CLOTHING STORE LINE-UP

Faced with the choice of having no birthday presents at all and receiving at least some, even though I would be buying them for myself, I wandered down Fifth Avenue in search of something I needed. I am an extremely efficient shopper. I need no help in choosing what I want and can decide within seconds whether or not I will make a purchase in a store almost instantaneously. With this tremendous shopping ability in tow I set about my task.

In all fairness to those who feel the need to buy me something for my annual anniversary commemorating my arrival date in this world, they do persist in pushing me for an answer to the age old question of what I want for my birthday. I am not one who has everything but I am one who needs very little. I don't do gadgets. I usually don't like others buying me clothes even though my wife points out to me constantly that someone should. I love buying my own wine and picking out my own books and music. In essence, I am a birthday present buyer's nightmare. So these days I am told to buy what I want and give it to my wife the day before my birthday so that it gets wrapped and presented to me once again by my kids and wife on my actual birthday. I am worthy of an Oscar nomination based on my surprise and delight in receiving such fantastic gifts and thank the kids profusely for picking them out so dilligently. All of them play along with this charade as they try to convince me of the huge effort they took in finding me these presents.

I walked in and out of three stores in quick succession. The clothing was either way too trendy with lots of bells and whistles on them or they were geared more for the middle aged golfer who always wears pastels and plaid shorts. Not for me! I was looking for shirts I could wear for work and then double up their role at the weekend for use as smart casual ones. I was finding it very difficult to find the aforementioned particular type of shirt. At each store where I thought there was a possibility of finding decent clothing, I was approached by a very helpful sales assistant who tried to point me in the right direction. They always greet you with the coined phrase ," hello sir can I help you?" I always responded." Yes please. I am looking for a couple of shirts. I prefer blue or gray or mauve but not too mauvey or blueish. I don't like dark blue and sky blue doesn't really suit me. The gray can't be really gray. It has to be lighter than gray . Oh and one more thing, these shirts are for work where it is business attire and also for the weekend where I am much more casual." By the time I have finished with my perfect description the sales assistant has usually vanished. I wait for a couple of minutes to see if they will return armed with bundles of choices but instead I normally find them hiding behind pillars or hanging out in the fitting rooms.

With visions of a first present-less birthday my spirits were becoming more and more downtrodden, reflected in my hunched up posture as I ascended Fifth Avenue. I was running out of options. I then stumbled across a store whose window had tons of shirts that fitted my description. I entered through the revolving doors and was immediately met by an employee who asked the usual question. I walked straight passed him, my eyes fixated on the business casual shirts displayed on a shelf a few paces away. I held a few up into the light and then put them against my body to work out the correct sizing. The employee was hovering over me asking me if I needed help in deciding which shirt and what size. I was too excited to pay him any attention whatsoever and instead I scooped up a couple of my soon to be birthday gifts and headed over to check out.

The first question I was asked in trying to pay was, " did anyone help you today?" I replied that someone did indeed hang over me for an extended period. I was asked a whole series of follow up questions. I answered, "no, I don't know his name; no, I don't know what he looks like; no, I don't know what he is wearing and no, I have no idea if he has an accent." The cash register operator was aghast. This had clearly never happened before. She continued to hound me about the missing identity of the sales assistant and wouldn't ring my shirts up. I begged and pleaded to just pay and leave but she then informed me that all the salesman were dependent on commissions. I felt awful. I had to find out who the mystery man was so I demanded a line up.

" What do you mean by a line up sir?" she retorted, looking ever so slightly confused, represented by a downward movement in her eyebrows. After a short consultation with another member of staff it was hastily arranged. Nine friendly, well groomed and eager to earn commission staff duly lined up by the cash register. Each one was dressed in the clothes they sell in the store and no one looked familiar at all. I walked up and down and looked them close in the eyes trying to jog my memory. The truth was I had not had any eye contact with the staff at all since I entered the store. It was hopeless. So I simply said out aloud, " You know who you are . The one who clung to me when I entered the store. I know who you are but I want to see if anyone else is trying to be dishonest." At that moment one person raised his hand. I would never had guessed it was him since he had really spiky hair and was the weirdest looking out of all of them. He had a tattoo on his neck. He had a large crucifix hanging around his neck . He spoke with a rather bad speech impediment. Only a blind brainless buffoon couldn't recognize him.

With this ordeal out of the way I shared the check out counter with three other customers who had waited rather patiently during the line up. I hastily handed my credit card over , signed the slip and grabbed the bag and ran. I was extremely pleased with my two shirts that I would receive the next day for my birthday. I jumped in a waiting taxi and went home. When I walked in to my aprtment, my wife promptly ushered me into the bedroom and asked to see what I had bought so that she could wrap them before teh usual dinner mayhem started. She took the two items out of the bag and removed the flimsy protective paper. She loved the pastel sky blue sweater and dark gray shorts I had bought. After all that I had grabbed the wrong bag. I smiled back agreeing, knowing I would never wear them!

THE WORST PLACE IN NEW YORK TO BE DELAYED

I am not the greatest fan of leaving New York City but when I do I want the process to be as smooth and quick as possible. The recent increase in air traffic over New York City has led to incredible delays at its three airports. The top five delayed airports in the country feature all three of New York's flying hubs . It makes for disaster when traveling to and from this metropolis. The whole process of leaving New York is made that much worse by the lack of facilities at one Gate area at La Guardia Airport that I seem to get stuck at on a monthly basis.

Air travel should be equated with the solitary word 'misery'. Just thinking about flying out of La Guardia gives me bouts of depression. Even if you have enough common sense and arrive ninety minutes before the scheduled take off time, having already printed out the boarding card, checked to see for any delays and packed only hand luggage; the process is still so daunting. The passenger still has to go through security; the luggage needs to be scanned and then they have to wait near the gate ; board the plane and sit strapped in, on the aircraft waiting for a take off spot. Nothing mentioned above is a pleasant experience.

Even the most seasoned travelers struggle with the moving goalposts of Homeland Security regulations. One week something is permissible and the next it is declared capable of bringing down an aircraft and banned completely. An example of this is mouthwash. Up until a few weeks ago small bottles up to 200 ccs were allowed in hand luggage. Last Friday I had my 150 cc bottle confiscated. The amount was changed to 100ccs becuase of increased securtity measures. The Homeland Security officer said I could finish it before I went through security. I replied that my breath was bad, but not that awful. A special search was then reserved for me following my bout of sarcasm. Mouthwash is still allowed on board but only in tiny quantities. I would hate to be a victim of mouthwash terrorism , as fresh breath could clearly cause airplanes to dive out of the sky for reasons no one can explain to me.

I do consider myself an expert in avoiding the luggge scanning machine and body search apparatus. With the exception of mouthwash I never travel with liquids. I buy any provisions I need at my destination. I wear lace-less shoes so that I can slip them on and off. I don't carry any weapons and avoid objects that could be confused with guns, knives or bombs. I refrain from wearing a belt or any jewelery that would ring the bell unnecessarily. I normally breeze through all surveillance machines and providing there isn't a long line in front , it goes quite quickly. There is nothing worse than being stuck behind the passenger who knows nothing about air travel. They usually are carrying enough liquid on them to be classified as a small stream. They have so many sharp objects in their bags that they resemble a traveling dentist. They have a tendency to wear boots with laces that wrap around fifteen clips per boot and take half an hour to remove, per foot, and have no idea about the removal of all metal objects including chewing gum wrappers, coins, pocket knives and rapper type gold chains. Being immediately behind one of these novices can cost an extra fifty minutes of frustration and mental torture.

This brings me nicely to THE "A" GATES at La Guardia. This is the home of Air Canada, Continental and Jet Blue. I think as it starts with the letter A it was the first wing of La Guardia. It is so antiquated that I imagine this part of the terminal was built in 1652 some two hundred years before the invention of air travel. It was updated during the prohibition period because it is impossible to be served any alcohol once through security. I guess the planes that latch themselves to the A Gates get so delayed that the authorities dare not serve alcohol to passengers because they would either get violent in response to all the delays or they have so much drinking time while waiting that the majority of the passengers would pass out before the flight took off.

What is made even worse is that at "Gate A land" the passengers cant even sit down for a meal either. Their are literally no facilities at all for the waiting ticket holder. There is a pretzel making kiosk and a sandwich shop that sells rubbery things Saran wrapped so thick that it is impossible to see what is really inside. The food and drink services are so bad it makes even the die hard New Yorker like me want to get the heck out of town as quickly as possible. Some of my finest experiences in air travel have been at airports where there are plentiful supplies of food and drink and delays and cancellations don't feel that bad because you get to eat drink and be merry with other customers. I honestly believe that spending time at a New York Airport and in particular La Guardia is like receiving a jail sentence. You have to go through strict security controls, there is literally only bread and water available, you spend huge amounts of time inside and if you argue with the authorities the chances of getting out get smaller and smaller.

BACK TO SCHOOL

I was asked to make a presentation in front of my son's class this morning on the subject of immigration. I jumped at the chance. I am an immigrant. I may not be typical of those that come to America to live but I have been through the same process nonetheless. I have not experienced the same hardships as those who come here from very different cultures and with little knowledge of English but I do have a wealth of funny stories that happened to me on the road to becoming an American.

My journey began in 1996 when I suddenly woke up one morning in the Center of London, with a strong desire to move across the Atlantic to New York City. I dismissed this ridiculous idea and carried on my normal schedule but that yearning feeling inside of my head continued to grow, enticing me to the Big Apple . Some three months later, I had secured a great job, applied successfully for a three year visa and had packed my bags and was gone from London. I was here in New York City.

