INTERESTING TO SEE...

... that Times Square was evacuated yesterday following the discovery of a suspect device in a car. Charles's comment on hearing this was, 'Hmmm, interesting, I thought there was a heavy police presence.'
It's true - the place was swarming with police, but to be fair they never really looked as if they were actually on duty. Most of them were engaged in posing for photos with the many tourists (us included) and James was of the opinion that they were actually FAKE POLICE who were brought in especially for photo opportunities. (Not that he ever voiced this opinion within their hearing!) Most of them stood around in small groups, chewing gum, eating their Dunkin' Doughnuts and/or drinking take out coffee. There would be a bunch of mounted guys somewhere in the square, but again they were always dead casual and just appeared to be there for the PR.
I would imagine that there would be fairly chaotic scenes when these guys morphed into serious cops and got everyone out of the danger zone.
I guess that the racket from the headquarters in the street next to our hotel would have been something else as well, as it is the closest to Times Square. The noise from there and the FDNY on the next street is something we don't miss one bit!
Every morning at 6ish there would be an almighty exchange of police sirens as, we guessed, the shifts changed over. In fact one of our aims, which we failed to achieve because we'd lost the will to live, was to capture an image of all the NYPD vehicles parked up along the street (rear tyres always parked on the 'sidewalk' front facing the street for quick get away) and the policemen armed with their Starbucks and Dunkins. I actually think the 6 o'clock siren-fest was probably a call to breakfast!