If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere...

Relocating Across Town (well, across The Atlantic)

2007-12-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

For the hundreds of you who have been on the edge of your keyboards wondering where on earth I was, I'm sorry, I should have posted a few weeks back. The long and short (I don't understand that phrase, surely one or the other?) - I'm back in London town! The move is complete. Obviously that poses problems for someone who posts as a New York blogger.

I think once I've settled back into the swing of things here I'll probably kick off a whole new site. I'm not sure what it'll be about but rest assured I'll let you know where it is (there will be a link from here too). In the meantime, let me wrap this chapter of my life up by saying how much NY is going to be missed. It was colourful and vibrant, it sizzled with energy 24/7. Keep up or get out. Sure, it's in your face but when you boast that you're the world's capital then you can only get away with that kind of statement by being bold and confident enough to truly believe it, no one's doubting that New York is just that. Our planet would be a dull place without this cocky arrogant bruiser strutting around in the playground. I'm just chuffed I got to go a few rounds with it.

See you soon! And thanks for reading...

Which island are you on?

2007-08-21T05:10:00.000-04:00

I'll tell you which one. It's somewhere grey and damp, where summer has not been seen in twelve months, where the mere mention of "pants" and "fanny" brings a snigger. Yup, I'm home! I'm back for a few weeks but let's hope it's nothing permanent. In the meantime, as I sit Brit-side, allow me to stray from the parameters of this blog a little otherwise there aren't going to be any updates.

This week I got caught up in one of the most painful exercises I've ever had the pleasure of being obsessed with. For our international friends, there is a weekly radio show broadcast in the UK called 'Desert Island Discs'. People from all corners of politics, the arts, sport - anywhere with corners basically - are invited to BBC Radio 4 and for 45min their disbelief is suspended from the ceiling as they are placed on a desert island. With the current lack of summer in this country it's a welcome exhile. On that island they are allowed to take any 8 pieces of music, a luxury item (inanimate and with no survival benefit), and one book (not the Bible or Shakespeare's Complete Works, they are already provided - a Gideons Bible I'm guessing). You can see how this is an interesting angle to take for an insightful interview and since the show's been running continuously since 1942 I guess it's been a winning formula for listeners and participants alike.

So I happened to be talking with a friend about this and it's not something I had really thought about in the past. Knowing how difficult it had been for me to come up with my favourite 5 movies back in the day when one beds down these things, I knew frustration, torment and many late nights were an imminent prospect as soon as I was asked for my 8 songs. How little I knew...

16 hours, 4900 songs, 4 ever-narrowing playlists, and 12 revisions later I think I've just done it. And since these things are down to personal tastes it's not as if you can pass judgement on them, but I thought I would share anyway. So here they are. Feel free to contribute your own in the comments section after...

Here Comes The Sun - The Beatles

Half A World Away - REM

Just Like Heaven - The Cure

Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley

Beast Of Burden - The Rolling Stones

One Of These Things First - Nick Drake

Our Mutual Friend - The Divine Comedy

Good Man - Josh Ritter

This post is brought to you in association with...

2007-07-23T22:32:00.000-04:00

It wasn't too long ago that rumours had Coca Cola planning to advertise on the moon. Today I think the company of choice for the lunar marketing theorists is Google. They can probably afford it and I imagine that they've got the relevant maps to ensure that the pieces of the advert all go in the correct positions. It would certainly make for an interesting few evenings as the moon waxes and wanes; we would get to see "ogle" after a week and then "Goo" a couple of weeks after that. Ah, the inherent humour in celestial advertising.

These rumours aside, it's no surprise that you get the impression that they're running out of original places to advertise down here. You can't walk a hundred yards without the sun being eclipsed by a billboard or a Foxtons Mini running you down (yes, they have them here too). Just last month a squadron of planes (sponsored by Geico) flew round and round the island skytyping adverts into the blue in what can only be called a "cloud font".

I don't appear to be able to go through a website at the moment without a voice congratulating me on 'winning' a new iPhone. Incidentally, if anyone wants one I've won, like, 40 so far. Google and Yahoo! are just two companies that intelligently track the sites you visit and products you view in order to provide targeted advertising relevant to your tastes. Shocked? I can almost hear George Orwell applauding in his grave.

And there's no escape at home. A "half-hour" TV show is actually only 22 minutes in duration in order that we get 8 minutes of commercial conditioning. Even the closed captioning (subtitles) are "brought to you by...". What's next? Seeing-eye dogs being enticed into stores with wafts of chopped liver? [copyright ummit sethi, 2007]

I know all of this is a part of everyday life now, particularly in a big city. So it's all the more reason that when I want 'to get away from it all' for an afternoon I should be allowed to do just that. What better place than the beach? It's a regular favourite with the locals and hardly surprising since New York is close to some remarkably beautiful stretches of coastline out on Long Island and across in New Jersey. Protected dunes, conservation areas, beautiful small seaside villages, not an advert in site.

11.00 - arrive beach
11.10 - lie on beach
11.12 - propeller plane flies over beach pulling advert for Coors Lite Beer.
11.14 - 3 propeller planes fly over advertising Die Hard 4. Fortunately the famous tagline, "Yippee ki yay motherf---" appears to have been printed on a banner that was 5 letters too short for the job.
11.16 - propeller plane flies over pulling advert for breast enhancement surgery...I kid you not. Want a perfect rack? Call Dr Rac-anelli.

...and on it went. By 6pm I was so brainwashed that I was sitting in a cinema drinking cans of lager while adjusting the bra on my new set of D-cups.

Sweating Under The Lights

2007-07-10T15:22:00.000-04:00

Perhaps you're getting a little bored with reading my rambles formulated from a series of questions and answers in my head, after all, it has been going on for over a year now.

Example:
Me: What's the weather been like?
Me: Hot. Bloody hot. And humid. Hot wet blanket humid.

Me: What gripe do you have with New York today?
Me: The stinky piles of rubbish bags left out on the side of the street to stew in this heat. And they wonder why we're only ever six-feet away from a rat.

Me: What are the city going to do about it?
Me: How the hell should I know? Leave me alone you schizophrenic loon, I'm hot and bothered.

Etc....
You get the point. I can be quite tedious sometimes.

SO! Here's a little treat for you. I was recently interviewed by this smart little 9 year old called Matthew. He posed far more interesting questions to me. I still gave back tedious answers but at least it's a 50% improvement for you. He's looking to interview 100 people as part of a project and as of today he's still looking for volunteers. As readers of my blog I know you must be full of kindness so sign up and help him out...

Here's the interview.

Brain Melt

2007-06-27T15:33:00.000-04:00

I know I've been a bit useless on here lately but it's not because I don't care. I assure you that you're the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing before I go to sleep; but you must understand that summer is here and between life in the sunshine and the general exhaustion from life in the sunshine it's been difficult engaging the third of my brain dedicated to writing. The heat and humidity also seem to be affecting New Yorkers' brains too. Two events lead me to this conclusion. Last Sunday I sat in a bar and watched a less than sober patron thrown from the premises, as he landed in the street he promptly righted himself and proceeded to hurl his body at the locked door. It's a scene I've observed in London a few times, I think with the limited drinking hours there everyone tends to go a bit doo lally squeezing in their drinks before the 11pm cut-off. Here, though, it was a new experience and the second time I've seen the inebriated cross the line since the temperature ticked over 85degF. Not content with putting dents into his shoulder the chap took one look at the large plate glass window and, after a good little run up, placed his size 9 through it showering yours truly and friends with glass.

The second logic-less act came yesterday. There's a spot in the city famed for its burgers, fries, shakes, basically anything that can put a stop to your heart. It's a little shack in the middle of one of the parks and appropriately enough it's called "The Shake Shack". Now, when I say that this place is 'famed', I'm serious. We're talking regular queues from 11am to 11pm for its delights. Quite sensibly they've got a double queuing system in place. A "B-line" exists for orders of "Cones, Floats and Beverages"; for everything else you've got to stand in line with the other 63 people.

With the mercury touching 220 degrees and the humidity causing localised showers around your head it's a shake or nothing for me. Through the B-line I went.

Next in the B-line!" the teller shouts. That'll be me then.
"A chocolate shake please."
"This line is only for cones, floats and beverages. You need to get in the other one."
"A milkshake is a beverage though."
"Next in B-line!"
And that was it, I was cast to one side. I had a good look around but sadly there was no glass window to put my size 8 1/2 through.

American Heritage Dictionary
milkshake n.
A beverage made of milk, flavoring, and ice cream, shaken or whipped until foamy. Also called shake; also called regionally cabinet, frappe, velvet.

--I'll take that back with me next time. I'm sure they'll be happy to debate this one out.

BIG!

2007-06-08T13:07:00.000-04:00

I love that film and this scene is a movie classic. I went up to FAO Schwarz recently and the keyboard's still there and what's better is that you can buy one for a cool $250k! Apparently it's recommended for ages 1 and up... which would be an interesting first step for a child to take. "Oh yes, our little Johnny, we're so proud. He just stood up and started springing around the keyboard. 'Heart and Soul' wasn't it darling?"

