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).