Author: jednovick

Another day, another outrage.

Who is this woman? She’s been on some demo, marching against Brexit or Trump or some other gluten-free cause. She’s probably nice. I probably know her. Definitely seen her. Odds on, a Facebook friend.

Looking at her idly tapping on her phone. What’s she doing? Making a list of things to get on the way home? Making an arrangement for later tonight? Doesn’t matter. She’s been on the demo, made the effort. She means well. Or, she thinks she means well. She’s on the side of the oppressed, the victims, the down-trodden, the poor people. She’s probably a nice person, trying to do the right thing.

On the other hand, she could be an anti-semitic racist. Who knows. I doubt even she knows. She doesn’t know cos she hasn’t engaged her brain. She hasn’t stopped to think what it – what any of it – means. All she knows is “Palestine, good. Israel bad”. It’s part of the essential package of being concerned: anti-racist, anti-corporate, anti-colonial, anti.

Last week it was about Monsanto. This week it was Jamie Oliver and “cultural appropriation”. A few weeks ago there was a “Stop Trump” march and in amongst all the placards and posters about Trump, there were the Palestinian flags, the “Free Palestine” placards, all that. Probably placards about stopping the Judaisation of Jerusalem. This woman was probably there too. Stopping Trump and freeing Palestine.

“Stop Judaisation of Jerusalem”. What does it even mean? You couldn’t stop the “Judaisation” of Jerusalem any more than you could stop the Frenchification of Paris or the Englandification of England, but I’m not sure that’s the point. It’s a slogan. It looks good from a distance and has the word “Stop” in bright red letters. (It’s essential for a slogan to advocate stopping something).

Every day there’s stuff in the papers about the Left and about Corbyn and the Corbyns. Laying wreaths at the graves of murderers. Sharing platforms with right old scumbags. Whatever. And I get annoyed about it and upset by it and say to myself “Oh, I must write a blogpost about that” and by the time I get around to it there’s another thing. The vicious, vicious stuff that was thrown at Margaret Hodge by the caring, concerned Left. But this picture stayed with me.

It’s that word. Judaisation. They’re not messing about any more saying it’s Israel. This is about Jews. The poster is about Jews. There’s no pretence about Israel or Palestine or any of that other bollocks.

I spent long enough working on newspapers, writing headlines, to know that in a headline the most important word is the first word, the biggest word. That’s the one that catches the eye. And that word here is Judaisation. That’s what catches the eye.

This woman, idly tapping on her phone. I find it so hard to believe she has an idea of what she’s carrying and what it says, that she’s given it a minute’s thought, that it’s anything other than essentially a fashion accessory. And maybe that’s what I most resent about this incarnation of Labour and the Left. They’ve made hating us fashionable.

So I was thinking. If I ever say that Corbyn is an antisemite, I generally get one of three responses. 1) Yeah, but Palestine. 2) He can’t be. He’s a man of principles. He’s fought racism all his life. 3) Lalalalalalalalalala can’t hear you. We need to get rid of the Tories.

And I generally say the same thing. Actually, I don’t care about him. I care about him about as much as he cares about me. It doesn’t matter whether he’s antisemitic. It doesn’t matter cos he’s an enabler.

What does that mean?

I am, what My Fine Wife calls, an enabler. I support her in her endeavours. I provide support. I help create an environment where she can be what she wants to be. It’s a lovely thing to be called.

The reason I mention this isn’t just to point out that I’m a lovely bloke – though possibly talking about that would be more interesting than banging on about Corbyn again, but… What can I do?

So far what we’ve learnt is that seemingly every day there’s another thing, another racist crawls out of the pit Labour’s descended into. Today is the turn of Peter Willsman, the secretary of The Campaign for Labour Democracy, and this is the story that greeted us today.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/bombshell-recording-proves-corbyn-ally-blamed-jewish-trump-fantatics-for-false-antisemitism-clai-1.467802

So, swiftly moving on from the question of whether or not I’m a Trump fanatic in the pay of Mossad, what does it mean? And how does it relate to the question of whether or not Corbyn is an anti-Semite?

Well, it doesn’t matter what Corbyn thinks. And we don’t know what Corbyn thinks because he never actually says anything. Or if he does say something, he doesn’t follow it up with an action, so the words are empty and meaningless.

But by saying nothing and doing nothing, Corbyn has become an enabler. He enables people like Mary Lockhart (yesterday) and Peter Willsman (today) to be in a safe environment where their rubbish racism to flourish.

