Listen to ‘Rocky Dennis’ Farewell Song’ by Jens Lekman.

Buy Oh You’re So Silent Jens

So pleasant that after listening to it you’ll want to curl up in front of a nice fire, eat mince pies and talk about pretty things for the next 3 months solid.

How much do you tip a delivery guy? Can someone tell me what is acceptable as I keep cranking up the amount I give them and I’m still not getting any smiles.

When I first came here I thought a couple of dollars would be enough (I’m talking about $20 orders here). Then I started to feel bad and put it up to $3, then $4. I tried to work out how much I earn per hour then what fraction of an hour the delivery took and then I had a figure I thought was ethical. But I still feel bad giving them $5 or even $6, it’s so damn cold out there and they always look so miserable.

Any guidance on this perplexing subject would be greatly appreciated.

Today was hard work my god. Two transatlantic flights would have been less stressful. My mother decided it was time for young Billy to venture into the big city. We’ve never taken him beyond the cosseted environs of our lovely Park Slope and I felt uneasy from the offset.

First we had to get him in the subway, that meant using the gate instead of the turnstile. There were two gates and I naturally chose the wrong one and was yelled at. We took the 2-3 and changed at Nevins Street for the 4-5. We found out after waiting 15 minutes in the boiling station that the 4-5 wasn’t running. So we got back on the 2-3 and had to walk to our destination. A problem for my gran as she has polymyalgia rheumatica in her hip and leg and can’t make it far. We had lunch sat outside a pub at South Street Seaport, a popular tourist trap.

We were served green french fries with our meals. Soon after the meals arrived it started raining and we had to huddle under umbrellas whilst we ate.

Then my dad and I had to walk round the block 15 times whilst the ladies looked in Baby Gap.

Our initial plan had been to go to Ellis Island. I thought that had been abandoned after all the messing around we’d done. No such luck. My mum and dad said they’d check and see if it was too late to go, which I assumed was a token effort as it was after 4. They returned with big grins and 5 tickets. Now we had to take Billy on a ferry. We had five minutes to catch it but they had us remove all metal objects from our persons and put them in boxes to be scanned (like the airport). We even had to collapse Billy’s pram and put that through the scanner. This took so long we missed the boat. So we stood in a queue with hundreds of chirpy tourists all trying to push in front of us, Billy threatening to howl all the while. My brain was screaming. I considered grabbing Billy and running as fast as I could back to Brooklyn.

We got to Ellis Island as they were closing up. We did, however, manage to get tea and cakes from the slowest server in the history of mankind. If she’d gone any slower her arms would have atrophied and fallen off. Oily pigeons loitered close by as we greedily ate our cakes and gulped down our hot tea. The 7 green chips we’d had for lunch hadn’t filled us up properly. I took several swipes at the pigeons but they knew I didn’t have it in me to really wallop them and just bobbed out of my way momentarily. One of them had the most frightening red-rimmed eyes you’ve ever seen.

Billy was in drunken sailor mode when Heidi tried to feed him, bouncing off her and flailing his arms around wildly. The moment he settled and started to drink we were ushered off the island by security. Heidi couldn’t really feed him on the boat and when we got back to Battery Park her, my mum and my granny grabbed a cab and left me and my dad saddled with the grumpy hungry baby. (Cabs only take 4 people and we had no car seat for Billy). We hurried towards the subway, choosing the R this time as the 4-5 wasn’t running. When we’d carried Billy down all the steps we were informed that Brooklyn bound R trains weren’t running either and we’d have to go up to Canal Street and change there. If my brain had been screaming before I don’t know how to describe what was going on in there as we stood for 15 minutes in the rancid sweltering station waiting for a train to take us in the wrong direction.

We eventually made it to Canal Street and got an N over the Manhattan bridge. Unfortunately that dropped us off 2 miles from where my mum and dad were staying. I had to speed walk the distance as Billy was yelping for milk at the top of his voice. I just gave up on my dad; I left him for dust.

Half an hour later I had a slice of pizza in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other and the intense horror of our lovely family day out slowly faded from my ravaged mind.

This is the first genuine (almost) smile we’ve managed to capture. They are fleeting to say the least. It’s not a great photo I’ll grant you, but I was so desperate to get a picture of Billy (my son) on Paul’s site I couldn’t resist.

I’d always imagined Republicans didn’t care about the environment; after all, by the time the rest of us are choking to death from the putrefied air, blistering under 100% UV rays and desiccated from lack of water, the Republicans will have constructed huge domed enclaves, protecting themselves from the perishing masses. They’ll be happily cooped up in front of Bible TV whilst us schmucks quietly curl up and die outside.

This is the stuff of bad sci-fi I know, but the stance of many Republicans toward the environment has had me worried it might come true. Not only that, but that they have already accepted it as a given. They do believe in Armageddon after all. This article from today’s Guardian has given me some hope.