Hey Nikita is it cold In your little corner of the world? You could roll around the globe And never find a warmer soul to know. Oh I saw you by the w… - Elton John

I used to think that New York City
Fell from grace with God.
And innocence abroad
Waged a war for the underdog.
When the snow falls
And Central Park looks like a Christmas card,
I just looked beyond the bagman
And the madness that makes this city hard.

I’m not just behaving like an idiot, I’m behaving like my mother – and rush around issuing desperate apologies to everyone concerned. Mum never snapped out of it, never seemed contrite, never appeared to think she was in the wrong or behaving badly. The best you could hope for was a terrible argument – in which, as ever, she had to have the last word – followed by an awkward smoothing over, a shaky truce that lasted until she went off again. As the years passed, she had elevated sulking to an epic, awesome level. She was the Cecil B. DeMille of bad moods, the Tolstoy of taking a huff. I’m exaggerating only slightly. We’re talking about a woman who didn’t speak to her own sister for ten years as a result of an argument over whether Auntie Win had put skimmed milk in her tea or not. A woman whose dedication to sulking was such that, at its height, it literally caused her to pack her entire life up and leave the country. It happened in the eighties; she fell out with me and one of Derf’s sons from his first marriage at the same time and, as a result, emigrated to Menorca. She would rather move to a foreign country than back down or apologize. There’s not an enormous amount of point in trying to reason with someone like that.

Have mercy on the criminal
Who is running from the law.
Are you blind to the winds of change?
Don't you hear him any more?