By the way, the answer to the three responses is 1) You’re also a racist, 2) I’m not so impressed by principles. Thatcher had principles, wasn’t too keen on her either, 3) Hang about a minute. I’m just going to ask that turkey what he thinks of Christmas.

Can you imagine what it’s like living in Corbynland? There can’t be enough hours in the day to discuss Israel and Palestine and Jews and Zionism. Daytime meetings. Evening meetings. Meetings about anything – the Left love meetings – that turn into meetings about Israel and Palestine. Everyone you know is talking about it. Everyone is responding to it. Lines are drawn. Where do you stand in relation to it? And when that happens, it’s easy to lose perspective.

I had a bit of re-think after that last post. The more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t believe that Billy Bragg actually was antisemitic. I know which side of the fence he’s on, that he’s a proper Corbynite and I know he said all that stuff about Jews “having work to do”, but still it didn’t really make sense. A man steeped in Woody Guthrie, why would he turn into a racist?

It made me think about the world he lives in and how you can get immersed into a world, how you can get consumed by it. And when that happens, people like Billy can say things like Billy said.

And it made me think about the world I live in, and in particular the social media world I live in. We all know words like “bubble” and phrases like “echo chamber” and we’re all aware that stuff. But still.

I’m still a Facebook-head. I know most other people have migrated to Instagram, but I still prefer a bit of a rabbit to pictures showing what I had for dinner last night. Facebook’s an odd place these days, it’s like a bar that most people have left and it’s just now just a few old blokes moaning. But that’s fine. I’m an old bloke and I like moaning.

So in Facebookland, I’ve got 1,481 friends but I only ever hear from about 10 people and now they’re the most familiar names in my world. They’re mostly people I’ve never met. Friends who I chat with most days, but I wouldn’t know them if I sat next to them on the train as it apologises its way up the track.

Every day I tune into these people and read their threads, see what they’re thinking, let their thoughts seep into mine. Who are these people? What are they doing in my world? And how did they come to be in my world?

Mostly my friends comments are forthright, their opinions strong, their views rigid. And mostly they’re angry. Or if not angry, then upset. They – all the people called David and all the people who read the Davids – write a lot, make a lot of comments about politics and life, about what’s right and what’s not. They’re all very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn. And that’s fine by me because I’m very pro-Israel and anti-Corbyn and in the land of algorithmic opinion, this is where I’ve landed.

I’m fine with that, and even if does seem that Facebook is a diminishing world and now people prefer a world where the most political it gets is if you post an Instagram picture of your main course from an oblique angle. Actually, I can’t blame them for that. Politics these days is a fairly miserable place.

But what it means is that in my social media world, everyone is talking about Corbyn and antisemitism and (last week) Billy Bragg and (the week before) Margaret Hodge and no one is talking about food or where they went for dinner last night. And if everyone you know is talking about X, it’s easy to think that everyone else is talking about this stuff, that everyone cares about this stuff. Truth is, they’re probably not and they probably don’t.

If I was living in my social media world, I’d probably say something like “Exactly. That’s what Corbyn is counting on. He knows no one really cares about Jews and because there’s not enough of us to make an electoral difference he can do what he likes. So he’ll keep offering new Bank Holidays for things like not winning the World Cup and everyone will think he’s marvellous”.

If I was living in everyone else’s social media world, I’d probably be more interested in this

📷📷Want to add a caption to this image? Click the Settings icon.

Postscript: I was reading this morning and one of the Davids had had a Twitter-chat with Billy Bragg the upshot of which was

📷📷Want to add a caption to this image? Click the Settings icon.

Good for Billy. People don’t often apologise and he did and hats off to him for that. Still don’t like his music.

I know I said this isn’t all going to be about The Labour Party, but…. I’ve got a feeling I’m going to saying that a lot. Maybe it’s what I should have called the site. Maybe not. I’m guessing there’s going to be a lot of sites called that.

Oh well. Today’s exciting instalment is called “It’s all gone a bit Billy Bragg”. Now then, you’ve got to assume Billy’s a smart bloke. You might not like his politics, but you’ve got to assume he’s bright. And you’ve got to assume he knows about decent behaviour.

Decent behaviour goes like this. If you upset someone and you didn’t mean to upset them, you say “I’m really sorry for upsetting you. I didn’t realise what I said was so distressing and really the last thing I wanted to do was upset you and I’m really sorry”.

