I took a stroll down the garden this morning to the shed, known by my mate Charlie as the 'shudio', a cross between shed and studio - get it? - what's to get? - anyhow, there was something in the dewy air that held the first traces of autumn, and this after a summer that never really arrived, despite the early predictions of another globally warmed scorcher. Not that I mind that much. But I preferred it when we had four seasons. You knew where you were then.

The year started in the dark depths of winter. The mornings were frosty. In our pre-centrally heated homes, ice would often form on the inside of the windows overnight. The lino in the hallway was cold underfoot. We wore vests, gloves, coats, scarves and hats to school. But we boys were still in shorts, combined with long, thick winter socks, with only our chilled, pink knees on show. Snow was commonplace. It came each year. We expected it, and as children, demanded it. We licked it from our lips as it fell; scraped it up, moulded it in our palms and threw it; slid down compacted slopes of it on wooden sledges made by our fathers, so sure were they that it would return, year on year; we rolled in it; and made a man of it.

Spring. In March the winds blew. In April there were showers. There were catkins and blossom on the trees and lambs in the fields. The days grew longer and we could play out after tea. Fathers got home from work in the light. Easter meant eggs and a fun fair on the common. On Good Friday and Easter Monday everything closed. Town centres were empty, except for a few stragglers, forced to venture out in forlorn desperation, looking for signs of life in their own reflections as they peered into darkened shop windows. Easter Sunday was as dead as every other Sunday, but more so. But we had chocolate to brighten the day.

Summer brought the promise of six weeks away from school. Mornings in bed reading from a stack of old comics, each picture and story committed to memory, some even to this day. The sun would melt the tar on the road and we swam from a beach that was covered in the same black stuff: a beach that has not seen a swimmer since the polio scare emptied it of all but dog walkers and treasure seekers. We would be out of sight and hearing of our mothers for all the day, save mealtimes, and felt safe in our adventures, knowing to treat Don, the man on a bike who handed out bible texts to children, with a caution that belied our years. The only guns we carried were plastic and fired caps. Later to bed than on schooldays, we fell asleep to the sound of lawnmowers pushed by hand, the blades whirring, one sound for forward, another for reverse.

Autumn began in September, the trees stripped of their leaves by November 5th. We ate the chestnuts that fell to the ground and collected conkers as if they were precious jewels, which to us they were, freshly fallen and shining from the gutters or half concealed under dead leaves. We began building fires in October for the burning of Guy F…F…Fawkes, his clothes stuffed with newspaper, his face a gaudy mask with punched holes for eyes. On busy street corners kids huddled in groups, competing for ‘pennies for the guy’, that were seated, askew, in old pushchairs, grinning madly, hollow eyes staring from the rainy shadows.

Winter once more. Christmas began in December. When it arrived, it lasted two days. Everywhere was closed. Roses didn’t bloom on Christmas Day when there were four seasons and not one – with mild seasonal variations. Although this morning, there was something in the dewy air…

I went to Tate Modern earlier this week. Entering one of the galleries that have views of the Thames, I noticed a young woman who appeared to be transfixed at the window. My curiosity aroused, once she moved away I wandered over to take a look myself.

At first glance there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary going on outside. The river was rolling along as it does in song (Old Father Thames), assorted tourist craft ploughed up and down, St. Paul’s loomed, domed and brooding under slate grey skies while bunches of brightly dressed strollers stood at the rail of the embankment, all eyes on two police launches, blue lights flashing as they bobbed around, held motionless in the swirling current.

It was only then that I realised the shining silver decking of the Millennium Bridge was empty of people, save for two figures; one a uniformed police officer, standing in a central position, away from the rail and the other a hatless man, dressed head to toe in black, who was leaning on the balustrade. He appeared to be in conversation with a person who was sitting on the very edge of the structure that was installed to support the bridge; the same series of tubes and wires that needed to be supplemented after the bridge was opened to prevent the famous wobble. Well, now it seemed that some unfortunate was having a wobble of his own and was threatening to end it with a plunge into the river below. Both ends of the bridge were taped off, guarded by the police. On the north side of the river stood a fire engine, the helmets and jackets of the crew just visible as they stood by on the embankment pathway.