I explained to my son's class the differences between how I came to The United States and how previous generations had struggled to get here. The time period they are studying involved mass immigration by boat, landing at Ellis Island where Citizenship was automatic on condition of passing a basic health test. As long as the immigrant didn't die during the health interview or cause a major epidemic in the waiting room, then entry to America was granted. With a stamp that provided automatic citizenship it wasn't rare for the newly landed to hug the immigration officer on duty on completion of the process. I arrived at J.F.K on an American Airlines flight from London Heathrow at the same time as an Air Jamaica flight from Kingston and an Air India flight from what was then called Bombay. I waited three hours in line to be seen by an immigration officer who was so rude to me that all I wanted to do was turn around and go back to England.

Once on American soil and cleared of all red tape and formalities the new immigrants of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries usually moved into squalid conditions in a neighborhood that had familiar people already there from the "Old Country." This usually involved staying with relatives who had made the move previously. Many were crammed into tight living conditions. Most jobs available were manual labor with very long hours and little pay. Times were very hard. After I cleared immigration and collected my luggage I was picked up by stretch limousine, taken into Manhattan to a five star deluxe hotel where I stayed for a week , and then went to work two days later at an infamous Investment Bank in Midtown. I had some family living here but they never offered that I should move in. It didn't cross my mind either. I moved into a swanky Upper West Side doorman building after my stay at the hotel came to an end. All accommodation for the first year was covered by my employee as they had invited me to move far away from home and so gave me a very generous package.

Large scale immigration the past two centuries has had such a profound affect on the fabric of American society. New York City is still home to a vast majority who were born outside of this country. In the past it added such a flavor to the composition of its population. New York was not really a melting plot as nationalities tended to live amongst each other and kept themselves to themselves. It was more like a tossed salad with various ingredients lying separately brought together by a common dressing that is American citizenship and the freedom and opportunity that came along with it. By the time I arrived the immigration process was much different. Manhattan has become much more elitist and many newcomers posses amazing qualifications in their field. Nowadays, New York now attracts the creme de la creme in most white collar professions with a special emphasis on Finance, Law, and The Media. Long gone are the days of mass unskilled labor arriving looking for work. There is very little industry left in New York City. The factories have closed their doors here forever. Only in the service industry do the poor and unqualified still fill the vacancies in what is perceived to be the bottom of the to-tum pole.

Being back at school and standing in front of a bunch of eager to learn kids addressing the subject of immigration, I felt a bit of a fraud. Compared to what they are learning, I have had no hardship at all. What I do share with most who have come here is that we all feel that this is the best place on earth to live and raise a family disregarding whatever it is we have had to go through to make it here!

The Clogging of the Arteries

My son Bradley has an ice hockey practice or a game on Sunday mornings starting somewhere between 6 am and 8 am. I am the usually the designated parent. Nothing makes me happier than waking up at 4.45 am on a weekend and heading downtown to freeze to death watching eight and nine year old children attracted to a puck, following it around the ice, as if it were a magnet.

This past weekend I was blessed with the fact that the practice didn't start until 8 am. Compared to the very early starts this had a feel of a lunchtime session. My alarm went off at 6.15. I showered and got dressed and then awoke Bradley at about 6.45. His clothes had been taken out the night before and he is very adapt in getting dressed and leaving the apartment in about ten minutes. We were car pooling that morning, picking up his friend and co hockey player with his father, a little further North than our street.

The logical thing to have done would have been to head North on First Avenue and cross 87th street to pick up his friend and father. This sensible straightforward plan was put on hold by the demands of my son in sticking exactly to tradition and habit in what we always did, when not car pooling. Instead we had to drive southwards to Dunkin Donuts at 75th street, park up and go get his two chocolate frosted donuts and me my coffee with skim milk. Bradley was quite perturbed that the server who knows Bradley's order off by heart wasn't there . Bradley informed me that this was a really bad sign. I of course ignored his superstitious thoughts and told him that his notion was not only wrong but ridiculous. The fact that the usual donut server had a day off had no bearing whatsoever on anything that could happen going forward. Bradley ordered an extra donut for his friend, we returned to the car and set out on our slightly changed route.

We picked up our car pooling party outside their building and then continued on straight until we couldn't go any further. I took a left onto Fifth Avenue to the sound of donut munching coming from the middle row. The boys were scoffing their faces full of the deep fried dough covered in chocolate sugar and little sprinklings of cholesterol. Most of the frosting missed both of their mouths completely and instead extended horizontally across from their face bi-passing their enticing lips. They both looked like The Joker from Batman, similarly foaming at their mouths and laughing in a slightly evil way. It was clear that operation cleanup would have to commence before either boy could take to the ice.

We reached 85th and Fifth Avenue, a major artery in Manhattan and a point in the journey worthy of at least a mini discussion between the two grown men in the front seats. We were heading for Chelsea piers at 23rd and the River on the West side. We needed to go West but had a choice of either taking the West Side Highway and crossing now or continuing on Fifth Avenue and crossing later or until we reached 23rd street. So I posed the question. "What should we do here?" Logic told me to take the West Side Highway. Not many lights, a faster speed limit and four lanes. My navigator did not express a preference either way so I went with my gut and turned right and headed across town.

Ten minutes later we were turning around and heading back East. The West Side highway was closed for no apparent reason. We had not noticed any of the portable signs telling us so, because we were all either engrossed in deep discussion or knee deep in donuts and had continued along our preferred route until a police car told us to do a 180. The West Side Highway is perhaps the most important road in New York, particularly for those heading downtown from the Upper West Side, West Harlem, Riverdale and the surrounding Bronx areas and Westchester-Connecticut commuters. It is one of the most direct routes in Manhattan. If you want to get anywhere substantial from North to South then this highway normally features in your plans. We were therefore forced to use local avenues en lieu of speedier options. With the closure of this main artery, Western Manhattan came to a complete stand still. We didn't move for ages on West End Avenue. We stood motionless on 9th Avenue for what seemed an eternity and instead of arriving in time to lace the boys up we were now staring at the prospect of being late for practice.

We arrived in Chelsea some forty minutes later. And yes we were running a little tardy. We couldn't even get near the Piers since a half marathon was taking place on the actual highway preventing us from parking at the rink; and hence the road closure. The two thousand participants were doing their best to keep their veins pumping with blood and stay healthy . In the process they had clogged one of Manhattan's main arteries causing a huge blockage and heart failure for residents looking to move around freely on a Sunday morning. I had to park half a mile away from the ice rink and walk in the somewhat cold temperatures and was visibly upset by this whole ordeal. The boys were caked in chocolate and were stuffed, unable to walk fast, as a result of consuming a full dose of heart attack inducing nourishment. I muttered how insane New York City was for staging these types of events when Bradley informed me whilst giving me a 'I told you so kind of look', that it would have been different had the normal server been there at the donut store.

A THROWBACK TO THE 1920's.

It's not often you get transported back in time but that is exactly what happened to me last night. At a fashionably late time of night, Janet and I headed West to pick up our close friends and drive South to the outskirts of the West Village to eat at a restaurant no one had ever heard of. It was one of the best evenings I have had in a long time and I have had many good ones.

We were eating at a new restaurant called The Darby. We had a reservation for 8.30pm. We decided to drive as one of us, ( not me) wasn't going to drink. We had the address and the cross street reference. You would think the restaurant should be easy to find when one is armed with all the correct information of its whereabouts? So we dropped the girls off where we thought the restaurant should be and drove off in search of a parking space. The aim was to find somewhere to park, preferably free, within walking distance of where we were going. I am not a fan of parking a long ways off and then having to get a taxi to the restaurant because what is the point of bringing the car then? You might as well leave it at home.

We started the first of what we perceived to be many circles that we would have to make and were frantically searching for the golden parking spot when my cell phone rang. It was my wife. She informed me that they needed to be picked up and that we should immediately return to whence we had dropped them off. Certain things came to mind. The restaurant has never existed and was a figment of my wife's imagination; the restaurant was so dirty that even the placing of one foot inside could risk contamination and weeks of isolation at the Hospital for Exotic diseases and so they had refused to enter; or we had the wrong address.

I was so deep in thought that I didn't hear the wife mumbling about not being able to find The Darby. This is a summary of her conversation with me. " Hold on , come get us, it's on the East Side, wait a second, what's this? Yuk it can't be this place. Maybe it's here. It's next to the subway. Found it. It's not next to The subway , its next to a Subway store." And then she hung up. I hadn't said a word. My friend in the passenger seat was still looking up the address when I suddenly found a parking space. Mission accomplished. I could now go home. And then I remembered that I was going out for dinner.

My friend and I walked to the restaurant and opened the entrance doors that were heavy and wooden. When we entered I was taken aback by two things. The dining room was spectacular, a complete throw back to the Supper Clubs of the 1920's that combine musical entertainment with an evening meal. There was a stage with a five piece jazz band playing, including clarinet, bass, keyboards, percussion and a vocalist. I was quite mesmerized. I had no idea that there would be live music. What a treat!
The second thing that I observed was that my wife and friend were not looking too happy. They had not been seated since the party of four wasn't complete, due to the parking search, and a request for a booth was turned down by the rather aloof staff who then chose to ignore the two women until we arrived. It wasn't the best of starts.
I never understand eating establishments that don't provide excellent service. It just doesn't make sense. I am sure those who invested heavily in recently getting this venture off the ground would not appreciate unfriendly, unhelpful staff with an attitude. However, that is exactly who greeted half our party on arrival.