Speaking of big things. Some of you who have been paying close attention when reading this blog will know that my cereal of choice is good old Kellogg's Cornflakes. Imagine my surprise yesterday morning when I poured out what I believe may be one of the biggest cornflakes ever. I was so excited that I just had to pull out the camera and have a bit of a photoshoot with it.

You'll note that I've given you some degrees of scale with a regular sized flake. You'll also note that I have black marble counters in the kitchen which show up all sorts of things. I don't recommend them if you have the option.

Something else also struck me about the mega-flake: its striking resemblence to the shape of the United States.

See!
Understandably I was late to work yesterday.

Gently heat to minus 10 degF

2007-05-24T14:46:00.000-04:00

It's time to pack up the winter clothes and pull out the linen shirts and shorts - summer's here! Or so I thought. At any one time in New York there are parallel seasons running: one bestowed by Mother Nature and one bestowed by the man charged with controling a building's thermostat. The latter, I suspect, is a lone individual in a small subterranean room somewhere, a plaque on his door reading "NYCTRA". He sits in an office lit by a single 60W bulb behind an old stained desk on a tired chair, tufts of foam bulging out from its torn fabric. On one wall hangs a calendar with two dates circled in red, on the other is a large dial... 4ft in diameter. Twice a year the man plods to the wall and, with great effort, turns the dial. At that point a few million people either start shedding layers or reach for a sweater.

You see, the trouble with the jumbostat at the New York City Temperature Regulation Authority is that it has no numbers on it. The instrument was installed during the Carter administration and at the time a great debate was raging. Should America join the rest of the industrialised metric world or continue with the imperial system; pubs selling 16oz beers, weight watchers shedding pounds, and shoppers nipping out for a quart of milk? Of course they didn't convert; the metric system originated in France. I guess their conclusion was that everyone else should convert back. (Mark my words, there will be a war on metrics, just as soon as we're done with the current War In Error). Anyway, the jumbostat was installed and it was decided that the dial simply be labelled "Bloody Hot" and "Bloody Cold". So, as the temperature today hits 80 degrees outside (Farenheit my friends, not Celcius...or Kelvin), I'm driven to wearing an overcoat in the office.

On the street it's a slightly different experience. Your walk tends to take you through numerous pockets of hot and cold. It would appear that some of the stores are doing their bit for the environment by pumping out cold air through their open doors - I believe in an attempt to keep global temperatures down and thus stopping the ice caps from melting, which is just terribly considerate as we live on a low-lying island.

Of course this is all reversed in winter. The dial is turned back, the stores kindly heat the pavements for the pedestrians, and you're well advised to bring a pair of shorts and a T-shirt to work. If you're thinking about shopping then a small suitcase on wheels wouldn't be a bad idea, simply shed your clothing on entering a store and pack it in the case. Quite sensible solutions I think, but if anyone can think of anything better then maybe you would like to get in touch with the NYCTRA directly?

Right, time for a mug of hot chocolate I think.

And now, the news in your part of the world...

2007-05-12T19:37:00.000-04:00

Recently, across the muddy waters of the Hudson River, a New Jersey man walked into his bathroom to find a hole in his ceiling and debris scattered across the room. Nestled sweetly in the floor was a golfball sized chunk of, well, something. It turns out that not too many miles away a piece of space debris had narrowly missed my head.

Last Wednesday a large African American lady in Times Square subway station took particular offence to a police dog sniffing another African American. "That dog be racial profilin'!" she shouts, "He's a racist! That cop dog's a racist!"

The Queen was in town last week. Having not been to America for 16 years the locals thought they would keep her waiting a little longer on the plane while they struggled to put the red carpet together on the runway. It was 15ft too short. But later the President made amends when he declared in his speech to our 281 year old monarch, "You helped our nation to celebrate its bicentennial in seventeen-sev- err, 1976." He then gave her a wink. Smooth, George. Smooth.

A few days back a kid in Oregon went to see the family doctor after complaining to his mother that he could hear popping sounds, "like Rice Crispies". They were stunned to find a couple of spiders nesting in his ear canal. The popping sound resulted from the spiders walking around on his eardrum. The boy's mother believes the spiders got into her son's ear when they were weeding the garden together. I weed in the park recently.

A couple of local "inventors" have created a computer mouse... out of a real mouse. They've shared the invaluable instructions on how to create this IT taxidermy crossover here so you too can own this tasteful computer accessory.

Between the tap-dancing spiders, hollering commuters, cosmic projectiles, and tech-savvy rodents I see that I may be living in one of the more - how shall we say - colourful countries on earth.

Still, at least they've got the right man for the job at the helm.

Trigger Happy Nation

2007-04-23T13:37:00.000-04:00

As much as I can I try to keep an open mind in this crazy country. I can handle being mistaken for an Australian, the cab drivers who neither speak English nor know where they're going, even dogs dressed as humans, all these I can accept; but some things I can't ever get my head around and don't think I ever will. It's exactly a week ago since the shootings at Virginia Tech, 32 people killed by a student, and in the inevitable fallout of this incident the hot topic of gun control has once more been debated across the airwaves. It's an argument I have little comprehension of beyond the premise that guns kill, we have no need for them in our day to day lives, therefore people shouldn't have them. Quote that one line here though and a large group of Americans will come back with the words, "Ah, but the Second Amendment states that we have the right to bear arms."
And it's at this point that the great debate begins.

There are plenty of places you can follow that discussion, where people today try to defend a right that was decreed in 1791 in a country operating under totally different conditions. I'm not going to get into that can of worms here. This space is generally kept blog-lite. The only reason that I've touched on the subject at all is that I witnessed a piece of madness in the whole gun ownership argument this week. A friend watching CNN in London couldn't believe his ears when a guest on the station actually suggested that the incident at Virginia Tech would never have happened if the teachers were armed. So shocked was my friend that he chose to text me at 6am to tell me. I put it down to a kook on the airwaves until I turned on the news a little later to hear exactly the same theory being put forward. Hopping around the channels only unearthed more such supporters of this idea and apparently it's not a new argument either, it's been raging for years! (As has bad broadcast news evidently...)

Arm the teachers? ARM THE TEACHERS?? GUNS IN SCHOOL? The little statement at the top of this page reads, "Two countries divided by a common language", I'm thinking of revising that to "Two countries divided by common sense." When DEA agents can't handle their weapons properly what hope is there for teachers?

If ever there was a case for not seeing the wood for the trees this is it. Don't solve the problem by removing the root cause, no, let's throw more guns at it instead!

Anyway, if a guy in heels, make-up and a dress can see where the problem lies then maybe it's about time that the serious people did too.

Paraskavedekatriaphobia?

2007-04-17T09:31:00.000-04:00

It appears it's a universal truth that we have to deal with whichever country we live in. When you need someone to come home to install something there's only one time that they can come - when you're at work. You're totally at the mercy of someone's twisted scheduling. "Yes sir, we can install your cable on Thursday between 9am and 2pm." And then you're at the mercy of the contractor's twisted time-keeping. He doesn't come on Thursday between 9am and 2pm he comes on Friday at 7pm... after you've waited at home all day. Would anyone care to explain this to me? A friend came up with a pretty good explanation last Friday, "It's the 13th, and you're the one who got hit by it this time." Yes I did.

I sat down to breakfast, spilling cereal over my lap, hoping to fire off a few work emails. I only got as far as booting up the computer before the all dreaded 'hang'. This is probably another universal truth: your computer will die at the most inconvenient time. The reaction is pretty universal too.
"Hello?" Tap tap tap at the keys. "Oh, come on. Open! Close! Anything, I'll take anything from you, just do SOMETHING!"
Like speaking louder to people who don’t understand what you’re saying, at this point you feel it necessary to start hitting the keyboard.
"No, no, no, no, nooooo! Where did all the icons go?"

It's now that the first signs of panic set in. The cursor judders across the desktop, applications stop loading, the screen takes on the appearance of a frozen jigsaw puzzle phasing in and out of this dimension. I imagine there was a mirror of me somewhere else in the universe having the same experience, but probably eating Apple Jacks and not Cornflakes.

They say that in times of emergency skills you never knew you had suddenly come to the fore. I once did a first aid course with the St John's Ambulance but thought that I had forgotten most of it; my instincts didn't let me down though. My fingers spidered across the keyboard, "Ctrl-Alt-Delete, two three, four. Ctrl-Alt-Delete, two three four. Reboot damnit! Reboot!" It didn't look good. Computer Program Resuscitation wasn’t working, the screen was going a sickly grey colour, and I was facing the prospect of not seeing my hard drive again. It was about this time that the remainder of my cereal spilled down my shirt.

I’m usually a big fan of Fridays but there are some days when it’s probably best not to get out of bed at all - I stubbed my toe getting out of bed that morning. When I rushed my laptop to ‘PC hospital’ and the Best Buy Geek Squad guy (yes, he exists) heard that I had to hurry back because the cable man was coming, he just chuckled knowingly.
“Don’t hold your breath, pal.”

I didn’t, but hurried back anyway. Four riveting hours later he turned up... with the wrong cable box. It appears that some things are the same the world over, but call me superstitious I think the date probably had a little to do with it too. Come July 13th I'll be spending the day in bed.

