Back in London after the end of a busy July spent mostly travelling or away from home (NYC, MBE day, Latitude, Southwold, Hague). Returned to find my room had acquired a mysterious chemical-like odour. It’s a bit sulphur, a bit petrol, a bit burnt plastic. Homes do that when you come back after a spell away – they get annoyed and lonely and rebel.

It’s never the case when I come back that I think ‘Ah, home at last! My blissful base of familiarity.’ No, with me it’s more, ‘Have I been burgled? Why does the place have a funny smell?’

So I set about eliminating the suspects. I cleaned the sink, and bleached the drain. Cleaned and tidied the room too, in case there was some neglected cup of tea lurking somewhere and growing its own penicillin: I always forget what mould smells like until I actually see it, and remember. Also took a month’s worth of clothes to the laundrette and dry cleaners. Returning from travel and getting back to normal life, one wants to say you ‘hit the ground running’. In fact, I hit the ground cleaning.

So I now have a clean drain, clean clothes, and a clean room. And yet the smell lurks on. Might just be something next door, which I can do nothing about. I also have a history of over-sensitivity (and overreacting) to fumes – painted walls weeks later still giving me – I think – a headache when visiting friends can’t smell a thing. Ah well. Like most things in life, I’ll just hope it goes away if I ignore it long enough.

After all those adventures in July, my August is a blank. The next big thing isn’t till mid September, when Fosca play Madrid (Sept 12th). Oh, and I’m down to DJ at Volupte in Holborn again on Aug 28th. But that really is it. And I’m glad. I don’t want to feel beholden to anything or anyone for a little while. Am now just keen to get back into a writing routine, if only to find out what I want to do next.

London is sweltering, so I’m lurking in libraries. So many invites to things, particularly birthday parties, all seeming to increase in number just when I want to play Garbo for a while. I want to go to them all, and I want to go to none.

By way of a warm up to my next bout of belated diary reports (MBE finally, a little on Latitude, the Hague), I just opened The Assassin’s Cloak anthology of diaries, and this entry leapt out at me:

30th June 1967

No difficulty with the customs. I simply chose the customs officer that, in an emergency, I wouldn’t mind sleeping with. Got through without having even to open my case. London hot, very little difference in actual temperature from Tangier. ‘How dead everyone looks,’ Kenneth H remarked… We took a taxi home. A great many letters. Invitations to parties which I shall not accept.

– Joe Orton.

***

Typing this on the ferry to Holland, halfway across the North Sea. I have my own cabin, with bed, desk, toilet and shower. For only 5 Euros extra, you can also get access to the luxury lounge, with unlimited tea, coffee, juice, fruit, biscuits, peanuts and Wi-Fi. So I’ve done that. Obviously.

Ticket is £97 return, including the trains from Liverpool St to Harwich, and Hook of Holland to the Hague, with a cabin on the boat both ways. Harwich train was virtually empty: I had the carriage to myself. Definitely the most peaceful, blood-pressure friendly way to travel. This is just… perfect.

Me: Have to dash, I’m off to the Hague.

Ms F: Why? Are you a genocidal war criminal?

Am at the Latitude festival in Suffolk, DJ-ing in the Cabaret Tent and blogging for the official website (www.latitudefestival.co.uk), as I did last year. Except this time I’m camping onsite. Partly so I don’t take the long walk to the main road and back every day (and it IS long), partly because I’ve not gone camping since my teens.

Friends have smirked when I tell them I’m taking the tent option, knowing I patently refuse to own wellies or jeans or anoraks, and thinking the slightest inkling of mud will have me calling a taxi and booking into the nearest hotel. But putting up a tent while keeping the dirt of one’s pinstripe suit and loafers is actually quite simple. You just kneel on the groundsheet and set the tent up around you. No problem. There’s a been a touch of rain, it’s true, but it’s hardly Passchendaele. Yet.

Weds July 2nd – early hours.

As it turns out, the airline crew lets Shane have a small glass of wine after all, towards the end of the flight. The rest of the time, he sleeps.

