Parries → A Rash Appointment 

American airports are more brown somehow than British. Newark Airport still has the wide, almost fat yet elegant typefaces I saw there 15 years ago. Starbucks is still everywhere. All four airports I got to in the US had the same books and magazines shop, Hudson News.

New York was such a pleasure—the harsh edges were not there this time for me. A toasted bagel with cream cheese at $1.50 was not as exquisite as a great tramezzinno in Rome perhaps, but much more satisfying than an average one. It was warm at night, so that I was sweaty after walking the three-four blocks from the subway to Simon and Yael’s, who had been so kind as to put me up. Not only was it warm at night, things were open! And on east-west streets at least there was a nice fresh breeze as well.

I was quite taken this time by the mosaics in the subway, such an ancient human decoration and a luxury in contrast with the utilitarian Helvetica font on the signs and the blackened unadorned metal. At Bleeker Street the station’s name was written on the tiled pillars but since it didn’t fit was adapted to “Bl’ker”. You can tell I’m impressed if I’m noticing such detail and remembering it over a week later.

I was taken for a famous New York pizza and was not impressed; I generally avoid pizza now because it’s just so poor compared to what I had so often in Rome. New York is not for pizza, it’s for bagels.

I have a rash on my face these days, reaching from my forehead down the sides of my nose and to my mouth. It went away while I was in America but now back in Britain it’s returned. How can that be? Something in the water? So yes, I’m dour at the yobbery around here, even sprinkled as it is with a veneer of rah-rah organic shoppery.

On Channel Four right now is a total waste-of-time documentary on Tony Blair’s legacy—“Blaired Vision”, a hatchet job undignified for public broadcast. So the talk today: that he’s going to move to Jerusalem to bang heads together as representative of the Quartet. And the Russians are opposing. Does Britain want him there? Does his replacement as PM? It’s far away but it’s a high-profile podium.

Would Israel want him there? It’s a break with the tradition value of not having international bodies intervene—though that taboo was publicly broken in the Gulf War with the deployment of the Patriot batteries and the accompanying teams, who’d go out to bars of an evening, and nobody bothered. But he’d presumably set up an office in Jerusalem, placing it back on the table as an issue—he wouldn’t set up shop in Haifa would he? Presumably he’d move to somewhere in west Jerusalem. But that’s all tricky. And if he moved to east Jerusalem, what an enormous flick to the nose to Israel. Israelis like and trust him, but if he did that, they would not be surprised; he’s an English prime minister after all.

But it’s not going to happen, is it, his moving there. He’s merely going to travel there frequently and stay at hotels. First, can he make a scrap of difference? I say not. Is there any mediation to be done? I don’t think so. What there are is forces in conflict and ways they will resolve themselves and metamorphize.

“Is expected to” is how they’re reporting Blair’s Quartet appointment tonight.

Sky News has a CBS News segment I’m watching right now. American news seems more interesting, more relevant, than UK news. And yet, I’m eating a Cadbury’s Crunchie while doing so. Would watching American news have the same frisson when being watched in America? US network news does seem to have some dignity; feels like it’s in slow-motion.