The evening did improve somewhat because of the delicious food, fine beverages and tremendous live entertainment. The female vocalist had on one of those tasseled dresses that oozed 1920's style and the music, though loud, was a mixture of throw backs to bygone years and contemporary songs that raised smiles of recognition from most seated in the dining room. This was how it must have been at one of the many supper clubs that used to be dotted around the City before costs and lack of demand drove them all away. I am so happy that one has emerged out of the ashes of the combination of live music mixed with sumptuous food. They are onto something good here. I never lived in the 1920's although some will argue that I look like I have , but this is the closest I will ever get to reliving the golden era of nightlife in major cities in America. If only The Darby could rid itself of its snooty attitude because when we finally got up to leave at 11.30pm , the last thing we noticed were the two unoccupied booths that we fought hard to be seated at , that we were denied and that hadn't been used the whole time we were there. I will go back but only if I have it in writing and notorized that one of those booths will be mine at any future soiree i chose to spend there .

A SEA OF GREEN

To all my Irish friends and those of Irish decent I wish you all a Happy St Patrick's day. It is a fabulous celebration of a tremendous nation that has survived famine, war and oppression. Today, for the Irish, it is a day to celebrate, and they are the best in the world at doing just that. The most incredible statistic I saw about the Irish population of the Tri-State area is that there are more of them here than there are in the whole of the Emerald Island. That's a lot of partying people out on the streets and in the pubs, particularly in the City.

Many at work consider themselves Irish. A few are Immigrants straight off the boat having been raised formitavely in Ireland. A smaller group have Irish parents who came over in the 1970's when the whole of Northern Europe was pretty grim and the troubles in Northern Ireland prevented their economy from growing. Some have one Irish Grandparent making them 1/8th Irish. One of them claims to have an Aunt who once visited Ireland twenty years ago and came back with a Shamrock covered tea cozy on display in her dining room. If you take into account all of the above, then everyone in New York is sort of Irish. On St Patrick's day the Irish connection is measured similar to the game of the nth degrees away from Kevin Bacon ( who is of Irish decent).

I have no Irish in me at all. I used to live opposite millions of Irish, across the Irish sea when in England. There is a large Irish population in London and they are an important and vibrant section of the cosmopolitan nature of the city. The big difference between the London Irish and their New York cousins is their visibility. On St Patrick's day most of the celebrations take place behind closed doors in the Irish neighborhoods of London. The party is generally not open to the general public but behind these doors, festivities are wild and boisterous. In New York it is customary to not only celebrate in style but also to do so openly for others to see. Showing off a heritage is part and parcel of New York life. Citizens of this great country are American of course but they always put their real Nationality first. They are Irish American, Italian American, Hispanic American and many others.. This is not a divided loyalty issue at all because we all unite under the American flag but in such a vast country made up of mostly immigrants and descendants thereof, it is so important not to forget where we came from and what makes us who we are.

I am not wearing green today. I don't need to. I won't be drinking and celebrating either. It isn't my holiday and I don't feel the need to jump on the band wagon. That hasn't stopped me from wishing strangers clad in various shades of green a Happy St Patrick's day and hoping that they have as much harmless fun as is feasibly possible. Being an English American it is difficult to try and pretend to be anything else and for those trying to connect me to the largest community in New York via the Kevin Bacon game good luck with that one!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE RAIN THAT NEW YORKERS ARE SO AFRAID OF?

Maybe it's because I grew up in London where it rains 250 days a year, that makes me a little different from the average New Yorker regarding how to deal with the skies opening up. Since I have moved to New York City it seems that every year we get more rainy days and a greater amount of total rainfall.

In reality May and July are the rainiest months as measured by the 4.7 inches on average that New York City gets during those months. In total New York City receives about 50 inches of rain a year. Mobile, Alabama witnesses on average 60 inches a year and that is the most for any city in this Country, using data going back 30 years. London gets around the same rainfall a year as New York but it rains on twice as many days in London meaning we get downpours here.

Rain is good. Yes New Yorkers. Rain is a good thing. We need rain in the Tri State area and we need rain in New York City. It beautifies the parks and makes them luscious and green in the spring, summer and fall. It helps the trees sprout stunning floral blossoms in spring that line its famous avenues. It washes the sidewalks of all the dirt, dog excrement, chewing gum and spit that are deposited in bulk on our streets every day.
It brings a fresher yet different kind of smell to the city in contrast to the humid, and let's face it quite dreadful odor of the garbage that sometimes sits outside in the baking sun , rotting beneath the flimsy bags that hold it all in.

I bless the rain every time it falls. For me it represents life. It allows New York to continue to flourish and prosper. It is the earth's sustenance and we should react positively like the farmers do whenever they witness rain. New Yorkers hate the rain. They are afraid of the rain. They plan their days around not having to be outside when it falls. They huddle under awnings, waiting until it passes and they never leave home without an umbrella if there is more than a one in ten chance of precipitation.

This morning I didn't even check the weather forecast before I left my apartment. My doorman had posted a pretty picture of an umbrella inside the elevator implying that it was raining outside so that the petrified New Yorker, on seeing the sign, would head back to fetch an umbrella. I thought nothing of it. I arrived in the lobby and was handed my daily newspaper after an exchange of morning greetings. I wished the doorman a good day and tried to head outside. My path was blocked by the doorman, refusing to open the door. He told me it was raining. I acknowledged his climatic observation and again tried to pass him but with no avail. He asked me if I had an umbrella on me and I replied that I did not. He then suggested that it was raining quite heavily outside. I swayed a bit to the right and peered outwards and confirmed this with him. Eventually after this stand off had gone on for way too long I told him that I hardly ever carry an umbrella. I calmly explained to him that my coat, which was waterproof had a hood that protected me from the wetness and that I didn't mind the rain at all. He stood aside ,shaking his head, not fully comprehending how anyone could venture outside during what he determined to be a monsoon.

Once outside I felt the patter patter of the refreshing cold rain against my cheeks. It wasn't falling that heavily but it was definitely umbrella weather for those who fear water. I was smiling, reminiscing about my wonderful childhood days in London which I always associated with this kind of weather. I was standing next to Third Avenue, awaiting a light change to cross, when a truck came hurtling by at great speed trying to make the light. It rode over a crevice in the road sending a whole spray of water into the air , landing exactly on my pants where I had no protection. An umbrella wouldn't have saved me either. I was soaked through to the skin. I turned around and walked home. The doorman opened the door and said, "have you come back for an umbrella?" I looked at him and replied that I was fetching my wet suit. He looked confused. I went home and changed and left again via the underground garage

HOTEL LOBBIES - LIVELY OR JUST SLEEPERS?

Most people I know use hotel lobbies as a meeting place especially if one of the folk happens to be staying in the hotel. Hotels in Manhattan are situated close to the business and entertainment sectors of the city, notoriously in Midtown and Downtown.

Hotel lobbies vary in size and in what level of service they offer the paying hotel guest and the general public who come in off the street to have a coffee or an alcoholic beverage. Some hotels are more exclusive than others and hotel staff may challenge those who try and use the facilities in the hotel and venture inside from off the streets. Hotels certainly do not want the homeless, the drug dealers, the pimps and the prostitutes congregating in their lobbies but those responsible for policing these areas that are open to the public have a hard job sifting through who is desirable and who is not.

Manhattan hotels are by and large busy places. The vibe on the streets tends to follow people through revolving doors and spreads itself out once inside hotel lobbies, bars and restaurants. Not only are they meeting places but they act as temporary business centers and dating venues . Some lobbies serve refreshments and are amply furnished with tables and chairs so that the customers who use them can generate extra revenue for the establishment. Others chose to provide little or no place to sit down , preferring to lure the guest into restaurants and bars , leaving the lobbies barren and uninviting.

I tend to use hotel lobbies frequently in Manhattan. There is one particular lobby that comes in very useful when I am feeling exhausted. I work in Midtown and have at least twenty hotels in waking distance from my office. I have done scouting trips to most of them looking for the most desirable one to pass some time during the day. If I get an hour free on days when I am in recovery mode from the previous evening's activities, I tend to gravitate to one hotel that helps me rid myself of fatigue. This particular lobby does not have bar service and is fairly busy. It has extremely comfortable armchairs for resting in. It is ideal for catching forty winks or slightly longer cat naps.

I usually arrive at the hotel with a firm intention of snoozing just like any other rate paying guest. The difference is, I obviously don't want to purchase a room for my endeavors and even if rooms were available by the hour my payment could be misconstrued as being instead for a more illicit activity. I always come well prepared for my little 'meeting.'. I carry under my arm a large newspaper to act as cover and have my blackberry, so as to be able to set an alarm. I don't ever want to sleep for more than thirty minutes. The worst case scenario would involve a much lengthier snooze that would involve having to explain my absence to my employer. I leave work under the disguise of going to get lunch. I arrive at the hotel and immediately look for an empty chair to sit down in. They are very comfy with fluffy pillows and deep seats. When positioned in the sitting pose, I unfold the newspaper and start reading. It isn't long before I have dozed off to never never land , with the tiniest drop of saliva drooling from my slightly open mouth. Thirty minutes later my alarm goes off in my pocket and I refold the newspaper, compose myself and get up and return to work.

