It was well after mid-day that I awoke on Wednesday, 20th August. After the hectic night before this wasn't surprising. Dick had already gone to work but Pat was still around, looking after Poops, and now she had two helpless children on her hands, I was still in my daze and sat around listening to the New York radio stations, which are just like commercial television without the interference, and drinking coffee. I tried some Wheaties, a minor ambition I'd had since the war years when I was an avid Superman fan. The American troops used to bring comic books into England and in those days I had a collection to match Ted Whitets. Sandy Cutrell came round and together we walked on to Fourth Avenue and up to Union Square. I saw a snackbar advertising hamburgers and went inside to sample my first. Like a fool I ordered French fries with the thing and found myself paying through the nose for chipped potatoes that in England would cost me sixpence. A further disappointment was dues the highly rated malted milks turned out to be nothing but milk shakes at twice the price I would have to pay at home. Still, I enjoyed the experience of ordering my first American hamburger. It tasted much nicer than the weak imitations they sell on Coventry Street in London's West End. And in a warped and twisted way I also enjoyed paying out my first dollar bill. Sandy and I then took the subway down town. The New York subway didn't set any rivers afire with me. Compared with the London Underground and its directional signs are poor and do not attract attention, whilst the lack of paint and colour makes the system dirty. To a Briton who is constantly criticising the hygienic standards of British life in comparison with the American(particularly where food matters are concerned), this was a dissp- pointment. Do Americans save their larger than life signposts and their colourful dress, their brighter outercoating, as it wore, for the upper levels? I'd hate ta think so, but the New York subway could certainly learn from London. We emerged to that upper level, with its bright sunlight and cleancut colours, at 34th Street. And that is where an afternoon of kicks for me began. Looking back, now, I find it hard to believe that such little things pleased me as much as the bigger aspects of the trip, silly little things like seeing the latest MAD on sale at a street corner newsstand. I took a couple of colour shots of Macy's and we walked over to the store.