With the possible exception of the train drivers and airline pilots who stir us from our slumbers in the small hours, Debbie Fagnano is the noisiest person in New Orleans. And yet she's also one of the city's best-known and most popular inhabitants, though most people have only seen her as a speck in the distance.

Debbie plays the calliope, or steam organ, on the steamboat Natchez just before it slips its French-Quarter moorings for a twice-daily Mississippi cruise. Her medley of popular tunes, sounding like a slightly off-key children's recorder ensemble, is audible for several miles.

I had to don earplugs when I sat in on her Saturday lunchtime concert which, for my benefit, she began with the British national anthem.

"Ever since I was a kid, I've always loved the water and wanted to own a boat or be on a ship. I'm originally from New Jersey, but my family always knew I'd be out of the ordinary; I had that little gleam in my eye that said something out there would call me away.

"When I visited New Orleans and saw and heard the calliope, I asked the captain if he needed anyone to play it. He didn't at the time, but he kept my name on file and eventually I got the job. I've been doing this since 1989, and I'm also the musical director of a local church.

"The qualifications for this job? Well, you obviously need a knowledge of black and white keys, ideally the organ. You need to be a free spirit; you can't think like a nine-to-fiver, and you have to play outdoors in freezing weather and blistering heat. The only thing that stops me is severe lightning - if I see it coming across the bridge, that's it for the day. But you also have to think small, because a piano has eighty-eight keys and the calliope only thirty-two.

"There are only three working steam-powered calliopes in the US, all on the Mississippi. There are also air-operated ones. Circuses use them a lot, and people have also told me they've seen them in places like Germany and Japan.

"If it wasn't for this job, I'd probably be in a loony bin. It's what mainly keeps me here in New Orleans. People say such nice things to me. One of the nicest was on the first anniversary of 9/11, when I played nothing but patriotic songs. It was very sad, but a woman from Colorado wrote a letter to "the calliopist with the flaming red hair" - I had red hair then - saying how thrilled she was with the calliope and the city.

"When Katrina was approaching, they took the boat upriver out of harm's way. I stayed for the hurricane, and then I went first to Baton Rouge and then back to New Jersey. That was when I realised I'd truly converted to a southern belle. For a few weeks after the storm, they weren't sure whether they were going to bring the boat back and start again, and I've never been so miserable in my life. It was like mourning someone's death.

"But it came back at the beginning of October. That was the happiest day of my working life, and I would just stand there and play for anyone who'd listen. A lot of people told me that the first time they heard the calliope playing after the evacuation, it was like a little bit of normalcy and everything was going to be OK.

"Not everyone likes my playing, though. Once, before the storm, there was a guy wrote a horrible letter to the Times-Picayune bashing me and the captain and the entire steamboat company about me making all this noise for three hours a day. I wrote back saying two times thirty minutes plus one times twenty minutes does not add up to three hours.

"People do sometimes recognise me. They'll say hey, are you that woman that plays the er....? And I'll say did you like it? And if they did, I'll say yes it was me.

"When I die, I'd like my tombstone to be inscribed: 'Here lies Ms Calliope. She made people smile."

A front door gets the Mardi Gras treatment...

a hitching post...

a lamppost...

...and an entire house.

Maybe that professor at UCLA was wrong when he said that people called Bud were underachievers. Twice a day, Bud shoots out of the front door like a cork out of a champagne bottle - I thought he was just desperate to go and sniff other dogs' urine, but it turns out he's showing commitment to fostering a positive human-canine relationship. He didn't exactly pass with flying colours, but don't tell him I told you.

In other four-legged news, today was the dogs' turn to dress up to the nines and take to the streets in the Krewe of Barkus parade, the canine division of the Krewe of Bacchus.

There's a picture of our Mardi Gras float here on the site of the local newspaper, the Times-Picayune. Pam is on the left, having discarded her shark costume and dressed as a 1940s sailor instead.

