When I tooled up for this trip, I thought it would be a good idea to get an MP3 player, so I could listen to things when the radio stations vanished. However, when I attached it to my computer, it immediately formed an alliance with Windows Media Player to decide what would be downloaded ("synchronised" they called it). "Don't you worry your little head about all this technical stuff", they said, "leave it to us". "Oh no you don't" was my response. I managed to kill of the "synchronising' business, which got us back to square one, but I didn't have time to work out what was going on so I could do it myself. Rather sadly, I put the player away and forgot about it.
Rather surprisingly, it survived the Great South Philly Smash-and-Grab of last week, so I thought this might be a good time to sort it out. I have found a source of free audio books (they're read by volunteers, so that leaves a bit to be desired, sometimes), and I've worked out how to download them to the computer and onward to the player.
But I'm a bit unhappy about driving with earphones, since I need to hear what's going on around me. So I decided to buy either what I think are called "ventilated" earphones, or a FM radio-signal generator that I can plug the player into.
The one-stop shop to go to for these things is "Best Buy". Google tells me I will find it over by the Delaware river.
As I arrive at the shop, something I recognise pops up on the river:
[n0573]And it is what I think it is:
[n0576]there, in quite considerable distress, is the SS United States, holder of the transatlantic Blue Riband. Apparently she's been there since 1996, while a succession of owners fail to implement a series of ambitious plans. A very sad sight indeed.
It being Sunday, having sorted out my travel entertainment systems (It's going to be O Henry short stories for a while), I decide to have a Cheesesteak lunch at one of the restaurants which have been recommended to me. Philadelphia transport (SEPTA) has a journey planner who clearly shares a lot of DNA with the one in London. But I manage to make some sense of the journey (because it's built on a grid system, it's almost always two buses to get anywhere, and the trick is to be sure to ask, and pay for, a transfer when you get on the first one).
With long, straight roads, it's possible to see the bus a considerable distance away, and since it's cold, I take to walking. When I start to get close to my destination, a rare diagonal road turns up, so I take that.
And, almost immediately, a gentrified pub appears. I can tell it's gentrified because I've been ploughing through mean streets of elderly, black, brown and yellow, but here everyone is young and white. Well, I say everyone, but not the man beside me. He is certainly white, but nearer middle age. He wants to talk. It is a fascinating conversation, which I can't entirely follow: it involves him being an ex-policeman, and one of the young ladies at the other side of the bar being (I confess these weren't his words, but it's how I remember it) "up for it". I try to be affable, and, since they won't serve him anymore (he's what the law calls a "VIP", a visibly intoxicated person), he eventually totters off in search of more drink. He left a hefty amount of money on the bar: "Oh, he spent a lot", the barman said, to justify trousering it, "he bought the whole bar a round, twice". Which clearly didn't buy him any favours. I moaned that I hadn't got a drink, but had to put up with his ramblings. "Yeah, tough break, that", they said, visibly amused.
The pub sold only the best of micro-brewed beer, some of it, they claimed, 11 per cent abv. I stuck to the weakest, but it was still clear that my plan was unravelling. I was dragged off on a pub-crawl with a couple of young ladies who had, as young ladies are wont, fallen deeply in love with me. I did eventually get some cheesecake, but I have no recollection of whether it was good or bad. I do remember that that pub actually had a handpump, and cask-conditioned ale, which is a great rarity here.
Just in case you're wondering, the young ladies insisted on paying their way. And I ended up, very much later that night, in a taxi back to my hotel: even the less-ambitious plans of mice and men ...
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