London Calling

I'm back in the UK (or as it's known in New York 'the land that dentistry forgot') for a week but Sky's rescheduling of the Fulham game ensures it will be a Charlton-free visit for me sadly.

My frequent visits to London rarely induce a sense that an imminent return to live would be desirable. London's obvious charms and abundant civility are invariably outweighed for me by the nightmarish infrastructure and a sense that 'service' is something only seen here for two weeks during Wimbledon. You also get to play the amazing "disappearing £100 game" - take £100 out of the cashpoint and see how quickly it disappears (less than 24 hours in my case).

Moving from London to New York requires an obvious trade-off of living space for 24/7 convenience and it's one which for me was heavily weighted in favour of the latter at least whilst I'm still relatively young. Frustratingly despite Red Ken's honest intentions, some of the worst aspects of London's chronic transport system could surely be solved by some progressive thinking. For example, why shouldn't you be able to hail a registered minicab on the street outside of Central London? The real cabbies would be up in arms of course, but you never see them in the suburbs anyway. It's much easier to have a fun night out when you're not constantly worrying about how you'll get home.

As I'm back again in a few weeks coinciding with the Man City home game, I tried to buy tickets online for the first time but without much success. Apparently for 'security reasons', the club won't send the tickets to an address different from the one registered with the credit card used to pay for them. Hence, the club either has to pay the postage to send the tickets to New York (and I don't trust them not to balls it up) or I have to borrow someone's credit card. Whilst I'm sure the club's philosophy is meant to be honorable it does seem a little odd that you can happily purchase items on Amazon.com and send them wherever you choose, but not Charlton tickets? If the club does expand the Valley after all, I hope they will make it easier for people to hand over their dosh and fill the seats.