She works hard for the money...

Since moving to New York I haven't done much of what could be constituted as a hard day's work.

I appreciate this is unlikely to endear me to anyone reading, so I'll come straight in with the defence that I only recently got my U.S. work permit. Well fairly recently. Two months ago to be exact. I had planned to hide it down the back of the sofa but The American got to it first.

"Honnnneee you can get a proper job now!" he trills, waving the card excitedly around like it's the Wonka Golden ticket .

"I have a job! I am a Journalist."

"Honnnneee. I know you are a journalist, but you kind of have to work as one, not just, like, be one."

"Fuck off and make your own pasta."

To further my defence it's not like I've sat on my arse watching Maury and General Hospital for the last year, instead life has been it's own real life soap opera to which I've become the reluctant producer. I've been pretty busy with a whole lot of something and a fair bit of nothing.

There have been paid jobs here and there, some radio, some writing, a few small TV jobs, but nothing that would pay the rent- and when you live in a bijoux box in the West Village, ain't nutin' going on the but the rent.

I had been trying to avoid going back into tele, for the reasons that I am rather fond of having a life and not so fond of cultivating new deep set frown lines.

But the TV demons want what the TV demons want, so when I get my called by a former colleague and offered a month's work as a New York 'fixer' for a high end Natural history programme I am back in the game again. I have to admit it feels good to be a whore for the money get hired again.

I take the job even though 'fixer' sounds like a someone who goes in and cleans up after a grisly murder in a Tarantino film. As it turns out, it means everything from location and casting manager to producer, NYC restaurant expert and coffee runner.

Before the crew arrive for 8 days of filming I spend the several weeks beforehand researching and finding people and places to film. Turns out I am pretty good at scouting locations, seems my year of doing a whole lot of something and nothing has given me a finely honed sense of this Island.

*

The crew arrive on a dull, humid Tuesday night. Within 20 minutes of meeting them at their hotel there's a TV crisis, some sandbags are missing for an essential piece of kit. For the majority of you fortunate enough to not work in the industry, let me explain a TV crisis; It is the very worse kind of crisis. It starts as quickly as it is over, but for it's lifetime it's all pervading, encompassing and really, reeeeeally serious. This particular one find us all in a sport's shop at 8p.m. buying 200 lb of weights and then working how we get them out of the shop and back to the crew's hotel.

That's just the entrée. Over the following 8 days there are many more real-life TV dramas and surreal moments.

There is extortion from the locals in Chinatown, there are rats and their catchers, there are angry honeybees on a show stopping rooftops in Queens. There are 6 a.m starts, midnight finishes, a soundman with suspected martini poisoning and a night out that ends with a cameraman riding a mechanical bull in a Lower East side bar.

There is a fight in another bar that has hundreds of women's bras hanging from the ceiling (not involving any of us crew I would like to point out), there is the panic stricken 5 minutes when we think we've locked some contributors on a 7th floor balcony and there is getting chased down by some graffiti artists in Long Island City.

Then there is the weather. After a glorious NYC summer, it is stubbornly grey when all we need to film is golden sunshine.

The American is patient while I work day and night, although really I suspect he just enjoys playing a lot of x box unhindered. While I am gone our apartment goes to shit: laundry sits in the basket, nothing gets picked up from where it was dropped and a cure for cancer grows in the sink. The American does not do any of these household chores because he has a penis and is busy killing Nazis.

I don't have time to write or see my friends or do anything else I love. I am out every night having dinner with the crew and this means booze becomes my major food group.

I also don't go to the gym which means I get grumpier by the day, although I do lug lots of camera equipment around up endless flights of stairs and carry a lot of waters and coffees. Me and the driver find ourselves doing a lot of drinks runs actually- on one of them we work out we have a combined age of 65 and three degrees and a postgrad between us-which we think might make us the most well educated pair of coffee runners in town. We laugh about a lot about that. No really, we're in total stitches.

On the last day, with the words "it's a wrap" ringing joyfully in my ear I wave goodbye to the director as she heads off for Newark.

I bounce down 27th street, feeling the satisfaction of a hard month's work. Just that old fashioned buzz of a job well done and bringing home the bacon. Feels good. I had forgotten how good. I want to go crazy, pay some bills! Do a food shop! Mail a rent cheque!

