When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Samuel Johnson said that.
When a man is tired of life, he is tired of London. I said that. Thankfully, I am neither of these things.

I have spent the entirety of my working life in London. It began, this love affair with a city, in 1968. I got a phone call from a friend to say he had heard of a flat to rent that would suit two people sharing. Warwick, a college friend, was already established in Clapham and had been on the lookout for accommodation for myself and another recent ex-student mate, Dave. We were temporarily back at home, he in Earls Colne in Essex, me in Southampton, both anxious to move up to the Big Smoke and begin our quest for fame and fortune.

So it was, on a hot, humid day in August with a few possessions packed into a holdall that I met Dave outside the cartoon cinema at Victoria Station. We caught the District Line to Gloucester Road and walked the short distance through golden mid-afternoon sun to the address in Old Brompton Road.

The flat was on the first floor above a chemist’s shop. Our landlord, Mr. Louis Diamond, was also the chemist. He wore a ruby ring and a shiny suit. After a short interview in a windowless room at the rear, stacked floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes, where he told us that as long as we paid the rent and didn’t steal from the shop we could do as we wished, we thanked him warmly and began our residency.

The large high ceiling room at the front doubled as living space and bedroom. The furnishings were sparse and battered with use. The marble fireplace was home to the sole source of heating, an aged gas fire with scorch marks scarring the fragile burners. The bathroom and kitchen at the back were dark and grim, looking out on sooty brickwork and pigeon shit. The bottom of the bath was pitted and grimy, as if someone had once half- filled it with acid and left it for a month or so. To dispose of a body maybe? Best not to dwell on such morbid speculations. But at least the place was self-contained and after all, we were in no position to be too choosy.

We had seven days before the rent was due, having paid a week’s worth as a deposit. So the next morning we signed on at the Employment Exchange in Strutton Ground, Pimlico. As recent graduates we were sent upstairs to be inducted onto the Executive and Professional Register. It would be many years before either of us could unflinchingly describe ourselves as executives and our professional skills were, as yet, untested. But at least it made our four years of further education seem worthwhile, affording us a small sprinkling of status.

Our graduation as graphic designers meant that we were ultimately seeking employment in the design industry, but our need to earn some cash meant that we were offered and accepted temporary employment with Westminster City Council. The job was to distribute electoral registration forms to residents of the borough making a note of any changes to the existing records. There were worse jobs. It allowed us a good deal of freedom, working alone on the streets of London with no boss looking over our shoulder. As long as we got through our weekly targets we were able to set our own pace.

On my patch were the narrow streets either side of The Strand, between Charing Cross and Waterloo Bridge. In the warm August and September sun to be outside was a joy and I took lunch in Embankment Gardens most days. In recent years these verdant strips of calm bordering the Thames have been on one of the routes I have taken to the office, prompting me to reflect often on those early days nearly forty years ago. Forty years that have passed in a flash.

As I made my way through the clamouring, neon–bright rain reflected streets of Soho in the drunken haze of last Friday night, my time as a daytime working resident of London was at an end, for at 5pm that afternoon I retired from full-time employment.

So begins a new life. A life ungoverned by timetables, schedules, deadlines, and routines, except those that I choose to impose upon myself. A life where I’m going to make time, pursuing all those things that have given way to overriding commitments since I became a part of the establishment on my first day of school.

But wherever else this newfound freedom leads me, London will always be there to take me back, with open arms and mind. Gawd bless ya Sammy Johnson.

Jack Nicholson once said that it's possible to fart
on a plane and go undetected. True. I suppose it's
the accompanying engine noise, pressurised cabin
and constant flow of recycled air that masks it.

I wouldn’t recommend it on a train though. Jack didn’t
mention trains. I guess it’s a while since he rode the
rails after a bowl of Mexican chili.

I’ve chronicled my misadventures in taxicabs in The Big A before in this blog. And with each new occurrence I think, it surely can’t happen again. But somehow it does. And strangely, the major incidents have taken place on the drive from Manhattan to JFK.

But maybe it’s not so surprising. The journeys tend to be made in the early evening, just as the daytime taxis are going off shift. The drivers are weary and frayed from many hours spent on the rip-roaring, cutthroat, dog-eat-dog madness of avenue and street.

Driving on their nerves and horns, this devil-may-care mercenary army, many of them not long on American shores, cut, thrust, swoop and dive, giving and expecting no quarter. Their yellow cabs are battered and battle scarred, hunting in packs, bouncing and clattering through the white steam that rises from the dark underworld of a city that always seems about to blow.

