H.M.S. Illustrious

by HMS Illustrious (retail) (epub)

  Our last stop was the United Nations building, on the east side of central Manhattan. This, too, was a bit of a disappointment, as the area around it is little more than a slum, and again I had expected the buildings to be isolated and magnificent, and they just weren’t. The building itself was attractive, I suppose, with views over the river (the East River, of course), but not a pleasant neighbourhood at all.

  That, in fact, sums up my feelings about New York so far. There are the most incredible contrasts, from the sheer breath-taking magnificence of the World Trade Center to the slums of the docks, and within the shortest of distances, as we saw at the United Nations building area. I don’t know what the New York civic authorities spend their money on, but if I was administering the place I would devote a good deal of cash to the roads and to cleaning the place up. That would make a staggering improvement to the city.

  We then headed north for Central Park, which is vast, but rather sad-looking, with the trees leafless and bare. With the amount of traffic (we were then working up towards the rush hour, or hours, rather) about, it is a mystery to me that any plant life at all survives in New York, as the air must be polluted with carbon monoxide and other noxious emissions from motor vehicle exhausts. Our trip round the Park was enlivened by the sight of the Commander and Commander (Air) taking a trip in a horse-drawn carriage, accompanied by two other people, identities unknown. I took a photograph of them, just in case I could usefully use the picture for blackmailing purposes in the future.

  Back to the ship at a little after 1650, and down to the Wardroom for a very swift feed before the evening’s entertainment. I use the word ‘entertainment’ in its loosest possible sense. The occasion was a three line whip for all officers, as we were supposed to be supplying a total of seventy-five mess members, and that means just about everyone, once you knock off the duty officers and those with the foresight to make unbreakable alternative arrangements. The do was in response to our official reception, and took place over in Brooklyn, at the US Navy base there, in the Combined Mess (used by both officers and chief petty officers), though there was not a CPO to be seen that night.

  We were collected by coach, in uniform, and again experienced the dreadful state of the roads, the rear of the coach getting airborne on more than one occasion, and bottoming frequently. We had a long wait in the cold outside the Mess, as each of us had to be presented individually to the residing Admiral, but once inside it was warm and cosy, being rather more like a large country house than a service mess. Drinks flowed in abundance (though our party did succeed in drinking the Americans out of beer, which seemed to indicate either that we’re all (not me, of course) alcoholics, or that the US Navy had grossly underestimated the alcoholic consumption of the Royal Navy) and there was a very good hot and cold buffet laid on. Despite having eaten on board already, I felt duty-bound to sample all the food, just to check that it was up to our required standards.

  It was rather odd to be at the other end of the reception for a change with the Americans having to host us, rather than us host them. Or, rather, it would have been nice. In fact, if you didn’t make an effort to go up and talk to them, they just stood around and talked amongst themselves, which is not really the Way To Do Things. Very Poor Show, etc. However, as none of us were in the least enthusiastic about being there in the first place, it was a matter of total indifference whether we were talked to or not, as long as the drink and food were available, which they were. It was, though, very pleasant to finally make our exit, at just after 2000, and return to the ship, where a game of bridge was waiting.

  Just as a final note about costs here, one of our number was taken out to the Waldorf Hotel here after the official reception, by one of the guests. There were seven of them in the party, no one was drinking anything in any way outlandish, but two rounds of drinks cost a smidgeon over £90. Gulp. Fortunately, the guest was paying. And a suite (that’s bed only) in the Plaza Hotel next to Central Park, runs out at $2,500 a night (about £1,800). You need deep, deep pockets here.

  Sunday 5th February 1984

  A quiet and cold day, quiet because I was Air Officer of the Day, and cold because it’s New York, and it’s snowing. Really the AOOD duty is a sinecure when the ship is alongside, but in order to comply with the regulations someone has to be nominated, if only to carry out the rounds and answer any idiot questions asked. The only excitement, which is not really the appropriate term, was in the afternoon, when I spent about three hours up in Flyco, talking myself hoarse at the hordes of visitors going round the ship on guided tours, and waiting for FOF3 to appear with the Captain and some guests. They duly did, I did my bit, and then I called it a day, as soon as there was a decent gap in the flow of visitors.