On the move

2007-04-03T21:37:00.001-04:00

If you were watching this city on TV I think "FFwd>>x8" would be an appropriate little annotation in the corner of the screen. It's nuts out there - high-speed nuts, and probably not a place for a Japanese tourist to be stood curiously filming the world go by at 5pm in Grand Central Station. Camcorder in hand the bemused little man was pinged this way and that by a criss-crossing hoard of New Yorkers all late for something or the other. Slumped back here on my sofa - sorry, couch - this evening all I can see out of the window are bodies being whisked from N to Y and back to C and the picture hasn't changed much over the past 24 hours. A continual stream of cars pouring across the bridges, a water taxi zipping up and down the river, the worming army of silver subway trains slipping by every 3-5 min. The airspace isn't any less dynamic. Where one or two airports are usually more than enough to service a large city, here that wouldn't be heard of. Newark, Laguardia, Teterboro and JFK - four airports crammed within a 15 mile radius of New York City handling over 100 million passengers per year and making the airspace above my head the busiest in the world.

Awake or asleep, on the move or in your living room, you are literally surrounded by people - above, below and next door - it really is three-dimensional chaos. Of course, about 150 years ago, it was only two-dimensional chaos. There was a time, as Manhattan expanded, when it was projected that the island would soon reach its capacity for growth. In the 1880s The Brooklyn Bridge was built not to join Brooklyn to Manhattan but to join Manhattan to Brooklyn and the open, expansive farmland of Long Island beyond. Growth, it was thought, would continue in that direction once the small island of Manhattan had outgrown itself. However it was around that time that refinements in the mass production of steel came about - ironically heavily used in constructing the Brooklyn Bridge - and the vertical limitations surrounding building construction were overcome with steel frameworks and the steel-cabled elevators needed to service them. Manhattan began a new growth phase - upwards - and it hasn't looked down since.

I never really enjoyed history at school. It was all names and dates - the last thing you want to be learning. I think it's a whole different story the moment you realise you're surrounded by it though; when you can walk across a piece of history, or when you realise that your commute is taking you through the world's largest train station and that the Japanese tourist standing in your way is actually transfixed by its vast astronomical ceiling of stars overhead. Looking up you realise you're seeing a reversed view of the constellations - reversed as if seeing them from "God's perspective" - a result of the design being based on an outdated manuscript from the Middle Ages.

I'm beginning to see that by taking a step back from the chaos there are stories to be found everywhere.

Scissors Schmissers

2007-03-06T23:17:00.000-05:00

"Hi. I'm looking for some scissors please."
"Hey, Joe! Come back here and show this white kid where the scissors are!"
"I'm not white."
"You sound white."

Joe, the African American assistant, came back and showed me the scissor section. I bought a pair and then left one of the more colourful Jewish stationers in New York. So continues my experience in the world's biggest immigrant city.

Make a wish

2007-03-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

"Fish in the sky? I'm telling you Morris, there's something not right about this month."

Wow, that February month sped by pretty quick, quicker than most other months I would venture. Can someone tell me why they only give it twenty-eight days though? You would have thought that it made more sense to take a day from, say, January and July and give it to February - they all get thirty days and no one's left out. I digress.

The short-changed month actually brought up a milestone moment for me, last week was my New York anniversary. Already it's been a year since I decided to up sticks and venture to the New World in search of opportunity and burgers. I've officially lived through four American seasons, from the blooming of floral life in Central Park through the frying pan heat of summer and the burst of autumnal golds and browns, to recent days that literally brought chilling pain to the soul. In particular I found the ice storm a novel experience. Imagine shards of ice whipped into a cyclonic whirl by an arctic wind... and then imagine sticking your face into it. I've had kinder journeys to work.

With this my 21st entry since I've been here I suppose I've shared a few of the big experiences and cultural anomalies but I do begin to wonder at what point you lose sight of the novelty. Just flicking through some of those earlier posts I remember how crazy the TV output seemed to me, how big and brash everything was here, how no one understood a word I was saying. Now I can happily sit juggling between the commercials, watching several shows simultaneously, phone pinned under a baseball cap, ordering a takeout large enough to feed a small African village from a non-English speaking restaurant employee. Even my written sentences have been supersized!! And exclamation marks appear to have wormed their way into my life...

So, as I sit here about to blow out the one candle on my blueberry muffin I can't help but wonder what the next twelve months have in store. Will I learn to sleep through a New York night without using earplugs? Will I ever pluck up the courage to steal a doughnut out of the hands of a chubby policeman and make him chase me up the street? Will I ever eat something that's "broiled"? And will I ever find out why February only has twenty-eight days? These are exciting times... I'll be sure to keep you posted.

You know it's cold...

2007-02-06T08:57:00.000-05:00

...when fahrenheit temperatures drop below zero
...when the weather forecaster has utilised the word "brutal" in his five day summary
...when taking your hand out of a glove to answer your mobile phone is not an option
...when taxis drive like the Flintstones' car because the tires have frozen into non-circular shapes
...when ice-flows down the Hudson disrupt ferry services
...if the dribbles from your nose reach your chin without you feeling it.

We're still awaiting the 'big' snow this winter though...

From Zero to Hero

2007-01-23T21:36:00.000-05:00

The bumbling buffoon is back and there are few places to shelter from talks of "terrists" and "clean, hybrid ve-hicles" tonight. The President's State of the Union address is to be found on every television network this evening. Also to be found is a tearful senior speechwriter back at the White House. With head in hands he’s questioning why he can’t write for a leader of over 300 million people who is capable of delivering his script without tripping over punctuation and compound sentence structure. Nevertheless, the breaks for applause from the floor keep coming. You’ve got to wonder if modern day speeches are only written for these back-slapping moments and the statisticians. Significant column inches will be dedicated to the number of "applause-breaks" tomorrow. A few more undeliverable promises in the speech and soon we’ll all be tuning in for fifty minutes of continuous clapping. My suggestion? Move the event outside. It’s minus 2degC in DC tonight, if something’s really worth the applause then the politicians will take off their gloves to make the effort, if not then you’ll just hear the muted thump thump thump of mitten on mitten. You may even see the President thwacked with a few snowballs…imagine that, Secret Service agents jumping in the way to take those hits.

While the lecture continues on how the rest of the world can be saved from untethered leaders and nations who bypass UN resolutions (ahem) I’ve been learning a little more about how this event functions. One of the traditions dates back to 1982. In his speech President Reagan paid tribute to a government employee who had jumped into a frozen river to save a passenger from a crashed aircraft. Since then a selection of American heroes are invited to sit in the First Lady’s Box and for a few minutes we hear about their outstanding achievements.
(Oh goodness, no! We’ve just reached that bit now. A Congolese immigrant who has made it as a professional basketball player and has helped build a hospital back in Kinshasa has just been referred to as both Mutembe and Mutombo. It’s the guy’s name! Get it right!). Anyway, one of the great hero stories I’ve ever heard actually comes out of New York and only occurred a couple of weeks ago. Wesley Autrey was waiting on the platform at a Harlem subway station with his two daughters. Nearby, a man collapsed and began convulsing; he then fell onto the tracks between the two rails. The lights of the No.1 train were already coming down the tunnel so without a moment’s thought Autrey left his two kids on the platform and jumped down onto the track covering the convulsing body with his own, pressing it down into a space of 20” – five carriages rolled over the top of them before the driver finally brought the train to a stop, the clearance was 22”. Both were fine and extracted by workers. Autrey later said, "I'm still saying I'm not a hero ... I'm just saying I saw someone in distress and went to his aid. You should do the right thing." Now those are the types of people that really deserve taking your mittens off for.

For Your Consideration

2007-01-17T02:09:00.000-05:00

"It doesn't do anything by halves." Not wrong. New York either goes the whole hog or doesn't go at all. So in that spirit, having delivered me with a special Oscar moment last year, the City's come along and delivered another one. This one was for Rain Man - Best Writing.

A friend commented that maybe this could be "my thing" - going around seeing how many Oscars I can get myself photographed with. So from the available stalker sites on the internet (there are two in the links to the right) I've started compiling my list of previous winners to hound over the coming months. Tomorrow sees me visiting Julia Roberts around East 20th St. The day-after sees me receiving my first restraining order...

A Winter Ramble

2007-01-10T23:20:00.000-05:00

I’ll warn you now, there’s going to be absolutely no structure to this. I’m taking the opportunity to clean out my noggin from some of the musings that have built up during the week.

President Bush has just come on the box as I write to announce his new strategy for Iraq and that’s sparked off a bushel load of personal irritation. I won’t vent here but I do feel like screaming at the TV whenever he’s on. Has there been a more monumental hash-up than the handling of “the war on terror”? And will George Jr ever get through a live televised address without bumbling over the script? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

In other classic moments from television (yes, tonight was TV night for me), “Real guns, real bullets, REAL danger!” CBS executives, having spent a day nailing tequila shots and inhaling a pharmacy, reach a moment of clarity and hit upon the concept of recruiting a group of “celebrities” to an Indiana police force. The city of Muncie wake up to find the likes of Jack Osbourne, La Toya Jackson, and a professional female wrestler are now patrolling their streets… with guns. Yup, they’ll hand them out to anyone here. Think Jackass’s Jason “Wee Man” Acuna arresting drivers on crack and Eric Estrada still living in his fictional world of Chips. The season premier was littered with priceless moments: La Toya zapped with 50,000 volts as the team get Tasered, or La Toya asking for a finger bowl in the local grill bar, or La Toya doing her laundry for the first time in her life.

