (I'm selfish).

I have made no attempt to quantify, my carbon footprint for this trip. I seem to remember hitting a button when I booked my transatlantic flights. But let's not kid ourselves. I think that's just an attempt by those of us who are profoundly wealthy (i.e. those of us in the west, who live on more than a US dollar a day) to assuage our own guilt.

But I have this strange demarcation. I run a tiny little company (http://www.fec-ltd.com/); and we make an annual assessment of our environmental impact. Though we say it ourselves, we're not too bad. We're cyclists, and we use corporation buses for transport. All of us are involved in voluntary environmental conservation works in one way or another. And I've been known to get quite grumpy with our supply chain, for booking internal flights within the uk? How does this demarcation arise. Why is it OK for me to desecrate the environment in my personal life; but not so at work? Not sure.

When I went to hire a car for a few days today......Why did my heart leap when the guy in the hire place announced that he was giving me a 'muscle car'? I had no need for it.

This made me think about whether the internal combustion engine is dead? I served my apprenticeship with a company that provided diesel engine power stations and pumping sets. Reciprocating engines, have been fundamental to how we generate motion and to a lesser extent electrical power (normally small scale for remote and/or island locations) for the last century or so. Are they on the way out or do we just need to find alternative ways of fuelling them?

Not sure. But when I put my foot down and my hired Ford Mustang 'kicked-down' several gears, I accelarated from about 15mph to 90 mph (please don't advise the Deputy Sheriff) as I pulled onto a free way. It was exciting. Fun. Life is short. There may be no afterlife. That's why I eat meat as well........