I drop him off at his Dublin house, as the sun comes up. The lady taxi driver tells him she’s a big fan. A nice touch of symmetry.

Then I groggily catch my connection to Heathrow, make it home for a nap, and eventually report back to the Boogaloo that evening. The jet lag won’t really hit me till after Mum’s ceremony: the adrenalin about that is now keeping me going.

On this particular Wednesday evening, it’s the bar’s monthly film quiz. As I enter I note the current round is about ‘Dragons In Movies’. The projection screen shows a still from Q – The Winged Serpent, a very silly 80s horror flick about a dragon who lives at the top of the Chrysler Building.

Thus, New York goes back to being something from the movies.

Tuesday July 1st.

The journey home is the same heady blend as the journey over: anxiety and luxury. We’re given a stretch limo from the Waldorf to JFK, with full flasks of spirits on board. Except Shane can’t quite indulge to his usual degree. He knows he has to put on a semblance of comparative sobriety in order to make it onto the plane. ‘Please do your best – for my mother,’ I say. I’m not entirely joking. If Shane is turned away, that means I can’t get on the plane either. If I can’t get home by Weds evening, I’ll miss Mum’s MBE investiture. And so begins the anxiety.

It doesn’t help that there’s a confusion over my ticket when we check in at the airport. With all the rescheduling and renaming (Shane’s companion was meant to be someone else), it turns out that my ticket hasn’t been upgraded. Is it really necessary? Well… my sitting next to him on the flight might make all the difference to his travelling at all.

So I leave Mr MacG in the VIP lounge – drinking coffee and orange juice – while I race around like a white-suited fly from kiosk to kiosk and queue to queue, changing money and sorting the upgrade out. All the time I’m worrying that we’ll miss the flight for this reason alone. Aer Lingus computers – you owe me a lower blood pressure.

I get the upgrade processed in time – just – and feel like I need a medal. But then, this sort of thing happens all the time to more frequent travellers. I should be grateful I’ve never experienced the sort of airport-based ordeals that pop up in the news from time to time: flights delayed, hold baggage cancelled, people having to sleep on the floors of terminals.

But there’s still one more hoop to jump.

As we go through the departure gate, a woman from the airport staff takes one look at Shane.

‘Oh no. No no no.’

She grabs a walkie-talkie and marches after us down the corridor to the plane. ‘Excuse me! We got a problem.’

We have to wait there for the plane’s cabin crew manager to come out and meet us. It’s just like the time I was taken aside on the flight over, except this time it’s more serious. We’re not on the plane yet. That makes all the difference.

This cabin crew manager looks terrified, so I take a deep breath and prepare my speech. I also get the sense it’s more the JFK official who wants action, and is expecting Ms Lingus to agree. So I have two people to convince. I keep thinking of ‘Midnight Express’.

Once again I do the Shane Will Be No Trouble, Honest speech. I tell them that the drinking the airlines rightly fear is of the tiresome, explosive, football hooligan variety. Not implosive drinking, the sort that’s an anaesthetic for the pains of the flesh (Mr MacG, 50, has a bad leg and back, at the very least). Not the sort of drinking which helps you sleep more easily on a long-distance flight. Well, that’s his sort. Honest. He won’t be any trouble. I’ll sign something if you like. I’ll be sitting right next to him. I’ll take the window seat, while he has the aisle seat. I’ll go without alcohol myself. We were fine on the flight coming over. (I wish that cabin crew manager had spoken to this one).

Then the JFK lady chips in. ‘Well… I guess they ARE in Premier Class. Both of them.’ And it’s then that I know we’re through. The joint upgrade was worth it.

‘I just want to go home,’ says Shane.

Ms Lingus still needs one piece of reassurance though. She won’t serve him alcohol during the flight. Not at all.

‘Fine,’ says Shane. Deal. So on we go. Panic over.

As Ms Lingus escorts us onto the plane, I resist the temptation to grumble and sulk under my breath about the alcohol ban, particularly after seeing first hand how expensive an upgrade is. The worse thing to do when being treated like a naughty boy is to act like one back. So I strive for a tone of sensible adult graciousness. Though I slightly overdo it to the point of fawning:

‘Thank you for being so understanding. We really appreciate it.’