Framed in the window of the gallery, parallels with the exhibits inside were unavoidable. The scene was like a painting in its stillness, the troubled man perched precariously, his legs pulled up, his hands clasped around his knees, his chin resting there, facing upstream as his minder on the bridge used unheard words of reason to try and reel him in.

I suddenly became uncomfortable acting as a voyeur in this real-life drama and returned to the world of illusion and make-believe inside. By the time I left an hour later, the footbridge was open, the watchers, the boats, fire engine, police and man all gone as if they’d never even been there - in the real world.

My trip to New York is less than two weeks away now and I’ve yet to buy the digital camera I plan on taking along. That means a trip down to Poole in Dorset to the place where I’ve purchased my last three cameras. I’ve always done it mail order in the past, but on this occasion I thought I’d make it personal. If the weather holds up it should make for a good day out and if I go this week that’ll give me next weekend to get acquainted with the new equipment.

This will be my first serious venture into, what for me, is the uncharted world of digital photography. I’ve dabbled with the company camera, which has been OK, but having my own means that I can really get to grips with the technology. I’ve got a couple of projects in mind for New York, but will leave until I’m there to finally decide which it’s to be, as I won’t have the time to do both. Much depends on the weather. Hot, humid, cool, rainy; we’ll see. Although at this time of year, it should be the former.

Aside from the photography, I’ll most likely fit in a couple of galleries, depending on what’s on, do some shopping – clothes mainly - and just hang out in my favourite spots, as well as discovering some new ones. Whatever the city turns up will be chronicled here in words and hopefully, pictures.

After a week of damp, windy, grey days, more like November than August, the sun appears, it's hot and it's a bank holiday. So, shut down the computer, put on the shorts and get outside. Alright? Not half.

What is it about the night, always playing its tricks? In broad daylight, we have a thousand distractions that we can see all around, taking our minds from darker thoughts, that like the bogeyman are lying in ambush, loitering around blind corners in the unlit subways of our consciousness, waiting for the darkness to come down.

But this is not a night of the countryside. There, darkness comes slower, with little man-made light to speed its fall. The wild things, creatures that awaken with the night, come out to claim what daylight denies them. They take back the fields, ditches, hedgerows, woodland and skyways, filling the bible black night with their screeches and cries.

In the towns and cities there is no true darkness. Instead, the grainy fog of a sodium glow that spills into the sky, blocking out the light of a trillion stars, so that those that live there are denied the wonders of the universe and must make do with earthly things to get them through ‘till morning.

The urban night is a restless being: the whoop-whoop of a siren in urgent pursuit; a train’s fractured horn; tyres always passing through; a shout carried on the wind, a scream, laughter? Maybe; footsteps ringing set a dog barking; suddenly music booms, silence, then slam as a car door is shut; an electronic beep as the alarm is activated; a jet overhead, coming in on a wing and a prayer, city to city; the crash of bins, going out for tomorrow’s collection; the whirling throb of the police helicopter as it hovers, searchlight probing, seeking out wrongdoings in wasteland scrub; and somewhere deep down, the hum that never rests– the pulse of humanity.

Then, out of place and time, a blackbird begins to sing. Like me, fooled by one of night’s tricks, mistaking the street light for the sun’s early rising.

Views. Not opinions, but the scenic kind. Although I suppose the two are connected. What makes a good view is, after all, a matter of opinion. Although we all have our favourites - some we no doubt would share – when it comes to naming our top five, my guess is that the results would be as many and varied as the reasons for our choice.

When I gave serious consideration to my own view on views, it threw up some mildly surprising observations. The first thing to occur to me, is, despite taking many photographs on the various trips I’ve made, there are surprisingly few views; this despite visiting locations that are considered to have some of the most spectacular vistas to be found anywhere on the planet. There are, of course, views amongst my photographs, but not many that most would describe as particularly beautiful or worthy. Photographically at least, I’m irresistibly drawn to the perverse and opposite view.