Decent behaviour does not go like this. “I upset you, but you’re wrong to be upset and let me tell you why”.

Billy has boxed himself into a corner, a corner so tight he can’t do that most basic thing. He can’t take a step back, look at what’s said from a bit of distance and think “Ah… I might have misjudged this one”. So he just digs and digs and keeps on digging.

“If I dig long enough, I might find the plot cos I seem to have completely lost it”.

A few days ago, Billy posted this:

There’s all shades of wrong here. What does it even mean? Am I more loyal to Israel than “to the interests of” England? Is this some kind of Norman Tebbit cricket test? I wouldn’t have thought that’s who Billy would want to associate with, but maybe that’s who he is now. It’s been said before that the Far Left and the Far Right aren’t so different. We all change.

Given that Israel doesn’t play Test cricket, maybe he means “Who would I vote for in the Eurovision Song Contest?” In fairness to Bill, I don’t know. I was happy Israel won the last one, but that chicken song isn’t going to appear on a Spotify playlist anywhere near me. I’m not sure how I would show “loyalty” to either Israel or England.

And what does it mean “the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide”? I genuinely have no idea what that means. I’m guessing it’s some kind of reference to a global Jewish conspiracy. And, by the way, when it comes to the global Jewish conspiracy, I’m not saying there is and I’m not saying there isn’t. The first rule of Fight Club, you know.

The whole thing looks a bit deranged. It sounds a bit mad. A little bit… like he’s stressed.

So yesterday Britain’s three leading Jewish weekly newspapers belied the old joke about “two Jews, three opinions” by all having the same leader and each other’s logos on their front pages. “United We Stand” was the head and in the copy they spoke of “the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government”.

Newspaper editorials are designed to make the reader think. They’re designed to make you question. That’s their job. An existential threat. Maybe. Who knows? Well, Billy knows.

and says, quite reasonably, “how are we supposed to conduct a reasonable debate about antisemitism in such a febrile atmosphere”.

To Billy, this is a reasonable question. But it’s only a reasonable question because of where you’re standing. From where I’m standing, it looks a bit different.

From where I’m standing… the thing is we’re not supposed to conduct a reasonable debate about antisemitism. We don’t need a reasonable debate about antisemitism. Billy – and his wing of the Labour Party – are the only people who want a “reasonable debate about antisemitism”.

No, we don’t need a reasonable debate about antisemitism. What we need is for you to just be quiet for a bit. What we need is for your party to try to remember it’s Her Majesty’s Official Opposition and start bloody opposing.

And if we’re going to have “a reasonable debate” maybe it should be about why you and your party are so obsessed with Jews.

Most of my life has been on the Left of the political spectrum. Like most people I know, I was always more devoted to talking about doing rather than doing. Ideas, I had. Lots of ideas. And they all came with a glass of something. Action, not so much. I was a member of the Labour Party for a while. I was a member of the Socialist Workers Party for a short while. And, as I tell my students now, I’ve worked on every national newspaper except The Sun and The Daily Mail.

The liberal left. That’s me. Worked in the media then in academia. Lived in north London then in Brighton. Cut me and I bleed sourdough.

But in recent times it’s seemed that the climate has changed. And it feels like a cold wind is blowing.

Last week I got kinda grumpy. And I’m not a grumpy person. I’m a happy person. Glass half full? Half empty? I’m happy to have a glass. So anyway, last Monday (July 16) I turned on the radio, the Today Programme, and there was a report about fighting in Gaza. John Humphrys introduced the piece “Two Palestinian teenagers were killed in an attack by Israel on Gaza. They were pupils at a school run by the United Nations Relief Agency”.

Humphrys introduced Chris Gunness from the UN Relief Agency. He spoke with an emotional urgency, voice quivering. “There was an Israeli air strike on a popular gathering place in Gaza City, a park where many families go, two children were killed… Imagine a foreign power using massive air power on a building in central London and two British children are killed… There should be international outrage and condemnation”.

There wasn’t a discussion about why what had happened had happened. There wasn’t any talk about what had inspired the Israelis to do the terrible things they’d undoubtedly and unquestionably done. No dispute that there should be international outrage and condemnation.

To the casual listener – and most listeners of the Today Programme are casual, listening with one ear as they’re getting up, getting dressed, getting the kids ready, getting ready for work – it sounded extraordinary. The might of the Israeli army bombarding people living in tents, dropping high grade bombs, killing children.