‘Well, I have to check, you see… We can’t let on anyone if they seem…’

‘Of course. Absolutely. I realise that. But, well, that IS always the way he is. He IS Shane MacGowan.’

‘Oh I know who he is! I’m a big fan.’

Some random extracts from my New York notebook.

On my Monday wanderings, I suddenly realise I’m walking past the theatre where ‘Sunday In The Park With George’ is playing, as in the Daniel Evans London production with the animated projections. I’m reminded how lucky I was to see it in its original home, the Menier Chocolate Factory near London Bridge.

Just looked it up now to see which theatre this was. Studio 54! As in your actual Studio-fifty-legendary-70s-disco-Warhol-tastic-four.

Its full address is 254 West 54th St, between 7th & 8th Avenues. And this is another abiding memory. Ask for directions in New York, and you are given up to four numbers (254, West 54, 7, 8). Which is a lot more difficult to remember than just ’79 Charing Cross Road’. But then, Charing Cross Road doesn’t go on for ever, cutting across all of London through different districts. London streets know their place.

Notes for a Seinfeld-style stand-up routine, with lots of arm waving and shrugging, except in an English accent:

‘Hey, New York, right? I mean, what’s with all the numbers on the street names? I mean, what’s the DEAL with that? What’s going on THERE? ‘Between West 51st and 5th.’ ‘Between 2nd Avenue and Lexington.’ ‘Between Babylon and Ting…’ ‘Between 5th Rock And 53rd Hard Place…’

All the people I ask for directions find it amusing when I have to write down their instructions in my little notebook. But I know if I don’t I WILL get the numbers wrong, and I WILL get lost.

And I do. At one point I mistakenly assume a road for vehicles (the 79th St Transverse) would allow walkers like myself access into the middle of the park, as is the case with the roads going through Regent’s Park or Hyde Park. But no, it just goes under bridges and tunnels and out the other side, and is clearly not for pedestrians. So I find out this the hard way.

‘Here I am in New York, and what am I doing? Spending the best part of half an hour traipsing along an underpass for no good reason. And I’m lost. And I’m alone. And I don’t know how long this road is going to go on for.’

Still, at least it wasn’t at night. And it was a LEAFY underpass.

***

When I eventually do find a way into Central Park, I pass some young people on benches, who in turn pass unkind comment. ‘Get a load of this guy!’

***

Going into a general store to buy a map, a determined young man on roller skates hurtles off the street and into the shop. He zooms over to the fridge, selects a bottle of Coke – sorry, a SODA – pays for it and zooms out again, without the cashier batting an eyelid. This all seems to me very New York type behaviour – but 70s New York, really. Still, apparently roller skating is starting to return to London too (so say the style pages), so maybe I’ll be seeing similar things in the queue at Sainsbury’s before long.

Not queue. LINE.

***

Back to the English Seinfeld:

‘And don’t get me STARTED on the TUBE you have here! Sorry, SUBWAY…! Yes, I KNOW it’s so much cheaper than in London. But no wonder – the seats on the trains have no cushions! What’s going on THERE? And you have, like NO idea when the next train is arriving? And the tube lines have confusing NUMBERS? Not lovely helpful names like Circle or Central?

‘And what’s the DEAL with the map? In London, an interchange means you can change lines at that station, right? In New York – get this – you can only change if the train is going in the right direction! ‘Southbound only!’ I don’t think that happens ANYWHERE on the London Tube! I mean, DID I MISS A MEETING?’

And of course, I only find this out the hard way. I spend a ridiculous amount of time wandering around one subway station looking for a platform that doesn’t exist, finding the map utterly baffling, thinking all New Yorkers must be mathematical geniuses. I’m sure I’d get used to the system with a couple more days’ use, as one does with anything. But at the time, I reserved the right to get utterly upset and confused. Thank you.

The tube stations themselves are brutal and prison-like. Subway barriers are proper barriers. Not lovely London ones you can leap over (‘Ah, the first fare-dodging of spring!’). These barriers are full height steel fences, with doors and grills. But then, that’s what they are like in the movies. I just forgot about the movies. Why was I surprised?