The trick is to look as if I am meeting someone in the lobby. When I first arrive, I glance at my watch, look around the room as if I am searching for someone and/or something and then sit down. I make sure others, particularly hotel staff are aware that I look like I am meeting someone so that I am left well alone. If confronted while I am sleeping I have the perfect explanation. I am meeting someone. They are late. I fell asleep. A quick apology would suffice, with a facial expression of slight embarrassment and the matter would be resolved, leaving only the quest for a new lobby . I am pretty good at staying off the radar screen. I dress conservatively and don't arouse any suspicion. What is amusing is that I am not usually alone in the lobby as far as nappers are concerned. Most chairs are filled with other non hotel guests doing the exact same thing. Therefore in New York City I would argue that hotel lobbies are sleepers rather than anything else.

OUR DAD IS A COMPLETE FRAUD

My in laws were in town, visiting from sunny Florida for the weekend. The big question on Sunday was, do we try and cram eight people into a seven- seater car and take everyone up North to Westchester county to watch my daughter Marlee play in her travel soccer team? We pondered long and hard about it. We had worked out who would sit on whose lap and were about to leave when the two boys voiced their opinion and staged a mutiny.

Its not often that I refer to my two boys as "revolting" but that was the stage they were in, and they were adamant that they should not have to be lifted out of Manhattan and transported North for two hours to another County. The Grandparents definitely wanted to see their granddaughter play and my wife wanted to spend the day with her parents, so I kindly volunteered to take the boys out for the day in Manhattan.

My eldest son Jonah on hearing that he didn't have to watch girls soccer, immediately requested that we do something outside of the cocoon between 68th street and 86th street on the East Side. He wanted downtown. And in that context we planned our day, just the boys, including me. Of course we were not allowed to venture outside of the neighborhood until a whole list of chores had been done, including the fetching of baseball uniforms, the preparing of dinner and general clearing up of the apartment.

I do love taking the kids out exploring in Manhattan as there is literally so much to do and many distinct neighborhoods to uncover. We decided on Little Italy, a good four miles south of my street and a great place to get desert. It is impossible to just visit Little Italy as it has all but been swallowed up by the ever expanding, encroaching Chinatown. Thus we decided to include both neighborhoods on our tour. We left the Upper East Side via the subway and took the thirteen stops south to our destination. We disembarked at Canal Street. We ventured up the few steps to ground level and found ourselves immersed in the hustle bustle of a busy market place. We were immediately approached by street sellers looking to fob off their fake designer merchandise and many people selling watches. It didn't click that the watch sellers were trying to dispose of illegal watches as the time change was still on my mind as my internal clock was off by an hour. I honestly thought these pushy salespeople were selling watches because of the confusion of the time change ,so early in March. Then my teenage son pointed out that the watches were either fakes or stolen and realized he is much more street smart than me.

Being the only adult present, I immediately took charge as to where we should be walking. I am not very good with directions once the numbered streets run out in Manhattan but I wasn't going to admit this to the boys. So we crossed the street and headed in what I thought was the right direction. After walking for two minutes I suddenly realized that we had made the wrong turn. So I gave the excuse that I had missed showing the boys something in the other direction and we about turned. I honestly thought that Little Italy was North of Canal street but that is Nolita. So when I had led my boys for forty minutes on a wild goose chase they both turned to me and said, " why don't you ask someone?" And so I did.

I turned towards a kiosk and quietly approached the candy and tobacco seller with my question about Little Italy. I spoke with THE strongest English accent that I could muster ,with a small heaping of pompousness thrown in on top. I sounded like a completely lost tourist which was my intention. I did not under any circumstances want to appear like a confused New Yorker. The kiosk person gave me exact directions which were totally simple to follow. We were in the right area just the wrong neighborhood. I had experienced a momentary lapse in "common sense of direction". Little Italy is indeed South of Canal. Anyways the boys started laughing as we walked towards our chosen destination. I asked them what was so funny and they retorted. " Dad, you wrote a book about New York and you know nothing about it!" I had no response. At that instance, it was true.

THE WEEKENDERS

New York City is a popular destination for those looking for non-stop excitement over the weekend. For many who work here Monday to Friday, they cannot wait to get on the train/bus and head back to the suburbs for some peace and quiet at the end of a hard week. I don't fit into each of these two categories. I love New York City seven days a week. I am grateful to those who come in here and work their socks off, helping to stimulate the economy by spending their money on clothing, food, entertainment and transportation. I also love the weekend revelers who come to appreciate and utilize all that is good about the New York City life and continue to spend on the above when the workers go home for a couple of days.

Weekends in New York for my family involve a lot of activities within our immediate neighborhood. The Upper East side is very residential. Within a few blocks of our apartment building is our place of worship, plenty of parks and playgrounds where organized sporting activities take place, there are movie theaters and a whole plethora of restaurants. We have chosen our location to live based primarily on the amenities available and the vibe of the whole neighborhood. The weekends are clearly quieter as many New Yorkers have second homes outside of the city and who experience city life during the week and suburbia and countryside at weekends. What is noticeable is that with schools being closed on the weekend and many off work the hours of busy street activity varies dramatically than what is witnessed during the week. There is no rush hour as such. There is a noticeable increase in pedestrian activity around lunchtime as families venture out for brunch or lunch on each weekend day.

In the evening it is just as difficult to try and hail a free taxi between seven and nine o'clock as it is from five to seven during the week; as the whole world and his wife look for transportation to the theater in midtown and or to restaurants all over the city. On every conceivable corner of the Upper East side, there are hoards of people frantically searching for cabs on Saturday nights running up and down avenues trying to outsmart all the other potential competitors. Sprints break out at the sight of yellow lights on top of taxis and fights break out when an injustice has been committed. The problems of taxi hunting on Saturday nights is exasperated by the fact that at the weekends the number of taxis on the roads of New York City is considerably reduced. With the exception of the prime time two hour spurt and the immediate half an hour after Broadway spits out its customers ,post shows ; the demand for cabs is so much lower than any weekday. Thus the drivers stay at home to be with their own families.

I love weekends in Manhattan. I get to spend a lot of time with my family and explore my own neighborhood as well as venture into others . I take my kids to new places all the time. We spent one Sunday in the West Village. We have spent others in Little Italy, Nolita and Chinatown. We have very little to do with the tourists who flock to more notorious sites in Manhattan. We don't feel the need to ride to the top of the Empire States building or visit Times Square at night or at all. We are grateful that there are less people around and that the pace of live is considerably slower. It is even possible to stroll hand in hand with my wife on the sidewalks without being bowled off our feet by those visiting midweekers who frantically move about the city.

New York City at the weekend can be anything you want it to be. I have spent evenings dancing the night away and some tucked up in a cozy little cafe engaged in political conversation. We often visit the theater for live entertainment and frequent our local movie theaters for just as thrilling taped presentations. What I don't like about the weekends in New York is that they fly by so quickly. Before I can even blink its Sunday night and even my thoughts start speeding up just to keep up with the blistering pace of life that springs into action first thing Monday morning.

"BANKHATTAN"

It's a real shame. New York City is rapidly losing its character. The small family run stores on our Avenues are fast disappearing as rents increase and profits fall. In their place arrive the big conglomerate banks that bear down on Main Street New York and take over every available corner.
What is quite amazing is the speed at which a store closes and a bank opens in its place. Just last month I walked into a men's store to buy a shirt that I saw on display in the shop window. There was an " everything must go." sign in the window, as the store was closing down for the fourth time in five years. I thought nothing of it. Many stores in Manhattan announce they are having a closing down sale and then miraculously survive following the sale. I bought the shirt and took it home to show the wife. When the kids were in bed I took it out of the bag and had a mini fashion show for the wife.
" What do you think?" I asked, expecting a nodding approval accompanied by a few complimentary adjectives, thus justifying my purchase. Instead , she took one look at it and retorted, " this is the last time you ever wear that with me in the same room. What were you thinking?"
So the shirt went back in the bag and a week later I returned to the store to find a Chase Manhattan bank open and servicing customers in its place. How could the sale of clothing have ended, the store stuttered and then converted to a brand new spanking bank all in a week? It takes four months for a contractor to put in a fifty square foot bathroom in Manhattan and one week for a five thousand square foot banking facility to be built from scratch. The next time I do renovations in my apartment I am walking over to a site where a bank is due to open and grabbing the building crew for my project.
Why do we need so many commercial bank branches? In England the trend is completely different. If you need cash from an A.T.M or cashpoint (as it is known across the pond) , you cant find a bank for miles. It is impossible to get cash out and for good cause. Petty crime is rampant in London and so banks don't even want to open in fear of their customers being mugged outside their premises. In New York there is a bank on every block now. I have accounts at Citi and Chase and my options are endless. Within half a mile of my apartment there are five Chases and four Citis. How do they all make money? I understand that after the financial crisis of 2008 many folk got nervous that their hard earned savings were not secure. The banking insurance only covers up to a certain amount and so many bank depositors spread their accounts thin, giving every financial institution a little bit of cash so as to preserve their capital. Hence the abundance of bank branches. A really good friend of mine has twelve separate accounts at different banks. It would take him a whole day to withdraw from all of his bank accounts.

These bank branches are destroying the fabric of Manhattan neighborhoods. They are ugly in appearance, they contrast with the artisan nature of New York stores and represent everything bad about big business. They are solely profit driven , are engaged in mass mundane advertising campaigns that spill over into window displays and add very little to a neighborhood feel. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed with the sheer number of banks here that I refer to where I live as " Bankhattan." I hope this trend reverses at some stage.

MORNIING COFFEE DILEMMA SYNDROME.