The next day – on the radio again – and there was a report about the Labour Party and a new definition of antisemitism. Seems that Labour had come up with a new way to define antisemitism and the Jews didn’t like it. Seems that 68 rabbis had written a letter to The Guardian to complain.

There wasn’t any discussion about why there needed to be a definition of anti-Jewish racism. There wasn’t any discussion about why the Labour Party had decided that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition, a definition that had been adopted worldwide, was not good enough. No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell Black people what was and what wasn’t racism?”

No one said “Can you imagine a situation where the Labour Party were to tell women what was and what wasn’t sexism?”

To the casual listener, it sounded… Jews again. Jews complaining again.

Two days but it could have been any two days. Israel doing terrible things. Jews complaining. And the two things are seemingly inter-linked.

Doesn’t matter that I’m from east London. Doesn’t matter that my ancestral roots are in eastern Europe. Doesn’t matter that I last went to Israel when I was 17. It seems that, in the world’s eyes – in your eyes – I am linked to Israel. And Israel is linked to me.

What I can’t quite work out is… why. Has the climate changed or have I? What would the 18-year-old me make of Corbyn? What would the 18-year-old me make of the Today Programme?

I used to argue that the IRA were right. In 1981, during one of the last great battles for the soul of the Labour Party, I was devastated (well, maybe not devastated, maybe more pissed off) that Denis Healey beat Tony Benn to the deputy leader post. Odds on, the 18-year-old me would be a Corbyn supporter – though he’d be far too cool to ever sing “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn…”

Now I think the 18-year-old me was a twat. In fairness though, for the 18-year-old me, supporting Corbyn wouldn’t have been in the “Top Ten Twattish Things” I was doing back then.

I grew up in east London, in a working class Labour family. The Daily Mirror was the family newspaper. The family fought in Cable Street. So why now do I fear The Labour Party?
Why do I bristle when I hear reports about Israel? Why do I get angry about bias in the media? Why do I spend hours – OK, days, maybe weeks – arguing on social media?

In the last few years – well, let’s take a step back. Let’s be precise here. Since September 12, 2015, it seems that the climate has changed. Jew has become a subject. Antisemitism has become a subject. Switch on the radio, and invariably there’s something about antisemitism. Look at social media, it’s swimming in stuff about antisemitism. Drowning in opinion. Antisemitism and Israel. Everyone’s got an opinion about Israel. Everyone’s got an opinion, everyone knows and everyone cares. Everyone really cares about Israel and Palestine. They really care about Palestine. They’ve never been further from home than the local Waitrose, but they knew all about Palestine.

September 12, 2015 was when Jeremy Corbyn replaced Ed Miliband as leader of the Labour Party. But nothing comes out of nowhere and when it all changed was during the Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014. Maybe I just hadn’t noticed before, but it seemed that suddenly in my world Gaza was everywhere. You couldn’t switch on the radio, the telly. You couldn’t log on. It was everywhere. It felt… it felt like a bombardment. It felt like an ambush. Lines were being drawn.

Friendships were lost, and I’m not just talking Facebook friends being unfollowed. It got really horrible. And the more horrible it got, the more Jewish I got.

It’s not even been a week and I’m tired. A month of module outlines, academic health reports, assessment jigsaws, timetables, workloads… being asked to take on a new module three days before life starts. I’ve got an eye infection and my daughter’s just left home for three months in Sri Lanka. I’m thinking maybe I should join her. I can do au pairing. How hard can it be? I look at the new students. Has something changed? Why are they all younger than they used to be?

Then I get a text from an ex-student and I remember what it’s all for.

Having your own website – it seems a very 21st century thing to do. Apart from the undeniable fact that this is the 21st century, why do this?

Already I’ve got three blogs, a Facebook account and now I’ve got hundreds – really, hundreds – following me on Twitter. I haven’t even mentioned Instagram. Or Snapchat. And they’re all waiting for me to do something interesting. In the time it’s taken me to write that, I’ve got another three followers. It’s hard not to feel a bit Life of Brian. What do they want, these people?

Well, it would be nice to get everything together under one roof. My vast body of work, all those words, all that wisdom. How nice would it be if it were all in one place, somewhere I could point at and say “That’s me”. You can already feel the celestial wheels turning a little more smoothly.