And, yes, I've finally got round to putting advertising on this site - I hope it's not too intrusive. I can expect to earn less than $10 a month initially, but it's basically free money and an incentive to post more often. I'll let you know how I get on.

Readers in New Orleans will see Mardi Gras-related ads: hotels, balconies for rent to watch the parade, king cakes. What are you seeing in your part of the world?

It's that time of year again: the hotels are full, parking spaces are at a premium, thousands of discarded strings of beads lie in gutters or hang from trees and railings, and the inhabitants have another chance to indulge their passion for cross-dressing.

Mardi Gras kicked off last night with the Krewe de Vieux parade. Pam marched with her sub-krewe, Krewe de Craps, and I volunteered to be an escort. In return for keeping the crowds back as our float made its stop-start progress through the French quarter, and staying sober, I got a free ticket to the krewe ball afterwards, including unlimited beer.

Most of the big parades are of motorised floats, but Krewe de Vieux still uses mules or human beings for locomotion. The mule in the top picture is not too happy about the prospect of hauling a ton of beads, beer and brass-band instruments through three miles of cheering crowds.

This year, Krewe de Craps' theme was sharks - not so much the aquatic version as the Wall Street derivatives traders and hedge fund managers who got us into this sorry mess.

And this is their float. I had to ask what SOL stands for: it's Shit Out of Luck.



One advantage of Mardi Gras for all of us lazy New Orleanians is that you don't have to take down your Christmas (sorry, holiday) decorations on Twelfth Night.

Our house is still festooned with lights, but the British and American flags have been replaced by carnival jesters, and the tree is decorated not with tinsel and baubles but with purple, green and gold necklaces - these being the traditional (and in my opinion hideously mismatched) colours of Mardi Gras.

What it means to live in New Orleans

This article explains, better than anything else I've seen, why New Orleans is so special. It attracts a certain kind of person, and I freely admit to being one:

New Orleanians—no matter what color or how wealthy—aren’t great at planning meetings, showing up on time for them, running them in orderly fashion, deciding on a course of action, and then following through. This isn’t simply laziness or fecklessness; it’s a reflection of a commitment to enjoying life instead of merely achieving. You want efficiency and hard work? Go to Minneapolis. Just don’t expect to let the good times roll there.

There's no business like snow business

Like I said, homesickness is not part of my repertoire. But today, I wish I could just hop on the first plane out of town and head back to London.

I don't even know his last name, and he doesn't know mine. But he's called Josh, he's a transportation engineer from Boise, Idaho, and he made a small difference to several people's lives today, mine included.

I've run over twenty marathons, but when I did the New Orleans Mardi Gras marathon today, I decided to do something I'd never done before. I ran with a pace group led by Josh, who had sufficient confidence in his ability to finish the race in 3 hours 50 minutes, at an average of 8 minutes 49 seconds a mile, that he was willing to run all 26 miles holding a placard announcing this fact and invite others to follow him.

For the first 19 miles or so, I stuck close to him, setting probably the most consistent pace of my running career. Sometimes I found myself looking back and slowing to keep him in sight, which went completely against the grain, though I knew it was common sense.

Then came the only hill on the course - a very modest bridge - and I began to slip behind Josh as he kept up the same unrelenting cadence. He disappeared into the distance, and I never saw him again.

After that I hit the wall, and finished the course with a combination of walking and running. At one stage, one of my fellow runners came to a halt in front of me, turned round, looked me in the eye and said: "Come on Phil." My name was written on my back. "What's with the walking? You can do better than this." I grinned, resumed my slow trot and finished in 4 hours 13 minutes, coming 623rd out of 7,400.

It would have been a lot slower if it hadn't been for Josh and the other unnamed competitor; people like them are one of the reasons I run. I do it partly for the sense of achievement and the high as I cross the finishing line, but part of it is just for the sense of we're all in this together, we've got to look after each other. A bit like life, really.