LONDON CALLING

Yes yes yes. I know it's been a while. But really, this City sometimes seeps every ounce of energy and will out of you, then squeezes a bit more for good measure. I only wish American washing machines were half as effective. Or indeed anything around here.

The last two weeks have been largely, how we say, stressful. 1 step forward 2 back. Ok, it's not all been bad - had several great interviews and cups of tea with lovely musicians - Tessa Souter, D, Orlando le Fleming and Mat Fishwick. But meanwhile, perhaps the most useful interview of all is still in disc hospital where minidisc recovery seems like a very rare skill. The doorman at the data recovery place now thinks I work there I've visited so often, and today mr d. recovery had to admit defeat and now wants to send it somewhere else. At least he's still trying...... But I wouldn't be surprised if by the time I've actually retrieved this interview (if indeed I ever do), the magazine I'm writing it for has folded or something, or it'll be way too late. It clearly doesn't pay to do any work here, as I've already spent way more on equipment to DO this job than I'll ever be receiving FOR the job, if indeed the job ever manages to get done.

I have turned to M&M's. Even the blue ones.

Meanwhile my dear friend D has been having a kind of Tsunami in her bathroom. Every time anyone else in her building takes a bath or shower, huge waves of dirty water well up into and over her bath. This has been going on for over a week now and her landlord is less than interested. Which would be all very well if she wasn't paying about a million dollars a month for a ROOM. She has spent the whole week in said room waiting for a selection of plumbers to arrive, none of whom seem able to deal with the problem other than suggesting knocking down a couple of walls (which actually might not be a bad thing, as it could double the size of her apartment), but they won't take the job on nevertheless because it's 'too difficult'. The inefficiency here is really remarkable. As D pointedly remarked to me today 'New York, New York... So good they named it twice. Maybe they should have named it a few more times and sorted out their housing policies.'
Still, at least she's not been able to leave the apartment to work or anything, which is clearly a good thing or she'd probably be bankrupt into the bargain. Like me.

D, who has only had about three alcoholic beverages in the 8 months I've known her, has turned to drink.

So as a brief respite from our frustrations we went to a rather wonderful gig at the 55 Bar the other night.
I pause here for a statistic.
Apparently rats outnumber New Yorkers by 6 to 1.
I didn't set out to prove this point. Hell I've got enough problems as it is. But the statistic was nevertheless borne out when on ambling along Seventh Avenue at 1 am or thereabouts after the gig, the TH, D and I stumbled upon what can only be described as a 'rat pack' in and around a pile of black bin liners on the sidewalk. Several things happened in the next few seconds. King Rat obviously called last orders and the convention broke up sending a huge number of terrifyingly large rats scurrying around our feet in a kind of horror-movie scenario, D screamed and ran and a passing homeless character became very excited and started jumping up and down ranting about how rats could jump up and bite your neck. Helpfully like.
Somehow, amidst this frenzy of activity, I found myself calmly counting, in the way that one repeatedly counts anything in a stressful situation - ceiling tiles at the dentists, sheep when you can't sleep (do people really do that?), and I counted 17!
3 of us and 17 of them. That's really not a nice number of rats to find yourself surrounded by.

And don't get me started on the many and various flying insects that are gradually eating me overnight here....

Is it time to go back to London yet please?