The problem is that most of the writing I’ve done is sitting in boxes in a barn, yellowing cuttings from newspapers – some of which don’t even exist anymore and quite few which maybe shouldn’t have existed in the first place. I could, I guess, scan the best in and then display it here. I could. Chances are… I probably won’t. It’s taken me this long to do this, to ask for anything more might be just too ambitious.

The other problem is that most of the writing I’ve done is under the name Jeremy Novick (and yes, that was because it made my mother happy and who doesn’t want to make their mother happy? ), so where do we fit that in? What are you supposed to Google?

I was going to write a full CV, but…. This is what my university biography says:

Jed Novick has been a journalist for more years than he cares to remember, and has worked on most of the nationals, including The Independent (TV editor, TV critic, feature writer), The Times (sports feature writer/reporter), The Daily Express (TV editor and critic, music editor and critic), The Guardian (feature writer), The Observer (arts critic) and The Daily Star (because it’s good to know how these things work).

He has set up (from conception to design to launch) four national magazines, and has also done his time at the sharp end – subbing, production and layout. He’s written 10 books, including two football books (one on The Mighty Spurs, voted “the second best Spurs book ever” by his mother), two music-based books, four biographies, including the first authorised biography of Michael Palin, and two books on sex.

He also runs writers’ retreats – http://sussexhouseparty.wordpress.com – with his fine wife Gilly Smith.

There. Somewhere round here you’ll find the start of the greatest British novel ever not yet written. It started out as a normal book, then morphed into a fantasy escape plan, before settling down as a letter to my kids.

 

Brooklyn. I couldn’t wait for Brooklyn. How many years watching Barry Levinson films? How many years listening to Beastie Boys? Brooklyn. It feels like it’s the DNA somehow, or maybe a little Brooklyn was inserted into my soul, sometime between getting circumcised and barmitzvah’d. Brooklyn was going to look like home, feel like home. Brooklyn has also been for a while the hippest place on earth. I remember talking to a friend, a lovely guy if a bit photofit Hackney, a few years ago and we were talking about, oh something, something about places, where to go.

“Mate, it’s just Williamsburg. It’s all about Williamsburg”.

That was then. Williamsburg, I was reliably informed just before leaving the UK, has “gone”. It’s all about Greenpoint now. Actually, I was reliably informed it was all about Dumbo now, but I’m staying with a friend in Greenpoint, so that’s what we’re going with.

So it’s Thursday and it’s the first alone day. Greg’s shockingly gone to work and, well, this is the challenge. I like being by myself, I like my own company, I like just mooching around… listen, I spend my life saying this, and now is the time. This is it. Walk it like you talk it. Last year it felt different. I was by myself maybe half the time, but I don’t know. Maybe because the trip was more structured. Maybe it’s because I knew that – however wherever – in a couple of days I’d be back with Ruth or Antony, but I didn’t feel that alone thing. Here though, it’s a bit different. Would it be different if Gilly was here? Of course. That would be a completely different trip. But you know, we’ll see.

Greg’s place is right in the beating heart. Like it was going to be anywhere else. Round the corner, there’s a record shop called “Paul’s Boutique” and OK, it’s not the Paul’s Boutique, but still. We’re in Brooklyn and there’s a piece of The Beastie Boys.

Immediately, it felt safe. Brooklyn – if this is what Brooklyn’s like –  feels very comfy, very home from home. Went to Paulie Gee’s for pizza (pepperoni with hot honey drizzle. Really) which is a bit of an old school institution, drank beer and watched the tennis cos, you know, tomorrow we’re going to the tennis.

Inevitably, we chatted about Trump and guns and Brexit and all that, and while the world might be going mad, here in Greenpoint, it feels like I’ve moved from one comfortable bubble to another.

It’s not a million miles from Manhattan, but… maybe a few thousand. The pace is slower, softer. There’s less traffic and less people but not, crucially, less cafes. The bit before about “one comfortable bubble to another”, nowhere is that more apparent than in the cafes. Everyone’s young, but they’re not a work cos all freelance graphic designers. They’ve got their MacBook, everyone’s sitting nursing a drink, they’re definitely freelance graphic designers. Or working on a book. No, it’s not got a commission yet, but it’s a great idea. I’ve not gone from one bubble to another. It’s the same bubble. And that suits just fine. A double espresso, a plain croissant and fire up the Mac. As they used to say, you can’t see the join.

