Rant on the 1 Train about being corralled into listening to the smug conversation of two painfully loud, smug Columbia students

Unbearably loud privileged Columbia business school student talking to fellow student interminably and unbearably loudly about internships, semesters, electives, etc.
Shut up with your smug student jargon, and your matching Columbia business school rucksacks neatly sitting on both your backs.
Get off the train please and spare us the dullitude of your semesters and internships and all the other paraphernalia of your perfect Columbia student existences.
Give the rest of us less privileged, weary mortals sitting on the 1 Train, at 21:55 hours at night, at least a little respite from your stentorian tones.
Phew, they got off at 168th St.

Spotted – Michael Jackson, back from the dead, on the A Train

I haven’t blogged for ages, but I have been taking random pics of funny/unusual/typically New York sights, so I thought to lure myself back into blogging more regularly, I’d start gently – by uploading a pic or two.

Here’s my first in a series of random, unchronologically ordered, New York snaps:

I present….Michael Jackson, back from the dead and fully reincarnated, pre-plastic surgery and looking younger than ever, doing the Moon Dance, on the A Train:

Parrot on the F Train

Second story in my “Feathered Friends On the NY Subway” (first was the pigeon on the 1 Train back in January this year):

Today I got into a carriage on the F Train in Brooklyn where I was met by the sight of a nattering parrot a’perching:

Preening its fine feathers:

Sharpening its beak:

Funny thing was that the man next to the parrot – presumably its owner – was totally indifferent to the surreal aspect of the scene, or to the attention the parrot was creating. In fact, I think he was simply taking a moment to have a nice little nap.

God descended in an aeroplane

No. 2 in the “Overheard on a Bronx-bound subway train” series:

Some choice excerpts from an Afro-American preacher sharing his somewhat muddled thoughts on God to lots of tired commuters in a packed 1 train carriage early this evening:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I saw Jesus Christ in the Lincoln Center this afternoon. He said, ‘I am hungry’. I asked him: ‘Can I stay with you, even if I’m not Jewish?’”

“I was sitting in church when God descended in an aeroplane into church. He took the first lady of the church into the plane and flew away.”

“Making love to my wife doesn’t mean anything anymore because I have seen THE LOVE.”

I’m still Rebecca from the Block

No. 1 in a possible series of “Overheard on a Bronx-bound subway train”:

“Headin’ back to da block, man?”

Snippets like that make you realise that you’re really not in London any more.

On the subject of people ‘from the block’, apparently our dear Jennifer “I’m still Jenny from the Block” Lopez’s real-life ‘block’ somewhere in the Bronx is not rough at all. It seems she somewhat fabricated that inner-city deprived image of her home neighbourhood to score some ‘cool’ street-cred points with that vile – but annoyingly very catchy – song of hers. In reality, it seems, her neighbourhood is supposedly quite salubrious.

(For those fortunate few among us who don’t know the song in question, it’s basically our J-Lo saying she may now be stinking rich, living in the lap of luxury, but is still the same good old gal  – just to reassure us all that her mountains of wealth, diamond-encrusted sunglasses and pedigree poodles with mink fur coats haven’t gone to her head. Or as she puts it so prettily and pithily in her song: “Used to have a little, now I got a lot, I’m still Jenny from the Block.” Phew, we’re so relieved and reassured and happy for you, our Jenny.)

And while we’re on the subject of reassuring all you anxious souls in the face of the relentless cycle of change and transformation, I just wanted to emphasise that, just like J-Lo, I too am still good old Rebecca from the Block (but in my case, “used to have a little, still got a little”). I may now be living in New World, I may once have sojourned in Paris and Tel Aviv, but I’ve never forgotten my humble London NW11 roots.