I’ve thought about the reasons for this and concluded that unless I was to haul a large format camera around on my travels – the kind that takes 5x4 or 10x8 film, or the digital equivalent, if such a thing exists – then a photograph is never going to do a breathtaking view justice. Memory, I find, is a much more accurate recorder, as it places the view in context, often bringing in other elements that contribute to the experience – the journey, the time of day, a companion – and so has the effect of enhancing and glorifying the picture you hold in your head. All too often, viewing a snapshot that captures of only part of a spectacular panorama leads to disappointment. How, for example, can a mere photograph capture the awe of a place like The Grand Canyon? With few notable exceptions, it can’t. So, I don’t even try.

In naming one’s own top five is it necessary that they have still to exist? For when I thought of the views that have made the most impression on me, some, I know, are lost forever. Changed through redevelopment, denied by lack of access, altered by circumstance, skewed by prejudice, misplaced by memory or confused by reality.

One such view was through the rear window of my grandmother’s house on late summer afternoons around tea time when the sun would catch the bowl of freshly picked tomatoes on the table and they would glow deep red as if illuminated from within. Then the sun would set behind the distant hill, the long shadows turning purple in the yard.

Another, the docks in Southampton on winter evenings from the old chain ferry, the black, deep water slapping, lights reflected in colours, seagulls like grey ghosts, swooping low overhead in and out of the darkness. Then once, a great transatlantic liner passed silently by across the mouth of the river half a mile distant, lights blazing from stem to stern, burning into my thoughts and as clear as ever, touching me still over forty years on.

Crossing 6th Avenue as dusk is falling on a bitter New York winter’s day, the neon of Radio City splashed in the wet tarmac, the pale sky a vertical strip, shining bright, held tight between towering walls of concrete and steel.

A farm track in Arizona, distant mountains, dust flying in the wake of a red pickup, three girls across the bench seat, their heads - hair piled high for a night on the town- silhouetted and framed in the rear window.

These views and many more, some fleeting, some seen only once, some revisited often. If I had to choose just one, a view that was once committed to song by Ray Davis a while back would still take some beating: London from Waterloo Bridge. Any time, any day, any weather, any season, any way. And whenever I gaze on Waterloo sunset, if not quite Paradise, then as close as I’ll get on this earth.

The tips of the first, second and third fingers on my left hand are numb. Why? Well, I’ve finally got to grips with my guitar, the one I was given as a farewell present. As I have never played a note, it really is a case of starting from scratch. The first chord demonstration in Russ Shipton’s, The Complete Guitar Player, is A. Followed swiftly by D and E; or in my case slowly. Very slowly.

Cramming all the required fingers – only three so far – into that narrow fret, as well as pressing down on the strings – the correct strings – hard enough to avoid ‘buzz’ (a technical term for buzz) while avoiding accidental contact with the ‘open’ strings (another technical term) which ‘dampens’ them (yes, another technical term), is not easy. Mind you, I never thought it would be, but I harboured this sneaking, irrational thought that I might posses the latent ability of a ‘natural’, who, when strumming my first chord, would realise that I was in possession an undiscovered, god-given gift.

Alas, I can report that this is not so. For me, there is no alternative other than to do it the hard way. Ahead lies hours of practice, days of frustration, weeks of despair, months of disillusion, years of heartache. But for now, I’ve got numb fingers. Guitar playing mates tell me this is usual. Of course, they can hardly remember, having learned to play when they were barely off the rusks and malted milk. But it’s early days I tell myself, one has to persevere.

Then, to amplify the monumental task ahead, as happened on Sunday, I am consistently confronted with guitar genius. Felix Dennis, the guest on Desert Island Discs, chose, as one of his eight recordings, ‘Have You Heard’ by John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. The guitarist in this incarnation of the band was Eric Clapton. And back then, he was on fire.