I think of that Quentin Crisp quote, how in Britain people are suspicious and reserved, but the system is kind (ie, NHS, benefits, cushioned seats on tube trains). Whereas in America, the people are direct and open, but the system is brutal. Certainly this first experience of their underground trains makes me think of the latter.

But the people are the opposite. Despite the brutal environment of the stations, I see  young people sitting on the wide exit steps, strumming ukeleles, or toy guitars. Not buskers playing to a hoped-for audience, but playing to themselves. The idea of people even sitting on steps in Tube stations – who weren’t homeless or drunk or mad – would be odd enough in London. Never mind people playing ukeleles or leisurely reading books.

***

In New York, everyone speaks clearly. From businessmen to skateboarders, even with the heaviest of Brooklyn accents and the latest street-based slang, the words are perfectly audible from start to finish. Or they don’t speak at all. No half measures.

No wonder eavesdropping columns like ‘Overheard In New York’ are so successful, while UK versions need to be tidied up or embellished, if not made up from scratch. The irony of a ‘Genuinely Overheard In London’ column, based on true transcriptions of utterations in public, is that it would have to be limited to the conversations of… American visitors.

The only voices you can hear properly in London have American accents. At least, voices heard during office hours, and not counting conversations on mobile phones. It takes alcohol or mobiles to get the average Englishman to speak up. Mumbling, evasion and caginess are national traits.

**

Watch a bit of local TV news while I’m there. As of this weekend, ‘trans fats’ are banned in all NYC restaurants. The city is also getting ready for the Independence Day parade, and I watch a TV interview with the man behind the Macy’s fireworks display. He speaks like a natural TV star, bantering with the presenter as if he were one of her colleagues. A British counterpart would be all ‘um’s and ‘er’s.

If you’ve never seen the video for Fionn Regan’s ‘Be Good Or Be Gone’, please do so now. Such a simple idea, so brilliantly realised. A perfect example of how to do something when you have little money, but lots of time.

And yes, I did say to him, ‘It must have taken ages to make…’ I bet he’s never heard that before…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj66XgK3NvE

Sunday June 29th:

Day of the Liam Clancy concert in Greenwich Village. Venue is The Bitter End on Bleecker Street (between Thompson and LaGuardia, as they say). I manage to get Shane down to the Waldorf lobby in time for the scheduled lift to the venue, only to find Shane’s not the last one for once – Gemma Hayes emerges slightly later. So it’s official – Gemma Hayes is  more rock and roll than Shane MacGowan. By about two and a half minutes. We’re also accompanied by fellow guest singers Eric Bibb and Fionn Regan, whose song ‘Be Good Or Be Gone’ I’m rather a fan of. Immaculately dressed in black (velvet jacket, I think) and tousled of hair, he has the air of a young Donovan.

As it turns out, our group is the first one to arrive – the van with Liam Clancy and others is caught up in today’s Gay Pride March, while our driver manages to avoid it altogether. So not only do I fulfill my duty in getting Mr MacG to the soundcheck on time, but he’s actually one of the first performers to turn up.

Shane spends a lot of time backstage going over the lyrics to the songs he’s doing: ‘Red Is The Rose’ and ‘The Parting Glass’. At one point in the tiny dressing room (soundtracked by the clattering of the bar’s ice machine) some of Liam C’s band are working out the finer points of ‘The Broad Majestic Shannon’. Shane leans over and says, ‘Why don’t you ask ME?’. He wrote it.

While the film crew set up, I gaze around at the posters of ancient shows and photos of the many legendary names who’ve played the venue. Stevie Wonder, Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell etc. It’s New York’s longest running rock club. At the soundcheck I meet Tom Paxton, who is avuncular and funny and points up to one particular vintage poster on the wall. ‘This Week At The Bitter End: Joan Baez. Next Week: Tom Paxton’. It’s clearly from the early 60s. He first played here forty-eight years ago.