There are not too many decisions that I have to make each morning. Everything I do from the time my alarm goes off to the second I walk into the office is done by rote with very little thought process. The evening before is when I decide what type of clothing I will wear for the next day. One of the last things I do before I retire for the night is to systematically take out underpants, an undershirt and a pair of socks and neatly place them by my hanging pants and chosen shirt. The next morning,the alarm sounds and I then get up. I thank the Lord for having allowed me yet another day to cause havoc, I check the financial markets, I run a bath and slosh around for a while, shower, shave , brush twice and get dressed. I am out of the apartment in thirty minutes. I have efficiently devised a fool proof system of gathering my wallet, keys, shoes, and coat by placing them by the door so that no stone is unturned in my quest not to have to think about anything until I arrive at work. Well almost!

The only decision I have to make is what type of coffee I want to drink and where to purchase it. And don't for one second think that this is an easy decision. I have about thirty different choices . The decision affects which bus stop I disembark at. Within a three block radius of 50th and Park Avenue there are five Starbucks, four Dunken Donuts, fifteen coffee carts and a host of other coffee shops and delis. Coffee is literally everywhere. It is virtually impossible to avoid coffee. Many get their daily morning coffee at the same place every day. Not me. I like to mix it up . I have my favorite spots like the cart on the South East side of the street on 51st and Park and the Starbucks on 51st street on the North side of the street next to the Blackrock building. The difference in cost is quite dramatic too. The street coffee price is pretty much standardized at a dollar for a small and a buck fifty for a large. It is served out of a huge vat with a generous filter crammed with a full flavor coffee. It is very drinkable but doesn't knock your socks off. The caffeine content is lower than any espresso type coffee.

On the flip side a triple, grande, dry, skim, vanilla latte costs about five dollars. Yes five dollars. I have nothing against Starbucks and I am always happy to see one when I travel around the world but their fancy names are just an excuse to charge extra. Their coffee here in the city varies from store to store. Just because they use the same coffee beans; it is all roasted the same way and then put through the same type of coffee machine with the same milk and water doesn't mean that it comes out tasting the same. Don't ask me why but every cup of coffee at Starbucks tastes different . I think it depends on who is making the coffee at each store.

New York coffee in general is not as good as European Capitals. Their coffee is much stronger and has a much higher caffeine content. When I visit Europe and then come back home it is very difficult to find coffee that tastes as good. However, after a few days I get used to the milder more insipid taste of New York coffee. Sometimes I find the process of choosing which coffee I want in the morning so overwhelming that I skip the whole thing and head straight for the office. Sometimes I stand outside the building here and look left and right and start walking in one direction and then turn around and head in the other, unable to make any kind of decision. I have walked into Starbucks and because of the long line, walked out empty handed. I regularly stand in front of a coffee cart on the street and after a lengthy pause just shake my head muttering the words " Not today thank you." The choices in New York City are so overwhelming that it causes irrational and self destructive behavior for residents such as myself. Faced with such diversity it is difficult to make a selection. Sometimes I wish that New York wasn't so consumer friendly as it would make my mornings so much easier.

ANYONE FOR TENNIS?

There aren't many all year round tennis courts in Manhattan. When flying over the city there are few if any bubbles, hiding tennis courts below their inflated status. With that in mind thousands of kids in Manhattan do indeed play tennis, even in the Winter.

Randall's island used to be home to the largest sewage plant and the craziest of Asylums in the City. It's where New york sent their crap and their insane. Both of those are still there but now these two are complimented by twenty spanking new tennis courts under three giant bubbles. It is an immense tennis center . Bus loads of kids are herded in after school and at weekends for an hour or two of tuition by tennis pros equipped with the best techniques, the snazziest of outfits and the most expensive tennis rackets.

My daughter gets picked up every Monday night at the corner of our street and gets chauffeured over the Tri -boro bridge over to Randall's island to play for two hours and work on improving her game. When she is finished the same bus offers her door to door service and she gets collected right outside our building by the doorman and escorted to the elevator.

Anyone who says that tennis isn't an elitist sport hasn't played it in or near to Manhattan. Reserving a court at 7pm on a weekday or at reasonable times at the weekend costs thousands and thousands of dollars. The cost of sending a child to play every week is so extortionate that it defies all levels of common decency. Yet we still enroll the kids and get excited by their progress. We enter our daughter into competitions and she does really well, including recently winning one of them. She is a fabulous athlete and she loves tennis both as a sport and because of its social aspect. She is soon to be eleven.

The truth of the matter is, living in Manhattan we have to pay a premium for organized professional sports. Space is a rare commodity and so because of limited supply and high demand we pay through the nose to keep our kids sporty and competitive. Manhattan does boast the lowest obesity rate in any county in New York State and its partly because we tend to walk a lot and also due to the fact that kids here are very active in organized sports. Any spare land is utilized by a baseball diamond, a basketball court, a hand ball court or a roller hockey rink. And any instruction in any of the above sports costs money.

Last month I opened up an envelope from my daughters tennis program announcing their rates for the fall 2011 season. I hurt my arm badly because when I fell of the chair, I landed all funny. When I protested to anyone who would listen it fell on deaf ears. That's what it costs if you want your daughter to be good at tennis. The aim here therefore has to be a tennis scholarship to University. Then it would be a good investment. If that doesn't work out then I would have spent a lot of money on two rackets: the one my daughter uses to hit the ball and the one operating on Randall's island that teaches her how to play.

HOW VERY ALARMING

Last night: What joy! All kids were in bed by nine o'clock and my wife had the telephone permanently glued to her ear talking to somebody about something . It must have been really important since the conversation lasted well over an hour. With no chores, no homework and no one to talk to, I curled up into bed, turned on some obscure sports channel and drifted off to sleep. It may have been the best Sunday night I can remember on record.

It all came to a crashing end at 2.49am. I was awoken from my slumbers by a repetitive high piercing alarm emanating from a car parked out on the street somewhere in the neighborhood. I looked over to my wife, who had for a change, quietly come to bed and she wasn't stirring. The cat was curled up in a tight ball shape, lying on a pillow she shares with my wife and was snoring quite loudly. The car alarm noise continued.

I knew it was a car alarm because car alarms sound different from home and store alarms. They start off with the loud whaling sounds, spaced out about a second and a half apart and just as soon as you have gotten used to their annoying noise, the intense deafening beeps commence, half a second apart and then it all stops. I didn't get out of bed since I knew that after a minute or so of constant annoying sounds all would be quiet. I must have drifted off again into the land of sheep counting, since my next recollection was jumping out of bed, distressed at the recurrence of the aforementioned car alarm. This time I ventured over to the window to see if i could see the wretched vehicle.

Obviously the car had not been stolen as the alarm would have been disconnected. It may have been broken into but that was also most unlikely. You don't often notice vandalized cars sitting on the streets in the Upper East Side. What most likely happened is that a giant rat saw something sitting on top of an alarmed car and ran up its hood onto its roof setting off the alarm. The noise would have startled the rodent and he or she would have leaped off and scurried away. The damage would have been done and the alarm would continue to blare until either; the owner came to disarm it, the battery in the alarm wore out or someone got so annoyed he demolished the whole car with a baseball bat ,including smashing the alarm hidden behind the dashboard.

The chances of the owner even hearing his car alarm blaring were limited. The alternate side of the street parking rules in New York City means that those who abide by this ridiculous system and insist on parking in Manhattan for free, often have to park several blocks away from where they live. Residents circle a wide neighborhood looking for vacant parking spaces and are willing to leave their cars up to half a mile away from their places of abode. This scenario didn't help me at all last night. I couldn't actually see the culprit car as it was out of eye shot but from the noise alone I could ascertain that it was stationed somewhere between first and second avenue and a little north of 80th street. There was nothing I could do lest get dressed and go outside and stand over the car and curse and maybe kick a wheel or two. It was raining. I declined the temptation.

The alarm again abated and so I trudged back to the bedroom, slightly hunched over from fatigue. I was too tired to even hold my head up on my shoulders and I could almost hear my bed covers beckoning me back to the warmth and snugness of my marital bed. The wife had moved half a foot over towards my section making it very difficult for me to turn over. So I lay there on my back, and closed my eyes awaiting round three of the alarm fiasco. This insanity repeated itself five times at intervals of ten minutes and each time I awoke I attempted to replicate the sounds with my mouth very quietly, counting each different beep stanza of the alarm until it became peaceful again. I had learned the series of noises by rote by the time the alarm wore itself out.

What seemed like just a few minutes later my own alarm from the clock radio went off for a brief second until I instinctively hit the snooze button giving me ten extra minutes sleep. On the second snooze my wife screamed out that I was being really selfish and to stop snoozing and just get up for work. I just lay there in bed, snooze turned off , shaking my head in astonishment and then she looked at me lovingly while stretching and asked " did you sleep well honey?"

STUTTERING, MUTTERING FOOL.

Yesterday brought frustration, despair and dilution to the work place. I had strolled into work with my head held high, looking to take on the world and score singles, a couple of doubles and if all went to plan a nice big juicy home run. Instead I was struck out three times and batted into a double play in a winning situation and got told by my manager that I was benched for the next two games.
With that in mind, I left the office at four o'clock to meet my kids, and watch my son play hockey at Chelsea Piers, a good four miles away. I had planned on taking a subway and a cross town bus and had mapped out the route meticulously. Something happened between getting up from my desk, kicking my chair, putting on my coat and getting downstairs to the street level. I came out of my office building, took a right turn and then instinctively turned right again walking in a westerly direction. I should have just walked down Park Avenue to Grand Central Station to get on the 6 train to 23rd street. Instead, I found myself in work rage mode, mumbling about the day's events, twitching and frothing a bit at the corners of my mouth. I had forgotten where I was walking to. I just wanted to be outside in the cold air and vent my frustration out on my feet and so get it all out in the open air before I saw my kids skating.