Dennis described Eric’s performance on this song as the best blues guitar by a white man (from Surrey, not even the Delta) that he has ever heard. I wouldn’t disagree. Although already being hailed as ‘God’ by those in the know in the London clubs of the day, Clapton was a young man still with something to prove. His playing is loud, hard and aggressive, the notes tumbling, soaring and diving in an unstoppable flow, erupting from somewhere deep inside and out through his flying fingers. “Slowhand’ indeed.

I am now glued to every performance, live or on the box, that includes a guitarist. I sit in awe as their fingers effortlessly find the chords, with no hint of buzz or dampening, unless it’s intentional that is. Half the time they don’t even have to look to see where their fingers are for Pete (Townshend’s) sake. Although at some stage they were all like me, slowly and painfully practicing their chords until they could strum their way through ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, “Twenty Flight Rock’ or whatever, their fingers blistered and bleeding.

As The Byrds once sang:

So you want to be a rock 'n’ roll star
then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
and take some time and learn how to play

I’ve been catching up on films recently. Apart from television and the occasional bought DVD, my main source of movie watching these days tends to be at local film festivals. The two theatres in town regularly convert themselves into cinemas for a week or two and show recent releases, many of which don’t make it into the local Odeon; too arty, too niche, too foreign. Over the years I’ve seen some real crackers that for one reason or another haven’t been considered commercial enough to get a general release.

I prefer the festivals anyway. The audiences are there to watch the film, without the seemingly irresistible urge to call their mates on mobiles, unwrap an endless supply of sweets, crunch popcorn, slurp super-sized coke, go constantly to the toilet, talk loudly between themselves and generally show a complete lack of interest and comprehension in what’s happening on-screen. The ‘Big Brother’ generation. They’re everywhere. But thankfully not at film festivals.

The highlights this time have been ‘Venus’, starring Peter O’Toole and Leslie Phillips; ‘The Queen’, for Helen Mirren’s portrayal of HRH; ‘Notes on a Scandal’ with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in the leading roles. Peter O’Toole’s portrayal of a roguish, ageing actor in his twilight years deserves special mention. He was magnificent, reducing me to tears of both laughter and sorrow with his funny and deeply touching acting masterclass. Pity he didn’t take away an Oscar at the Academy Awards – he deserved it.

Then yesterday, at the film club, which meets once a month, there was a screening of ‘Hue and Cry’ (1947), a British film directed by Charles Crichton and starring Alastair Sim, Jack Warner, Harry Fowler and Joan Dowling. It’s generally considered to be the first of the Ealing comedies. Shot almost entirely on location, it is now a notable historic document due to its vivid portrait of a post war-damaged London. The bombsites and austere, battle-weary streets form the black and white backdrop of a crime gangster plot, which revolves around a working-class children's street culture and secret clubs.

It features youngsters who go to work aged fifteen dressed like their fathers, in sports jackets, ties and flannel trousers. Mothers stay at home to cook and clean. Daughters are dutiful, wear skirts, sensible shoes and dry the dishes while Dad dozes in the armchair. Brothers are free to go out after tea and take part in unlikely adventures with their chums. No one swears. Boys tote catapults, not guns. Girls wear plaits and ankle socks. There are no tattoos, piercings and mobiles. The kids are free to roam around derelict bombed-out buildings on the verge of collapse with no hint of health and safety restrictions or controls. They take on the bad guys with no more than good old-fashioned fisticuffs. Nobody dies.

A young Harry Fowler delivers the best line in the film. Posing as a member of the gang of crooks, he jauntily chirps, ‘Okay fellas, I’ll keep a look-out and if anybody comes, I’ll whistle ‘The Lambeth Walk’. Now you don’t get dialogue like that anymore. Or tunes.

[edit]

There’s a whole lot of ‘musing’, ‘rambling’ and ‘ranting’ going on in blogland. If you don’t believe me take a look at member’s descriptions of themselves and their blog activities. For us bloggers a good old self-indulgent muse, ramble and rant, preferably undertaken simultaneously, takes a great deal of beating. The topics chosen for a public airing on-line are many and varied: Everything from political causes to rearing racing ferrets. I’ve yet to discover the person who favours ferrets on this site but they’ll be out there somewhere, musing, rambling and ranting about the small bloodthirsty mammal, regaling us with tales of its fierce loyalty, affectionate nature and breeding habits.