Witnessing what is essentially a female Michael Jackson rough it with the general public is as close as you’re ever going to get to seeing how the reality of MJ being locked-up would have actually panned out... and that’s reality TV I would have tuned in for; CBS really missed out when that ‘not guilty’ verdict came through. Neverthelss I think I might be tuning in for episode two of “Armed and Famous”.

There’s a lovely scent of pine all around the city at the moment. Well, at least when there’s not the smell of noxious gas. In case you missed it, Monday saw lower Manhattan blanketed in a funny pong. Someone had left a very big gas cooker on but no one quite knew where. Still, that didn’t stop the Mayor from announcing that it wasn’t dangerous which is a bold statement to make when, minutes before, you said that you have no idea what the odour is or where it has come from. I noticed no one was smoking at that press conference either. As for the pine smell, you know how that British ad campaign stated "a dog is for life, not just for Christmas"? Well, over here a Norweigan pine forest is for Christmas, not for life. Come January 6th the streets are literally piled high with unwanted trees.

Apparently last year the city collected 156,000 discarded trees. And they're not small either, there are obviously some very big apartments around because these have been chainsawed right out of their roots. Many still have decorations attached, a few still have the lights wound around them, but all are stacked on the sidewalk - which proves painful when you catch a branch on your shin.

Christmas is but a fading memory now and typically January and February have been the dull, grey depressing months. Recollections of low clouds, rain and short sunlight-starved days at work remain clear though. Britain isn't blessed by latitude or the weather at this time of year and I'm grateful for the blue skies and crisp days here. Aside from that freak heatwave last week where temperatures soared to 22degC (72F) and the tulips started to blossom in Central Park, I know it's going to get much colder soon and there's always the prospect of an unwrapped body part falling off; for the moment though this is how winters are meant to be. Let me tempt fate and say, "Bring on the snow Mother Nature, bring on the snow..."

We Promise To Be Nice In 2007

2007-01-05T20:26:00.000-05:00

The last of the JFK Customs and Immigration entries. I promise.

Tuesday. Immigration. Empty arrivals hall.
“Good evening sir. How are you today?”
“Fine thank you. You?”
“I’m good, thanks. Good flight?"
Hold on. What’s going on here? This looks like the beginnings of a civil conversation. Does this guy suspect something?

"Erm, yes thanks. Long delay in London but otherwise pretty good.”
There. That’s confirmed I’m from a respectable city, assuming he doesn't think I meant the one in Ohio.

“I see your flight’s come in pretty late. What held you guys up?”
“Oh, they were on reduced staff at Heathrow... In London... England. Long hold-ups getting people through.”
“That’s crazy! Reduced staff? It's always busy around the holidays, they should know that. It’s you guys that suffer. They didn't plan that well!”
What the hell? I can’t handle this level of politeness. Is it the first day on the job for this chap?

“Yeah, you’re not wrong. Still, no queues in here, I can’t believe it, this has got to be the quickest I’ve ever walked through.”
“You missed the earlier rush, and you’ve arrived just before the next couple of flights are due."

Pause. Extended flicking through passport.
"Now, let me see, you’re coming through on this visa here?”
I knew it. The ‘good official bad official’ routine - admittedly played out by the same guy - but now he's softened me up here comes the kicker. The beastin’.

“Yes I am.”
“OK. Great. There you go, sir. Happy new year to you!”
“Huh?”

Baggage Reclaim.
First two cases onto the belt? Both mine.

Customs.
The crazy sweary official who made that woman cry last time I came through? All jolly and smiley.

Now, here’s what I think happened while I was away. That complaint I made in November really put the willies up the boys over in Terminal 4. There was a big big meeting and the rude customs guy got a telling-off. But that did him a lot of good and he’s a better man for it now. He’s found the joy in his work again and that joy has spread through all the arrivals staff. There’s a newfound sense of communal purpose there. There’s also a vast amount of gratefulness being directed at the instigator of all this. I suspect that there was a little party when they saw my name on the passenger list and as a small favour they cleared the arrival hall and pulled my bags out of the aircraft first. Thank you JFK people, and a happy new year to you all - every uniformed last one of you.

Streets Alive!

2006-11-22T14:57:00.000-05:00

Another number crunching moment from The Apple:
There are almost 2 million people in Manhattan, an island 23.7 sq miles in area, which works out to about 300 sq ft per person…and that would explain the size of my apartment. Fat chance of claiming your personal space at the moment though. It’s that time of year again – they call it “holiday season” here - the glittery red, green and gold month between Thanksgiving and Christmas when the sidewalks in midtown are swarming with shoppers flown in from all over the country - and even all over the world. What always catches me a little off-guard is when you see a bemused tourist rotating a map to orientate themselves in the street who then asks you for directions in an American accent. I bemuse them back with my English accent and confident, usually incorrect, set of directions. Obviously you can have American tourists in America, I just haven't managed to get my head around the concept yet.

Lost visitors and busy streets aside, this really is a time to get into the spirit of things. Window displays were going into shops on Fifth Avenue yesterday and the masses seemed genuinely excited – there was actually a roped off area along one store front as a separation between pedestrians and gawkers, Christmas trees are sprouting in key locations and as soon as the big one in Rockefeller Plaza goes up then we’ll be well and truly into the season. There’s no more quintessential Christmas sight than skaters gliding around the rink under that tree or in Central Park.

It’s one of the many things they get right over here: the “event”, granted it may be taken as going over the top sometimes but there's no half-arsing, it's either all or nothing. The parades are a good example. I don't remember a whole lot of parading going on back home, maybe the odd fete with a few floats when the village wanted to celebrate something, there's the Notting Hill Carnival once a year in London, and the Lord Mayor's Show - other than that we're not really a nation of street partiers. Don't start writing-in Morris Dancers. What you do is more "scary" than "party". But here there seems to be a parade for everything: President's Day, Martin Luther King Day, Puerto Rican Day, St Patrick's Day, Greek Independence Day, Memorial Day, Cuban Day... I could be here all Day.

Halloween was a crazy night. I've never witnessed anything like it before, the city was like a cross between a Tim Burton movie and a kid's fancy dress party and practically the whole city had got involved. There were ghouls, ghosts and walking pumpkins at every turn but then amongst these were superheros, members of The Village People and Star Wars characters. I saw someone dressed as a MySpace web page, a road traffic cone, cowboys, indians, Indians, Sponge Bob, Elton John - that might actually have been Elton come to think of it - there were even dogs in costume. Basically it was just a big excuse for everyone to get dressed up and eat lots of sweets. Maybe it is a bit too much but I love the fact that people celebrate. They get out there on the streets, they make an effort, they commit to something. If it takes "Random Day Parade" to get that done then so be it. It unites the city and that's some achievement in one of the most diverse places on earth.

Of course tomorrow's another big one - Thanksgiving. That's more than enough reason for another parade. It also sees the handful of pardoned turkeys around the country asking, “Hey, where’d everyone go?” You’ll find out next year my feathered friends…in the meantime eat up that grain and enjoy the extra living space.

Endure No More

2006-11-01T23:29:00.000-05:00

So I wrote that last post a week ago on my way out of town. Last night I came back and was walking through the airport thinking, "Maybe I gave this place a hard time. OK, so there aren't that many shops, it lacks character and the henge-like seating wouldn't look out of place on Salisbury Plain but it's bright, airy and there's a big colourful mural in the arrivals hall. Perhaps I should amend my thoughts."

Having positively zipped through the immigration formalities and with disembarkation to suitcase retrieval being posted in record time there was just the little matter of Customs to go.

I mentioned the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) pledges previously; I had a closer look at the poster last night:

We pledge to cordially greet and welcome you to the United States
We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect
...and on it goes; you get the point

So, can someone please explain the following to me? There we all were, travellers and trolleys, queued and funneling our way through one of the three open customs check-points and dutifully handing over our white customs cards. Suddenly, down the side of our queue, rushes a middle-aged lady looking very flustered and accompanied by a uniformed assistant from one of the check-in desks. They reach the front, the lady holding out her card apologising to the rest of us in very broken English.
“Sorry, so sorry! My card?” She says holding out her form for the official.
“You’re not getting in there lady, get to the back of the queue like everyone else,” the official shoots back at her while continuing his retrieval of cards from the rest of us.
“I sorry. My flight! My flight!” With which she pulls out a plane ticket while the assistant she’s with tries to explain that this lady’s flight arrived late and that she’s rushing to make a connection.
“I don’t give a damn. Get to the back,” he continues.

It would have taken a second to let her through – anyone with a modicum of common sense could see that it was an extraordinary circumstance and no one would have begrudged that act of discretion. Instead the torment was stretched out a little more.
“I show you ticket? Here is ticket for flight,” the lady fumbled trying to convince the official who wasn’t even looking at her now. She then started crying.
Finally looking back at her he answers: “Lady, I don’t give a sh*t. Get the f*ck outta here!” Word for word, that was his response in front of her, me, kids and dozens of others.