  Monday 6th February 1984

  Another quiet day, as I was again AOOD, this time out of choice – I was doing a swap with one of the other officers on board, who was involved in arrangements for the Grand Wardroom Party to be held on board this evening, and wanted to be free to do his thing without doing rounds and so on. That suited me, because I wasn’t going to the party anyway, and he’ll do me a duty some time in the future.

  I did go to the party after all, but only briefly and under duress, as it really isn’t my scene. The guests had been asked to arrive at about 2015 to 2030 at the earliest, but a vast number turned up at about 1945, and the Wardroom was severely embarrassed by a lack of males, so all duty officers were ‘invited’ to attend until the rest of the officers returned from a short engagement ashore. Fortunately, as I was going down the stairs, they were all streaming back on board, so after about ten minutes I could get away again. I think it was a successful party, though, if the noise and number of guests were anything to go by.

  Tuesday 7th February 1984

  A rather brighter day, though extremely cold, as Paul Harvey, Marius Evans and I discovered when we ventured forth in search of culture. The wind off the Hudson River was biting, cutting through clothing and chilling to the bone. It was a great relief to move inland, away from the exposed western side of Manhattan Island, where the buildings gave some shelter, and where the sun proved very warm when it wasn’t competing with the wind.

  Our route, carefully planned by me, took us first of all to a car showroom. A slightly odd choice, perhaps, bearing in mind that Americans have no idea about designing cars and produce chrome-plated monstrosities which have all the style of a public lavatory, but this was a rather special car showroom. I had noticed it from the coach when we returned from our tour of Manhattan the other day, and what made me wish to return there was

  the sight of a Lamborghini in the window. And no ordinary Lamborghini either (if the concept of an ordinary Lamborghini isn’t actually obscene) – this was the all-time classic Miura SV. The car was, not too surprisingly, occupying the centre of the display, and from the coach had looked quite immaculate.

  In the showroom itself, the impression proved to be correct. It was immaculate, with metallic silver coachwork set off by gold wheels and highlighting, and despite its age (for no Miura is a young car now) it really was in showroom condition. I stood and dribbled over it for some time, puzzled at its English plates (UUH 1), ascertained that it was in fact a British car, despite its left-hand drive, and generally had a good time. Paling into virtual insignificance beside it was a very neat black Ferrari 308 GTB, fitted out with spoilers and a variety of special equipment, and beside that was a Maserati Merak. A jolly nice little trio, I thought. On our way back to the ship, rather later, a large car transporter was parked outside, and they were busy unloading yet another Ferrari, again much-customised. Dribble, dribble. If it hadn’t been so bloody cold, I would have waited around to see what other treasures they were going to pull out of the hat. Quite a treat, though, to find a place selling proper cars, rather than American cars.

  We continued our route to Central Park, which looked rather sad, with leafless trees and a general air of desolation about it (which more or less sums up New York itself, in my opin
ion), and walked up the west side, up Eighth Avenue from Columbus Circle (where there is a sort of large roundabout job, complete with statue, not too surprisingly, of Columbus). Our destination was one of the few places I really wanted to see in New York – the Museum of Natural History.