In a museful, rambling kind of way, this particular blog could be said to be a rant, albeit a mild one and about a weasel rather than a ferret. I refer to Stuart Maconie, the music journalist and broadcaster. To date, apart from the occasional TV programme that’s included popular music as its subject, my exposure to Mr. Maconie’s supposed qualities in this field have been limited: This not being accidental but deliberate on my part, though sometimes unavoidable if he happens to be a contributor to something that I wish to watch or listen.

This policy of avoidance can be traced back to a piece written by Stuart Maconie of Wigan, Lancashire in which he heaped praise on the songwriting abilities of one Jimmy Webb of Elk City, Oklahoma, in particular his composition ‘Wichita Lineman’. With much of what Stuart said about this song I have no issue. It does have an achingly haunting quality that manages to evoke the feelings of separation, isolation and longing, as described by a line-man repairing power lines far from home and his loved one. Fine. But then Stuart went on to dissemble the work of Bob Dylan in a gratuitous and pointless comparison. Why? I'd bought into his appreciation of Webb, but he banged on about the pure simplicity of Webb’s lyric, with no hint of metaphor or symbolism to convey the songs meaning and how superior this approach was to Dylan’s work with his heavy use of those two devises. Maconie took much delight in his sneering references to ‘jealous monks’, ‘two-wheeled gypsy queens’ and ’grey-flannelled dwarfs’. It was irrelevant to his sanctification of Webb, but he just couldn't resist the temptation to crucify Dylan in the process.

To me, it displayed massive ignorance on a subject for which Maconie is hailed as some kind of expert. Dylan has written many songs that don’t mask simplicity in a smoke-screen of obscurity. A song very similar to Wichita Lineman in its emotional content is ‘Mama You’ve Been On My Mind’, the first couple of lines, to my mind, easily equal to Webb’s lyric. I have no axe to grind on a pointless tit-for-tat comparison here, what annoys me are the selective inaccuracies and cheap shots so beloved of this so-called authority. And while we’re talking obscure metaphor and symbolism let’s not forget Webb’s MacArthur Park, something Maconie conveniently did in his article.

And he’s at it again. In his piece for this week’s issue of The Radio Times in an article on Elvis, he drags in Frank Sinatra and gives him a good old slapping. Of course, everyone is free to express an opinion on whomever they wish, but again, Maconie’s jibes are pointless and vindictive. But it was when the man wrote that he remained oblivious to Sinatra’s ‘supposed qualities’ - presumably as a singer rather than human being – that any lingering traces of his credibility finally drowned and were swept away in the raging torrent of his own pitiful lack of comprehension, appreciation and knowledge of the subject.

In future, when Maconie’s name appears in a list of programme credits or at the head of an article, I shall employ my own exclusion zone and stay well clear. Was that a rant? Whatever it was, I feel better for it.

I dug out the envelope with the last remains of that wrecked car project I spoke of in the last blog. All the stuff we wrote, Dave and I, was about the vehicles or people we happened upon when drawing them. This was my first attempt and I remember being nervous about showing it to Dave, but he liked it OK and we carried on.

The idea came from the thought that it was a little sad coming across a derelict family car that had maybe once meant a lot to them in happier times. I remember the line featuring a field of barley was 'borrowed' from 'The Scarecrow', a Syd Barret composition of the time - the B side to 'See Emily Play' I believe. Hence the reference to 'Emily' in another line.

Samuel Smiles though came out of my head, or so I thought at the time. I have since discovered that he was a Victorian author, best known for a title called 'Self Help'. So I guess the name was out there and found its way onto the page.Checking the internet, I see that he was the main inspiration for an American writer who gloried in the name Orison Swett Marden. If HE had been known to me back then, Samuel may not have got a look in.