They can pledge all they like, those CBP promises aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, and having found the Supervisor on duty that night to point this out I then sent him in the direction of the abusive officer…

Make a stand folks.

Come Lounge With Me

2006-10-31T20:26:00.000-05:00

Surprise surprise, another airport entry; although at least this time I’m actually in New York. Today I find myself wallowing in the perpetual disappointment that is JFK. For a city that claims to be the world’s capital it certainly doesn’t show it at this airport. Arrivals through immigration are almost always met with surly officers, remind me but I think “being courteous” is one of the “pledges” made by Border Control on their posters in the hall. As for Departures, forget any level of comfort, novelty shopping, or hospitality; the seating areas just about sum it up: blocks of concrete. I’m serious, dull grey sections of concrete straight out of The Projects. People spend significant amounts of time on their arses in these places - flights are delayed and you have to arrive at airports earlier than ever before - surely there needs to be more than a cement-seat to pander your buttocks? And it’s not as if these are aging terminals, JFK underwent significant renovations a couple of years back. Remember The Terminal with Tom Hanks? That film's set at JFK. In one scene he's having a canglelight dinner with Catherine Zeta-Jones on a picturesque glass mezzanine, very romantic - very not here. Well, at least not Terminal 4 (or 7). If anything this terminal set was designed in the third grade creative drawing class at PS62 down the road.

An amazing array of shops - all six stores

One thing I've noticed, which I realise is common to many airports, is the presence of a luggage shop. At what point do you get through check-in and into the departures lounge to realise that now’s the time to buy a 32” suitcase? Are there people arriving at airports, their clothes in hand with a trail of socks and underpants behind them, who had awoken that morning thinking, “I haven’t got time to pack, I’ll do it at the airport”?

An amazing array of urinals

So, I'm now through security on the way to my gate; I note we live in a time when you can literally strip down in public without any need for prompting - off with the shoes, belt and jacket, the trousers fall down when you release your grip on them to get "wanded". And an added nugget of amusement for the staff: the lady behind me was repeatedly asked to go through the metal-detecting arch which was continually sounding because she was too large to avoid knocking against its sides. A deep breath and a crabbing motion finally saw her through unbleeped. This nation should know better, those detectors need to be 50% larger. Still at least she’s got comfy seats to look forward to on this side of the terminal, her security risk rear will be content. And the bar is always well populated with travellers who seem to be equally happy that they’ve finally found some form of distraction for an hour or two, a last chance to sip a Manhattan. They may miss the city but definitely not its airport.

Come Fly With Me

2006-10-01T16:21:00.000-04:00

When I started out with this blog my intention was to scribe my discoveries and experiences of New York. The trouble is I’ve had scant chance to do any discovering and experiencing since I’ve been there. Every time I start to get settled I get wrenched off across the Atlantic and quite often beyond that; these very words are being written 1695 miles away, it’s -52 degC outside and I’m at the very unnatural height of 37000 feet travelling at the very unnatural speed of 552mph. Today I’ve learnt that the town of Umanak in Greenland was settled in 1763 as a sealing port. What an education this is.

I’ve spent 52 hours in the air these past thirteen days – FIFTY-TWO! If I was a dog that would be a total of 15 days in the sky, which is two days more than I’ve actually been away for. Confused? Imagine how I feel. It's a long time to be in the company of one's own thoughts – although I guess it would be a dream scenario for a schizophrenic. I’ve reached the stage where I’m actually asking the flight crew ridiculous questions like what hotels they prefer in different cities, or how they stop their skin from peeling off due to the dry recycled air, or how much fuel we’ve consumed on a specific sector - and then I’ve walked around the aircraft counting the number of passengers in order to calculate fuel consumptions. For example: the flight I was on a couple of days ago used 50,000kg of fuel. It only had 48 passengers on board. That’s 1042kg of fuel burnt per person – about 388 gallons! Conservatively it takes our family car nearly two years to burn that quantity of fuel. 86 years it would have taken us to use the total amount of fuel consumed on that particular journey. The attendant seemed to twig I was getting bored and actually got the only passenger in first class to come out to talk to me after that little revelation.

Imagine, 48 people on a flight that had space for over 300, I actually had an entire aircraft section to myself. It meant that I got my very own safety demonstration before we took off too. The attendant seemed a bit confused as to whether she should stand in front of me and show me how to open and close my belt buckle or whether she should perform to the other empty seats. Being an Air India flight she then had to do the whole demonstration again for the Hindi translation, which just prolonged the agony for the poor girl. I had to smile. I chuckled during the check-in too, there was a sign stating, “Do not carry these items on your person,” and then below were listed the usual suspects: sharp objects, flammables, compressed gas, etc. but there, tucked away at the end, were a couple of pictures I wasn’t used to seeing: a hand grenade and a glowing stick of radioactive material. A sign of the times perhaps?

Anyway, while I’m on the subject of air travel, a few things have occurred to me over the past few days:

1) When has anyone had to use the life vests or the inflatable rafts? In the history of commercial air travel how many times has an aircraft successfully landed on water? I’ll tell you. Once. November 23, 1996 when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines 767 ditched into the sea – there were 52 survivors. Even then the plane partially broke up. From my understanding aircraft do not glide like ducks onto the surface of the sea, it’s more like hitting a hillocky field of concrete at 150mph. Instead of hearing, “Life vests can be found under your seats,” during the safety briefing wouldn’t it be better to hear, “In the event of an emergency controlled explosives will blow out the emergency doors located here, here and here; parachutes can be found under your seats.” Personally I would rather take my chances bailing out at 10,000 feet.

2) On the subject of hard landings, why not make the seats rear facing? And what’s with those whiplash belts you wear across the midriff? Even cars strap you in across the chest and they’re only doing 70-80mph at the best of times.

3) Oxygen masks. My guess is that rapid decompression would probably blow out most people’s eardrums; the last thing on your mind would be calmly placing one of those dangly yellow bags around your mouth before attending to your little one. Nevertheless, assuming all’s well there and you’ve made it to the ground in one piece, you then have to find your emergency exit – through the toxic fumes. But your mask is only attached to its supply by a short umbilical. Smoke inhalation is one of the biggest killers in an airline accident (aside from the obvious impact) so why not have detachable gas masks? I know, I know, it’s too expensive and probably only a solution for the first and business class passengers but Britain managed to supply an entire nation with masks during WW2, surely there must be loads left over from back then?

4) It's been drilled into us that mobile phones interfere with aircraft communication systems and must be turned off, but I'm sure that a few people must leave them on accidentally - left in bags and jacket pockets. And Singapore Airlines for one now has wireless internet access available on their flights and will soon have a system in place to let you use your mobile phones in-flight too. So what's the big cover up? Do phone signals really interfere with aircraft systems?

5) Why did I get a plastic knife with my food but a metal fork?

I’m sure I’ve put a few of you off flying for now so I’ll wrap it there. It’s also time for another circuit of the aisles to move that blood clot a little further up my leg...

(click to enlarge)

9/11/06

2006-09-11T22:49:00.000-04:00

Mornings are usually a noisy affair. The builders across the street seem to have their watches syncronised and as the little hand reaches eight a cacophony of hammer on steel begins - if they ever take the day off then I'll be late for work. This morning though there was an added commotion. For a good 5 minutes sirens wailed and fire trucks raced by, their foghorns blaring no doubt there was an emergency somewhere but today it was an eerie way to start the day. There were blanket blue skies outside and five years ago I hear the weather was much the same, I imagine the sounds were significantly louder and more sustained back then though.

For every generation there is a "where were you when..." moment. September 11, 2001 is ours. Personally I was on a 'late shift' at work in London. I had got to my desk at 1.45pm and switched on the TV to catch the CNN coverage just after the first plane had hit one of the World Trade Centers. It was a very long day after that and I guess the world hasn't been the same for any of us since.

I'm not usually one for mass compulsions but today I really did want to head down to the Trade Center Site to take a walk around and soak up the atmosphere. Obviously it was pretty chocker. The young, the old, tourists, families, those in uniform - everyone seemed to have adopted a gentle-paced amble around the narrow streets. Commemorative events could be found in many locations from a walk-in music recital in Trinity Church to a very quaint British Memorial hidden away in the backstreets for the 67 Britons killed in the attack; it began with a pipe band, was guested by Prince Andrew and Jack Straw and included an honour guard of 67 British police officers; there were performances from a brass band from the West Yorkshire Police, the choir from St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle, and a Welsh soprano. It was a little bit of Britain in a skyscrapered corner of Manhattan - music and song echoing around the concrete amphitheatre; and it was just as comforting to see those same uniformed "bobbies" walking around the city later enjoying the sites before flying back home.

The WTC site itself was understandably less sedate. Thousands flowed past the enormous open space; flowers, poems, photographs, ribbons, flags - the fencing was adorned with memories. Probably the most striking though were the debates and mass demonstrations taking place. Quite simply they were split between those who believe that terrorists were behind 9/11 and those who don't. "An Inside Job" stated one banner, "Don't Believe The Lies" on another; a sea of black T-shirts emblazoned with "Investigate 9/11" massed behind a megaphoned speaker chanting and then marching off into the streets. The basic argument seemed to be that the buildings didn't fall as a result of the planes crashing into them but instead well placed explosives within the structures of many of the towers were the reason for their demise. There are some who believe that a plane never actually crashed into the Pentagon at all and that a missile was to blame for the devestation. Allegedly all this was part of a grand scheme by the government to declare war with selected regimes around the world.