It must have been some sight seeing me walking across town stuttering, stumbling and generally acting irrationally. The trouble was I was so mad at myself for my performance at work that day. I was so angry that I had to punish myself by walking the four miles. I was not worthy of public transportation. I walked from Midtown East, through Times Square, to Midtown West, though Hell's Kitchen and then finally arriving at Chelsea. I was oblivious to anything. I didn't even notice the distinctive changes in the neighborhoods from the big chain like restaurants of Midtown to the hip boutiques of Hell's Kitchen. One memory I have of this was on 46th street otherwise known as 'Restaurant Row.' Outside each eating establishment a part time pamphleteer was thrusting their wares into my hand with some kind of, ' early bird, two for one, eat as much as you like, come back even after you vomit type of special.'
I did not engage in any conversation with them but politely took the handouts so as not to appear rude. All I did was take the leaflet mid step and put it in my pocket. I was only aware of this when I got home since I had about thirty of them in my coat. It was difficult explaining that one to the wife as I took them out one by one and put them on the kitchen table. All she said was" I guess you were hungry or you have a new hobby?"

I thoroughly recommend walking in New York City no matter what mood you are in. Tourists love to walk and take in the sights and sounds of each different section of Manhattan, as it really is the best way to see the City. Residents walk when the public transportation system gets over crowded with tourists and those from the suburbs love to walk because they never do so where they live. For me walking is a way of letting off steam in a vain attempt to appear normal by the time I either arrive home or reach a set destination. Without the walk, my irrational, childlike behavior tends to come out at the worst possible moments like in front of the kids or meeting someone important for the first time. With a clear head I can tackle anything including missing my son's hockey game because the walk took over an hour. Next time I will take the subway and huff and puff in an enclosed public space and watch crowds disperse in front of me rather than have them cross streets to avoid me.

IT'S ALL A BIT BITTER, SLIGHTLY LEMONY.

It was date night at our apartment last night. Just my wife and I would be going out. We secured a babysitter and did our usual thing of not making a reservation anywhere . We both asked each other what we wanted to eat and drew massive blanks. We weren't in the mood for anything. We have all reached that point where food becomes boring, exasperated by the monotony of most meal choices. We mainly eat to live. However when my wife and I do eventually agree on a type of cuisine, we want the food to be at least better than what each of us prepares at home. We do consider ourselves Foodies and so there is an attempt at times to live to eat.

We descended in the elevator still unsure of where we were going and discussed what seemed to be only those restaurants in our neighborhood that we used to frequent but have since shuttered their doors. It was a pretty pointless exercise. We were then standing outside our building in the freezing cold reminiscing about where we used to eat as my stomach began its usual 8pm rumblings reminding me of the purpose of tonight's activities.

We still hadn't moved from just outside the entrance to our building. I steered the conversation away from restaurants that were no longer open to those that were still in business and would welcome our hard earned dollars. We decided that we were going to walk to our eating habitat of choice. We agreed that the maximum number of blocks we would walk would not exceed seven either North nor South and three Avenues East or West. That narrowed the field down to about two hundred restaurants. That is the beauty of living in Manhattan. We really are spoiled for choice. It does have its disadvantages though especially for those incapable of making a decision. No hints there who I am referring to. I then suggested that we started walking and maybe a restaurant would appear that stood out amongst the masses. We had walked no further than two blocks when we stumbled across one of our favorites. It had slipped through the suggestion net.

We peered through the window and saw it was half empty. There were many free tables, so we ventured in ,feeling all jolly at having solved our dilemma. We were greeted by a hostess who asked us what time our reservation was and if it was a party of two and our name. I interrupted her to inform her that we did not have a reservation. Then the head shaking started. Not mine but hers. She looked down at her podium and then around the dining room and back to the podium. Then she took a glance at me and I smiled as best I could. I was about to open my mouth but I got hip slapped by the wife insinuating that it was best to say nothing at this juncture. She finally had finished her analysis and avoiding all eye contact, announced that they had nothing available for the next forty five minutes. My hands become uncontrollable as I wildly gestured towards the hoards of empty tables that remained unoccupied in front of me . My mouth must have been gaped open in astonishment for at least several seconds because my wife quickly rescued the situation by dragging me backwards out of the restaurant on my heels , before I could say anything offensive.

So there we were back on the streets of the Upper East Side , unmistakeably cold and now ravishingly hungry. I had had enough. I swiveled on my heels and with an outstretched arm , spun around projecting my pointer finger out into the vastness of Second Avenue. When I stopped rotating, my finger was fixated on a restaurant just off the main avenue slightly hidden on a side street. I announced to my wife that this was where we were eating. Indecision had let us down but randomness would step into its place and direct us to our evening's haunt.

We had never eaten there before. We didn't even know that it existed. No one had ever recommended it nor had they come back with constructive criticism. It was an unknown: A rare find among the notoriously picky crowd we chose to live with. So with no predetermined views, we walked inside. We were welcomed by a man who hadn't seen a comb in years and whose teeth ( in his mouth not his non existent comb) were so big that the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood suddenly sprang into my mind. I wanted to say " What big teeth you have Grandma," but I stopped myself in the nick of time. We were seated at a table near the door . It all seemed very pleasant with the exception of the very strong smell of citrus that reminded me of scented washing up detergent. We were handed our menus and I glanced at the appetizers and the entrees, most of which had something citrusy in them. " A hint of lemon, a lemon glaze, orange sauce, grapefruit segments, lemon pasta, ( what on earth was that?) , lemon coulis, citrus mash, orange and lemon flavors." My wife had not noticed the common theme and ordered a starter and a main without commenting about the smell or the overabundance of acidic fruit. I could not be so obliging.
" And you sir. What would you like?" The waiter calmly asked, pen and pad in hand eagerly awaiting my choices.
" Do you have anything without fruit? I have an allergy to all fruit."
My wife let out an " oh no not again." The waiter looked confused, took my menu and went down the items one by one repeating the word " no" over and over again.
" He doesn't have an allergy to fruit. He has a problem with people," my wife interjected, ruining my plan of attack.
I retreated quickly and ordered the lemon pasta and the Mediterranean sea bass in a citrus sauce. I didn't want either but had to order quickly to diffuse the angry stares from both my wife and the waiter who, for the rest of the evening took every opportunity to show his disgust at me through his facial expressions. The food arrived and was as expected very lemony. Even the wife noticed it. Everything was drenched in it. The lemon pasta was a plate of spaghetti with new improved Palmolive dish washing liquid poured over. Obviously the chef had ordered three hundred too many cases of lemons and had decided to make a vat of lemon sauce that accompanied each and every menu choice. The kitchen staff were unable to move, being knee deep in lemons and customers were subjected to this bitter fruit in all they digested. When I twiddled my spaghetti on my fork a bit of the sauce hit me in the eye and it started tearing uncontrollably because of all the acid. I couldn't take it any more. There were lemons everywhere. They were in the water glasses, on my plate, in a bowl on every table as decorative pieces, and I still couldn't see out of one eye.

In mid meal I asked my wife if we could go home. She agreed . She was all lemoned out too. The waiter asked me if everything was OK. I answered yes to avoid another confrontation. I already had lost an eye eating here. I didn't want any more injuries. He duly brought the check with a complimentary slice of lemon cake and two glasses of Limoncella. We didn't touch either and left after paying. I won't be having anything citrus for some time. I am now officially a lemonist!

TILL DUSK TO US PART

The running season officially started last night. After work I donned running shorts, a T-shirt, a sweatshirt and a well used baseball cap and walked around the apartment announcing to anything that would listen that I was about to go for a run. Even the cat giggled. Once I had trumpeted my soon to be running schedule and route I put on my running shoes and ventured downstairs to the lobby.
I told everyone in the elevator that I was going running. I stretched as I was conversing with the doorman. The first outside run of the year for me is similar to Groundhogs day and I would shout it from every roof top if I could.
The weather was not warm. But it was March. And as I grew up in London March meant warmer weather. I will no longer talk about Winter. That is behind me and Spring is beginning to launch a comeback with blue skies , slightly warmer temperatures and flowering buds nervously appearing in blotches across the city.
My proposed route would start off on the streets of the Upper East Side , venturing westwards towards the park. I would make a complete circumference of the reservoir in Central Park and then traverse the streets back home. After I had panted like a parched dog and hauled my body around for thirty minutes I would have run about three miles and would be very proud of my first outside exercise of the year.
I was extremely focused on my running and continued to be " in the zone" until I reached the most Northerly part of my run and had a clear view of the Midtown skyline. I kept on running but was in awe of this spectacular view ahead of me. The light had almost faded and the water had turned to a shimmering dark grey mass with lines of white and speckles of light dust. The lights of the running path reflected on the waters surface and looked like stars that had fallen from the sky and were emanating light, dazzling anyone who looked upon them. The skyline was rich with the colors of dusk. There were dark blues, fading yellows, slightly stronger whites and a whole host of creams, silks and what looked like glowing embers. It was spectacular. A view such as this, in the park, contrasting the reflections on the water with the overbearing sights of high rise buildings reaching up to the sky is what makes running outside in New York such a pleasure.

