Fri 12th Nov : Salt & Battery NYC

Thinking I might get to squeeze through to the bar at the Corner Bistro to get a take-out burger was a little bit naive. I walked back out into the rain, the temperature plummeting and walked up to Greenwich Avenue. Burrito, I supposed about my dinner whilst the Lady had gone to Philadelphia.

Then I saw the Salt & Battery fish and chip shop and I thought, 'Why not. I haven't been for a while, the Lady will never know, and it's been a while.' I mean, it's Friday and the feeling of the 'End of The World' has started to plateau.

The food's OK there and you sit around half expecting to chat to cheery ex-pats but you don't. It's empty most of the time bar some curious American girls visiting New York and the odd Brit just off the boat.

Yeah - it could have been the rain, it could have been the cold - but I'd suggest the Salt And Battery was empty because it transports you back to Blighty. Not London Blighty, Northern Blighty: you know - you're driving around the splendid countryside and then you spot a fish and chip shop and you think - why not. You go in and the staff give you a look, up and down, like they can't believe you've shaken them from having a fag, reading the paper and watching the soap opera from the corner of their eye. The staff at Salt & Battery are the glum miserable folk that made me move here. Maybe it's just the super-cheesy but yet-so-super-authentic service you get from Americans, or Italians, or even the French here. 'xcuse my language. Even the Oz girl behind the fish bar is miserable.

Once you order your mistake you realise it for what it is. Then you wait glad that The Onion is there - waiting for the indistinguishable yell of an order number - turning to see that by the look of her (and the bald bloke's) face she's called a couple of times already.

It looks like she doesn't know the owner and is about to chuck it. After all this palaver I'm having me fish'n'chips. I mean, I'm the only one here. Too much effort to being it out or call me by a word other than a number. Ok, ok. I'm not the only one here - there's a Brit off the boat in the corner who survived the you-what expressions when he asked if he could use a socket to charge his phone.

Ah. England. I miss you but I long to be so far from you sometimes.

Outside it's colder, wetter, and I think of the time that regular guy - the even-balder lankier see-u-next-Tuesday fella - smirked when the Lady asked for some lettuce in her fish sarnie. The burrito store next door has a menu of 100 variations.

Salt & Battery, that's what you give us.