Back in the City

This week has been something of an adventure - hence the lack of blog posts.

The most exciting thing that happened to me must have been my return to New York. In almost three months of being back in America, I've failed to visit New York City even once, which is shocking. But I had a job interview on Avenue of the Americas and I got to see the city that I fell in love with once again.

Like it's always done, New York blew me away with the sheer size and scale of the place. I was up around 53rd Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue. That's where the big business is done and the buildings suggest that, all being tall, no-nonsense geometric shapes. Gazing up at them made you dizzy.

It's a nice part of town. There's MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art. You can see The Rock, which is the local name for the Rockefeller Centre and the headquarters of NBC. If you've ever in the town, there's a view from the 'top of the Rock' that rivals the Empire State, so it's worth a visit. Plus there's the famous Radio City, which I got to see from ground level and from the 36th floor of one of the big tower blocks.

Around the back of 'The Rock' was something I hadn't seen since we left Winchester - a farmer's market! Most of the produce came from local states like Jersey and Pennsylvania.

It was fun and exciting to be back. It made me sad that I didn't make the effort to head to Manhattan earlier. But at least this time, I had a reason for going - and nothing marks you as a tourist more quickly than not storming down the New York sidewalks like you've got a purpose.

A place called Home...

Another common preconception about America concerns the quality of their houses... And that one's often true. To keep building costs down, most houses are timber with plaster and wood sidings. It's quite rare to see a real brick house in the States.

Which is where Tina and I have lucked out, because our new home is made entirely of red bricks. They used to be part of a bridge spanning the Hudson river, but at the turn of the 19th century a builder carted them from Manhattan all the way to North Brunswick and used them to build two cute little houses, side by side.

We can't move it yet - the house is undergoing a pretty extensive refit ready for us. However it's a nice little place and we can't wait to move in and start actually living.

Your Life, Your Choices and Making the most of them.

In three weeks, Tina and I finally move back to America.

It's taken YEARS for this to happen. Like a carrot on a stick, the move to New York has always bobbed tantalisingly along in front of us, without ever drawing closer. But now, all of a sudden, the momentous occasion is here. And as exciting as it is, it's also terrifying.

It's terrifying because success or failure in America is entirely down to me.

That's what the American dream is all about, I guess. Going to a new world and grabbing opportunity by the horns. But a little voice in the back of my head constantly warns me that I might not be good enough, tough enough or lucky enough.

Confidence is a very strange thing, isn't it? Some people don't have any. Other people have bucket loads of it. A few have abundant confidence when it's quite clear to everybody that they shouldn't. And confidence often means everything.

Imagine your first impressions of somebody. Straight back. Good eye contact. A firm handshake. Confidence is all it takes to make a good impression.

Confidence is attractive and admirable. Confidence inspires people around you - and in America, confidence can sometimes open doors for you that diplomas and degrees can't.

When I move to America, from day one, I have to work on my confidence.

But maybe my confidence introspection is the first of the American opportunities I've promised to grab by the horns. I mean, the move to America in itself is one enormous opportunity. I will be thrown into a new marketplace and the people I meet there will have no preconceptions of me. If I can find what I need within myself, I can be whoever I want to be in America.

It's not so much a reinvention. More of a reworking. Just like they upgraded Tintin in the 70's by hiding the reporter's plus fours and giving him some drainpipe jeans instead. Keep the bits that are good - the bits that make me me - and work on fixing the behavioral niggles that my yapping little confidence monster tells me need work.

I'm sure it can be done. After all, isn't behaviour learned? Surely it can be unlearned and we can teach ourselves to behave in a different way. Just like you can bolster confidence by lying to yourself (I'm confident really, psyche. That quivering bottom lip is just a temporary and very localised form of Parkinson's.)

From day one in America, I need to make sure I'm pretending to be exactly who it is I want to be. And just like when you fib to yourself about your confidence, eventually the lie becomes reality and the person you're pretending to be actually becomes the person you are.

But that just begs the question: Who am I? Followed by: Who do I want to be?

Well, I won't list all my bad points. Not because I don't have them (I'm painfully aware that I do... Doesn't everybody?) But more because there is the chance that potential employers might read this blog at some point and I would hate for them to discover my paper-clip kleptomania .

Instead, I should list the positive steps I should make from day one in America to make sure I look and feel and act like the man I want to be.

Dressing the Part

Writing scripts is great. The whole showbiz side of radio is great. For six months or so, it was fantastic to skip with the suits and ties and go to work in jeans and a scruffy shirt. But scruffy isn't really who I am. In America and Paris, plus two years in Sales, I was always the smartly dressed one. Putting on a tie was kind of like putting on a suit of armour. It immediately made me feel smarter, more confident and more able to succeed.