Off to the Odd Fox for breakfast and that’s easy. Slip the Mac out of the bag and it’s like slipping on an invisibility cloak. Just another freelance graphic designer.

Walking through Greenpoint down Manhattan, across to Franklin, it’s all feeling a little familiar. The roads are wider than I expected, the side streets leafier. The buildings aren’t big brownstones that you see in the movies – that’s a different part of Brooklyn if it’s even Brooklyn at all – but low rise, largely red brick and, oh never mind, What is this? An architecture blog?

Greenpoint into Williamsburg is fairly seamless, walk down Franklin which becomes Kent, past some warehouses and, ah look. There’s a bar called The Hoxton. Now we’re in Williamsburg. Actually, The Hoxton is a rather posh looking restaurant/bar and if I was expecting all exposed brick and bar lights, well maybe they’re right. It’s been a while since I’ve been in Hoxton. Round the corner, inevitably, is Rough Trade. And in between, a café or two.

It’s not so busy here, the cafes are full and, I don’t know if this was just me, but there are lots more buggies, not so many freelance designers. More mums, less Macs.

“Hey man, I like your earring”

A young lad, maybe late Twenties, clearly a brother. We have a chat about the earring. He’s got a Star round his neck and “That’s great, man. That’s kinda out there”

“Well”, I say to him “If you’ve got it…”

We do a bit of Jew-chat and I told him that it was suddenly a bit contentious back home, that recently it’s become a bit uncomfortable. He found that a bit odd and that’s quite right because it is a bit odd.

“Well, it’s cool here, man. You’re in Brooklyn”.

I liked Williamsburg. I was expecting a network of small streets, criss-cross streets with outdoor squares and lots of hanging out in the open and it’s not like that. It was wider than that. Bigger streets. The same block set-up as the rest of New York, but it felt comfortable. Maybe a bit smarter, definitely a bit posher. There are still loads of buildings – factories, spaces – ripe for development, but maybe one of the problems they’ve got now is that they’ve priced themselves out of being developed. Anyway, I kinda expect “Bed-Sty” to be the next colour supplement story.

One of the first things I remember reading about NY was that they had 24 hour dry cleaners. Imagine a place where you need 24 hour dry cleaners. Anything might happen. For a young kid reading that, it’s an alluring idea.

So, anyway, New York. We went to the foo…. soccer at Yankee Stadium (96th minute winning penalty for the home team), the US Open at Flushing Meadow. Went to a proper theatre on Broadway (to see “To Kill A Mockingbird”, written by Aaron Sorkin, starring Jeff Daniels), saw Vampire Weekend at Madison Square Garden, went to a hipster art show based on The Strokes at a hipster gallery on The Bowery, the Leonard Cohen exhibition “A Crack in Everything” at the Jewish Museum, ate pizza at Paulie Gee’s, went to The Capri Social Club, lunch at Esme’s, hung at a cool bar in the East Village (beer and sawdust) and and a top Mexican restaurant, a cooler bar in the West Village (live jazz band and table tennis/pool tables)… I lived in Greenpoint, hung out in Williamsburg, walked the High Line, been to four boroughs (and let’s be honest. No one’s going to Staten Island, so I’m not sure that even counts), went to the “Smorgasbord” food market, drank in Dylan Thomas’s bar, ate an unfeasibly large bagel, went to the “Friends” apartment, ate pizza at Joe’s (where Spiderman worked), played pinball in The Laundry, a laundrette that turns into a bar at night (while still being a working laundry) and ate pizza.
Kinda liked New York.

Greg organised an extraordinary schedule while sorting out space ships, ocean going liners, hurricane relief and God knows what else. I love him. Well, I loved him till he beat me at table tennis at the Fat Cat. Well, it was hot and I didn’t want to be rude, otherwise obviously he’d have been in trouble.

So that was New York. And that’s the reason I haven’t been doing the day by day blog thing. That tension between living it and observing it is never easy to resolve. When to sit down and write? But if you can’t be a whirlwind in New York, where can you?

The one morning I had to myself, I spent trying to sort out where I was going next and how. That made my head hurt. There are so many options and so many possibilities. I went to the Amtrak office twice – that was helpful – and the last time I came out and realised that if it’s not making sense, then probably it’s not the right thing to be doing.

“If you don’t like the conversation, change the conversation”

Actually thought of that line while walking past Madison Ave and that was worth a smile.