The euphoria lasts until the next morning when I get sick. A raging sore throat, a thumping headache I can't shift and a lethargy. Tele hangover. I swear I will not do another TV job again, even though I know I will, especially when I add up what I've earned. This causes my fingers to disconnect from my brain and make their own way to my laptop to buy some new stuff for the apartment and an ipod and that perfect pair of summer wedges without the ankle straps that make your legs look fat.

Then I take to my bed in dramatic Victorian fashion and dispatch The American to Duane Reade to buy me Theraflu and tissues that don't make your nose go red. I tell him I think that maybe TV work does not agree with me. He says I should rest and not worry about another job until I'm better.

I tell him I suspect it will be a long recovery.

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You can ring my Liberty Bell...

New York and I need a break.

My Welsh alien ship has been stranded for too long in Manhattan. The wheels are rusty. Just like any relationship, I know my love will be renewed after some time apart.

This is what finds me on the Bolt Bus bound for a postcard pretty suburb of Philadelphia. My plan is enforced solitude so I can work. I need to escape the city's whoreish pull on me, it's murky and delicious temptations that lurk on every corner. To achieve calm in the countryside. To see butterflies. To not have my groceries thrown at me. To remember what manners sound like.

I am going to house and pet sit in Bala Cynwydd, a former Welsh colony. I wasn't aware my forefathers were at it either. No longer can us Welsh claim a moral superiority over our English cousins and their voracious appetites for stealing lands that didn't belong to them. We likely did it with less panache though-brandishing daffodils and shouting "Alright' butt' I'll take this land now. Ta."

When I arrive I can see what the appeal was-the place even looks like Wales with lots of greenery and trees. I meet my charge-an 80 pound 14 month old golden retriever- who's described as '"Frisky". He's apparently partial to toilet roll and kitchens, having already eaten his way through an entire one. 80 pounds is a lot of a dog, almost as big as some humans. It's roughly the same size as Nicole Richie in her partying with Paris days.

From the start, Montana-who shall be known as Slobadan on account of his highly productive dribble producing jaws- follows me everywhere, only leaving my side occasionally to try and destroy something. When I shower he sits outside the cubicle, when I am on the loo he opens the bathroom door with his paws and sits next to me. When I eat, he thinks it's dinner for two. When I try and work he soaks the keyboard with drool. When I turn my back on him he tries to mount me.

By the end of the first day the items I have retrieved from his mouth include (but are not limited to); my pen, two notepads, several books, something unidentifiable from the bathroom, my vintage scarf, most of my lunch and two toilet rolls.

Everytime he does something bad he looks up at me panting, his pink tongue lolling like a giant slice of deli ham, his soft golden face framed by long sandy eyelashes. Yes, he has doggy eyelashes. I am putty in his paws.

That night I sit drinking wine on the porch, looking out at the trees and flowers and listening to the sweet sound of nothing but crickets and and birds saying 'coup coup' in the trees. Fireflies are darting in and out of the hedges. Slobadan wants to play ball. It is nearly 10 p.m.

On day two I discover that-as warned- nothing here is in walking distance aside from lots more trees. I will need to use the car. I have slight qualms about this due to the fact that I haven't driven in a year/have limited experience on the wrong right side of the road/have always thus far refused to operate an automatic. So, that's actually quite a few qualms, but I have never been one to let logic lead me off my destined path.

I set off to buy my groceries for the week, arriving in one piece at the retail park, happy there is little to distract me in sleepy Bala Cynwydd.

That's when I discover the local Lord and Taylor sitting right next to the supermarket. I have never even set foot in The New York branch, imagining it to be one of the less exciting, more old lady department stores. In this setting though, it gleams like Tutankhamun's tomb. It is consumer Atlantis.

Inside, my retail radar leads me to the clearance section. The rails aren't anywhere near as plundered like they would be in New York, even though a sign informs me there is another 40% off all the lowest marked prices. When I get to the till the assistant tells me there is further 20% discount. Game changing, some dribble escapes from the side of my mouth. I go skittering back off into the rails and find a classic navy Ralph Lauren cardigan for $20 and a floral BCBG Max Azria dress for $50. I feel a little faint with excitement, but I put them both down and force myself to leave, exercising my If-you-are-still-thinking-about-them-tomorrow-you-should-buy-them-policy.

