I am staying in the New York suburb of
Queens with my former BBC colleague, Laura James, and her partner,
Rich.
It's a long-established neighbourhood
with attractive little wooden houses which have neat gardens and a
lot of decking. It could be suburbia almost anywhere, with one
notable exception. There can be few countries anywhere in the world
who display their patriotism quite as proudly as the Americans. The
Stars and Stripes flag flutters proudly outside a very large
percentage of the smart little homes.
But I am not quite sure where the
residents actually are during the working day. Certainly they don't
seem to be running the businesses in the local shopping area. Most
everyone seems to be Korean or Chinese and I have great difficulty
being understood. Despite knowing how to say 'Hello, how are you' in
Cantonese.
I am in search of a micro-sim for my
iPad. I will be in the States for three weeks, so a pay as you go
card will keep me in touch with emails without switching on the
horribly expensive roaming facility on my tablet computer.
I also have to find someone to mend my
glasses. I was so tired last night that I fell asleep before removing
them. I awoke this morning to discover they'd not taken kindly to
being used as a mattress; one of the lenses has become detached from
the frame, which has been bent into an unwearable state.
I have a sore ankle and knee so it's a
pity that I take the wrong turning and end up walking a mile further
than I need. In fact, I seem to be the only one walking; the cars are
not hugely sympathetic to their legal obligation to stop.
At the at&t store in Great Neck,
Will Chaparro spends an hour trying to get the company's systems to
accept me as a new subscriber. But despite Will's best efforts, they
are unable to link my US bank debit card with a registered address
outside the USA.
I discover that Will is a budding
entrepreneur and is keen to take his music business,
www.onesoundlabel.com,
into Europe. I promise to put him in touch with my chum Russ Kane so
they can help each other conquer their respective countries.
Almost next door to at&t is T
Mobile, who get me up and running in just a few minutes. But the
fantastically patient Trevor Mercer becomes almost demented (and the
session takes him long into his lunch break) as a result of the
incompetence of his customer service department who seem unable to
understand that the registration process for an iPad is rather
different to a phone.
After giving up in disgust, hungry
Trevor and I repair to nearby Napoli Pizza where I discover that we
are 20 minutes late for the 3pm deadline for the lunch special offer.
Owner Coop says I have a great Italian accent. I think it's a joke.
But the slices of buffalo chicken and
grandma square are each delicious and Trevor's recommendation is
well-deserved.
Interestingly, he has no idea of the
derivation of his surname and is fascinated when I tell him what a
mercer originally did for a living. Somehow I don't think the
tradition of taking the name from your occupation will work in the
future Trevor T-Mobile doesn't seem to work at all.
I am in search of a Smoking Loon. It's
not a chain-smoking idiot, but a really nice Californian wine which
Laura has as her 'house wine'.
Stop and Shop supermarket doesn't seem
to have it, but I find a lemon, a lime and some tonic to go with my
Bombay Sapphire gin. The shop has the biggest boxes of Matzos I have ever seen.
The lady at checkout asks if I have a store card
and despite my assurance that I don't, she types in a code and I
receive a discount of $2.23 on my $10.51 bill. Well chuffed!
Almost next door I find an optician
(Chinese) to mend my glasses and then almost trip over a
Chinese-owned wine shop stocking up in advance of their official
opening. There are bottles of Smoking Loon in abundance and an extra
ten per cent off to mark the opening.
Even the newcomers learn the American
way of how to drive business.
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