Chicago, IL

06.30: a flashing LED and demonic beeping breaks into my blissful narcoleptic slumber. It's a Saturday and instead of a lie in to be followed by a gloriously sunny weekend of conviviality (Coman is off to a glam lunch to celebrate our friend Sharon's 40th) I'm cramming a bit of muesli down my throat and slurping tea whilst finishing the last of my packing.

The taxi pulls up on time, the tube runs as planned and soon I'm on the Heathrow Express. Having forgotten to send the company's media report around the department before I left the office last night, I open the work laptop I've been loaned for the trip and jump online. Only to find the damn thing's not working. The litany of woe that passes for our IT functionality has struck again. "Cannot access the remote computer" taunts my error message. Well, we're off to a good start aren't we.

At gleaming Terminal 5 I meet the photographer for Mojo magazine, Tom Sheehan. It's been a few years since Tommy and I last worked together, down on the beaches of Dorset for a shoot with the band Captain, now departed for the pop graveyard in the sky. So it's a great chance to catch up again but first we have to get Tom checked in - he'd not had a chance to do his API for entry to the US. The 'helpful' BA ground staff spy the laptop and tell us to do it online. Queue a useless ten minutes of technical mayhem before a more kindly member of the BA team sorts it for us at the check in desk after all.

After hooking up with Lois Wilson from Mojo who's going to be doing the interview - and her husband John who she's brought along with her - we settle down for coffees in Pret A Manger past security. Determined to get the damn laptop working I spend over 20 minutes on the phone to our IT helpdesk in India attempting to get online. We try everything, clicking on device manager, control panel, install drivers, network systems, connectivity; the works. But sadly none of it does. So with boarding being called I say farewell to India, shut the bloody computer, and get on the plane. I think it's time for a Bloody Mary!!

The flight passes uneventfully, made bearable by the beautiful, poignant and artistically stunning movie by Tom Ford, 'A Single Man'. Transported from this modern, soulless tin can 38000 ft in space to early 1960s America, I'm drawn deep into the gorgeous world on screen. Colin Firth should have got that Oscar, his quiet portrayal of grief is a masterclass in subtlety. Far removed from the ludicrous, but enjoyable apocalypse of '2012' which follows on the small screen.

We land, buffeted by winds which career us over the runway, only to face the most interminable immigration queues. It takes nearly 90 minutes to enter the US of A as we shuffle like condemned men through the slow moving lines, batting away questions of purpose and duration while we get scanned, fingerprinted and appraised by Homeland Security. Eventually we're through, into blue skies and sunshine, and Chicago awaits.

A 30 minute cab-ride along a crowded freeway, to bursts of 'Don't Leave Me This Way' from a black chevrolet next to us, delivers us to Hotel Sax, plonked next to a pair of gigantic circular apartment blocks and the ubiquitous House of Blues. Inside the baroque styling of the hotel lobby screams Homes & Interiors circa 2005 but it's all suitably chi chi and glam. Our rooms are Malmaison-esque, altho noticeably larger as is the American way.

By this time it's 4pm in the Mid West, 10pm in London and we could all do with a rest but sadly, despite another mammoth call to our Indian IT dept, it seems I'm destined to sit staring at a laptop that refuses to cooperate. Finally we get some joy and I can get online but I still can't connect to the EMI network so all my plans for working as normal while I'm away fall apart. Suppose I'll have to enjoy myself instead!

So with a quick shower to freshen up I arrange to meet Lois and Tom in the bar downstairs. The elevator doors open and in front of me are about 30 girls in their late teens and twenties dressed up for Prom Night. The decibels are deafening as they gaggle and giggle, all obviously here for a party of some sort - it's Saturday night after all. Amongst them are suited frat boys, some with bowties and barely shaving. I suddenly feel both very old and as if I've just been transported Back To The Future style into some 1980s movie.

Elbowing my way through the cacophonous throng I find my way to the Crimson Bar. It's an OTT affair, full of chandeliers and velvet, leather and wood, with ornate sofas and dark corners where fake Restoration style paintings are hung in heavy gold frames. I kinda like it.

Each of us has been given a complimentary cocktail pass so I go for a Cosmopolitan and sip away at the muddled pink vodka with a burnt citrus rind, banishing sleepiness with a potent alcoholic blast. We have about 90 minutes to kill before Lois has to start her interview so a quick stroll down Dearborn Street leads us to the Rosebud Trattoria; a recommended spot for dinner.

Bizarrely we're greeted by some stern-looking Eastern European hostesses, but once through the door it's a typical Chicago joint. Good-looking Italian waiters, red banquette seating, framed photos of baseball greats on the wall and bustling, loud conversations everywhere we look. It's easy to see fat gangsters and made-up molls through the rose-tinted spectacles of jetlag and there are some truly terrifying fashions going on at one table to complement the ladies' hair-don'ts, but when one table bursts into a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday to one of their party called Frankie, we can't help but join in. Welcome to Chicago...

Pizza, seafood pasta, a bottle of red and we're all happy and ready to go and meet our reason for being in Chicago - Mr Eli "Paperboy" Reed, soul singer extraordinaire and possessor of sharp suits and a big quiff.

We meet back in the lobby of the Hotel Sax and as we arrive back there I do a double-take. In the lobby is a bespectacled man, about 10 years younger than I expect, with floppy hair and a black t-shirt. Where's the hair-gel and lapels? Always nice to have expectations confounded.

Eli and Lois hit it off immediately so we leave them to their interview and Tom and I head off to find a little bar somewhere. As we cross the bridge, a homeless guy jingles his MacDonalds paper cup, asking for change for the Jack Daniels Benevolent Fund. A worthy cause...

After a meander through the Theatre District, past a glass-fronted TV studio where a news anchor is reading headlines whilst tourists take photos of him, we stumble upon Petterinos where I opt for a Goose Island Honkers Ale - a Chicago 'microbeer' with the best title on the menu. By this point we're shattered so it's not long before we return to the hotel. Eli finishes his interview so Tom and I sit with him and chat through Sunday's plans - a gospel church, lunch with a minister and singer, photos in old record stores, more interviews and a tour of his old Chicago haunts, all to get colour for the Mojo feature. Sounds fun. Sounds like I need my bed! It's nearly midnight after all... so 6am in the UK. It's been a long 24 hours.