Public Transport MTA:Manspreading, Primping, Just keep your stuff to yourself on the Subway OK?

yeah, Dude! (although I thought 'dude' was Californian, what do I know I'm British

While the weather looks set to turn rather chilly, New Yorkers will probably be better off staying in, although it has to be said NYC is pretty good about still getting around with many feet of snow having fallen,- just read here- as opposed to London having just a few inches. (it can stop the whole city-no joke).


But you've probably heard by now that the Metropolitan transit Authority want travellers to be a bit more considerate of the passengers that may take up more room, either by spreading their legs, but also by putting on their make up...

In a city of so many and overcrowded subways it makes sense. It's always infuriating when you get on public transport and someone has given their bag a seat, their make up, or someone's spread their legs so wide they take up three seats- this is easier to do on the NYC subway than the London Underground, because the seats are injection moulded plastic, rather than the padded seats with arm seperators on the London Tube.

But some of the MTA language is hilarious, (in a British way, we laugh when we see outright rudeness, it's shock or something) bordering on what we in the UK might see as offensive "Poles are for your safety not for your latest routine" I mean they seriously dont mince their words.
They remind the women this is a "subway car not a restroom" and about that bag taking a seat, they are equally direct and abrasive "Keep your stuff to yourself". This is the New Yorker way, this city isn't run on it's politeness.
In stark contrast to the way Transport for London (TfL) asked Londoners in 2013 not to run and take their time in terms of "what wouldn't hurt you" read here.

What is the man in the red doing on the Clipping/Primping picture? The mind boggles.

So to remind NYC public transportation users to have consideration for others you can see posters like this emerging on the Subway, and London Underground users want London to do something similar. Isn't it a strange world when posters have to encourage you to behave and have some manners, I wish someone would tell my noisy neighbors, maybe I'll just make a poster.

From Horses to courses, driven in an #ecarriage through Central Park

So, no doubt you've followed the wonderful people of NYC coming out and protesting for the preservation of the enviroment just a few weeks ago, well another ecological concern was what to do about horses being used in the center of a busy polluted city.

So how ecological is a horse drawn carriage ride through the magnificent Central Park?

Opinion was divided when Bloomberg, the city's then mayor decided to take horses out of the equation.

Some in favour of getting rid of the horse rides used the argument that many of these horses were tired, weren't treated well, and hey wasnt this 2014? shouldn't we stop using animals for our own entertainment in this pollution- shouldn't horses be free to do what horses do?

 Some in favour for keeping the horse rides because it was traditional, it is something that's been going on for years of course and the horses are confined to a non-car environment path in the park.
Given that the horses used are the ones best suited to this type of work and unable to do heavier labor some said the horses would be slaughterd, and this was more cruel, effectively stopping the horse drawn carriage rides, would end the horses lives.

Whatever your opinion on these issues, they have gone.

But the creative people at"Creative Workshops" in Dana Beach, Florida have come up with a environmentally friendly alternative.
The horseless E-Carriage! based on the original carriage from 1911 the clever engineering folk in Florida have created an almost exact replica, only this time the car is electronic, and so less of those harmful pollutants, while still keeping the horses free from the labour.
It's had a day in NYC, take a look at it next to central park below and follow updates on their FB page, they have all the  history to the cars and engineering process it took to get here on there as well as other fab pictures and video, they're also doing one for Arizona.

Star Wars Auction by Original ILM Model Makers, for one of ours.

Hello all,
I am doing a one off, because this is the sort of feel good news that needs to be shared.
As you know I used to work in California making models for movies, blowing them up and the like.
Well, Robbie Edwards, a fellow English man, was one of my co-workers, and my friend.

Robbie working on Pirates of The Carribean, messy making. 

On Greenscreen set, Robbie sets out to sink a ship.