I’m also introduced to the club’s owner Paul Colby, who’s been running the Bitter End since 1968. He must be one of the oldest people there – I later find out he was born in 1917. Mr Colby looks at my suit and says ‘Ah, don’t forget you mustn’t wear white after Labour Day’. Liam Clancy himself is in his 70s but going on so much younger. His energy and spirit during the concert are really rather astounding. The filming goes on for some time, taking in three full sets, yet Mr C doesn’t seem to flag for a moment, very much possessed by his music. His band and all the guest singers are on top form, particularly Odetta – who was an influence on Dylan. And to think CBGB’s has come and gone since. New Wave? Lightweights.

Even though it’s a TV recording first and a concert second, the audience sing along freely and warmly, in the proper Irish folk tradition. The crowd range from Mr Clancy’s generation – in their 60s and 70s – down to young NY socialites and party girls, like the model Friday Chamberlain. The placed is packed, and Ms Chamberlain tells me she was offered $100 for relinquishing her seat at the bar. Shane comes on at the end, and sings ‘Dirty Old Town’ and ‘The Irish Rover’ alongside the Clancy numbers. When Shane steps up to the mic, the lady TV producer comes over to me, kisses me on the cheek, and tells me ‘you rock!’. I’ve done my bit: Shane’s made it here after all. Then all the guests unite for a finale of ‘Will Ye Go Lassie, Go’.

Afterwards, Shane hangs around to meet a few fans, including Tony O’Neill, who’s from an Irish family and recognises far more of the set list than I do. He was brought up on songs like ‘The Wild Rover’.

I end up with Shane, Mr Keane and many of the crew in an all-night Irish bar called Swift’s, on East 4th Street between Broadway and Bowery (you can tell I keep notes). There’s a table in the corner where various musicians sit down and improvise together in the Irish folk style – some are from Liam C’s band, some are regulars at the bar. Shane even gets up to dance. Close to 6am, I’m visibly falling asleep mid conversation and am grateful when we all emerge blinking into the dawn.

Monday 30th June.

I get an unexpected extra afternoon in New York, as Shane can’t face travelling back so soon after the show. It’s not nearly as hot as it was on the Saturday, so I decide to walk into town as far as my feet will take me. I start at the Waldorf and eventually end up outside the enormous ‘Met’ museum of art. Which turns out to be closed on Mondays. Oops. Still, it looks nice from the outside. Story of my life.

En route I take a look at Madison Avenue, Columbus Circle, Central Park (with its maze-like ‘Ramble’ in the middle, The Lake, the huge rocks that students perch on like seabirds, the Belvedere Castle (I do love the word ‘Belvedere’), the Dakota Building, Strawberry Fields and the Lennon memorial, and the Natural History museum, with its muted lighting, merciful air conditioning, and stunning array of animal dioramas. Something of a contrast to the London NHM, which much as I love it, could use a bit more darkness. I think having windowless, darkened halls with lit-up displays definitely improves the museum experience. Perhaps it’s to do with the way senses are heightened at night, or the association with going to the cinema, or even storytelling around a campfire. It’s easier to pay attention in the dark.

(Am now trying to pare down my NY reports to notes and highlights only. Still not brief enough, I know. But stick with me, there’s photos at the end…)

FRIDAY JUNE 27th – conclusion.

9pm. Collected at JFK airport by Moira from the film crew, along with local driver Sydney, a charming, wiry – and wry – black gentleman of a certain vintage, in his people carrier. His radio is permanently tuned to a channel playing big band numbers: Sinatra et al, so this soundtracks the famous skyline looming into view. Which is, of course, exactly what I want.

First spotted detail of non-London-ness: road signs at junctions warning $350 penalties for sounding your horn. ‘I want to wake up in a city that always beeps…’ How is this enforced, though? Speed microphones?

Also: yellow taxis carring adverts on their roof fins, today for the movie ‘Wanted’, starring James McAvoy. So the first face I see in NYC is Narnia’s Mr Tumnus, with a six pack and a gun.

