UK again

Recently I went back home to the UK for a week. It isn't really a new york thing so I'm not going to create a whole bunch of posts about it. I've decided to keep this blog purely about New York so I've taken down this post for now. I'll have some new New York posts here soon instead

No guns

You'd imagine that a no handguns sign would be superfluous in a bank. You'd imagine wrong.

Jesus walks

Would you trust the Jesus with your dog? If so, you have his contact details below.

Hot tamales

One more food we don't get in the UK. The Tamale.

Tamales are a mixture of meat and rice, steamed inside a corn husk. When did you last see any corn husks in Tescos? 

They're not bad, and as they're steamed you can fool yourself into thinking they're healthy. Or at least you can try.

Pulled pork tamale below

No Loitering

I'd like to think that some secret society has made it their aim to have someone loitering under this sign 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on an hourly rotation.

Worst ad I've yet to see

Would you trust these guys?

I hope that strapline isn't the awful innuendo I think it is

Springtime for New Yorkers

Williams-Sonoma Eggs

Williams-Sonoma is a high end cooking equipment store in Manhattan. Actually, there are a bunch of them but I've been to one branch.

What's cool about them is that they happen to put on free cooking classes on certain days. Lets face it, NY is not big on free stuff, so I decided to take them up on the offer.

The next one was an eggs class (Eggs: Savoury and Sweet), which sounded pretty good in principle.

The problem was that while the guy taking the course was charming and a bit like an old(er) Woody Allen, he was trying to sell us their products at such a rate that it seriously got in the way of the recipes. Do you really need a jar of dried lemon rind? What's wrong with the fresh stuff anyway?

Brooklyn poster

 Nice typographic map of Brooklyn I saw recently

I'm up in the top left corner where it gets all squishy and tight. To be honest, this map makes me want to explore a lot more. Other than Coney Island, I've yet to go on an excursion to the south of my borough.

Rat Bastard!

The builders unions of NY city don't take kindly to anyone operating without going through them. In fact they inflate giant rats where ever a non-union construction job is taking place. Like this fellow:

Asbestos Kills

Spotted on the street by a building site.

Hollywood Smiles

I thought it would be practical to find a dentist whilst I'm stateside. I went for the first interesting one I could find. In retrospect this may have been a mistake.

Somehow I think I ended up at VIP Smiles, which turned out to be a surreal place, aimed mainly at black celebrities. The walls were covered in signed headshots and you could watch your choice of films while having your teeth worked on. Not sure I'm going back, it was more of a freaky experience than someone I'd trust with my knashers.

Not sure who these people are

Ahh... Common, I recognise him!

The big book of the DVDs you can watch while having your fillings done

Her card. I think this was first sign when I walked in that this was a bad idea and not really the place for me. She has sparky gloss over her heavily retouched photo.

For the record she looked nothing like this, I'm guessing that photo was at least 10 years old.

Breuckelen Gin

While in the States, embrace the local produce.

The Garden State of New Jersey is so called for a very good reason. Come tomato season the place is awash with the most bountiful of fruits.

While I'm not sure what this has to do with the Breuckelen Distillery, their local Gin (based on the original Dutch name for Brooklyn) makes some cracking gin.

Nice bottle too, although the wax cap was unnecessarily difficult to remove with the dental floss they'd shoved in there.