I had forgotten from last year just how this moment translates into a oneness with the City of New York that permeates my inner being. Even though it was cold , I experienced a warm feeling that radiated all through my body. I was at peace with myself and had New York City to thank for it. When I returned from my run my younger son informed me that apart from the sweat and the strange smell seeping from my pores , he noticed a strange aura about me. I tried explaining that I had just had an out of body experience in the park at dusk but he walked away in my mid sentence screaming out " Daddy's gone all weird again Mommy."

Preparing for the Superbowl in NYC

Buy movie tickets! You can see any movie you want and stretch out in 3 seats and leave your coat hanging on the seat in front. You can do a naked dance down the aisles if you wish too without being seen.

Eat at any restaurant that doesn't have a television and don't even make a reservation. Just show up. I just hope you get to eat as all the waiters , bus boys and cooks will be huddled around their television set in the kitchen.

There is no New York team in the Superbowl this year. The Giants didn't make the play-offs after collapsing at the end of the year. The Jets had a fairy tale run into the championship game and gave us hope when there wasn't any. So we are left with the Steelers and the Packers. There are certainly more people from Pittsburgh here than Green Bay but most neutrals will be supporting the Green Bay Packers as the Steelers have been in three of the last five Super bowls and nothing pleases New Yorkers more than seeing an established winning institution lose to another non New York team.

The sports bars will be standing room only as reservations for tables would have been snapped up months ago by those in the know and those who know how to grease palms. This is the biggest Sunday of the year for New York establishments who claim to be sports bars. This is of course a very loose definition. Anyone who serves beer and has a TV can claim to be a sports bar. In that case there are thousands to choose from in New York's five boroughs. For the atmosphere go to the bars with huge banners outside, that have special promotions and have really big screens. For a really mellow laid back and less crowded affair; stay home, as the seats are more comfortable, I imagine it doesn't smell as bad, the food should be healthier and you don't have to scream and push yourself past hoarding masses to get a beer. I will be on a plane fighting to get back to the city I love so that I can catch the last quarter and get to see which individual I don't like has won the Superbowl pool at work. Nice guys never win and nor do I in fifteen years of trying.

Neighborly Love

Manhattan can be a very cold place indeed and I am not referring to the recent cold spell in the weather. Night after night lonely souls sit in their undersized boxes in the sky. Once their doors are closed behind them at the end of the working day, the only other living soul they have contact with that night is the delivery boy, who comes armed with overpriced food and pidgen English at best. When I moved here I was forewarned not to build my social life around those living in the same building. Manhattan folk love their anonymity. They purposely don't want to hang out their dirty washing in public and many behave like ghostlike figurines, slipping in and out of their buildings without being noticed.

This morning I rode down to the lobby in the elevator with an extremely nice woman who lives four floors below me. We had conversed before since she attended the same summer camp my eldest daughter goes to, albeit fifty years apart. We continued where we had left off last time, conversing about our common denominating subject and ended up both saying good morning at the same time to the graveyard shift night doorman, who looked as if he was on his last legs. We walked out of the building together and carried on walking and talking until we reached the end of the street. I had every intention of walking to work, some thirty blocks due south and thought this would present the opportunity to part ways politely. I was enjoying her company profusely and was even contemplating abandoning my stroll to work to accompany her on the bus/ subway/ taxi, not knowing how she commuted. She was obviously thinking the same as I was and we both stopped and faced each other on the street corner. It was then she announced that she was walking to her gym, forty blocks due south. That put me in a bind.

If I announced that I too had intended to walk I would immediately stand out as a stalker who had a thing for older women. She had on sneakers and I work shoes. There was no way on earth that she would believe me if I stated that I was also walking . However the weather was glorious and I really didn't want to take public transportation. So with the thought of my co-op board forcing a sale of my apartment because I follow tenants around the city, I announced that I would walk with her. She was a little bit taken aback; probably for the reasons I just wrote about. She looked me up and down and then down again at my shoes, shrugged her shoulders and began walking .

We carried on idly chatting about my work, my charities I was involved with, my background, my kids and my upbringing. She was an excellent quiz master. And I got every answer right! About five blocks from my destination I finally summoned enough courage to ask one question back.

"What do you like about walking to work?" Yes, I admit it was rather a ridiculous question, way too vague and not really pithy enough to find out anything interesting about my newly acquainted neighbor. She paused in thought only, as she had a marvelous ability to think and walk at the same time. She carried on staring at the abyss and answered, "It is the only time I get to be by myself all day and properly think without being disturbed."

Not only was I a stalker but I was an intruder too and a little embarrassed! I quickly and quietly bode farewell and turned into one of those ghostlike Manhattanites from my building, sheepishly slipping away without being noticed.

He's Not a Yank, He's a Brit

Having lived in the good old U.S.A for fifteen years, I have become very American in my ways. I celebrate all of its holidays including the anti-British one (July 4th). I eat apple pie and cheer on Americans in Olympic sports. My wife is American. My kids are American. I am American. I became a citizen back in 2007. I have a passport with an eagle on it and at sporting events I hold my hand up to my heart and loudly sing the Star Spangled Banner. I also behave like an American in that I am very patriotic about this country. My accent has developed a little twang and I say elevator instead of lift, and trunk and instead of boot.

This afternoon at 2.45 pm I will be completely English again as I am every time my beloved English Football team, Arsenal comes out of the changing room and runs onto the pitch to play a football ( yes real football-round ball) match. We ( Arsenal) are playing Barcelona in the Champions League. I am meeting several friends at a bar in midtown to stare at a large television screen and hurl lots of abuse. My behavior completely changes. This is my true passion. I was a season ticket holder for 18 years before I crossed the pond and I am still as fanatical about them now as I ever was in the past.

I am about to leave work. I am already extremely nervous about the game. My wife knows that if we lose, the mood swings can be quite dramatic. Many arrangement with friends have been canceled after an unexpected Arsenal defeat. My boss knows that I won't be around. I warned him well in advance of this date and secured a half day off. He is cheering for Barcelona just to annoy me. I will not reveal the name of the bar I will be watching the match at, but at 3.30pm, if you happen to be walking past a bar and see a lunatic jumping up and down, foaming at the mouth, screaming at the screen as if the players can actually hear him, walk on by.

If there is no blog tomorrow it can only be because of two reasons : If Arsenal have won handsomely, I will still be celebrating by tomorrow afternoon. If they lose badly, it is unlikely I will emerge from under the duvet for several days.

Pinocchio Syndrome

Valentine's Day used to be the most terrifying day of the year for boys and girls aged 13-17 across the Hallmark world. The lack of mail, addressed to me, each year on this very date, used to bring me to moments of utter despair. Was there really not one person out there who secretly had a desire to make me feel better? Why didn't my Mother who saw year after year the total rejection imprinted on my teenage face, come to the rescue and anonymously send me a card enclosed with disguised hand writing?

I did however used to to buy myself several Valentine's day cards and spend hours writing sumptuous poems to myself and delectable one liners to show to my classmates as proof of how desirable a catch I was to the opposite sex. The next day hundreds of cards were perused and scrutinized in my grade at school and I hazard to guess that ninety per cent of them were fabricated, like mine, in some form. It is amazing at aged 15 how many Valentine's cards my friends and I received and how few girls all of us actually conversed with that weren't direct family members.

A silver jubilee of years later I no longer fret about Valentine's day. The hype associated with these " commercial days," ( Valentine's, Halloween, Mother's, Father's etc) is merely that. Why would I want to pay triple the price to send my wife a dozen roses? My wife doesn't eat chocolate and the birthday, anniversary and December holiday exchange of gifts seems to satisfy the desire to show our love to each other through the giving and receiving of practical presents.

I am not completely oblivious to Valentine's day. The hype surrounding this " retail sales holiday." makes it very difficult to avoid. Total strangers wish me a " happy Valentine's day," including the man handing out the free local newspapers on the street corner near my office.

It seems to me that Manhattan becomes enveloped with the sights, smells and tastes of Eros that permeate every vendor and restaurateur.

My wife and I do exchange cards. We choose the cards very carefully paying particular attention to the wording and adding meaningful notations of our own. We also have dinner together once the kids are asleep and I usually cook her one of her favorite dishes, having shopped for the raw ingredients on the way home from work. I will most likely open up a bottle of something nice to drink too but this year on a Monday night it may be limited to an expensive bottled pink lemonade sold at the grocery store.

I make it my business to walk past one of the many specialty chocolate stores during Valentine's day just to see the magnetic draw of the thousands of lovers who feel the need to ingratiate their better halves with sweet, succulent morsels of love cocoa. The lines outside these stores are quite incredible. The fabrication of cards may have disappeared from the annual routine of these modern day Adonis's but the lies and deception still permeate their expressions as they wait patiently fulfilling their obligation to wear love on their sleeves. If statistics in New York City are correct, thirty per cent of those in line are cheating on their partner, fifty per cent of those wont be with their spouse by the time a new decade begins, and eight out of ten purchasing chocolate can't bear to be in the same room with the recipient for the amount of time it takes them to unwrap the box. Happy Valentine’s Day!

