Flew to NYC to spend a day celebrating Wales: A Welsh breakfast at Ernst & Young; a Welsh lunch at the United Nations; and a Welsh dinner at the Yale Club. I got in the night before prepared for frigid East Coast weather, but curiously it was 43F when I left L.A. in the pre-dawn hours, and 43F when I arrived in the New York evening. There was still slush and old snow on the streets, but it was a pleasant temperature. Once again Ron & Kyle Bozman were kind enough to house gypsy Monger. However, next morning I awoke to a cloudburst and just getting downtown turned into a journey worthy of Noah. Breakfast at Ernst & Young was a discussion on corporate global challenges in community responsibility and sustainability in the Twenty First Century. The speakers -- all originally from Wales -- were Martin Coles, International CEO of Starbucks; Hannah Jones, VP for Corporate Responsibility at Nike; and Sylvie Ann Hewlett, President for the Center for Worklife Policy and Director of the Gender and Policy Program at the School of International Affairs at Columbia University. It was all introduced by the first Minister of Wales, Rhodri Morgan.Before it all started I got to chat with Rhodri and learned that he's a fan of The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill, since he knows my village well, having attended Welsh-speaking chapel across the river from me, in Gwaelod y Garth, at the foot of the actual hill that became a mountain.
Then I had time for a quick race around MOMA - it seems a sin to visit NYC without dropping in - and then on to the United Nations for lunch with a whole Welsh contingent that included my old friend, the photographer / sculptor Mac Adams. Mac is a ray of light. He's always moving forward, he's always got a great new passion project. Today he presents me with a book MENS REA, a cult hit in Paris he tells me, in which several writers, incuding Richard Price, have each written a piece about an enigmatic Mac Adams photo. Wonderful.
It's odd to be seeing Mac when I'm still involved with the Roy London documentary: The last documentary I really wanted to make was about Mac Adams' work some many years ago. I even shot some, ostensibly for the BBC, and when we recently wanted to see it we found that the BBC have 'lost' the footage. A great shame. I vividly remember filming Mac in the streets of New York and it was so cold that when I took off my gloves and touched the camera lens to change focus, my fingers froze to the metal. We had to take the camera off the tripod and go into a building and let the warmth gradually release me.
At my table I find myself next to Huw Penallt Jones, a producer I met recently, early one morning at a bar in Santa Monica where the L.A. Welsh contingent had gathered to watch a rugby match. He was in good form, in spite of the fact that he was getting regular messages on his Blackberry telling him that some of his films were collapsing due to U.K. government tax changes. I don't think there's a country in the world that is more film unfriendly.
Also at the lunch was Howard Stringer, a Welshman, and the first non-Japanese CEO of Sony. It seems the Welsh are quietly talking over the world.
I'd never been to the U.N. before - and certainly not for a private lunch. The building is due for much-needed renovation. Right now it has the feel of a school, teetering towards the summer vacation when the painters can get in and give it the once over. What was nice was that it was Welsh Week and the place was festooned with the Welsh Dragon (the flag of Wales) and daffodils - on of our emblems. It was almost surreal.
After lunch I took myself back to Ron & Kyle's apartment and relaxed before the New York St. David's Day Society dinner at the Yale Club. I completely misjudged the affair, and showing up in my suit, found I was the only guy not wearing a tux. Nobody seemed to care, and I found myself at a table with my first minister again, Rhodri Morgan, who pitched me a story of his ancestors' part in the Rebecca Riots. Good stuff. At midnight I was back at Ron & Kyle's and then snuck out at 4a.m. to get the plane back to L.A.