Mum visits

Hmm, I don't think this worked right. The picture is a CLASSIC tourist photo of me and my Mum at City Hall in London. Note the fabulous weather. When she returned home she told me the AC was on. Oh well, there is no tower bridge in Florida so we do have some good things here.

Lovely visit. If I can figure out a better picture I'll refresh this link.

Another Cheese Post

I can't help myself, signs here are worth taking pictures of. This shop is very close Borough Market. As you walk up to it you see its called Gastronomica - then you read the shops subtitle (tag line? what would you call that?) which is "Cheese Never Sleeps".

What does that mean?

Looked like a good shop though

Happy Thanksgiving in the USA

I love this picture I took it when I was in a meeting in New York in October. It was for a conference of the International Downtown Association, which is an organiz(s)ation of people who run Business Improvement Districts. So they care about tourism and development as it applies in an inner city/town centre/downtown setting.

This picture encapsulates the group fully. Here we are on a boat tour around Manhattan on a beautiful fall day. Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and Manhattan all beautifully framed and there they are both pointing to the new dock in Brooklyn. That dock means that BIG cruise ships can stop over in Brooklyn and therefore more tourists can come to the city. That's why my friends are pointing AWAY from the Statue of Liberty and toward Brooklyn.

More New York in Fall

I did spend time in Manhattan but apparently took pictures only off that island. This is a view of a party venue in DUMBO (down under Manhattan bridge overpass). I'm always looking for good uses for the dead areas under over passes. This one is an old building fronting the park that runs along the river. The view in the other direction is Manhattan lovely.

It was a great party!

High Line goes through a building

The High Line is an old abandonded elevated freight rail line in Manhattan in the southwest of the island. It survived into the 21 century becasue the neighborhood was always so crappy (sorry) that no one paid attention to it. Then Chelsea/the meat packing district became cool and rich dentists from Newark started moving in and suddenly folks wanted to tear it down. So Friends of the Highline got together and saved it and now its an elevated park running through the neighborhood.

This building is actually just outside of the historic district that has been established so the high line is allowed to go through the building - like it would have done when it was delivery and removing goods to the industry that used to reside there. Its a big deal deigner building--can't remember the architect-- so th eunits will be EXPENSIVE. I wonder what it will look like when the apartments (condos?) are overlooking it? Will you be able to walk through the building when you stroll along the park?

Can't wait to hear someone tell me what its like around that building but more importantly I think I will really love walking through the park. There is another elevated park; it is in Paris and called the Promenade Plantée which looks pretty cool, too.

Isn't she cute?

I am trying to write more blog entries. So I'm scraping the bottom of the picture barrel. Rather than google pictures, I found this great picture of me! Look on the phone even at this young age. Well, no reason to really write in this entry, I can just gaze at how cute I was.

BBC Radio 4

Have I mentioned how much I love the BBC? Probably not for a while now so I'll say it again, I love the BBC. In fact my TV license will be coming up for renewal and I will gladly pay the 150 GBPs. Not only do I love the BBC for the TV but I ADORE the radio.

Keeping in mind that I'm basically a latte-drinking, democratic-voting, New York Times- reading, NPR-listening type of American; this love of BBC Radio should not be surprising. But Radio 4 is really quite good. Every morning I wake up to the shipping report which is incomprehensible if you are half asleep and have no clue about the geography of the place. Followed by a news briefing, prayer for the day(!), then Farming Today. How is it possible that I actually listen to all this before 6am? I don't know but I do and I love it. Then at 6am (after those weird six pips which signal the top of every hour)the Today show starts with With Edward Stourton, Carolyn Quinn and this bellicose guy named John Humphreys - who is sort of like your crabbiest uncle. Yet some how they let him interview heads of state, captains of industry and other assorted high falutin' types - today it was the head of the Bank of England for god's sake. He gets in fights with them, cuts them off, talks over them. It's amazing.

Anyway the point of this blog is the fact that every week they announce some horrible piece of news. The country is obese, it drinks too much, has the worst children, the schools are crap, they lost the ashes to OZ, horror horror horror. This used to worry me, I thought I had made a bad decision moving to this land, but it turns out its just some collective moaning session. Its all over by 9am and we are all at work and its all forgotten until 6am tomorrow morning.

I think its because its such a small place, they all listen to the same news and its cathartic.

Tonight - its the Queen's Speech. Wonder how that will go...

Friday and back in London

Just reviewing my posts from AD and realising that I gave the place a very short shrift (what does shrift mean anyway?) The truth is I arrived after 10 at night and only went from hotel to client's place, back to hotel - twice. So my whole experience was airport, cab, hotel, cab, conference room, cab, airport. Which is of course what most business travel is.

What I saw from the cab was an interesting urban form. Blocks which had obviously been sold and built on by separate parties with little connections considered. The roads were enormous, really along the scale of Beijing: four plus lanes in each direction. Being a pedestrian was tougher than I thought possible, of course I was a) jet lagged; b) confused because the traffic was coming from the wrong direction; and c) stunned because I spent the day in a fiercely air conditioned conference room.

The place was not as dry as I had expected. There was a LOT of irrigation, which was probably not great. There was a really lovely waters edge promenade, which was empty during the day but seemed to have picnicking families and couples under the shelters once the sun went down. This reminded me of the causeways in Florida.

All in all, I should go back with out my snarky attitude and look at it again. Its an area of the world where there is a tremendous amount of growth and it deserves a longer look. Or at least a look that doesn't include a cab.

Its 1 am and this airport is packed!

This is the view from duty free at the Abu Dhabi airport up to the concourse level.

Unbelievable, right? Then factor in the fact that it is after 1am on Thursday morning. The tile work, kind of makes your head spin a bit. I was sooo disoriented I bought a liter of Jack Daniels at duty free. If any one had ever suggested to me that I would buy a liter of Jack Daniels at 1 am in the morning in the Abu Dhabi airport at ANY time in my life I would have fallen over laughing. And yet I did that very thing.

Just as a side note, a guy in my office describes this air port as being reminiscent of the bar scene in Star Wars. (OK warning I got way laid on th einformation super highway attempting to find an image of the star wars bar scene and discovered this one which is even better because its that scene done in Lego.

Ever wonder what ever happened to Tang?

Don't worry I've found an outlet - yes its the duty free shop in Abu Dhabi. Oddly they had a rather large display of Tang branded goods.

And it looks like they have branched out from the orange flavour of my youth to embrace other fruit flavours, if their sign is to be believed.