Don't walk

Yesterday I walked from Battery Park, up West Broadway to Washington Square, through West Village, across to the East Village and up First Avenue through Stuyvesant Town and Turtle Bay to the UN building, across three blocks to Grand Central Station, over to Fifth Avenue and up to 53rd street where the queue to get into MoMA was too long to contemplate. Walked all the way back to Duane St via Fifth/West Broadway. It was pissing it down the whole time and I was wearing canvas shoes. Today I'm taking the subway.

Flagging

Everywhere I go I see the stars and stripes. That flag is everywhere.

Palin comparison

The news here is crazy. The other day Fox ran a whole feature on a woman who looks like Sarah Palin. There was a slight resemblance, to be fair, and not just in physical terms. Donna Reed is also a Republican and a lifetime member of the NRA.

Start spreading the news...

I arrived in New York yesterday, on the 7th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Coincidentally my hotel is just a few blocks from Ground Zero, so I took a walk down to see what was happening. It was kind of as you'd imagine – lots of flowers and photographs, people singing hymns, firefighters and police officers, bagpipe music and the odd conspiracy theorist thrown in.  What surprised me were the number of people hawking 9/11 souvenirs – neon glass ornaments depicting the twin towers, commemorative programmes – even a pair of fireman's boots at one stall. Tourists were posing for smiley photographs outside the construction fence: "And here's me at a site of a terrorist attack where thousands of people were killed!" There was all the usual I ♥ New York stuff too.

Later in the day I strolled down to Battery Park, where The Sphere now stands. It's a sculpture of the Earth created by Fritz Koenig, as a monument to world peace, which used to stand in the WTC plaza and was damaged when the planes hit in 2001. When it was moved to Battery Park, an eternal flame was lit in front of it in memory of everyone who died at the WTC. Last night it was surrounded by 'flags of heroes' – stars and stripes banners featuring the names of all the firefighters who died on 9/11.

Everyone 'ooooh'ed when they turned on the twin towers of light. It did look pretty cool.