New Yorkers: We don't hate muslims, we just hate buildings.

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New York Nights

Last night, one of our clients took us out for dinner and VIP seats at Madison Square Garden, to watch the New York Rangers hammer it out on the ice against the Atlanta Thrashers.

It was great fun.

Having a fairly modest income and some big responsibilities on the horizon, Tina and I have pretty much remained housebound since we moved to America. We've been really lucky that Tina's brother and sister live so close and invite us to their exciting events, because otherwise, we'd probably have no social life at all!

But actually heading out into the bright lights of the big city reminds me just what an amazing place New York is and how amazing it is to actually live here.

When you're out in the Big Apple, you can't help but feel alive.

I can't claim to be much of an ice-hockey fan (I call it 'ice-hockey' rather than just 'hockey' because I want to differentiate between burly Caucasians slamming into each other at 90mph on the ice and British schoolgirls playing on grass with knee-high socks on.)

That being said, the game was great fun. There's an enormous amount of showmanship and watching the Rangers play in the heart of their home city warmed the cockles (even as the rest of you shivered.)

Ice Hockey is a fast and brutal game. Players whizz by at 40mph, perfectly balancing delicate ice-skating skills with raw power and strength. The game is violent, aggressive and unpredictable. The Rangers scored four goals against the Thrashers (which is four more goals than any recent game of British Premiership Football.)

I felt enormously energised by just being there - and it reminded me of everything I've got to be grateful for. A great life in a great city and a world of opportunities waiting for me to grab them.

It also filled me with excitement for our next journey to the city. Tina's sister and our brother-in-law bought us Broadway tickets and dinner at a restaurant, so on Friday we're coming into the Big Apple to take another big, juicy chomp.

I ♥ New York.

Dumbledore is Gay

Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling announced yesterday that beloved Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, was actually gay.

She was speaking to a packed Carnegie Hall in New York - and made the announcement after reading a short extract from The Deathly Hallows, the final book in the Harry Potter series.

The subject came up when a fan asked if there had ever been a true love in Dumbledore's life. Rowling revealed that wicked wizard Grindelwald, who Dumbledore befriended fifty years before Harry Potter entered his life, had been Dumbledore's one true love - and broken his heart when he went off to pursue his allegorically Hitleresque activities.

It's a fascinating revelation. Even more fascinating is why Rowling only chose to reveal this snippet of important information AFTER her series had concluded.

Clearly Dumbledore's sexuality has been fixed since the very beginning (Rowling even edited out a line of dialogue during one of the movie adaptations - which referred inaccurately to a past girlfriend of Dumbledore's.)

Cynically, one can only conclude that Rowling kept Dumbledore's sexuality private in order to keep the franchise's appeal as widespread as possible.

Aside from the ridiculous evangelical Christians in America's bible belt (who burn the books for promoting witchcraft) Harry Potter seems to have enormous widespread appeal. But while eugenics, conspiracy, murder, witchcraft, slavery and interracial relationships (Harry kisses a Chinese girl) are all touched upon in the books, none of them ever touched on sexuality as an issue (and rightly so - they're kid's books.)

Maybe an openly gay character (even one as benign, wise and positive as Dumbledore) would have incurred the wrath of the homophobes. While America pays lip service to equality (and features programs like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy on TV) I think a gay character in the world's best selling children's book series would be too much for America to take.

Instead of a few nutty Christians lambasting the books for promoting witchcraft, there might well have been thousands of angry parents harassing Rowling for promoting alternative sexuality (even though she actually made no mention of it in her books)

So I can understand why she decided to reveal this snippet of information only after The Deathly Hallows had hit the stores (and the checkouts.)

But it's rather sad. Such an interesting development would have been so much more significant if she'd been willing to throw it out before the last book had been published.

The effect such a revelation had on the book's sales would have told us an awful lot about the apparently open-minded society we live in.

Some Thoughts...

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, I can see that I've had some wonderful experiences in the past. Tresco, Paris and Long Island were wonderful and I made great friends and had great times.

Stupidly, at the time, I didn't quite realise how lucky I was. I kept on looking at the horizon for the next big break. I was always unsatisfied.

So while I was driving back today, the cool sounds of Miles Davis wafting out of my SIRIUS radio and the warm evening breeze on my face, I gave it a thought and realised something astonishing.

I was incredibly happy. I was incredibly lucky. I was somewhere where I wanted to be.

Where I am right now is pretty much where I've spent the best part of a decade struggling to be. In America, behind the wheel of a stupid old car, with a solid job to go to and somebody who loves me to come back to.

Now I'm not 'giving up.' I'm still on the prowl to achieve more and go further. But right now, I realise I could freeze this moment for the rest of my life and be proud of it.

I sacrificed a lot to get to New York. Relationships and friendships and the chance to be close to the people I love. But as Simon Templar said in The Last Hero: "Nothing is won without sacrifice."

I just wanted to write this down because I know it can't last forever. It might not even last until tomorrow. But right now, where I am at this moment... People wait a lifetime for it. So even if I live to 102 and wind up destitute in a gutter, I'll always look back and appreciate how incredibly lucky and blessed I was at this exact moment in time.

Even more than I appreciate everything that's happened to me, I'm grateful for being given the insight to actually appreciate it. To realise that things are good while they're still good, instead of looking back in five years time and thinking: "Damn, if only I'd have realised how lucky I was..."

I do realise how lucky I am. In fact, the only thing that scares me is the inexorable knowledge that all things, good or bad, must come to an end.

A Day that will Live in Infamy

The attacks of September 11th 2001 will always be the ‘Where Were You When…?’ of my generation.

Especially here in New York. At work today, there was a subdued atmosphere. Nobody living or working this close to the Big Apple managed to escape the tragedy of 9/11 untouched, so absolutely everybody I meet and talked to had a vivid story behind what happened that fateful Tuesday morning.

9/11 made the world change. From the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Centre emerged a ‘War on Terror’ that took America down the path towards conflict in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The lackadaisical presidency of President Bush was transformed into his rugged White House War Machine – support or hatred for which divided the nation.

Images of orange jump suits and rows of coffins draped in the Stars-and-Stripes appeared on our TV sets.

Gitmo. The Patriot Act. Operation Enduring Freedom. Misunderestimated. All these words entered our common vocabulary as a result of al-Qiada’s brutal and cowardly attack.

But as one of my colleagues told me today – it’s not the time to think about any of that.

He is pretty liberal leaning. He has a lot of unanswered questions about what happened before and after 9/11 and where it’s taken the country he loves. But today, none of that matters.

He said it’s time to remember those who passed away in the tragedy. We can question the ‘why’ and the ‘who’ afterwards.

Almost 3,000 people were murdered that fateful morning and via ‘six degrees of separation,’ that leaves very few Americans untouched by the tragedy. The attacks left widows and orphans across the United States. On this date, it’s our duty to remember them.

246 plane passengers.
2,200 civilians at the World Trade Centre
125 at the Pentagon
343 FDNY Firefighters
23 NYPD Police Officers
37 Port Authority Police Officers

2,974 murdered people.

We will remember you.