Believe what you want. I thought Jay Leno summed the subject up well at the end of his chat show tonight, "Our government is not bright enough to carry out something like that..." Nevertheless, as the Tribute in Lights shines up into the sky this evening, the irony still lies in an event that so united a country in grief but very much divided it over their government's reaction.

Ten Bites at The Apple

2006-08-28T00:02:00.000-04:00

I had a friend ask me today why I hadn't "blogged" here in so long. Two things:

1) I've been a bit busy of late,
2) Someone's reading this blog??
Anyway, he specifically came all the way from London to tell me this so the least I can do is oblige.

It was nice having someone around who had a fresh pair of eyes with which to view the city. It's becoming all too easy to slip into a mundane routine and to forget where you are. Without it being pointed out to me I wouldn't have given a second look at the shifty dealers in Washington Square Park or even at the man talking to a tree. I hadn't noticed school term was about to begin either and that NYU was filling up today; kids arriving with sparkly white kitchen appliances, VHS and DVD players, TVs and Playstations. Once again Bleecker Street will be filled with the shouts and wretching of teenagers into the early hours of the morning. I miss higher education.

It got me thinking, I've just had a couple of weeks out of the box and been back to Blighty, while it's fresh maybe now's a good time to remember the goods and bads about living in this fair city. So, in one of those High Fidelity moments, here are two lists of five (almost).

NY Bottom 5s:
1) Concrete jungle fever.

I guess it's a bit like those bears you see in the zoos that have gone a little loco because they've been in a confined space for so long.
2) Ear, nose and throat attack.

The ability to successfully spew forth all forms of pollution: from smog that sits at the back of your throat to the 4ft high wall of pungent garbage bags that lie out on the streets and then require collection - at the social hour of 3am. Between the sirens, trucks and traffic there's not much peace to be had at any hour.
3) Huh? Wah?

Annunciation has completely the opposite effect. Unless you're able to string your sentence into one complete word then you're not going to get anywhere. "Youwannapaycashcreditordebit?" I was asked today. It's English Jim but not as we know it. And "telephone customer assistance" has got to be the greatest modern misnomer to date. They don't understand me and I don't understand them.
4) Hidden costs.

Between tipping, sales tax and bank fees what you thought was a good price turns out to be a downright dishonest twisting of the truth. Get Nicky Campbell and his Watchdog crew over here.

5) Excess.

There's a disgusting amount of waste, from the supersized food portions to the energy consumption. Sadly you feel more a part of the problem than the solution.

NY Top 5s:
1) That skyline.

Whether it be in the distance or close-up, it just never loses its 'wow factor'. It's worth growing the hairs on the back of your neck just so they can stand up.
2) Being an urban explorer.

Pack up provisions and appropriate weapons and then hit the streets in search of lost bars, restaurants, cafes, galleries and shops. There are discoveries to be made at every turn: I stumbled upon an outdoor trapeze school in Tribeca, and on the way to work the equivalent of a dozen mini gardening centres sprawling onto 27th Street with hundreds of small trees, shrubs and plants pulled out onto the sidewalk every morning, and of course you can't go too long without seeing filming taking place of some kind - Spiderman the Third zipping around the streets was particularly impressive.
3) Les Arts.

With galleries and museums packed full of exhibitions, the city has to squeeze shows into the most unlikely of places. A photo exhibition was suspended from the trees in my local park this week. Film, theatre, art, dance, music - it's pouring out onto the streets and NY does a great job in promoting it all with free concerts and performances throughout the year.
4) Rooftop bars.

It's got its fair share and there's no better city in the world to be in one. Sunset over The Hudson seen between the skyscrapers while sipping your over-priced cocktail, the Chrysler Building catching every known shade of red and yellow that the pollution has managed to concoct - perhaps the only upside to not signing in Kyoto.

230 Fifth - where the cocktails come with umbrellas and a palm tree

5) You're starring in your own movie.

Whether they've been here or not everyone knows this city through film and television - it's almost like deja-vu the first time you visit - and now you get to walk around the actual set with 2m extras, sirens wailing, people shouting in their thick accents, steam pluming out of the streets, the ordinary and the extraordinary all around you. Buy a hotdog or pretzel from a street vendor or hop in a cab and rattle off an address in midtown... get lucky and the driver may have even understood what you said.

Counting was never one of my strong points...

6) Food glorious food.

Arrive thin, leave large. Close your eyes and toss a bread roll in any direction and you're guaranteed to hit a restaurant, cafe, bistro or pigeon. New Yorkers instinctively refer to an area by the quality of its eateries, "I live in the East Village, yeah, it's got great places to eat," or "Oh yeah, I love Chelsea, there are some fantastic restaurants there." Live a lifetime here and you could probably go without ever having to visit the same restaurant twice.

7) The passion.

New Yorkers are nothing if not passionate. On the street, in work, at the sport's bar, at the baseball game, whatever the circumstances you won't get a withering, apologetic or timid response. And it rubs off on the outsiders too. Yes, I have instinctively shouted at a cyclist who cut me up at a crossing, "Hey! I'm walkin' here!" Hoffman eat your heart out.
8) The clincher.

You get to say, "I live in New York".

Speaker's Corner

2006-07-22T14:59:00.000-04:00

It's like an addiction. Simultaneously I'm appalled, amazed and amused. I want to switch over but then I can't help but switch back just in case I miss a classic bit of jingoistic journalism. It's the top of the hour and in a moment straight out of primetime the announcer declares, "Live! From the Israel-Lebanon border iiiit's Studio B with Shep Smith." And there he is in his bullet-proof jacket walking the world's most dangerous border, with Israel "Just over there behind these tanks" and Lebanon - "a little smaller than the state of Connecticut" - over to the right. Earlier we had learnt from the channel's military analyst that Lebanon was where "the bad guys" were and military capabilities of both sides had been matched up for us with swishing and swooshing graphics that wouldn't have looked out of place on a Playstation. But now it's time for some commercials, "Let's strike up the Fox orchestra for some music as we go to a break," announces Shep. "We'll be right back!"

Of course, there's only one news network that can put the jazz and glitz into an international crisis, Rupert Murdoch's Fox News.

"America's source for news on the war in the Middle East"

Please, no. It's bad enough that a few people have such a skewed view of events, don't start ramming them down the throats of an entire nation.

Arguably Murdoch and his empire was the inspiration for the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies where a crazed media mogul influences global events in order to improve business. Of course, I'm not saying that's the case here but we all know that bad news is good news for those who report on it. I just wish Fox wouldn't make such a song and dance about it.

Soapbox moment over.

So, Robert Wagner. He's got quite a big head. Physically I mean. I don't remember that being the case when he was in Hart to Hart. I wonder if his body is shrinking with age and his head is being left behind. At some point he's got to reach a size when he moves to smaller jumpers but won't be able to fit his head through the tighter neck. It's going to be a cold winter for Mr. Wagner. Nothing to worry about at the moment though, it's rather warm outside. While New York is stewing in its own smog and blanket humidity I see Britain is melting like a block of Wenslydale left out in the sun too.

Apparently by the end of the century this will be an average summer for us. Fortunately, by the end of this century I won't be here. Nevertheless I'm doing my best to get greener, mostly by shaking my head at those who aren't. I went up to Boston last week and took a bus. As we crawled through the five hours of traffic that stretched from New York to Massachusetts I tut-tutted at the number of SUVs on the road - my estimate was that they made up one in every three cars on the interstate. The ads on TV boast that the new generation of SUVs here can manage a miraculous 20mpg. Twelve years ago, in the last century, my first car did about 38mpg - given it was a small thing but why the average Joe needs a 4l vehicle is beyond me.

Still, thank goodness you have the option of off-roading in New York should the need arise - there's a particularly nasty pothole on West 18th street that tests most ordinary vehicles. However, I don't doubt that there's a revolution in the American car market around the next bend. Where we keep swallowing the ever increasing petrol prices in the UK, this side of the pond that's not going to wash. 2005 was the year for the hybrid car, Toyota's Prius became one of America's top selling vehicles: fuel and electricity wrapped up in one ugly looking car but with twice the stamina.

Today, though, I'm left astounded by the police cars left running outside the local station being used as personal cooling stations for officers who have stepped out of the building for some "fresh" air. I have to bite my lip at the double-bagging of groceries, please someone just design a stronger bag. And, after ordering a small iced coffee, I opened the bag to find two straws, five sugar sachets and seven (!) serviettes - all of which would have been redirected to the bin; and then you've got to ask what the girl behind the counter was thinking? That she was serving diabetics who had trouble locating one of their two mouths?

Soapbox moment over.

So, this new Pope...

Impossible Is Nothing

2006-06-24T15:10:00.000-04:00

I've been allowing the World Cup "Soccer" experience to marinate before putting fingers to keyboard. Now the group stages are over I think I'm ready to share what it's like to be here while the world's biggest party takes place over in Europe.