Unfortunately Robbie suffered a stroke in Sept 2013,  it was devastating, but he's managed to cling to life and kept a wonderful sense of humor with his slogan of 'musn't grumble' how very English. Although his recovery has been laborious and painful, he is learning to walk again, and getting his motorskills back, a hidden element of the stroke is the fact it affected his temporal lobe- the part that affects creativity- his job was primarily creative as a model maker on major motion picture movies in California. His wife has written a blog here.
He has worked 30 movies in 20 years including Star Wars, Pirates of the Carribean, War of the Worlds and Men in Black, to name a few- the stroke has effectively put an end to the career he would have had to pay back his US medical bills; when he had the stroke he had no health insurance and Obamacare hadn't kicked in yet.

Robbie making mini houses look real

Now the wonderful part is that the collegues at the model shop, have realised how huge his medical bills are and that he has no way to pay them back, and so are organising a fundraiser creating original artworks from the Star Wars movies a C3PO head carved by Lorne Peterson Oscar and Bafta Award winner, and Indiana Jones, to name but a few pieces, this will be on an online auction for 10 days, and ending on the 21st Sept in a benefit night where all of his friends and family will convene.

Some of wonderful team of Model Makers

This is a fantastic heartwarming story of a group of collegues, helping to lift someone whose hit hard times due to ill health and hit their livelihood, to banding together as a community proving good things can happen, and adversity shared and halved. It is an honour to have been one of them and to share with you now.. go on.. give back to the man who created all that on-screen magic for you! :)
So, bid for stuff online NOW at: http://www.32auctions.com/Robbie

Attend the benefit here in California, and be in the company of all those talented creative movie model makers, or if you cant get there and the story moves you please do donate.

All Pictures Credits to : Sean Casey. Copyright protected.

Inspring places

Hello my blog reader,

After being featured on Emerald Magazine, and also asked by expedia.co.uk and even the Syfy.co.uk channel to be featured on this blog, I decided to write the e blog book- based completely on this blog.
I wanted to give it to you, my dear readers for free as it has new content as "Things I learned later" and a useful little guide on your Kindle or e reader.
Alas, Amazon wont let me price it for free for some reason, so please do email them and say that there is a lot of repeated content on this blog and you want it for free, apparently they do that, if you tell them. Where there's a will eh?
The link to it is right here on the left to the UK version, there is one of course on Amazon.com for the US version and available all across the world.
I'd also recommend the Not for tourist Guide to NYC if you're going to live there- so many useful things that you need to know when you're not a tourist and this is a nice compact book to get ideas from- the link is also to the left.
I will of course continue this blog, as my travels to NYC and the rest of the US are ongoing and this one Everything London. Come and join both blogs.

Emerald Magazine UK- sister to Stylist freesheet.

London and NYC, love hearts and stats...

As if made just for this blog, the people at  expedia.co.uk have been gathering sources from all over the shop and have come up with a list comparing the two wonderful metropolises, suggesting you might 'heart' one of them more...humm, is it possible?

My NYC blog ebook is very close to being published, and will be free to all my blog readers, so join up to the blog- or drop me your email, meanwhile I thought it was worth examining the list...

• NYC has more people per sq mile and London being bigger than NYC, is able to spread more people out.

When you live on Manhattan Island it's clear you live on a little Island, and there will be pretty much no street that you're on alone any time of the day.

Then the obvious -

• NYC enjoys warmer temperatures in the Summer, but much colder winters, and wetter months.

• Public transport is cheaper in the Big Apple including Taxi's. NYC so much more affordable than London in this respect, and you can go much further on less money.

• Shopping if you're so inclined, is not surprisingly widely available in both cities, and with the pound not so strong, it's not so much a bargain anymore for UK shoppers. Besides there's so much more to do in both cities culturally, artistically and to eat and drink than shopping..just flick through this blog.

• London clearly has more green spaces and parks, easily taken for granted till you live in NY and see the kids playgrounds one called 'Diana Ross Park' inside Central Park near 84th West playing with a concrete floor, very unimaginative and a bit depressing in winter...
• Still I disagree with the list, it misses out my fave park in London- Primrose Hill, wonderful views and fab atmosphere chilling out in the summer sunshine, with Camden Lock Market just down the hill

In my opinion in NYC the best park by far, and I'm talking Manhattan here, is Central Park, no contest. See my posts. So many different areas to explore, a zoo, a theater, a boathouse lake with a restaurant and bar, any season and this place is amazing and accessible- they even sweep the paths in the snow. Then there's the absolutely amazing wildlife- raccoons, hawks, turtles, not to mention over a quarter of all the bird species found in the United States have been seen in Central Park and the squirrels have fearless attitude, one jumped down to press my open handed glove, searching me for food.

