The other day, as I was rushing thr(o)u(gh) Grand Central Terminal (which, I can report for the benefit of those who have never visited it, is both grand and central) it occured to me that I was holding in my hands the two central icons of contemporary American culture, or New York culture at least.
(It may surprise you to learn, if it elicits any sort of emotion at all, that The Referee's favo(u)rite US train station - and I know you had been wondering about this - is not the aforementioned GCT, but the splendid Union Station in Washington DC, which, as well as being named after the backing band to marvellous country singer Alison Krauss (check out her version of "Baby, now that I've found you"), is arguably even more grand and indeed central.)
Anyway, back to cultural icons. In my left hand, I was balancing a cup just purchased from ****bucks - the ubiquitous coffee chain, which now has more shops in the US than Americans have teeth, unless I just made that up. Admittedly, I was drinking their tea, as usual, but one has to hang on to some sense of one's homeland. In other words, I like to celebrate diversity, and indeed multiculturalism, whilst doing my best to integrate into my host country, save, of course, for speaking the same language.
In my right hand, I was fondling my new toy. A little device, named after a fruit, which is perhaps the only cultural icon now more numerous than branches of ****bucks. Let's call it a Kumquat.
Well, I can tell you that the Kumquat is a very clever little fruit indeed. It can do all sorts of things which will come as no surprise to those of you who are modern, thrusting techy types. But for a relatively crusty Luddite like me, it is nothing short of a revelation.
For a start, wherever I go since giving birth to my Kumquat, so to speak, my emails - both work and personal - arrive
thr(o)u(gh) the ether and land, literally, in the palm of my hand. Now, you may ask, is this necessarily good, or useful, or important? It's not necessarily any of those things, I answer, but it is very clever and very modern.
And there's more. The Kumquat is also a telephone, and a calculator, and an address book, and a diary. And it plays little games, or at least it would if I could work out how to play them.
But the best thing of all is this. The best thing is, wherever I go, I can "surf" the World Wide Information Steve Heighway using only a small piece of fruit in the palm of my hand, with no wires or nothing. (The previous sentence contains a reference for fans of 1970s assocceration football.)
Being a persistent sort, you ask again: is this necessarily good, or useful, or important? This time, I answer "yes", "yes" and "yes", but not necessarily in that order. Let me explain why, by way of an example.
Having battled thr(o)u(gh) the scrum that is the centre of GCT the other day, balancing a couple of cultural icons in my hands, I made it to the train and settled down for my daily commute thru (OK, I give up) Harlem and the Bronx. As is often the case during the first part of the journey, I gazed out of the window at the delis, delivery trucks, apartment blocks and police cars that make Harlem one of the most fascinating slices of urban life you will ever see. Whilst I was doing this, a thought occured to me which had never before occured to me in Harlem. I wonder how the Palace got on?
Now, for the benefit of those with only a passing acquaintance with the UK of Blighty, I need to point out that I was not wondering about Buckingham Palace. And, for those with slightly more than a passing acquaintance, and/or a subscription to Hello! magazine, I was not wondering about Beckingham Palace either. I was, in fact, wondering about the recent fortunes of Crystal Palace - my formerly local South London assocceration football team about which, it has to be admitted, the terrace favo(u)rite which ends with the words "we're by far the greatest team the world has ever seen" is sometimes sung, but never actually meant.
Anyway, now that I had a portable device designed for this sort of thing, why not find out how they had done, there and then, on the train?
Well. As I passed some kids playing extra-curricular basketball in a Harlem school playground, I learnt that we had won 3-0 against QPR. (Hurrah, I thought - first win in ages.) And as we trundled across the Park Avenue Bridge over the Harlem River, bidding farewell to Manhattan for another day, I read that the scorers had been Freedman, Kuqi & Morrison. And then, as we passed the warehouses and "gentlemen's cabaret" joints that tell the Metro North commuter that he (or she, these days) is entering the Bronx, I learnt that our manager, Peter Taylor, was convinced we could still make the play-offs, despite languishing in 16th place.
At that, I switched off my Kumquat, sat back in my seat, and day-dreamed contentedly about the glorious season that lay ahead for the Palace, all the way to the green and pleasant suburbs of Westchester County.
Now, if that's not multiculturalism, I don't know what is. And if it's not good, useful and important, I'll eat my hat. Or perhaps just my fruit.
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