  This is a huge building located on Eighth Avenue and West 79th Street, on the west side of Central Park, very comparable, as it turned out, both in size and content, with the Natural History Museum in London. They work a slightly unusual admission fee system – they don’t insist on anything but ‘suggest’ that $3 is a reasonable sum for an adult, so that was what we paid. As always, the problem in a place like that is where you start, so we made an executive decision to go to the top floor (the fourth, but effectively the fifth, as you enter the Museum, from Central Park, on either the second or first floor, and there’s a basement below that) and work our way downwards. There we found the dinosaurs, both early and late, as well as early and late mammals. After even a cursory inspection, it was clear that it really was a very good museum, with excellent and imaginative layouts, drawings and mounts, and with the ‘stuffed’ exhibits being particularly impressive. This, we discovered by eavesdropping on a guide (they have free guided tours, but we decided to do our own thing), is because they are not really stuffed at all, but the skins are mounted on a ‘skeleton’ which has all the correct anatomical details incorporated, including things like surface blood vessels, and which really does make the animals look extremely life-like. You really can almost see them breathing. The sets as well are impressive, with natural vegetation being incorporated, so that the animal appears very much as it would in real life. Very impressive indeed.

  And so we worked our way down, through African mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and Asiatic mammals, before going straight down to the basement for a drink, to the Food Express. There we had a stroke of luck, in that Marius picked up a banknote from the floor, thinking it was a $1 bill, but upon closer inspection it turned out to be a $10 bill, so that paid for our drinks and still left him a good deal of cash left over. Then we returned to the fray, working our way through North American mammals, invertebrates and North American forests, before the piece de resistance, Ocean Life.

  This was undoubtedly the most impressive single hall, because of a single exhibit. Totally dominating the whole room was a huge blue whale model, life size, apparently leaping from the floor, though with no immediately visible supports. Closer inspection showed that it was cleverly attached to the roof about three quarters of the way down its back. A quite breath-taking sight, though.

  A museum, of course, is essentially visual, and without resorting to a simple list of things we saw there is very little more to be said about the place. Well worth the time and trouble to go there, though, and far more interesting than anything else I’ve so far seen in New York, though in view of my lack of movement from the ship, I may be maligning the Big Apple unjustly. My impression of New York, though, is that the place is dirty, decrepit and profoundly unattractive, and I’ve no desire to make a return visit.

  Wednesday 8th February 1984

  Our last full day in New York, New York. After a swift lunch, a small but select group of five of us departed the ship on a quest to the east side of Manhattan. We went by way of the car showroom where the Lamborghini Miura still waited hopefully for a buyer, as Dave Stephens hadn’t seen one for years, like me. He, too, is somewhat of a car freak, currently owning an Alfa Romeo and a Piper (a sort of plastic effort dating from the sixties). After a swift drool, we continued east, passing to the south of Columbus Circle and Central Park, where the subway trains run under the pavement, causing the slightly unnerving sensation of the noise of a train approaching you, but with no train, or even railway line, in sight.

  Our destination was East 51st Street and Second Avenue (the streets in Manhattan, by the way, run east-west, while the avenues run north-south. The only exception to the rigid east-west/north-south layout being Broadway, which loops gently up from Battery Park, at the southern tip of the island, to the west side of Central Park, and the tiny streets within the ‘village’ communities at the south end of Manhattan.)

  About twenty minutes after leaving the ship, we arrived. At a sex shop. Now that may not seem a particularly salubrious destination, but this was a sex shop with a difference, because in the cellar below it was one of the most bizarre and successful businesses in New York – the Erotic Baker. I had heard about this place last year, while doing shows on CCTV, as it had featured in a film called A Sex Maniac’s Guide to the USA, from which I took a couple of video clips, and it really is the sort of place that you would be most unlikely to find anywhere but America. Basically, it is a baker’s shop, but the concoctions they sell represent either Certain Parts of the body (and I’m sure that the parts in question are quite obvious), or People Doing Things To Each Other. All in chocolate, marzipan or whatever.

  Prior to entering the baker, though, we took a duty trip into the sex shop above it. There were books, both illustrated and what can only be described as ‘gay romances’, posters, ‘novelties’ (of a moderately mind-blowing type) and cards. Even Valentine cards, showing presumably prime examples of American manhood. Or bits of them. Yes, those Bits again. Amazing. There were also, on a rather lighter, and saner, note, humorous items as well, like the ‘Guaranteed Penis Enlarger’ which works in every case. This turned out to be a magnifying glass, complete with instructions to hold three inches away from it and look at it through the glass.