• As for pictures... I think skylines of both cities are much more snapped up, because they're ubiquitous. Especially in NYC because as a tourist or a resident, lets face it, you're going to be inside a tall building at some point in your day, and the view will probably be amazing...

Let me know which city you 'heart' more and why, or why you love them both and refuse to choose, comments below...

Inspired NYC jumps ahead in time to 2077 for Syfy CONTINUUM

This is a post for the Syfy Channel for their great new series CONTINUUM launched in the UK 27th September, it's fictional and fun. As it's Inspired NYC I thought you wouldn't mind if I played with my normal life to imagine what it might be like to travel to NYC in 2077.

I hope you enjoy the rather non-traditional post,  Inspired NYC about actual 2010/11 posts will be available to all my blog readers in ebook format soon for free, I'll keep you posted.

Continuum is the epic new futuristic thriller which makes its exclusive UK premier on Syfy on 27^th September at 10pm.

© 2012 Timely Productions Inc.  All Rights Reserved. Click to see full image

Continuum stars RACHEL NICHOLS (Criminal Minds, Alias) as Kiera Cameron, a cop from the future who finds herself trapped in the present day.  When a group of fanatical terrorists escape their planned execution in the year 2077, they vault back in time to 2012 sweeping dedicated City Protective Services officer, Kiera, along with them. Desperate to get back to her husband and son in 2077, Kiera concentrates on bringing down the terrorists before they can change the course of history forever. Catch it on Syfy tonight at 10pm.

So I woke up this morning to find my instant espresso machine on the fritz, this is no good as I have a huge hangover and need to be downtown Manhattan for the Festival Celebrations of the fall/autumn, 27th Sept.
No worries, I thought, I slipped on my tourist ID bracelet, sealed on top of my UK one with a lick of DNA saliva, and headed down to Starbucks queuing/standing in line for ages, tho’ I love it here that your ID tells them your name so no awkward moment standing at the counter, and this sweet slip of a boy held out my cup, he may not have pronounced it right, but my name was calligraphy style engraved onto the paper cup. Nice. Almost a souvenir.
New York is still New York though, and although the air taxis are much faster, the drivers have the foulest mouths, so I took the ground Yellow driverless cab, the autonoCab robot woman's voice was so polite and the drive was a smooth slow one cutting through Central Park and over to the Eastside highway.

So the cab is covered in holographic Ad’s that change with the blink of an eye, as you expect, just like in London, and it reads my ID of course. I hear the usual US ridiculous greeting in the worst English accent “Hello, jolly good morning, where would you like to go today?” It took me three attempts for the Robot to understand my English accent, in all these years not a lot has changed. My head is throbbing, and while I know it's all friendly, I am now bombarded with Ads of hangover cures-how does it know these things!!
I make it, leisurely; as the Americans like to say… so leisurely I’m late. But in one piece, to find the conference in Union Square has begun, kicked off by a huge holographic Frank Sinatra, belting out ‘New York, New York’. My retinal scan is so embarrassing, what happened to a paper list? I had to take off my sunnies, to reveal my shrunken, drunken eyes, and let the bouncing spider scanner pick at my iris.
I can’t help feel a bit embarrassed as the PR must think I’m one of those ‘up at noon journos’, but I’m in NYC! Can’t really waste a night can you? Finally in the press area, which is much less crowded. I can see the breakfast bar is full of Tea and Coffee, so much for queuing/standing in line earlier.

My press pack contains the usual elecy brochures and a thin jacket that flashes occasional fairy like lights and changed colour after dark, with a tag glowing on my lapel with ‘Media' followed by my name rotating round and round. I am a sucker for these gifts. The best item though, were the hair bands, they sparked little flecks of light, and have little grooving autumn fairies on the ends, mine was missing, the PR said she’d see if she could find a spare, probably thinking I lost it.