On the ride to the airport I’ve had two drivers nod off to sleep on the Queens expressway, one that provoked the driver of an SUV to a terrifying attack of road rage, another who desperately wanted to share his passion for Friedrich Nietzsche, a jolly Jamaican from Tooting who blasted roots reggae for the duration and the guy that had started a new Christian movement and was seizing any opportunity to preach to prospective converts from the pulpit of his cab.

So this last time, as the bellboy dropped my bags into the trunk, I slid into the rear seat and studied the back of the cabby's head for clues. Was he fit to drive and deliver me to terminal seven in one piece?

It started well. We got to the midtown tunnel without incident. I was relieved the driver didn’t decide to use the 59th Street Bridge, inevitably getting jammed up on FDR Drive, or worse, go even further uptown through Harlem to cross the Triborough Bridge as one had once done, adding significantly to the journey time.

It wasn’t until we entered the tunnel that the problem with the steering became apparent. The moment the front wheel bounced off the iron- clad kerb, my first thought was that yet another driver had been overcome with fatigue and dropped off. But an anxious glance into his mirror revealed eyes wide open, fixed unblinking on the road ahead: a small cause for relief.

Once I had decided that the problem was merely mechanical, I relaxed a little - but not too much. The traffic in the five boroughs is fast and furious, not leaving much room for error.

The driver’s battle with the vehicle’s severe bias to the right was one that he thankfully managed to win and in no time the signs for the JFK exit appeared. He only spoke once during the journey, to hiss - impatient – through gritted teeth as a 4WD cut dangerously across our bow.

Relieved to arrive unscathed, I tipped the driver handsomely which he accepted with a grunt that could be interpreted either way. I retrieved the bags from the trunk and stepped into the universal limbo that is international air travel.

It’s so nice to go traveling, but it’s oh so nice to be home as Hoboken’s very own Francis Albert Sinatra once sang. And do you know, he could be right,

Bugs. Or more specifically, cockroaches. They’re right up there with snakes and spiders in the top ten of God’s own creatures that we humans love to hate.

Speaking for myself, I have no beef with snakes and spiders. Not that I’ve come face to face with many of the former. Though I suspect, especially on my wanderings in Arizona, that I’ve been much closer to the limbless reptiles than I suspected. But unless a person is unlucky enough to step on the likes of a rattler or horned viper, snakes generally prefer to keep themselves to themselves. A virtue to which I can wholeheartedly relate.

As for spiders, well I’ve never felt the urge to dispatch them to arachnid heaven at every opportunity. I’ve even been known to retrieve the little fellows from the bath with my bare hands. Okay, the bigger ones get the glass and postcard treatment.

I did once happen across a hairy Tarantula and had no trouble in resisting the impulse to pick it up and pet it, but thoughts of doing the big fella harm just didn’t arise. It was moving like a wind-up toy, in slow, jerky movements, across the coarse prairie grass in a cemetery at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. I’d gone there to find the final resting places of Comanche war chief, Quanah Parker and the great Apache leader, Geronimo. The trees around the two graves were festooned with charms, talismans, spirit offerings and dream catchers, which, with their spider’s web construction made the tarantula’s presence all the more poignant.

So that leaves cockroaches. I’ve had four close encounters with the insect of the suborder Blattodea, the first under a sink in a London office about seventeen years back, the last on the floor of my hotel room in New York City two weeks ago. Unlike snakes and spiders, I find this particular beetle utterly repellent. There’s something about the hard flattened oval body and long waving antennae that turns my stomach.

Thankfully, three of my meetings with the creature have been strictly one-to-one. The fourth, which chronologically was the second, if you get my drift, was anything but. It took place at a motel in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Waking in the night with a mouth as dry as a desert riverbed in a seven-year drought, I had the irresistible urge to pour a can or two of ice-cold soda down my throat. Nothing else would do. The thought consumed me.

Outside, scattered around the hotel, were cold drink machines, which for loose change would dispense instant relief. Groping around in the dark I managed to pull on my jeans and some shoes, locate the room key and silently slip into the sodium glow of the first-floor balcony. As the door clicked shut behind me, the sound caused the floor of the landing to scatter in all directions. It had come alive. For it was blanketed with a foraging army of cockroaches.

I had two choices. To return to the sanctuary of my room and remain parched, or continue with my mission to quench my raging thirst. I had to press on. A few pesky pests weren’t going to deny me my can of freezing Coke. Gritting my teeth, I moved forward towards the vibrating hum of the electric oasis. This caused a second frantic wave of insect activity as the noise from hundreds of scuttling legs and colliding bodies sent up a hideous cacophony of metallic clicking sounds.