Anyway. Enough of this. I'm giving this ancient piece more attention than it deserves. A 'jasper' by the way was our name for a wasp when we were kids growing up.

THERE WAS A TIME...

Once so fine
the pride of Samual Smiles
on a day trip with Lucy and kids
dusty heat in candy floss paradise
flask of tea
a lettuce sandwich
eat it quick love
go see the Punch and Judy man
Ma! get that jasper out the car

Chilly evening
snug inside
George and Emily leave the day behind
dream of castles, shells and slot machines
the bonnet burns red in setting sun
passed a field where barley grows
Lucy knits
and behind the wheel
Samuel Smiles

Thanks for the barley Syd. Nice motor.

Returning to this place, this town by the sea, takes me back. Always. That’s what memory does. But each time is different. Depending on the weather, the slant of the shadows, the season, the company or the time of day. All these things or none: Something else.

This time I can’t be sure. It really doesn’t matter. I stand on the mown grass at the top of the slope and look seaward. The light is clear, bright. Northern. A light so special, it drew the artist Joseph Mallord William Turner to this shore two centuries back to record its fleeting beauty, somehow able to paint not just light, but the very air itself, so great were his powers as a painter, so long was his name.

Out there, straight ahead, beyond the line that’s drawn between sea and sky, a thousand miles of emptiness. To the left, Sheppey, with its summer rape fields, winter isolation, gaol, huddled bungalows and slandered caravan parks. Beyond, the Essex coast, Southend shining like Oz, but really fooling no one. To the right, Herne Bay pier, or what remains, stranded and abandoned, all ties to land cut now and at the sun’s setting, appearing like a ruined Spanish castle lit by flames. Ahead, stark against the pale sky, the dark shapes of wartime gun platforms built to bring down the Luftwaffe on their way to fire-bomb London, the outline this far distant passing easily for the Martian robot gun ships in HG Wells’ novel ‘War Of The worlds’. The sixty-seven year old rusting fortifications are now joined in the shallows by a random scattering of wind turbines, ghostly white, giant propeller blades motionless in the calm.

Just below, on the slopes that fall away steeply to the promenade and shingle beach, wild fennel grows, barely shifting in the suspended stillness, host to a rare species of moth, itself, protected by law and unseen today. Along the pathway, a procession of walkers and cyclists crossing over in both directions, some with dogs, banned from the beach from May to October, their owner’s commanded to scoop the poop.

Forty years ago, as an art student, I hurtled down the pathway here bringing up the rear on a tandem. Reclaimed from a tangle of briers in Blean woods and restored to near roadworthiness by my mate Dave, who, as owner, got to ride in front. Helpless, at the mercy of his reckless steering, I could only peddle and pray as we cut a swathe through outraged pedestrians, who, if we had been characters in a cartoon, would have shaken their fists as they dived for dear life and called us rotters and scoundrels. And we were.

On sketching days we would set off on the bike to seek out car wrecks, Dave navigating, me carrying two drawing boards, paper attached, under my left arm, using the right to hang on. Over a summer term at Canterbury College of Art we sat in the long grass, ablaze with flowering weeds, insects buzzing in our ears and completed a series of drawings of abandoned vehicles that we bound into a collection, each one accompanied by a text written by either one or the other. All that remains is one page of crumpled typewritten verse stuffed into an envelope, the books long disappeared. A pity some might say. But so much goes over a lifetime that there’s no time for regret.

And I move on, half a mile, passing the old tennis courts, much as before, with the afternoon sun hitting the white flat-roofed building behind so that it looks more like California than Kent. I took a photograph once through the dusty red rust wire fence and someone did a double take, asking - LA? No, you know, it’s where we used to play back then. Ah yes, I can see it now. And today I see that they’ve replaced the wire fence. Shiny clean. Galvanised.

Across the street, Valenti’s, the ice-cream parlour. Tradition says that I get a 99. Today I choose to ignore the call for soft vanilla and flake, crossing back to the slopes and taking the steep slanting path towards the sea. Three rows of beach huts cling to the bank, raised on wooden platforms, most shuttered and barred, only three or four occupied. People sit around in front; books open on closed laps, not reading, watch me watching them as I pass. The kettle’s on, sandwiches spread, ready and waiting in Tupperware, maybe a cake too: Endless teatime in this false promise of summer.