Despite my head, the atmosphere is electric you can’t help get sucked in. Just like our parade show in London on the 27^th there is a huge Parade, only in NYC there are cheerleaders dancing, projecting out of the side of floats, and bands playing able to project a 360 degrees wave of sound.
It feels like they will touch you, even land on you, it’s insane, breathtaking. Even the kids, the loud shouty ones, are stuck to the spot.

Thank heaven September in NY isn’t too cold, and the sun is shining, else the party elves, I kid you not, wouldn’t be seen. I have no idea how they do it, but these elf like guys, full of love and rainbows, appear to burst out of the parade at specific spots and hand sweets/candy to the kids, then they just disappear again. The engineers tell me the ‘clever candy’ people at N&M’s and Sadtech designed the elves but they don’t work very well without sunshine. Almost like a real fairy tale eh? Willy Wonka eat your heart out.

We were on our journo float, which is fab, because at any time you can slip on some jumper pads- an all-in-one sorta suit to us Brits, and the burst of energy beneath lets you float, so you can zip up and down the parade soundlessly hovering. The photographers got excellent shots of the crowd and the floats like this almost hovering over people’s heads. My stomach couldn’t really handle it, ahem. So it was solid float and pastries for me.

This is a parade, much like St Patrick’s Day- an all day parade. By day it honours the service people in the city, fire fighter, protectors, corporate benefactors, corporate congress and those very, very many CEO executives and appeals to the little young folk of the city. By night, appealing to all those off work finally, ready to let their hair down, our pastries became canapés and our coffee became cosmopolitans. 

For the finale the central float full of senior dignitaries, and this float is a pretty beautiful one at that, decked out with all the decadence of royalty, so it was pretty mind blowing that the band Lemur popped out on a fire platform in the centre of it with their new single ‘Blast', eco-friendly smokeless fireworks erupting from their bodies.
I’m sure it was only after she’d seen me taking enough notes and photos, the PR lady handed me a hair band and cocktail, well, it’d be rude to say no, hair of the dog and all that…

Continuum Cast:

All photos © 2012 Timely Productions Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

Alongside RACHEL NICHOLS as Kiera, Continuum stars ERIK KNUDSEN (Jericho, Scream) as Alec Sadler and VICTOR WEBSTER (Castle, Melrose Place) as Detective Carlos Fonnegra.

Additional cast include TONY AMENDOLA (Stargate SG-1, CSI, Once Upon A Time, Dexter); STEPHEN LOBO (Smallville, Little Mosque on the Prairie); LEXA DOIG (V, Stargate SG-1); ROGER CROSS (The Gates, Fringe); LUVIA PETERSEN (The L Word); TERRY CHEN (Combat Hospital); OMARI NEWTON (Blue Mountain State, Sophie).

Hurricane Irene and not being in NYC

Hurricane Irene, tropical storm approaching Miami

 You may remember last year in the very hot, humid summer in New York, Manhattan, I was diagnosed with Bronchitis, but with all the blood I coughed up my UK Doc told me it was more likely Pneumonia, and as an asthmatic that can happen too easily when it's all too humid mixed with pollution: just as the movie 'In America' shows,
when Samantha Morton is finding it hard to breathe- also an asthmatic- and her endearing husband, drags home an air conditioning window unit, hook or by crook through the streets of NY.




This year it worked out well then, that this summer we have travelled a lot, with our new base in Miami, Arizona and also to Northern California.

Its hard to see but it's pouring of rain and windy, but very warm

Thanks to serendipity, Hurricane Irene just gave us in Miami a bit of a whipping on the Thursday before it hit NYC, as my pictures show, by way of a tropical storm
But New York got hit by a category one, which was so much stronger, fellow blogger based in NY state, Clintondale, who lost power until today has posted this on You Tube as the streets were ripped apart by Hurricane Irene.

Thank heaven this hurricane has passed now, and hurricane season is almost over! Though it's pretty scarey with the anticipation, even when it's not as strong as they thought it would be.