The next day I pull back the curtains to hear birds tweeting and see a butterfly float past the window... I can think about nothing but the Lord and Taylor clearance racks. I take the dog for a long walk to distract myself, through the 19th century graveyard nearby, where I see the grandoise resting places of the area's former brewery owners.

My crypt's-bigger-than-your-crypt was apparently a popular game in Philadelphia at the turn of the century-some of them are more spacious than my Manhattan apartment.

I breathe in the air, it's clean and there is absolute quiet and austerity...Then a little voice says "I wonder if that BCBG dress is still there?"

It's no good, I have to go back. Montana asks if he can come, but I tell him bargain hunting is a dog-eat-dog game and he may not be safe in the crush. Of course, he knows there will be no crush and cocks his head to the side and demands an extra cheese string as guilt payment.

I return and regretably discover a whole other floor with lingerie and sports wear on and some more clearance racks, including the shoes. I leave with a bag almost as heavy as the feeling of disappointment in myself for being so easily distracted.

The next few days drift by- I write while sitting on the porch in the sunshine, read a book called The Sex Lives of Cannibals, watch movies, work, sunbathe, work some more. I take lengthy morning dog walks in the abundance of local cemeteries and take pictures of the Welshies' headstones.

I wrestle my bra, more toilet rolls, People magazine and a punnet of Blueberries from the Jaws of Slobby. I get covered in giant mosquito bites, I try to figure out how to get a train into town, but they only seem to run every 5 hours. I clean dog slobber off everything I own. I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the Lord and Taylor clearance rack.

*

On the last day, after a week of perfect weather, I am trying to even up my tan in the garden when the skies darken and I hear a rumble in the near distance. Within minutes it's like a monsoon hit. I run inside with Montana, who growls every time the thunder does. We sit inside and I tell him not to be scared, that it'll pass. He just pants at me, which seems to be his standard response to everything.

I go out on to the porch for a few minutes to drink in the drama. Rain batters the trees and the brook outside races furiously. The prettiness is destroyed, everything is imperfect, mud sloshes on the lawn. Nature is a bit pissed off. It's a truly entertaining, real kind of beauty.

And just like that, I am ready to go back to New York.

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Look who's celebrity stalking...

As if I needed further evidence never to leave the house without a camera in New York, I recently bumped into Helena Christensen in Rite Aid. This is no euphemism, we actually ran into each other at the end of an aisle. She smiled-as technically it was her fault-she was coming around the corner and not paying attention. When we clashed there was skin touching, the brushing of arms as I recall. Which means I have-by association- touched skin with Linda, Christy and Claudia et al. It also means I am just one degree of separation from rolling around on a beach with Chris Isaak: This sighting of a legendary supermodel-turned photographer and humanitarian- is surprising for several reasons: 1) Rite Aid is the most ghetto pharmacy ever. Even though I spotted her in the West Village branch, it doesn't stop them selling two packs of cakes for 99c and having the deodorants under alarmed casing. There is only ever one person serving and there's always a line. Which leads me to point number 2. 2) Helena was actually queuing. After our clash of skin, I spazzed out a bit and ran round and around the shop, shameful of the 99c 'Freeze at home!' ice lollies I was carrying around, that Helena may or may not have seen. Then I went to the till to find myself behind her in line. This gave me adequate time to memorise her outfit; (black boho cotton dress with white tree pattern, black flip flops and a neutral straw bag), the tattoo on the back of her neck (black, small, some kind of symbol) and her hair (twisty up, messy chic up-do) as well as wondering how many pounds I would have to shed to look even vaguely Helena like (rather a lot). 3) She was buying Vitamins. I would imagine a former supermodel turned photographer and humanitarian would have a specific 'Vitamin doc' for such purposes. Actually, they could have been painkillers, I can't be sure, but either way you would imagine a specialist for any matters pertaining to a supermodel body? Her purchase total came to $14.85. A mere $14.85 people, how attainable is that? You or I could have the same total if we were to go into a Rite Aid and buy the same things. 4) I had already seen Helena just days previously at the Bonsignour cafe in the West Village. I was outside on a bench watching the football on their specially erected T.V. and I nearly choked on my lemonade. She was with her son Mingus, who is like the successful result of an Arian superace experiment. Helena eats at the same place as me. Unfortunately our weight is not in the same place, not even the same zip code. Maybe she just drinks the coffee and doesn't hoof the cakes? Two sightings of the same supermodel in close proximity can only mean thus: she lives in my hood. This is enough to send my fickle sensibilities crashing into reasoning overdrive that we should no longer move to Brooklyn for more space and sanity, but stay in our overpriced bijoux box in the West Village. How can I now move from my Manhattan knowing that a supermodel and childhood idol lives a mere amble away? Oh Helena, what a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way. More blogs at http://www.welshalien.blogspot.com/ Even more ramblings at http://twitter.com/WelshAlienNYC

