Chrissy Colombus found it, Amerigo Vespucci named it, Washington et al shaped it, Steinbeck described it and Mumford & Sons are about to “Have at it”. Where are we you ask? The New World of course! ‘The English are coming!’ I hear you cry. Damn right they are. No red coats this time though. Tweed and denim is more becoming.

First tour stop: Montreal. Those some crazy cats. It seems they had just won some primitive ice age sporting event and had, the night before, smashed up $200,000 worth of property. Now those are our kind of people. A wonderfully welcoming crowd to start us off with.

First American stop: Boston. We enter upon a huge tea party of men and women in long red socks chanting ‘no taxation without representation!’ Something to do with stamps I think. Anyway, big roads, big cars, big food. And they have something here called dentists… Very intriguing. Everybody is nervous about buying anything as we don’t understand the tipping system - I panicked and paid a waitress a $10 tip for a Coke. Upon discovering this was way too much I was devastated. That’s the other thing though; the money’s all the same colour - or rather, ‘color’ - which makes it very hard to differentiate. This could prove seriously problematic for us.

Day off in NY. Concrete Jungle where dreams are made of apparently. Hell of a town. I want to be a part of it, you know, as an Englishman in New York. Marcus almost bought a puppy. Took a lot of convincing him this probably wasn’t a good idea given we are living on a bus for the next six weeks. Reluctantly he agreed.

Went to see the Ghostbusters fire station which was awesome. Life long dream and it didn’t disappoint, not one bit. Also saw the filming of Sesame Street. Was weird though as for some reason Elmo had this person’s hand right up the back of him, I really couldn’t work out why. Winnie said it was because he’s a puppet but I don’t believe him. Such a character that Winnie!

Philidelphia. To be honest the playground was where we spend most of our days. Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool etc. Had a cheese steak thing. Didn’t really like it to be honest. Amazing gig though, great crowd and very welcoming people. Had the most enormous pizza i’ve ever seen in my life. Bought Fifa 2010 for the bus. Let battle commence.

From Phlli we headed to Williamsburg, Brooklyn and stocked up on some American Literature for the road. Tres vibe-y part of town. Feels rather like what I imagine Greenwich Village was like in the 60s: ‘Oh look, It’s Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg buying furniture… And over there Andy Warhol’s playing Ping-Pong with Mark Rothko’. What a decade man.

That’s it Chaps and Lasses.

Until next time,

Lots of Love M&S HQ and TEDWINNIEMARCUSBEN.

Post Script: the real aim of this tour is to get to a frat party. You know, one of those Kappa Dappa Pappa things that serve Sigma pie and where the jocks beat you up in front of girls. Like in the films right? Up for it? Also anyone want to go dirt bike riding with Marcus? He’s desperate.