Remarkably, and as a testament to the survival instincts of the odious creatures, I managed to get my Coke and make it back to the room without treading on a single one, for surely the resulting crunch underfoot would have been unmistakeable. Safely back inside, never had a humble can of soda been so valiantly won and earned.

So in comparison, my most recent run-in with a roach was a stroll in the park. I have to point out that the hotel I was occupying was not some run-down flop house. But I guess scavenging beetles are no respecters of reputation and standards. Nobody told this particular insect that he had no right to be around. How it got into the room, I have no idea. My guess is through the shower drain. Anyhow, in it swaggered as bold as brass, antennae twitching.

I was off the bed in a flash and had the creature securely covered by a plastic cup within seconds. What next? Weighting the upturned cup with a jar of Sue’s face cream - for the varmint was large enough to brush it aside - I looked around for something flat and rigid I could slide underneath to keep the beast inside. Finding a postcard on the side table I set about completing the tricky manoeuvre. All the while I could hear frantic scrabbling from the plastic trap as its grim occupant desperately sought escape.

The postcard firmly in place, I made for the door. Two probing antennae forced their way through the minutest of cracks twixt cup and card, coming dangerously close to making contact with my hand. Holding my nerve I managed to open the door and made it into the hallway where I headed for the fire exit along the corridor. I backed into the door pushing hard against the resistance of the spring closer, holding the cup safely at arms length.

Now what? I peered over the banister into the void of the concrete stairwell. Not wishing to hang on to my charge a second longer than necessary, I whipped away the postcard and shook the cup violently. The contents were plunged into space, hitting the sides with a metallic ring on the way down.

The fate of the cockroach is unknown. But I’m sure that a mere fall down seven flights would be no match for this master of survival. It’s probably alive and well and preparing for a night out with its beetle mates, Paul, George and Ringo.

Albanese Meat and Poultry; a neighbourhood butcher’s store on Elizabeth Street on the lower east side. The proprietor is a guy called Moe. Once one of many local traders to be found along the street, he’s now crowded in on all sides by chic fashion and life-style Johnnies-come-lately. But Moe has no plans to sell up and retire like his one-time neighbours, he’s holding out against the tide of gentrification.

Why would I sell? he once asked of me. Why should I move? What would I do?

Questions for which I had no answer. But there was no hint of resentment or bitterness in his comments. He merely had no good reason to leave. As long as he opened the store and customers continued to come in, why would he close up? Although the day I went in was the first and only time that I’ve ever found the place open. On previous visits the door had always been firmly shut and padlocked.

So seizing my chance I walked inside. A large man overhanging a small chair was talking to a small, terrier sprung man who wore spectacles and a baseball cap, his head resting on a fist at the end of an arm that propped up the counter. On entry their conversation ceased.

Is Moe around?

The big man pointed with his chin.

I’m Moe, said the scrawny guy, bright eyes darting with the trace of a smile at the corners.

I explained that I had been coming down here for ten years or so and had seen businesses like his give way to newcomers, leaving him as the sole survivor. Aware that I may not get another chance despite his vow to stay on, I asked if I could get a picture. He nodded and without him changing position, I got my shot. That was last year.

The place is still there. The same offers of prime cuts at bargain prices plaster the windows. The door is ajar. Moe sits in his car at the kerbside. The engine is running. Moe makes no move to go inside. He remains, wearing a hat and coat, motionless and mysterious, eyes fixed on the street, hidden behind the lens flare of his glasses. I walk on by. I don’t look back.

A year or so ago, Martin Scorsese made a TV ad for American Express featuring his friend Robert De Niro. The ad had him expressing his love for his native city. New York City. There, amongst the collage of iconic New York landmarks, was Albanese Meat and Poultry. Outside, stood a guy in a butcher’s apron. A fleeting moment, on-screen for a second or two. No more. Was it Moe?

I like to think it was.

Sitting in the window of The Empire Diner is not a choice. All the tables have a window, it’s the way the place is laid out. Unless you pick a stool at the counter. There you face the back wall. A classic railcar style diner; art deco chrome and mirrors, a clock, shiny black Formica topped tables, heavy silver cutlery, paper napkins folded into triangles.

Three waiters, mid-twenties, black hair, black T’s, black pants and shoes. Can’t figure out if it‘s the night shift going off or the day shift coming on. There are no clues. It doesn't matter that much, but I’m curious about these things.

