Wednesday 2nd December 2009 - The Big City Experience

          I came to Philly for the 'big city' experience, and the 'big city' experience I certainly got: Rozzie was violated in the dead of night.  He struggled manfully and defended most of my tackle.  They got only the back-up camera and backup laptop, which, I have to say, I thought were well-disguised and well-concealed.

          It occurs to me that the thief may have been a music critic, hired by my Christmas card list.  The laptop was where the video-editting software lived.  My big Christmas production was well under way, and was going to fill the world with awe.  I expect it to appear on UTube momentarily, as the Americans say.

          So I have to anounce there will be no Christmas video this year.  Any UTube counterfeits will will be poor early cuts.  Last's year's startling production is still available in the far corners of EBay, for those who can afford it.

          The thief, having entered head-first through a back-door window, left 63 cents behind.  I hope my insurance company makes a better offer. 

          I once came back from holiday, and, as the plane came in over London, I saw Big Ben and Parliament and thought it would make a memorable picture.  But the shutter stuck open.  I had a long struggle with the insurance company.  They eventually paid up: being me, I was prepared to go as far as the United Nations to get what was right.   I was berating them to an insurance broker I met some time later, and he told me that a lot of people, having gone through a whole holiday without using their expensive insurance, decide, when they get home, to claim for a broken camera.  And that's what it must have looked like I was doing.

 

         So I didn't get to the Historical Society yet again.  But I did get to meet Philly's 'Finest', who dusted poor old Rozzie for prints (with, strangely, a vermilion-red powder which is now everwhere).  Just for once, I got the feeling that the men with guns were on my side, and wanted to push things up other peoples' bottoms.

          I must have got the cheapo economy 'big city' package: if a mugging had been included they would surely have chosen the exquisitely appropriate City Hall subway station yesterday.

 

          Later that night, I rushed off to the Philadium to tell my story and soak up the sympathy.  One can always rely on the natives to feel slightly guilty and over-compensate with the hospitality.

          I had got into conversation on Monday night with a man who stayed much of his time near Glasgow Kentucky.  I asked after him at the bar.  He was killed on his way to work very early on Tuesday morning.  Someone crossed the central divide (the 'median', as the barman called it) and hit him head-on.

          As far as I could understand him, talking about his retirement, he had a grown family and a younger family, girls still in college.  The bar said he had a proud mother nearby.  So a lot of Christmases have been ruined.  And my disaster slipped way down the scale to "not worth mentioning".