  It was with some relief that we emerged and retired to the Erotic Baker, though even there our limp-wristed friends were well-served. What was slightly surprising was that there were far more women than men in the place, and they were buying, rather than looking. The goods on sale were mainly the aforementioned Certain Parts, on a small size, but there was also quite a large catalogue from which larger and more erotic creations could be selected, these then being prepared to special order. While we were in there one lady selected number seventy-four, or whatever, from the catalogue, decided on the choice of colours, and was then asked if she wanted a message incorporated. She thought for a moment, and then indicated that she would like the basic Anglo-Saxon version of the expression ‘make love to me’ written across it. Whatever, as they say, turns you on.

  I was tempted to purchase a little something (well, one thing in particular, really) as a memento, but I had my doubts as to whether it would survive the next seven weeks or so on board, and so I declined. We had rather hoped to be able to get a coffee in the baker’s shop, but it was, literally, just a bakery, and so we retired to another coffee shop round the corner for a drink. Leaving there, we wandered in the approximate direction of the ship, via Fifth Avenue, where we found Saks.

  Saks Fifth Avenue was a lot smaller than I had expected, though there was a vast store called simply Saks next door. The goods inside seemed to be of good quality; but of a very high price (like most things in New York) – £10 for a ceramic pot of toffees, for example. In fact, the cost of things over here really is quite amazing. Many people have spent £50 on a fairly average meal for two; one saw a T-shirt for sale at a reduced sale price of £30; and a month’s rent on an apartment (one room) anywhere on Manhattan Island starts at about £570 ($800). Wages, of course, are correspondingly high, but it still looks an incredibly expensive place to live.

  Leaving Saks, we found a large and rather splendid bookshop called Barnes and Noble, where an hour passed with incredible rapidity and I did succumb to temptation and purchased a volume or four, but as they were books simply not available in Britain, and which I will be able to use, I felt the expense was justified. By this time our party had dwindled more than somewhat, three of our number having fallen by the wayside, leaving just David Holby and myself. As another cup of coffee seemed in order, and we didn’t particularly want to pay for it, we headed for the USO.

  This is the United Services Organisation, and is an organisation run purely for the benefit of servicemen, both
officers and ratings. It offers a rest area more or less in the centre of New York (as well as thousands of others throughout the United States), near Times Square, where refreshments are provided free of charge, as well as things like free trips out, theatre and cinema tickets and so on. Bearing in mind it costs nothing, it offers excellent value for money, and is just one example of the way the Americans look after their servicemen. Other examples are interest-free loans for the purchase of land or property, cars and other major purchases; 99 per cent off the cost of tickets for most means of transport on production of an ID card; and vastly discounted prices for everyday goods in the service PXs. I just wish the British servicemen had a similar range of deals – all we’ve got is Rip-Off International – the NAAFI.

  Emerging refreshed, we found ourselves in 42nd Street, home of the theatres and cinemas, as well as being the drugs and sexual centre of the city, by the looks of things. As we walked along people were quite openly offering us joints (marijuana cigarettes), heroin and cocaine – or, to be specific, they were offering to get them for us, as I suspect that most of them were simply touting for trade, and were ‘clean’ in the event of a police pick-up. Needless to say, we didn’t indulge. We did, though, have a look in a few of the sex shops, as a comparison with those in Hamburg. All very tatty and grubby, with some most unsavoury-looking characters hanging around for unspecified purposes. Not nice. To round off the afternoon we nipped into one of the cinemas there. Not one showing the latest from MGM, but the rather more ‘earthy’ sort of entertainment. The main reason for this choice was that Dave had just ‘phoned his lady in Britain and had told her that he was just going into a sex cinema, and he wasn’t going to admit that he had chickened out.