Behind, a party of three; two ladies with shiny nails and Thatcher hair, a gentleman with a voice that rumbles from somewhere deep down.

…seriously... Mort needs to lose some weight, but he won’t... because SHE never cooks. They eat out all the time, how’s he ever gonna lose weight? All that saturated fat… and salt. At home you can control that stuff, but she doesn’t ever cook…

Through the door a woman enters with a boy of eight or nine years. She’s dressed in pressed blue jeans, a fleece over a white blouse, hair freshly brushed.

Where shall we sit? At a table, or at the counter?

At the counter.

Okay.

A waiter comes across with two menus.

Hi, can I get you some coffee… juice?

No coffee for me thanks, I’ll take an orange juice.

Fresh squeezed or Tropicana?

She flicks back her hair.

Tropicana.

And your son here?

Oh… he’s my grandson.

You’re kidding me. Grandson? I thought he was your son.

Well…no. What do want Ty, fresh orange or…?

She rests her hand gently on the boy’s head, fingers buried in his shiny hair.

Tropicana.

Coming right up.

The waiter moves away to fix the juice.

That’s her grandson. Thought it was her son.

His colleague nods without looking across to confirm or challenge the observation.
He doesn’t need to. He saw them both arrive. Waiters don’t miss a trick.

A man comes in. Sports top zipped to the neck. Tracksuit bottoms. Trainers. He turns right, takes a seat down the counter, spreads out the New York Times, smoothing out the creases with the palm of his hand. He could be Donald Fagen. But it’s not him. That would be too much. Morph the Cat in person, the voice of Steely Dan.

Next, another solo guy pitches up. The restaurant is filling up this bright Saturday morning. He sits and slips off his jacket in one movement, but keeps the baseball cap on his head. A green vest shows off a lifetime spent lifting weights. He orders coffee and juice.

I need the restroom and find it at the end of the counter. A thin rickety door separates me from the diners. If I can hear their conversation, they can hear me. In the States, with the water filling the toilet bowls to just below the rim, a silent pee is impossible. I don’t let it concern me.

It’s like going in a caravan, I say, returning to the table.

That’s because it is a caravan, says Sue.

Does anyone remember Rhoda? I refer to the 70’s sitcom, a spin-off from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, which was set in Manhattan and starred Valerie Harper as the lead character, Rhoda Morganstern. No? In that case, stop right here as what follows will mean nothing to you. Yes? Well, you may want to read on.

My personal favourite in the show was Brenda, Rhoda’s younger sister, who was played by Julie Kavner. She delivered her knockout lines with the nasal whine of a girl born and raised on the mean streets of Brooklyn. She was also a dead ringer for a girl I knew from my days at EMI Records called Robyn (crazy) Katz, who had been a press officer for the Motown label amongst other things. They could have been sisters - if not family then the soul kind.

Another favourite from the show was Carlton, the doorman of Rhoda's apartment block, played by the wistfully monikered Lorenzo Music. Carlton was never seen, only ever heard on the end of Rhoda's telephone. He spoke in a laconic, contourless monotone, however joyous or grave his pronouncements from the downstairs lobby were. Only existing as a disembodied voice added strength to the character. You didn’t have to SEE Carlton. It was enough to imagine him.

Until, last week that is. For I can report that Carlton is alive and – well, alive – still working as a doorman, but at my mid-town hotel on Madison Avenue. Remarkably he hasn’t aged a bit. Same sallow New York tan; same shock of delinquent black hair; same weary stoop around the shoulders; same dark, casual indifference. And I’ve never clapped eyes on him in my life. But it was unmistakably he. The voice gave him away. No mistake.

I meant to inquire after Brenda, but he was always busy with bags, or the door, or flagging down a cab, or swapping a yarn with the desk clerk, or just staring some place over my head, a strange faraway look in his one good eye. I could see that his time on Rhoda could be a curse. So I left it. Probably for the best really, Carlton wouldn’t want to be reminded of his celebrated hey-day, from 1974 to ’78. And he’d feel obliged to speak if we found ourselves sharing an elevator with his baggage trolly. Explain the eye thing. Even smile.

Nah. This is Carlton we’re talking about here.

I have doggedly resisted digital photography. Not that I am against progress and innovation, - just happy to stick with the two formats of film (35mm and 120) that I’ve used for years. But I now find myself on the verge of surrender.

