Come the first of August I shall be chalking up my third month as a happily-transplanted newbie in midtown Manhattan. Why is it therefore, that circumstances have mischievously caused my settling-in period to be constantly interrupted by a string of travels that have taken me to Boston, Nashville, London and Bermuda. Don’t get me wrong, each port of call has been well worthwhile. Getting to see the Red Sox play, visiting family, being present at the opening of one of the world’s finest golf courses and staying at an exquisite Five Star hotel, can hardly be thought of as slumming it. But just a little more time at the homestead would certainly have helped balance the scales.
My trip to London was hectic, to say the least. Merely getting around the city at the height of the tourist season was never going to be easy, and trying to keep a business appointment when everyone else appeared to be bent on backpacking their lives away was always going to be a no-brainer. Temperate weather conditions did of course help, in that distances could be halved by hoofing it whenever the opportunity arose. That was the mode of transport I opted for when I met up with a couple of friends in the film business for a lunch date in the West End. The only thing was, when it came time to tool up and fuel up, I wasn’t sure where we could find a square meal in the square mile known as Soho. Of course, there wouldn’t have been a problem if we were willing to subscribe to such boutique bistros as Eats, All-Bar-One and the Pret chain. But we were intent on finding something that was a little more, shall we say, homely; somewhere with a Neapolitan ambience that came with starched white tablecloths, freshly-scrubbed flagstones and some vintage Valpolicella on tap. That was the challenge.
With our combined timepieces showing the wrong side of 1-30pm, we set off in search of this would-be piquant paradise and search we did. In all likelihood we must have got through a last-full of leather sole in our quest for some Lemon Sole. Then, just as the novelty of playing ‘spot the smorgasbord’ began to wear off, we suddenly stumbled upon a Trattoria that was clearly designed to satisfy our comestible cravings. Tucked away behind The Palace Theatre, where a sea of posters reliably informed us that Jason Donovan was starring as ‘Tick’ in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” stood Melanie’s Italian Restaurant. Aha! “Hunger is the best sauce in the world!”- a pertinent quote by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes immediately came to mind. At that moment in time, certainly as far as our growling stomachs were concerned, it was Mama Melanie who was queen of the desert.
All went exceedingly well, and the smiles on the faces confirmed that our hunger had been satiated. So there we were, finishing up our Dolcelatte and savouring the warm ambience that goes with a memorable lunch, when a distinctly pungent aroma suddenly began wafting through the open window. Innocuous to begin with, the tincture suggested that a team of workmen might be laying asphalt on the surface of some freshly-tarred road. Within minutes however, the effluvium had become so intense that we were heading for the desk to pay the tab. Imagine our surprise when we emerged into the street to be greeted by a billowing cloud of thick, black smoke that engulfed the very skies above us.
The average siren going off in a city centre is hardly a head-turning experience, but when you’re faced with a cacophony of the things, you know full well that there’s some deep doo-doo going down. Indeed, the fleet of emergency trucks that were by now speeding by confirmed that this was something more than just a pavement predicament. Sure enough, a couple of streets away, we could clearly see that a four-storey building was totally ablaze and the vast inferno was rapidly demolishing the roof; high drama indeed. It really is fascinating how the majority of us can suddenly turn into a crowd of rubbernecking pyromaniacs at the mere flicker of a fire. Sure enough, before I knew what was happening, I too was being drawn to the conflagration like a proverbial moth to a flame.
The almost surreal experience had in fact occurred once before, back when I was playing bass with a beat group in the Midlands. It happened to be a warm spring afternoon in Coventry when I came across a huge blaze at a government building on the outskirts of the city. Right away I couldn’t help noticing that the gathering throng contained several semi-pro musicians. Noticeable too was the way in which they applauded whenever a part of the doomed structure began to collapse. Then it dawned on me. The building that was crumbling into a pile of ashes, housed the offices that dealt with the local tax and insurance affairs. With the flames licking ever higher, it seemed highly appropriate that those self-employed musos who’d inadvertently neglected to pay their dues were now lighting up cigarettes in a show of jubilation.
