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Never mind present-day thirsty Jack Kerouac’s, what about our 451 people, who have a special place at this bar, which is set to close for 6 months so condo’s can be built on top of it?

It was on page 2 of this free rag today – should’ve been the lead story!

We’re going to Paris in a week or so for a couple of days – taking the kids to their first European country outside of the UK (and yes, that is a European country, despite what some people there and elsewhere might think!).

So my eye was caught by an announcement from Google that it’s improved its imagery coverage for a few European countries for Google Earth & Maps, resulting in aerial shots like this one of the Eiffel Tower.

It’s almost as if you no longer need to go up it, which with two small kids, I’m pretty sure we won’t be this time around.

The Empire State Building is 75 years old today.

While no longer referring to it as the “flash building” (because he watches the camera flashes at night from our bedroom before he goes to sleep each night), when I told the little man it was its birthday today, he commented – not unreasonably – that “they should put 75 candles on top of it,” and wondered why the lights were just plain old white tonight, of all nights.

I wondered too, but it turns out that was the color they were that first night, back in 1931. From Apr 28-30 they were turned out, apparently to represent the skyline before it was built, or at least that bit of the skyline up there at 1,250 feet. Mind you seeing as color wasn’t introduced until 1976 according to the NY Times recently, that’s somewhat misleading.

Nonetheless, happy birthday Empire State Building.

The BBC is a wonderful thing and anybody who thinks otherwise is just plain wrong. So there.

Anyway it’s just unveiled a search engine called InFax that can search programme information going back to the 1920s about most programmes aired on the BBC. It doesn’t let you watch the programmes, it just shows you the metadata about them, for now at least.

It’s funny how some programmes stick in your mind when you least expect them to. For example, I have long remembed a programme with a title that ended “….loves Los Angeles,” about a British architecture professor driving around LA describing why he loved it so much. I remember it being aired because he had died recently. But I could never recall his name, or that of the programme.
But I recall watching it one early summer night and finding it so engrossing that I stayed in to watch it all, making myself late to go and meet my mate Geoff in Putney as a result – I even recall walking the couple of miles there to do so as it was such a nice evening, this making myself later still. Why I didn’t tape it, who knows?

Anyway, one search in the InFax thing reveals that programme to have been a 1972 documentary called “Reyner Banham loves Los Angeles”. It shows that it was aired on May 1 1988, and Wikipedia tells me that he did indeed die in 1988, along with a host of other things about him.

Makes me think, in the future are we going to (be able to) forget anything? Or will it just be a case of knowing how to ask the right question in the right place? Or, er, something.

Anyway, thanks BBC for ending that 18-year quest to find out what that programme was that so interested me that evening back in the ’80s.

Pictures from our recent trip to Lancaster, PA and a trip on the Strasburg railroad, an authentic steam railway dating from 1832 which was great fun and comes highly recommended.

I’ll put some more of the Lancaster area and the railroad up shortly. Away from the Amish cash-in – my favorite store was called ‘Amish Stuff Etc’ – the countryside is beautiful and unspoilt.
There’s also some of them on the roof of our building. All in the April 06 album here, and as usual if you need a password, email us.

While that title might sound like the name of a British pub, it’s more to do with what we saw in Florida last month.

We’ve seen snakes (well one at a time anyway) most times we’re down there on Longboat Key and this time we had quite a close run in with this fella. In fact it might be the same one each time as we usually see in him/her (who knows?) in roughly the same place.

And the eagle’s nest that’s been there a while yielded two offspring in January, which as of late March couldn’t yet fly, but could walk out of the nest onto a branch, usually under the watchful eye of Mum and/or Dad. My lack of ornothological smarts prevents me from determining which is which.

Two years on from his last effort, it’s time to dig up that old truism – there is nobody quite like Morrissey.

And he’s lost nothing and gained quite a lot in those two years judging from his latest effort, which is spectacularly good and nicely threaded through with references to Rome, where he recorded it.

I mean, from the mouth of anyone else, the following might sound crude:

There are explosive kegs
between my legs
dear God please help me

We were back down in Florida last week, on Longboat Key with Grandma & Grandpa. The kids had a whale of a time, as did I with my new camera. It’s a huge improvement on the old one.

Anyway, lots of pictures of them here playing bocce ball, T-ball, biking & swimming. And in the little one’s casem following her big brother around and getting involved wherever possible, regardless of how dangerous that might be. But that’s her.
As usual you’ll have to log in to see them so if you need a password etc, email us.

So at 5.35pm we called Aiello’s Pizza a few doors up on 3rd Ave to order a pizza for the kids. Normally we either go and collect it or eat it there. We were planning to do the latter, but this time we decided to have it delivered as we the kds weren’t ready. As it turned out we probably made the last call to place an order at Aiello’s. Five minutes later we noticed smoke coming up from a building close to a Chinese restuarant that caught fire on Friday, which is next to Aiello’s. This time it was Aiello’s turn to mysteriousy catch fire.

I have quite a few pictures from above and around the fire as it developed, here.

It took about 90 mins before it was put out but the place is gutted.

The other side of Aiello’s is a sound stage called Farkas Films. After years of little drama other than that which might be filmed inside, it received a notice that the place had to close and the building was being demolished. Coincidence? Well this is Manhattan real estate and people will do almost anything when chasing a buck, especially in a market we’ve been experiencing over the past few years.

Aiello’s pizza was by far the best round here, but I fear we may have seen the last of it, for whatever reason.

Whatever else happens today, it will still be the day we beat the mob from the Walham Green Dog Track for the first time at home since 1977, when we won 3-1 in the Second Division. Historic stuff & great for Mum & Dad to have witnessed it.