Check in at the Waldorf: plush beyond plush. There’s a series of huge lobbies and hallways you have to walk through before you even get to the main reception, which itself is like a 1930s Deco railway terminal. Good enough for Cole Porter, good enough for us. Rest of the evening (by now 10pm) spent in the lobby bar with Shane, Mr John from the Boogaloo (how strange it is to go halfway around the world and then be tapped on the shoulder by someone from your local pub) and Liam Clancy, plus the film crew. Shane back onto his White Russians. Liam Clancy says, ‘So your mother’s getting an MBE…?’

SAT JUNE 28th:

Morning: I wander outside. The heat hits me full in the face as soon as I leave the Waldorf doors, and I feel I can barely stand about 30 mins outside in the sunshine. Walk towards the Chrysler to get a close look – no signs of ghostbusters or winged serpents… Suddenly find myself next to Grand Central Station, so in I go.

By Grand Central Station I stood around and gawped. The recently restored concourse ceiling is incredible – zodiac signs, constellations. Why aren’t all railway stations like this? A temple to travelling, a celebration of escape, or the joy of arrival.

Afternoon: After the usual postponing and nagging, I eventually prise Shane out of his room and down to his first filmed appointment: singing and chatting with Liam C in the Waldorf’s Marco Polo Room. After that he seems happy to hang out in his suite with BP Fallon, DJ, photographer and something of an Irish rock ‘n’ roll Character, with a capital C. So I have a night off. What to do? Where to start? I need a guide.

I email Tony O’Neill, a friend since his days as keyboardist with Kenickie, Marc Almond et al, and who’s now an acclaimed author (latest novel Down And Out On Murder Mile, soon to be out on Harper Perennial). I know he lives in NY, and though we’ve remained in email contact, I haven’t seen him since a Crouch End party in about 2000 – a party which features in the aforementioned novel. ‘Hello Tony, er, I’m suddenly in town and tonight is probably my only free night here. Can you drop everything and come out and meet me?’

I’m in luck, and infinitely grateful. Tony and his wife Vanessa meet me at the hotel and offer me a tour of city bars. Do I want the posh side with the sights and the skyscrapers, or the seedier – admittedly artily seedy – Lower East Side, of Quentin Crisp and CBGBs fame?

I feel the Waldorf is splendour enough for one weekend, so off we go to (hope I’ve got this right): the Max Fisch bar on Ludlow (where the jukebox plays Journey, Foreigner and Air Supply – all of whom are apparently now cool), the wonderfully decrepit Mars Bar, The Pyramid (80s disco – where I’m told off for NOT dancing to Kim Wilde. Duran vids on rotation, ‘Lovecats’ fills the floor), The Cock (dark gay seediness – toilet door open to the dance floor to prevent naughtiness) and another called Sofie’s.

We also stop by CBGB’s, now a bookshop advertising a volume of rock photos with Sid Vicious on the front. And we pass the diner where Quentin Crisp used to eat every day. Or rather, the spot where it used to be: it’s moved across the road. This is typical Dickon The Tourist stuff – visiting places that aren’t what they used to be, or even where they used to be.

At one stage we walk down a side avenue straight out of Will Eisner, all fire escapes, low-rise blocks and rats jumping off beer crates to run across our path. Unlike their London counterparts, who tend to keep their distance from humans, these rodents aren’t yielding for anyone. ‘Typical New Yorkers,’ says Tony.

I rather like mice and rats. And I don’t even mind cockroaches. It’s just spiders and snakes I get upset about. Snakes can get knotted.

(Can’t decide whether that last sentence is terribly witty or just terrible.)

Second biggest detail of non-London-ness: having to show ID to gain entrance in all the bars. I’ve left my passport at the hotel, but for the most part the various bar staff and bouncers let me off, once they hear me say (in my best Hugh Grant voice) that I’m English and I just didn’t know. Terribly sorry, first time in the States don’t you know, splendid city you have here, have you seen Four Weddings, etc…  I still have to answer ‘What year were you born, and where?’. For the first time in nearly twenty years. The only bar that turns me away is Niagra, on 2nd Avenue.

