Liberal Burblings

Archive for July, 2010

At Grand Central station, in the olive oil shop (yes, there is one) I found myself in the rather strange position of defending American beer to a very genial fellow from Connecticut.

He posited the view that Europeans do beer much better than the USA. I pointed out there are oceans of European beer which are rubbish, and that there are many fine American beers.

“Which?” he asked.

“Well, there’s Anchor for a start”, I retorted.

“And…?” he enquired.

“Um….ah….um” I stuttered to a halt.

Fortunately, my visit to the USA reminded me of the delights of Samuel Adams. I managed to bring back a few bottles of their Summer Ale to dear old Blighty.

photo credit: gcfairch

I apologise in advance for harping on about my holiday in New York City. I’ll be like some particularly nerdish holiday slide shower for the next few weeks. But, hey, that’s blogging! 

This (above) is the view of Manhattan from the Upper Bay area (or lower Hudson River area) at night. Not a particularly good photo, I’m afraid. I took it on Monday evening.

On an unbelievably wonderful and celebratory (25th years’ of the old ball and chain – since you ask) dinner yacht experience I expected to be enthralled by the Statue of Liberty. But I was more enthralled by this view above.

It really was utterly jaw-dropping. It is a “guilty pleasure” because of the astronomical enormity of its carbon footprint. I seem to remember that it is the view used in one of the Miramax credit logos.

When you see it in the flesh, it is gobsmackingly beautiful. My photo of it above is rather less beautiful than the “Photo dropper” image here (taken from slightly more up-river I think):

photo credit: digitonin

I think the blackness of the sea/river below and the night sky above, combined with the extreme brightness of the lights in the buildings amke it…it’s just absolutely knockout. I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.

PS. Oh, and here for good measure is my photo of the Statue of Liberty. It was staggering but, for me, not as staggering as the “Miramax view” of Manhattan.

Oh, and while we are at it, the Brooklyn Bridge is just mind-blowing, so here is my pic of that:

photo credit: The Western Sky

I am not one of nature’s musical lovers. That’s putting it mildly. I normally get pulled along to musicals by the distaff side of my family, with one of them detailed to give me an elbow in the ribs every time they detect the merest hint that I am nodding off.

Anyway, we were blessed to see “Chicago” at the Ambassador’s Theatre on Broadway on Tuesday night. Given the humungous size of everything else in New York City, I was expecting a huge theatre the size of the Hammersmith Apollo. However,  it was actually a small-medium sized theatre about the size of the New Theatre, Oxford.

The whole thing was superb but I was particularly knocked out by Carol Woods singing “When you’re good to Mama”. She has got one heck of a pair of lungs on her!

You can see her singing a clip from the song at 3.00′ here:

Consider me hot and excited.

Hot, because New York has a “feels like temperature of 100″ today, as the local news channel puts it.

Excited, because I am actually writing this on an iPad in the hip, hop and happening Apple store in Broadway, New York.

A nice young man from Apple (presumably) has just spent ten minutes enthusing with me about this exciting product, while noise and activity abound in this large computer nerd heaven space which is, importantly, air conditioned.

Live from the land of the free and the home of the brave – or “Barry’s Place”, as I call it.

After 30 odd years of working (broadly) in business and having studied businesses (a tiny bit) and taken an interest in them for a long time, it was a pleasure yesterday to experience what I think is as near to the perfect business as you’ll get.

I’ll let you guess which one it is. But the whole experience of booking with them and then receiving their service has been a great pleasure. Above all, you get the over-whelming impression that they actually want to do business with you, and like having you as a customer.

A courtesy call a few days before your experience. Staff whose smile actually seems genuine. And those little unexpected incidents or accidents which happen in any business, seem to be turned into an opportunity to enhance the customer experience.

Go on, guess.

Oh well, here’s a clue.

photo credit: Christopher Isherwood

PS. Yes I know about the carbon. In my defence we’ve had endless UK holidays for years and this is a special occasion.

Many congratulations to Bob Morgan and Janette Miranda for their clear – nay, substantial – victories in the Thatcham by-elections yesterday. Figures from West Berkshire Council:

For the Thatcham South and Crookham ward seat on West Berkshire Council:-

Dominic Kevin Boeck (Conservative)  787
Robert Victor Morgan (Liberal Democrat)  936

For the South and Crookham ward on Thatcham Town Council:-

Dominic Kevin Boeck (Conservative)  781
Janette Buckley Miranda (Liberal Democrat)  932

The electorate for both is 5,133.  The turnout for both was 33.9%.