To be fair, it's been far better than I thought. For the first time TV networks are showing every World Cup game and as a result interest is high. I know plenty of American's caught up in "the fever". I've stood in bars with locals who had no clue what was going on but were quite happy to shout and cheer with the rest of us. Crowds gather in Times Square for games on the big screens. Even the press have got the hang of berating their own players and manager - it's only a matter of time before the coach is filmed in a hotel room taking bribes from an Arab sheikh. But at the end of the day we can't forget that this is a nation that once hosted the tournament and gave the impression that they didn't quite know what they had signed up for; where, during that '94 opening ceremony, Diana Ross kicked a penalty at an open goal from all of 4 yards - her miss put women's football back twenty years; and where they have introduced an amalgamation of grating sporting lexicon into their commentary:
"That stretches Germany's shutout streak to 281 minutes as their dE-fense continues to dominate."
"The USA have fallen O and eight in World Cup play in Europe."
"He's fouled him inside the eighteen yard zone but it should never be a penalty..."
"The score here, one to nothing."
"It's finished two-zip in this game."
"Michael Bollock [Ballack] has had at least five good strikes on goal."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're going into overtime!"

And, like the news, it's not too easy to hear what's going on within the other squads. The focus is firmly on the US team. I can't help but think back to '94, there must have been a hell of a surprise when 32 teams turned up at the airport, "Yeah I know it's a World Cup but our World Series baseball involves only one nation... well two if you include that team from Toronto."
I'm sorry Americans, you've got to understand that the rest of us become football snobs when we watch here.

But it has been interesting. At the end of the day New York's the melting pot within the world's largest melting pot. There are bars in the city affiliated to every team in the tournament. The British pubs are obviously busy for any game, those in Little Korea draw in red shirted fans for their matches - high pitched squeals with every chance, goal and near miss. The blue shirted French take over the hip bistros and cafes shouting and gesticulating at any play that falls short of perfectection. Manhattan's restaurant kitchens seem to rely on workers from Ecuador, there wasn't much food being served when their games were on. For the Italy/USA match last weekend every bar in Soho was spilling onto the street. It's all sporadic and focused in specific places but you know it's on. That's not to say I wish I wasn't home - there's nothing like a World Cup in England during the summer, when the country blooms red and white. I can imagine the flags hanging from bedroom windows, on the cars, vans, lorries and buses. The mad dash from work to meet friends for the game,

the roars and cheers coming from the pubs; those great commercials on TV as you're heading to the bar at halftime and can hear a charasmatic Cantona, or the chubby Pedro laughing when Jose picks Beckenbauer for his team. That Adidas tagline would have me believe otherwise but I think we all know it's going to be harder than it's ever been for England this tournament.

I'll leave you with this one bit of video. We also get to enjoy Spanish commentary here. This confirms that the South Americans are unbeatable not just on the football field but off it too. A superb team goal and some fantastic commentary that wouldn't be out of place in an opera (you certainly don't need to speak Spanish to appreciate it).

There's nothing to see here people. Move along.

2006-06-10T22:45:00.000-04:00

If you're a terrorist looking to get away for a break and you're considering a visit to the States then, according to those that run the nation, you're more likely to be vacationing in Omaha or Louisville than in New York. Apparently, as far as the Apple goes, there's nothing to do or see here and you would be hard pushed to find a national monument or anything of significant importance to target.

I thought my biggest hurdle, as far as apocalyptical scenarios went, was getting through Tuesday. Posters, billboards, the morning news - all pretty much guaranteed that June 6, 2006 would be the last diary entry that any of us would be making. I wore clean underwear and shaved. Imagine my surprise when I went to bed on Tuesday night and woke up on Wednesday morning. It would seem that Lucifer's chosen to outsource much of his work of late and who can blame him? He can afford to let 6/6/06 slip by because he knows that with the current administration at the helm all he need do is sit back and sip Bloody Marys. The latest brainwave out of Washington? To cut security funding to New York by 40%. Bloody brilliant. It's not as if I wasn't looking for suspicious characters on the subway before. How did they came to this decision? By ranking a region on how many national monuments or treasures it had. So how in Hades did New York see a cut in funding? Well, let's just say that the midterm elections are coming up and some of the places that saw an increase in spending are marginal seats for the Republicans.

But enough of my jibber-jabber, let me hand you over to the only purveyor of sense left here for a bit more on the subject. Mr Jon Stewart ladies and gentlemen...

(Click on Jon)

(If you have a pop-up blocker just follow the instructions that, well, pop-up at the top.)

Caffeine-lite

2006-06-03T00:34:00.000-04:00

I’m just about familiarised with hearing the “grande vanilla skimmed latte” or “tall two shot with soy” type coffee orders, but the one I overheard this afternoon came right out of leftfield:

“I’ll take a decaf espresso.”

I kid you not. The equivalent of driving a Porche through LA I guess.

It’s been an interesting few days.

Apartment hunting I found an ad posted by a group of actors who actually turn their theatre loft into an informal motel when they’re not performing. Black theatre curtains pinned around blow-up mattresses serve to separate the “rooms”.

Standing in a rather nice hotel room earlier this week it was pointed out to me that the floor was sloping. Sitting in my rather pokey office I have noticed that my chair has a strong desire to roll towards the door. It strikes me that the island of Manhattan may well be subsiding.

My more immediate worries are with the Old Testament-like floods we’re in the midst of. The spectacular lightning and thunder that entertained us last night have rumbled on into today. 4 inches of rain later and Fox 5 News have mobilised their reporters to the streets. Statements to passers-by like, “You’re really wet there! Were you at all prepared for this?”
“Yes, I thought it might rain today,” replies the lady wrapped up snugly in her yellow waterproof poncho. Fox News – where pictures need a thousand words.

The bad weather actually caused a Learjet to crash into the Long Island Sound this afternoon. It turns out that the plane is owned by Pat Robertson. Pat’s a television evangelist. I think Pat may also be filching from the collection bowl.

And finally, travelling out on the Long Island Rail Road today the train rolled through what has to be my favourite place name to-date: Hicksville, NY. Population 41,260 and every one of them proud of their town. Well I presume they were proud of it because there’s a 200ft water tower there with the words “Hicksville District” emblazoned across it for all in neighbouring Syosset to see.

Perhaps the folk back in the city see it another way, “New Yorkers had a horrid way of making people feel like hicks” (Louis Auchincloss). You're not kidding, they just named a town after them.

I was going to wrap it there but on the TV as I write is ABC’s Nightline and I see we've managed to export the obsequious Martin Bashir out to present it. I’m thinking that Bashir has been refused entry back into the UK after his ego-inflating exclusive reports finally galled enough people to extinguish his career for good. He’s obviously found a niche here reporting on banalities as this evening is being spent talking about a food survey that has uncovered this amazing fact: the average American consumes one-third of their daily calories from food prepared outside of the home. I’m thinking that eating lunch at work satisfies that statistic nicely.
Drink up that hot iced-tea Martin, Fox 5 is calling.

Going Underground

2006-05-01T15:06:00.000-04:00

Ahh, Sesame Street: a big scary-arse canary talking to a creature spawned from the trash – tell me the Children’s Workshop weren’t being “assisted” when they were pitching that show to PBS. The letters of the day are “L”, “S” and “D”.
Nevertheless Oscar The Grouch segues beautifully into one recent run-in I had here.

A megopolis can’t help but be an impersonal place; London being a prime example of somewhere that literally embraces the cold shoulder, filthy look, don’t stare into my personal space attitude. Hell, even the latest edition of the Rough Guide to England has it in print: “Talking to strangers, in London especially, can be seen as tantamount to physical assault." I vowed to talk to as many strangers in London as I could when I came back from my extended travels last year – a resolution that, I’m ashamed to say, lasted three whole days.

On the surface it’s not so different in New York, in fact, I feel it’s a little more intimidating. There seems to be a whole lot of posturing about – larger guys, baggier trousers, puffier jackets, sterner frowns; and it’s all bigger too - the buildings, the roads, the pavements. It’s no different below ground where subway stations are the size of small towns, trains stretch for blocks and the rats bench-press steel girders. As a result you feel smaller, anonymous. Many people choose to take to the white sanctuary of their iPods when they’re on the move and, admittedly, that’s where I went for a while too. I know it’s the worst case of antisocialism you can portray and as such you’re in no position to complain about the breakdown of community or lack of civility in society but at the end of the day you’re carrying around 300 CDs in your pocket and that’s a novelty I’m still to get over. Having said that I have now made an effort to join the real world and boy what a crazy place it is. For one people talk here, to each other, to themselves, to anyone that will listen. You'll hear about Brandy's wedding preparations, how Joe isn't pulling his weight at the office but seems to get away with it, Nichelle's had a falling out with her homegirl, Ira's just moved out of Manhattan and loves the amount of newfound space, and there's Deion who's not talking to anyone but is quite happy to sing-a-long with his mp3 player.

