Last bits and pieces -New York

These are the few last decent pics from NYC last weekend.
I have a wee bit of news at the end, so scroll down if you're interested.I'm fascinated with the Statue of liberty.
Here's a few of things about it you may or may not know:
The structure in NYC is actually the third version;
The first incarnation, on a much smaller scale, stands in the jardin du Luxembourg in Paris and was completed in 1870.
Small version II is in Maceio in Brazil and is in front of the first city hall (now a museum).
The designer, Frederick Barthodi, went to the Suez canal ( then under construction) and his ambitions became rather bigger.
Lady Liberty actually started life as plans for a colossal lighthouse on the canal. Based on the Greek goddess Libertas, then modified to resemble an Egyptian peasant with the light house beams of light emanating from a headband and torch thrust into the night sky, the project became a non-starter when financial crisis made all such things in Egypt frivolous in 1867.
So....Frederick had a grand vision to build something and nowhere to do so.
Ahhh America...that's the answer.
As a gift from France to America ( ya the two countries used to be tight), the project gained new life.
The US didn't want to pay for it.
In fact the whole thing almost foundered on the issue of a plinth to mount the statue as the US public was so disinterested in the project that a public subscription to fund the construction drew barely a whimper of a response. It took an outraged editorial by Joseph Pulitzer ( ya the prize guy) in one of his newspapers to shame the rich and notable folk to stump up some cash. Compare and contrast this to the $250K ( at the time a HUGE amount of money) raised in France for the project.
It was finally finished and unveiled on October 28 1886.
It functioned as a lighthouse from 1886-1902.
The face of Lady Liberty was fashioned after the designer's mum.
How do you follow THAT up next mother's day?
OK.
History lesson done. Sooooooo....That's it for NYC.
I was in Berlin on Friday and as I'd been there countless times, I decided to leave the camera at home. I was there to look at office space and found a stupendous place in the heart of East Berlin. The commie architecture yields generous space with massively high ceilings, and a snip at 18 euros a sq meter.
London is 80 euros for the same measurement.
So a really cool area.
Swish agencies and telecoms businesses as neighbours.
Designer clad models strutting around with Gucci shopping bags eating fiddly salads of dandelions and seared tuna for lunch in the "are you cool enough to eat here?" cafes.
We went back to the area that night to eat dinner:
Wall to wall Polish and Russian hookers lining the street.
The world is a strange place!
I'm girding my loins at the minute for a marathon trip.
Canada and Hong Kong until September 3rd.
I'll be moving to HK at the end of September though " moving" is a bit of an overstatement as I'll be travelling 3 weeks out of 4 over the next year and will be in the UK as often as I am now.
Tax in HK=15%
Tax in the UK =51%
Easy to see why the Far East beckons...... It's a bit more complicated than that but the explanation will have to do for now and is as good as any.
Finally there seems to be a problem with Explorer and site meter (which has a script on the blog). Explorer throws up a message to the tune of
"The site you are accessing has a problem. Operation aborted"
FireFox and Safari seem to be unaffected.
Those of you using f&S are likely feeling smug.
Those with Explorer aren't reading this so it begs the question as to why I've posted it.
That's it for tonight.Love T