So I think one of the first things I should do in America is start 'dressing the part.' Somebody once said 'it's better to be overdressed than under dressed' and in the world of Fifth Avenue fashion, I'm sure that's never been more accurate. Slick, stylish - and by default, more confident.

I'm the Boss of Me

Looking back at the most awkward problems I've encountered, I see they've all stemmed from the same problem. An inability to say no.

When you're lacking self esteem, you're eager to please. I'm always willing to say yes to things, even when they're not necessarily the best, most practical or even possible options- and that means almost every time I've felt the 'stress' vein pulse in my temples, it's because I've promised too much.

So instead of stressing out, from America Day 1, I've just got to be willing to look people in the eye and say: "No. I can't do that. Not without the benefit of the TARDIS, anyway."

Do Everything. Always.

In complete contradiction to the above, I've got to make sure I continue doing something that I've always been pretty good at. Taking opportunities.

In America, the world is my oyster. Think of the opportunities out there for a moderately talented man, free from the stigma of being Ginger and possessing a British accent!

Writing. Performing. There must be a million different side streets I could march down in the hope that they'd open up on whole new avenues of adventure. As long as I go ahead and actually do things.

I try and update my blog every day. I've been moderately successful getting stuff published and I've recently wound up on BBC television. Small fry, really. But imagine if I really got my head down and threw everything I had towards making 'something' of myself in New York.

I'm sure millions try it. New York is almost as full of struggling actors and writers as Los Angeles. But none of them are me. And maybe if I believe in myself enough (you see, it all comes down to confidence) I'll actually be able to capture some of the tantalising dreams America has teased me with.

Plus, I'm going to get a 9 to 5 to pay the rent. That's where a lot of struggling writers and actors fall down.

In Conclusion

I'm terrified.

Turning up in New York, with hardly two dollar bills to rub together, is possibly the scariest and most ambitious thing I've ever done. But I have a reluctant wife loyally by my side and friends and family to help point us in the right direction.

Just like a tightrope walker, when Tina and I arrive in America we can't look down. We just have to take one unsteady step after another until we're soaring above the circus crowd without any fear whatsoever.

I don't believe it right now. I'm sweating a little and I've got butterflies doing aerobatics in my stomach. But when I arrive in New York, I'm going to stand up straight and pretend there's never been a doubt in my mind. Hell, who knows. Maybe after long enough, I'll start believing it.

Look out, Big Apple. Here I come.

Congestion Charge to Come to New York City

Taking a leaf out of "Red" Ken Livingston's book, New York City Major Michael Bloomberg unveiled plans for an $8 "Congestion Pricing Strategy." Drivers could face a fee commuting into New York's central borough, Manhattan.

Similar in principle to the £8 congestion charge for driving through the centre of London (although half it's price) Bloomberg's charge is intended to ease congestion, improve air quality and help raise $31 MILLION for new rail links, tunnels, subways and buses.

It's just one of 127 energy conserving measures unveiled on "Earth Day," intended to help America's biggest city cut it's carbon footprint. The plan is backed by 70 businesses, civic and green groups - but still has to make it's way through the state government before it can be implimented.

That won't be easy. Over 60% of drivers in New York are against the fee - despite being informed by Bloomberg's spin doctors that Londoners over in the UK overwhelmingly supported their similar congestion charge. Not that it would have mattered. Unlike Bloomberg, Ken Livingston had the clout to bring in the congestion charge whether Londoners liked it or not.

Before New York votes on the issue, they'll hopefully examine the lessons Londoners have learned following the introduction of the charge. The most obvious of these being the effect the charge has had on local businesses.

John Lewis reported an 8% drop in revenue in central London since the introduction of the charge - while revenue outside of the area was actually on the rise. The drop in revenue suggests that the charge didn't encourage people to take public transport instead of the car - it simply dissuaded them from entering London at all.

Herein lies the greatest problem with the London congestion charge - and possibly New York's.

The key to making people switch from private to public transport isn't found in raising the cost of driving. It's in making public transport an attractive alternative to cars.

If public transport was quicker, more reliable and cheaper, more people would use it. It's as simple as that. But instead, the British government is stuck in an idiotic mindset of raising prices without offering alternatives.

One recent moment of genius (which I blogged about here - British Trains are Awful and Expensive) was to increase the cost of rail travel to reduce congestion. It succeeded - but only by reducing the number of people who could afford to travel by train.

We can only hope that people in New York are smarter than that - and instead of hoping a congestion charge will solve all their traffic and smog problems, they'll take the initiative to redirect that revenue into the public transport system where it's needed most.

New York might surprise us all - and prove that a Congestion Charge isn't necessarily a bad thing - but the way it's implemented in London is.