There’s no social laboratory better than the subway - interactions abound, it's where the term “wacko” or “crazy” is liberally tossed about. But say what you like, it’s a colourful place. A guy stepped into my carriage today and found a pole to hold on to (not a Polish immigrant I should add). As the doors closed he straightened up, announced that he was homeless, would gladly accept any kind offerings we may be able to give and – at this point I would normally have turned up the volume on track 8 – began to sing a Lionel Ritchie song. At least, I think it was a Lionel Ritchie song. These "performances" usually last the duration of one stop, there’s the collection of a few coins, a thank you/God bless/have a good day and then a move to a new captive audience. As for the religious speakers – a chatty bunch, often they come bearing pamphlets and quotations. One passenger I saw obviously muttered something abhorrent as he was shot down with bolts from one particularly vocal shepherd, “You will meet Satan my friend. You do his work. Only our Lord Jeeeesus can save you. Hell is full of your kind, those who turned their back on saaaalvation;” just what you need to hear after a tough day at the office. One thing people are not afraid of is speaking out.
An average day can often bring a panhandler or two across your commute - mostly the performers, but there are those who carry cards with begging notes written in someone else’s English, and a few who carry hungry children – those are the jarring moments that force diverted looks and an uncomfortable interest in a spot on the floor. At that point those "300 CDs" in your pocket, new mobile phone and expensive watch all feel a little heavy.

Putting aside the nine-deep platform crush during rush hour, the inordinate amount of rubbish, the mysterious dripping roofs, the less-than-attractive stations, and Frankenstein's rats - I’ll stick my neck out and say that there are few short journeys more interesting than those under New York: the characters, the people-watching, the performances in the station, the tapestry of life you’ll intersect with. I continue to catch wrong trains with regular monotony (the signage in the stations is a rant for another post), but most of the time something interesting comes from it. One such deviation deposited me in Brooklyn around midnight last week, two locals at the station took pity on me and we were all in a bar ten minutes later. It may have a tough reputation but there is a congeniality to be found on the subway.

As for that Oscar the Grouch segue, well the “You will meet Satan” journey was one that took me to an apartment viewing uptown where, it transpired, the residence’s owner was a documentary film producer. There are many things I’ve tried to do before I turned 30 and here, less than six hours from that milestone, was one experience I never thought for a minute would make the list. There, displayed proudly before me in his living room, stood a very real Academy Award. The worn gold leafing from 33 years of handling didn’t take away any of the lustre from the statue. That 8lb Oscar felt every bit its weight and, as I contemplated ways to smuggle it away, I couldn’t help but think that there was only one city that could throw this experience at me on a random Wednesday night… and that my thirties had got a lot to live up to.

Only in New York

2006-04-23T19:54:00.000-04:00

There's an awful lot I could write under this heading but I think that this link just about sums it up...
http://www.nycgarbage.com/

I Predict A Riot

2006-04-19T17:45:00.000-04:00

It’s going to take a while before I wean myself off BBC America. Endless episodes of Cash In The Attic, Bargain Hunt, Flog It!, and Homes Under The Hammer. A perpetual supply of daytime TV from back home pumped out for TV auction addicts here. However, it’s not the stream of fake-tanned hosts, bumper cash prizes of £24 and plummy English accents that I tune in for. BBC America also serves up the news – world news. North, East, West and South – that’s where the word comes from, all encompassing. (Actually, that’s a lie. It comes from the plural of new, but that’s not as much fun). Unfortunately the American news networks don’t use the same compass and finding an impartial round-up of global events is somewhat difficult. Unrest in Lebanon will more likely be referring to Lebanon, Tennessee than Lebanon, World. It’s no revelation though. In fact it’s a running joke exploited on Comedy Central by the satirical news program, The Daily Show, for which one of their taglines run, “More people get their news from The Daily Show... than probably should” and as one pundit has written, “I recommend you skip the national news and get your updates here.” Let me just say this, the Television Critics Association actually awarded it the “Outstanding Achievement in News and Information” award in 2004… a bad year for the real news networks I think you’d agree.

Let me take a “time out” (when in Rome). I’ve been puckering up to write about news and politics. The “I Predict A Riot” title was my nice link from the Kaiser Chiefs song (as they’ve just appeared on the 2006 Brit Awards which is on BBC America as I write) to some of the riotous demonstrations that have been going on around the country this week over the tightening of immigration laws. A tenuous link, I admit. However, the insanities that surround US policy-making are a can of crazy worms that I don’t think I’m quite ready to dive into yet. But, as The Brits has been going on in the background I notice that I’ve been channel hopping a hell of a lot. There’s a commercial break every ten minutes. I watched a film on TV the other night, with an original running time of about 2hrs this movie ran to almost three with the breaks - you can pretty much watch two programs simultaneously by hopping back and forth during them. You also find yourself scrolling around the listings every thirty minutes – going through 159 channels only to end up back where you started. I cannot begin to comprehend the sheer volume of nothingness that exists in the airwaves. The phrase “quality not quantity” is one that’s too short and succinct for cable television.
When it comes to advertising I like to think I’m a tough nut to crack – pretty sceptical and wised-up to the subtle tactics that advertises use to slip in under the radar. However this week I’ve come to realise that they’ve found my Achilles heel: flat out repetitive bombardment. It’s chipping away at my firewall and I’m fearful. Already I want to call Geico where 15 minutes could save me 15% or more on my car insurance and, although I have no vehicle in the U.S., it may just be worth it for that offer; and if I get into an accident while driving not only will Geico save me hundreds of dollars but JG Wentworth will arrange my structured settlement which can be paid out over several years or as one single lump sum - get the cash I deserve, now!; I’ll rest up at home cleaning with my new Oreck vacuum cleaner - weighing less than a gallon of milk and with the sucking strength of a force 2 hurricane - and scrubbing effortlessly with the $60 worth of Miracle Stain bullets I received for just $9.99. Further employment shouldn’t be a problem either - by making my computer work for me I can look forward to making up to $5000 a week working as little or as much as I like - just by dialing 1-800- RIP ME OFF.
Binge an evening away with fast food and a movie and you’ll see half a dozen ways to lose the weight you’re invariably putting on: meals replaced with healthy, filling shakes; or revolutionary pills to take twice a day…before food; there’s even surgery if you need a quick fix.

Cable television is a dangerous world and it’s caught me somewhat off guard. The barrage I’ve taken from the commercial breaks alone has swollen my brain and as far as I can see there’s no miracle cure for that yet.

Maybe those protesters could pass by Time Warner on their rounds and push a few satellite dishes over. I really don’t see any other alternative.

My, what big eyes you have

2006-04-16T15:20:00.000-04:00

Before I carry on I guess I should put a face to this site. This is me in London - I'm the one on the right. Yes, my big smiley face was blown up to fit on the side of this bridge in Kensington...and the smile cropped by the pavement. With all the resulting fame, adulation and hounding I received, I thought it best to leave the country.

The Beginning...

2006-04-16T00:19:00.000-04:00

Eight hours can take you a fair few places from West London: on a train into the heart of Europe perhaps, or down to Portsmouth on a bicycle. A car will get you to the outer reaches of Scotland or a half-dozen times around the M25 on a quiet day – and only half-way around on a busy one. Jump on a plane and the world’s your oyster, literally. It’s a sizeable amount of time. However, it's probably too long a time to be devoted to a commute, there's little time left for anything else. Consider please:
1am - Leave home for start of commute
9am - arrive office (traffic permitting)
Work through lunch and leave at 5pm for return commute
1am - arrive home with just enough time to pick out a new tie for the day ahead.

See what I mean?

It’s for this reason that I’ve had to leave West London… and move to New York.

The likelihood is that if you’re reading this then you probably know me. But this isn’t called the World Wide Web for nothing. There’s a lot of you out there and chances are that someone’s stumbled down to paragraph three here and is wondering, “Who the hell drives round and round the M25? Come to that, what is the M25?” So just for you here’s some background. I’m Ummit. I’m four days away from turning twenty-ten,
live(d) in London for the past eighteen years, was born in Wales (yup), once landed a 737 running on only one engine (indeed), and have eaten bulls' testicle soup (don't ask). It’s all true. As for the M25, it's London’s orbital motorway - or Europe's largest carpark depending on your point of view - its construction began in 1975 and it is 117 miles around.

Web Logs (Blogs). They always appeared relatively pointless to me. Someone’s “I did this today”, “I like that movie”, “My brother Billy has a crush on my best friend Holly.” I don’t know - it all seemed rather inane. So what am I doing here then? Well two things I suppose.

1) I spent last year travelling, lots of countries and lots of experiences. I got to writing down my musings in a journal and in monthly emails to friends and family. The journal has proved to be a great log of the trip – so many things that would have otherwise been lost in my rather whispy memory are now there in ink. And the emails seemed to be popular with at least three people being more of a commentary on the experience than a diary of what I did. So here I am – a foreign pair of eyes in an alien country again, it’s an experience I want to remember and it’s something others may enjoy too as I don’t intend it to be a diary and I don’t intend to be writing about Billy and Holly.

And 2) It’s cathartic. If this first week is anything to go by then getting settled here is going to take a bit of time. I think cleaning out my brain every so often might help me see the wood for the trees. That process may also prove good material for psychology students at NYU too.
So, there’s your background and introduction to the site. Come visit from time to time, post comments if you want, most importantly of all though – if you never come back here again - take this one piece of advice away with you: always check what you’re ordering from the menu if you don’t understand the language it’s written in.