Tony says the idea is less about proving one’s age, more about weeding out the sort of people who don’t carry ID. Or who forget to bring it. It’s a more psychological intent: to associate drinking with seriousness and responsibility. Given UK adverts for alcohol now carry the message ‘please drink responsibly’, without much effect on the binge drinking statistics, I wonder how long it’ll be before Britain follows suit.

But maybe there’s something in this measure towards a more conscious – if not more sober – kind of drinking. We end the bar crawl sensibly, ie as soon as we realise we’re getting to the stage of drunkenness where amnesia or severe hangovers is likely to kick in.

Third detail of otherness – you have to tip the bartender. Over the weekend I have this little ritual explained to me three times. But I still either over-tip, or under-tip, or haven’t the change to tip at all. I am useless when it comes to money matters as it is. In other countries, doubly so.

***

Some photos courtesy Mr O’Neill.

Tony, Vanessa and self at the Mars Bar:

Eighties dancing at the Pyramid, probably to Billy Idol at this point:

Ye Olde CBGB’s, now flogging a dead Sid:

And a Bowery-parked vehicle covered in images from rock album sleeves. Who lives in a van like this?

Friday continued.

So having justified my upgraded presence as the difference between Mr MacG getting to his show and not getting there, I enjoy my first time in First Class. Which in this instance includes silver service meals and – oh joy – Afternoon Tea with scones. Plus the Aer Lingus Premier Class Toiletries Pack, the highlight of which is a tube of L’Occitane Ultra Riche face cream. Shane lets me have his.

I sit back, grateful for the extra leg room and general pampering, and watch the airline version of ‘Michael Clayton’. An excellent film, if slightly marred by the censoring required for in-flight movies. One particularly clumsy moment comes during Tom Wilkinson’s remarkable performance as a lawyer who plunges (or ascends) into a seeing-the-light style of madness, reminiscent of Peter Finch in ‘Network’.

‘… An hour later, I’m in a BROTHEL in Chelsea and two Lithuanian redheads are taking turns KISSING ME.’

The words ‘brothel’ and ‘kissing’ are not only dubbed over something much stronger, but the voice doing the dubbing is clearly not Tom Wilkinson’s. Not by a long shot.

I’ve never understood this aspect of air travel. You pay all that money for a plane ticket, you’re defying the forces of nature, you’re living the dream of your ancestors, and yet you’re still not allowed to hear a single swear word. Not even on headphones.

***

Staying alcohol-free on the flight in order to reassure the cabin crew, I think of a quote by Jeffrey Bernard, when he sacked his accountant for drunkenness:

‘One of us has to stay sober. It sure as hell isn’t going to be me.’

***

In America. We’re at JFK, waiting in the queue for Immigration. The mother of the pleasant family standing behind us behind recognises Shane, and thanks him for all the pleasure his music has given them. I hope this bodes well for our being allowed into the country. I think of Sebastian Horsley recently turned away on account of ‘moral turpitude’ (I see Mr H has made the Wikipedia entry on the phrase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_turpitude). But I also think of tales of certain zero-budget Sarah Records indie bands, refused entry for trying to pass themselves off as tourists, because the work visa needed for playing gigs was too expensive, or too awkward to organise in time. Carrying musical instruments alone was enough to get them turned away.

While we wait, Shane tells me he’s never had problems with Immigration in the past. He’s been to New York many times before. Well, there’s that song of his, isn’t there. Fairytale of.

He says the officials are often Irish-American, which helps. That’s it’s English old me who’s more likely to raise eyebrows. My appearance and voice is closer to Sebastian H than Shane MacG. I start to worry – as ever – and for a second I seriously wonder if I should attempt an Irish accent to help get me through. Then I think of Alan Partridge – ‘Dere’s More To Oireland Den Dis’ – and decide against it. Wisely.

But we go through with no problems at all. I have my face scanned by one of those little spherical cameras, and for the first time in my life I have my fingerprints taken. Seems a bit overly zealous, but I’m hardly going to complain at this stage. Inside leg measurement, DNA sample, I’m ready to give America whatever it wants. I’m all too English that way. And then we’re through. Another hoop.

As we pass, I note the young policeman’s name badge. Officer McCann.