I MAY MOVE UNDERGROUND

I had some business to attend to in Midtown very close to the Rockefeller Center. The weather was deceptively cold. I looked out of my office window and saw clear, crisp blue skies with just a whisper of clouds that lingered, suggesting calmness and a lack of blustering winds. It was chilly. I was glad I had brought my coat with. I refuse to wear a hat and gloves in New York after February as I take a stand on saying a farewell to Winter and an almighty how are you doing to Spring.
My head and ears were frozen solid by the time I reached the underground office I needed just off 6th avenue and on 50th street. I was directed downstairs to a basement office and when I arrived at my destination I was flabbergasted to see a makeshift sign on the door that read " Closed. Be back in three days." Great, I had wandered across town and been victimized by the elements only to find that the lazy no gooders at my meeting place had buggered off without canceling my meeting and informing me of sudden office closures.
So there I was, stuck underground with little protection against the freezing conditions above, pondering my next move. My ears still had not thawed out and my hands were capable of making water freeze on contact with them. I then proceeded to do what comes natural to a person with no intention of popping upstairs for another round of shivering limbs and chattering teeth: I started walking. I was intrigued with the maze of underground corridors and passageways that lay ahead of me. I was in awe. There were restaurants, food stores, retailers, service stores and seating areas which could house hundreds of folk determined to be burrowed under New York's streets.
I had no idea this whole new world existed. It was a fabulous experience. I lunched a little, I browsed a bit more and perused even more . Before I knew it I had wasted a good ninety minutes aimlessly stalking below ground intrigued at the facilities offered to New Yorkers who knew about the plaza below sea level. Why had a not known about this place? How had such a great hang out find in the Winter passed me by? Until the weather crawled above 50 degrees for three consecutive days I was determined to visit this hidden wonderland again.
When I returned to my office I was quizzed about my meeting. I dared not lie and told my superiors that it had been canceled and the reason why I had been away for two hours was that I had become disorientated and very lost in an underground maze with a small chance of ever surfacing again. They didn't respond verbally. All I saw as I backed away was a couple of head scratches and some random shoulder shrugging.

Committees, Committed, and Should Be Committed

Yesterday the temperature warmed up sufficiently for me to walk home on my usual route of Park Avenue heading North for 30 blocks. I was in my normal singing out aloud mood, happily breathing in the warmer air whilst thinking about Spring and the possible sightings of the first buds appearing on the trees lining the avenue.

All was going swimmingly well until in the late 50's I glanced in a northerly direction and to my amazement I saw giant size pink and red roses sprouting out of the ground from the central reservation. It looked like a cartoon scene from Monty Python's Flying Circus. These monstrosities seemed to be "planted" at every block for as far as the eye could see, which in my case was eight blocks. The section of my brain marked with a large sign saying "intrigue" fought an immense battle with a much smaller section labeled "common sense." I really needed to be home to relieve the babysitter but "Intrigue" won me over as I removed myself from the sidewalk and crossed to the muddy middle section of Park avenue that separates the cars moving in opposite direction , to take a closer look.

The roses were at least 10 feet off the ground, in full bloom, man made of course and covered in giant bugs. The plaque on the ground read " Will Ryman-The Roses -stainless steel, fiberglass,marine paint and brass."
It wasn't an ugly exhibition of flowers. Having said that, the giant bugs were a little off putting and made a baby cry when she looked up at the flowering steel contraptions and saw an enormous and somewhat hideous garden bug staring at her. The child was quickly whisked away by her care provider in mid cry for no doubt an evening littered with nightmares of giant flowers and man eating insects in store for her.

I was more focused on the plaque. The inscription further read, " The Exhibition on Park Avenue is presented under the auspices of The Sculpture Committee of The Fund for Park Avenue." I wrote down its name and sprinted home to further investigate. I ran passed the doorman, into the elevator and charged into my apartment bi passing the family and locked the door of my bedroom behind me as I jumped on the Internet to get to the bottom of this.

I am all for the Arts and for beautifying our environment but I was flabbergasted that a Committee existed to decide, plan and implement super sized roses on Park Avenue. I imagined an eccentric , cravat wearing elderly gentleman whose father used to be a portrait painter to some European dignitaries, solely responsible for this Park Avenue distraction. But no. There were 12 people on the committee with a chairman, a dedicated up to date website, and yes, a logo. These folk spent fortunes on their hobby. They had numerous amount of meetings to digest and sieve through the latest street art offerings and had a huge budget that was funded through private individuals who lived on Park Avenue and who could see the exhibits from their apartment windows.

Were these people on the committee completely mad or was there a hidden meaning to this colorful display of steel fauna? It suddenly dawned on me : The roses represented the well kept, exclusive , wealthy Park Avenue aristocratic upper class, firmly planted in society, somewhat phony and man made, yet sprightly and well dressed and impeccably groomed. The bugs were the rest of us: pesky parasites feeding off the rich; a nuisance and harsh to look at when compared to the blooming flowers and void of any likable features. Yet, this committee chose to post on its website the roses before the bugs had been welded on, representing what New York City life would be like without the "Have Nots." Tonight I will walk home via Madison Avenue in protest at their elitist symbolism. If I happen to stumble upon Park Avenue I will be armed with my own plaque that reads, " New York City is for Everyone!"

Schools are Not Business Friendly

This morning was a very proud moment for me because my youngest son Bradley, aged 9, was giving a prepared speech to his whole grade and my wife and I were invited to hear him. What a thrill!

I usually get to work at around 6.45 a.m. Bradley was speaking at 9 a.m. Thursday night was a sleepless venture for me as I tossed and turned deciding whether to go to work first and then go to the school or arrive with my wife at 8.55 a.m after a leisurely morning at home. My boss is away in California and one other co-worker called in sick with Fridayitus, leaving our desk as lean as one of the cows in biblical Joseph's second dream.

I decided to go to work for a couple of hours and then scramble from Midtown East to the Upper West side where the school is located. If work became too busy I would have to forfeit the speech and slump at my desk and act miserable all day annoying my colleagues. I am an expert at that and so when I announced at the morning meeting that I had to leave for a couple of hours mid morning, it was greeted with astonishment and despair, which quickly turned to tacit agreement and compassion. My contemporaries had known me long enough to realize that if I were unable to attend my son's big moment, reverberations would be felt across the whole city, with its epicenter temporarily implanted on my desk to my immediate left and right.

I arose from my desk at 8.30am bemoaning the school's timetable. Don't the organizers of these events realize that parents actually have to work to pay for the tuition at these private schools? If I am not at my desk trading then I cant possibly make any money so in essence it was costing me money attending my son's event at school. I walked towards the subway station contemplating a conversation with the Principal of the school that I would have shortly after "The big event." I would demand a refund for this mornings tuition claiming that my attendance left me in no position to earn the money to pay. Of course in reality life doesn't work in this way. Schools are not business friendly. This event would be much easier to attend if it were at 7 o'clock at night but good luck in finding any teachers willing to stay late to accommodate working parents. It's not as if we pay their wages? Hold on a second. We do pay their salaries and give them holiday presents and give a donation to the school on top of that, which I hope trickles down in some manner to the teachers.

I arrived at school with all these thoughts whizzing around my head. I managed to compose myself for the sixty seconds that Bradley spoke. It was one of the finest minutes of my life. He was fabulous. I had huge pangs of pride that lifted my spirits and erased all negative feelings towards the school timetable. I returned to work full of optimism about the human spirit and about the virtues of fatherhood. It lasted until I sat down at my desk and looked at my screen that showed seas of red. The school trip had cost me fortunes and I am now writing to the school with a very detailed explanation of why I am asking for a one day tuition refund!

What Happened to My Beer?

t was a normal Wednesday afternoon after work. I had a farewell drinks mini gathering with my colleagues at a watering establishment close to Grand Central Station. The suburbanites were flocking en mass to their transport hub to catch the 5:17: 32 seconds to "Suburbiaville." I was casually walking, while talking on my cell phone, watching the an- like habitual creatures rote like trek to the station. It was the coldest late afternoon of the year. With the wind chill it was at least minus 85 degrees. I immersed myself further into my ski jacket exposing only my hand which was holding onto the phone to the bitter elements along with one ear that was pressed tightly against the cell.

My arm had become frozen in the " phone position" and even though I was no longer engaged in conversation I still maintained the pose without being consciously aware of it. I walked into the bar and only became aware of my ridiculous pose once I started thawing out.

I studied the beers on tap available at the bar and ordered a pint of Bass. I picked it up with my right hand and took a long sip that turned quickly into a gulp. The amber cool liquid immediately flirted with my taste buds sending a rush of blood to the head as the alcohol connected with brain cells screaming out for company. I engaged in conversation with a couple of my colleagues and talked about soccer, the political instability in Egypt and why Lyndsey Lolan steals necklaces. A varied subject list for discussion with very little common thread but enjoyable nonetheless.

I placed my half finished beer down on the bar , but within arms length so that very little effort was needed to re-acquaint myself with my pint and motioned with both hands the distance by which a certain goal was missed on a game I had recently watched in soccer. Seconds later , I reached for my glass and turned around in horror to see that it had vanished.

I called the barman over and asked him if he has seen my beer and described what had just happened. He shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of my missing beverage and then walked toward another thirsty customer to take his order. I turned to my colleagues, but they had dispersed fearing a confrontation. I beckoned the barman over again and once again asked him casually if he knew where my beer was. He asked me if I wanted another Bass. He had answered a question with a question which is always the first sign of dishonesty. He had cleared it away by accident assuming it was a disregarded beer but he couldn't bring himself to admit it. I declined his offer of another beer at my expense because I was not in the business of paying for two beers and only drinking one and a half. I instead ordered eight glasses of iced water. He questioned my amount and I answered that it was for the group standing in the corner. He started lining up the glasses and filling them with ice. At that point I put on my coat that was on a chair nearby and looked the barman in the eye and bade him a sarcastic farewell and left the bar during his mid-pour.