"I want to be a part of it, New York New York.."

---

Sleep was proving difficult, the heat wave that had the Western part of the US in its grips was proving relentless, and our little room was minus air conditioning.

So there was only one thing to do, Ms Roling had taken to wetting her undies...clean she insist. Still confused?

Ms Roling's pre-bed routine was now lengthened, apart from the usual - clean, moisturise, clean, moisturise, clean there was the... find clean underwear and saturate in cold water and strategically place these over her body.

I suggested at one point that if she had granny knickers she would only need one pair...due to the heat and lack of sleep, this was met with deafening silence.

NOTE we did not have face cloths hence the undies...this was not some kinky fetish.

So it is now Thursday, THE BIG DAY for James and Lydia.

We are on the road again, but this time in true gangster fashion, a pimped out black SUV, ironically the radio comes pre programmed with all the hip hop stations.

Our next two days will consist of travelling to New Haven - the home of Yale and James and Lydia's wedding day.

The trip up is un eventful, I'm writing one liners that hopefully will get a laugh as Im MC.

Mr Fisher is writing his best man's speech and tooling with the invisible line between embarrassing funny and James will never speak to you again funny. Ms Roling is just Rolling, discovering the comic brilliance of Jerry Seinfeld. And Tim is doing is best impersonation of a ghetto gangster come New York taxi driver.

We eventually get to New Haven, a small town that is the home of Yale University. With this as its main stay you automatically take it that it will be a somewhat wealthy area full of tradition. And there is some of that, but there is also a growing problem in New Haven.

Unemployment is currently 25% and growing and with that brings the other stat of crime.

It wasn't until later that this became more evident.

We join with James and Lydia in a small park in New Haven to witness a very personal, untraditional but very loving ceremony.

I know there are ladies reading this that will want to know what everyone was wearing, so I'll do my level best to paint a picture - I'll most likely colour outside the lines and get it wrong but here goes.

For those of you who don't know Lydia, she is a very beautiful person inside and out and her Champagne dress that had a Maid Marion look to it encompassed her - picture perfect.

James looked as ever his male model self with a tailored suit from Working Style...so he looked ok, almost as good as me.

With the vowels exchanged, a few tears wiped away, the champagne was now flowing.

Due to the temperature - somewhere in the mid to late 30s - guys were stripping off jackets, everyone was finding refuse under trees and sunglasses were constantly sliding down noses.

We all head to reception and enjoy a beautiful meal, with speeches - here are some quotes:

"James liked the breast" c/o John Russell, the groom's father

"Out popped James' smiley face and then his little willy" again another John Russell.

It's now 11 pm, a select few of us decide to head out to check out New Haven's night life.

But before doing so are given strict instructions to "stay in the square". In other words do not go more than 4 blocks in either direction...

"How bad is it I casually enquire?" "Have you ever seen the wire?" (A TV programme that followed boys on their stoops selling heroin and killing to keep their patch).

"Yeah loved that show. "Yeah it's like that".

Right so the square it is then.

As we walked in search of an establishment, it became very evident that New Haven had fallen on tough times, there were police outside every bar on every corner.

We found a bar, had our fill and left, we had another day in the car tomorrow!

It is now Friday morning and we have to drive back to NYC. Wevare leaving little surprising New Haven.

New Haven with your grand manors, beautiful trees and Yale you are almost schizophrenic, you have two sides and poetically they are shown in the contrast of daylight and the dark of night.

We climb aboard our hip hop and happening gangsta wagon and head back to NYC. We don't have much time left and there is shopping and sightseeing to be had.

It is now about 2pm on a sweltering Friday afternoon and the traffic into Manhattan reassembles our world famous Kopu bridge on a long weekend.

The good news is Tim our chauffeur has taken to driving in New York very well, you don't think, if you think you lose...you just do.

I pass the comment that he' s done a great job and almost passes as a local, almost he enquires? "Yeah you are a very quiet driver." "Sorry?" "You never toot not once so quiet"

Well it was like I has triggered a sleeping giant...any opportunity to get jiggly with the horn he does. If someone toots within a 100m radius of us, he toots back.

I liken it to the class geek who over stretches their arm and frantically calls Miss, Miss. Such was his new found enthusiasm for the horn.

No one flinched not even the rubbish truck driver who Tim gave a musical serve too.

Back at our apartment, we all go our separate ways so as to save time. This also allows for the lack of conscience when spending money we don't have, but it's ok we tell ourselves "We are on ho-wi-day!!!."

---