Next, the clapboard house that would be more at home in Venice Beach, a Citroen 2CV drawn up on the sloping drive, bricks for a brake, no longer a car in its decay: Now a home for the birds. On past The Continental, where Janet and Jayne had shared a room with a poltergeist in 1965. It threw things, smashing them. Janet read palms and her mother was a medium, so it was to be expected. Now the place is much grander. Continental, I dare say. Does the malevolent spirit live on in room 15? It takes more than a lick of paint and a smart wine list to pull off a successful exorcism I shouldn’t wonder.

Through the harbour, the fisherman’s huts I don’t recall before, now fully restored and freshly tarred. Black. And on towards The Neptune. I had drawn this scene once, on a morning when, before the mist had cleared, a boat moored offshore appeared to be floating in the sky. We had sat on the hard pebbles, our backs against the rough wood of the breakwater, our sweet, salty breath mingling as we spoke. I drew, she watched, picking up handfuls of shingle and letting the stones drop though her fingers. The sun burned our skin and we talked of moving here, living in a cottage backing onto the beach one day, but there were only a handful remaining in that summer of love.

The drawing done, we stood and brushed ourselves down, our feet crunching loudly as we walked, the shells we had gathered soon to be all that was to remain. Except for the ghosts, that is.

I’m still slogging away at some designs for T. shirts that someone asked me if I’d mind helping out with a week or so ago. I rattled off some quick ideas and sent them off only to get a luke-warm response by return. That’s what comes of doing things without due consideration. It never pays to rush things.

Do I need this I ask myself? I’m putting off several projects of my own while I play around with stuff that may or may not go all the way to production. But I guess old habits die hard. I’ll give it one more crack, then that’s it. Until the next time. Sucker!

A few months back I got a letter from Subaru offering a free flight to New York if I test-drove one of their cars. It can’t be that simple, I thought, there must be a catch. Besides I already owned a Subaru, which I’d bought a year previously and I wasn’t looking to change. So, I did nothing.

Then about three weeks later I got a call from a woman at the promotions company that was managing the offer. Asked why I had not taken it up I mumbled something about having been away – which I had – and not having had time to take things forward. Anyway, after a brief chat she convinced me that there were no hidden conditions other than booking myself in at a Subaru dealership and undertaking a test drive. Okay, I said, what have I got to lose?

So it was, that a couple of weeks later I was zipping through country lanes in a shiny automatic estate which I had no intention of buying, accompanied by a salesman who only looked about twelve, seemingly undaunted by my confession to only being there to get my invitation stamped in order to send it off and claim my free ride to NYC. This he did and days later I received a letter with details of what to do next. There were a few restrictions on dates - U.S. public holidays, having to include a weekend etc. - but nothing major. Also included was a chance to purchase extra tickets at a reduced rate. But after a chat, a call to friends who may like to come along and a quick look at the calendar, we eventually decided that I would make the trip alone.

The main reason for the decision is that I wanted to go while the evenings were still relatively light, which means summertime. Sue finds the summer humidity and heat in New York too much and on this occasion, was happy to skip it. It will give me the chance to indulge in a four-day photo fest, interspaced with visits to neighbourhood music stores and favourite clothes shops. For years Sue has waited patiently while I squint through a viewfinder photographing one obscure thing or another, often in the freezing cold of a New York City winter or the hammer-blow heat of an Arizona summer.

I’ve decided to go digital on this trip, after years of stubborn resistance. Not that I’ll abandon film, as long as manufacturers continue to make it that is. But it no longer makes sense not to have a digital option and what better place to try out the new camera? I’ve got a couple of projects in mind, depending on the weather while I’m there and how energetic I feel. One involves a lot of walking, the other, a long subway ride. Either way, it will take up a day. Only a month away now. Thanks Subaru.