Not that I’d abandon film, you understand, but there are particular occasions when a digital option would undoubtedly prove advantageous. So while at large on the streets of New York City, I decided to drop in on B&H, a discount photographic equipment store that I stumbled across at 34th and 9th on a previous visit. With the dollar currently bobbing around at 1.95 to one-pound sterling, there would surely be a bargain to be had.

So it was that on Friday morning, having scanned the window posters for prices and ‘done the math’, I attempted to enter through the ‘out’ door. This minor rebuff was enough to trigger the latent hint of resistance to any transactions that may or may not follow. Suppressing this negativity I set about finding the ‘in’ door ten yards up the street. I breezed inside.

Within two strides I was halted by a man in black. Let’s call him Johnny for sentimental and musical reasons. Johnny informed me, all the while beaming a neon-bright smile, that I would be required to check by backpack before entry could be granted. Fair enough: standard practice at retail outlets throughout Manhattan. I followed Johnny’s pointing finger and arrived at the bag-check counter.

I was met by a miserable man. Let’s call him Charlie for unsentimental and cinematic reasons. Charlie refused to accept my bag, pushing it roughly away, spitting out something about the store being about to close. As it was only around 12.40 pm in the city that never sleeps, I felt it not unreasonable to enquire as to the reasons for this early termination of the trading day.

‘Store closes at one, no time, no time’, Charlie barked like some bad tempered pooch with a pooch, picking up my bag and thrusting it into my chest.

‘Okay, will the store be open tomorrow?’

‘No. Owned by Jewish people. Closed Saturday’.

Through the windows I had noted that the majority of the staff, exclusively male, were dressed in the garb of orthodox Jews. This instantly clarified the situation. The store closed at one on Fridays so the staff could get home and make preparations for the Saturday Sabbath. With this I had no issue. It was a matter of religion. No, my problem was Charlie. He was not Jewish. He was just plain rude and unhelpful. This was a matter of courtesy.

To the rescue, with his flashing diamond teeth, came Johnny the doorman. Witnessing my mauling at the hands of Charlie the bagman, he beckoned me over.

‘Come on, come on, you go right in. It’s okay, go ahead’.

And before I could properly extend my thanks to Johnny, with the bad blood still bubbling from the encounter with Charlie, I was in.

My outdoor mental arithmetic was confirmed when I punched the digits on my calculator. Despite the favourable exchange rate, the prices on offer for the camera I had in mind did not present significant savings from those I had researched at a similar photographic outlet before I left the UK. So, I decided to skip the digital camera until back in Blighty (with its UK guarantee) and went instead for a lightweight tripod, with carrying case thrown in.

I was assisted by a very helpful salesperson who pulled out all the stops to complete the deal and get me to the collection point before the shutters came down for the 1pm deadline. I was back outside on 9th Avenue so fast, the sneer I was saving for Charlie as a parting shot had to remain unfired. The goodbye nod and pat on the back from Johnny went some way to evening the score.

Later that day in search of an Edward Hopper moment, I got to test the tripod with some night shots on 37th Street. But that’s another story from the naked city.

Rose and Jay Deutsch. Husband and wife, rather than brother and sister. The only other alternative is for a remarkable coincidence, working together as a pair and sharing a family name, and is not, I believe, very likely. But in all of this, I could be mistaken. They could be none of these things. What I do know though, is that they are On-site directors of the Leica Gallery at 670 Broadway, New York City.

Rose: petite, silent, smart, eyes down, busy behind the reception desk. Jay: bearded, bow tie, never silent, pacing the sloping floorboards or at his desk on the phone. Jay shares his conversations with all, his voice effortlessly carrying through his open office door into the gallery. Jay has many issues that he needs to discuss. He appears to have a long list of contacts who are ready and willing to listen. And if they fail him by being otherwise engaged or unable to receive his calls, then there’s always Rose.

She sits while Jay speaks, her head cocked to one side like a bird on a lawn hunting for worms. She’ll only reply when necessary, with Jay rarely requiring an answer. If she does speak, it’s to offer a solution free of Jay’s verbosity and sense of doom. This is not necessarily what he wants and her words invariably force him to return to his room in search of a sympathetic ear somewhere down the line.

Despite this, they curate and oversee exhibitions of photographs from the world’s greatest
photographers, spending their days together in this small two-roomed gallery among ancient hissing heat pipes and white walls, while the hunched masses of Broadway pass by oblivious and uncaring, eight floors below. I for one am glad that they’re together. I suspect that without these two the place could easily fall apart and I would have been denied the pleasures and inspiration I’ve found there under their directorship.

Come on guys. Let’s hear it for Rose and Jay.