Going green, New York style
It’s probably not unfair to say that – in the past at least – America has shown more collective concern for the result of the Oxford vs Cambridge Boat Race than for the environment. Sure, there’s an occasionally impressive recycling programme in some cities (in New York it’s effectively handled by the homeless, keen to [...]
New York cranks it up to 11
There’s no getting away from the fact that New Yorkers are loud. Whether they’re talking to a friend on the street, or snarling out curses like SmartiesM&Ms to passers-by who have the temerity to cross the road infront of them, New Yorkers have a volume control that is set at least 25% higher than the [...]
Would you like cheese with that?
America is the land of the inappropriate combination, maintaining an unparalleled ability to put together two things which really can’t work in partnership, and insist that they can. Take peanut butter and jelly, for instance – no, I mean it, somebody just take it away and never let me see it again. Not since Nick [...]
Some mothers do have ‘em
For the first eighteen months or so of my relationship with The Special One, I became an expert at sleeping in two sessions. Given that we were on opposite sides of the Atlantic, and she would often be working until well into the night, our first opportunity to speak might not come until 11pm in [...]
The luck of the Irish
Now, before I start, I need you to know something: I have nothing against a good celebration. I am, after all, the current holder of the South London All-Comers record for Most Wine Glasses Inadvertently Smashed On A Good Friend’s Floor In One Night, a record I’ve held since New Year’s Eve 2002. And I’ve [...]
Coming to terms with shame
I’ve been in hiding for a week or so, as you’ll have noticed by the lack of posts on here. It’s not because I’ve lost any of my desire to give you witty, charming and considered tracts on life in New York (one day I hope to deliver on that dream), or because I just [...]
Ticking all the boxes
As you’ll have gathered from my last post, The Special One and I are currently filing various papers to prove that our marriage is bona fide, and not an ill-disguised sham in which I’m using her to gain access to a country with no universal healthcare and no ready access to HP Sauce. I feel [...]
A sign of the American times
Checking out official documents today for the immigration services, I noticed that the forms only provide two lines for the person making the application to list their former spouses. “Hmmm,” I pondered rather formally to myself. “That really doesn’t seem to be enough space at a time when marriage appears to be less valued than [...]
Understanding New York’s unique formula
If you ask me – and I know you didn’t – New Yorkers must be the most accomplished numbers-oriented populace in the world. For a start, they know the price of every single slice of pizza in the city, and can calculate the cheese per cent ratio of each one by smell alone. They can [...]
The one where A Brit Out Of Water becomes a criminal
Having been brought up on a TV diet that included regular feedings of ‘Cagney & Lacey’, I have to say that I was pretty nervous on my first trip to New York City. Not because there was a possibility of being forced to spend an evening in the company of Tyne Daly and her long-suffering [...]