Fireworks on my first 4th

I am stood on the rooftop of the W hotel in Union Square on the night of 4th July dressed in the colours of the USA.

It's 90 degrees at 9.20 p.m. and I have broken out into a full body sweat after racing back from a BBQ in Brooklyn. I have dashed through the Brownstone lined streets of Park Slope, battled a packed 2 train, followed by an ambling L. I have sprinted across the square from the subway exit to hear the crackles and rumbles of the Fireworks starting up in the distance. I have stopped in dry mouthed panic at a street vendor to buy water, scrambled for a dollar, but didn't have any cash. The man looked at me and told me not to worry about paying. This never happens. I can only guess I am that adorable shade of beetroot again.

Now I stand 25 stories up, with my Scouse Welsh mate and The Aussie. Another friend who works at the hotel has snuck us in among a small group of staff members to get an enviable vantage of the Macy's Fireworks.

Unspecified $$$ worth of Pyrotechnics are lighting up the inky sky, shooting off 6 barges on the Hudson River. Somewhere nearby NBC are broadcasting live off a cruise liner with Canadian and exercise in medocrity Justin Beiber leading the proceedings.

To my left is the back of the giant 'W' that sits atop the hotel. From here I can see the tangle of wires that light it up. Tonight the 'W' stands for a string of superlatives. Wow. Wonderment. Wicked.

To my right- there is the phallic greatness of the Manhattan skyline. The usual stalwarts like the Crysler and the Empire State standing proud, like concrete cocks.

I don't have my camera and I'm anxious about what a perfect photoblog this would have made. My brain scrambles to write the scene in my head but despite the breathtaking allure, all I'm thinking about is how Fireworks are really quite sad. A lot of beauty that poofs and piffs and goes as quickly as it arrives. Tremendous but transient.

There is an almost eerie silence atop the roof. No "Owwws" and "Ahhs", just everyone watching and thinking their own thoughts. As the gold, greens, reds and blues color the sky I wonder what those thoughts are. Maybe some are simply craving the drink they're gonna get when they get off work? Or as giant exploding firework Chrysanthmums burst into the horizon, how they want to go home and fuck their wife? Is anyone else feeling mournful? Hot and sticky and sorrowful?

My thoughts have fallen inevitably to my Dad.

I wonder if I will always feel sad to see something spectacular, because he won't. My eyes feel wet and I realise I may sob right there on the roof, in front of everyone and they will think I am crying with joy at the Fireworks and that will make me look like a massive twat.

So I bite into the inside of my lip and breathe in hard and steel myself.

A little tear has escaped and is blobbing down my cheek. If anyone could see it up close they would catch the last burst of colour from the fireworks reflected in it.

It is really hot. I breathe.

Tonight I am red, white and a little bit blue.

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NYC heatwave: The Sunnyday Roast

Summer in New York City is something of a climatical groundhog day.

You wake up in an air conditioned bedroom that feels like a giant freezer. You go outside into a sauna. Walk any distance and you are perspiring like a human hog roast. Eyeball sweat blinds you before you have reached the end of your block. You escape back inside again and you're back in the freezer. Outside Sauna...inside freezer. Sauna. Freezer. Sauna. Freezer.

NY1 is in it's element right now is as this heatwave is upgraded from 'regular' to 'record breaking' There are stories of fainting firefighters, power outages and constant tips to stay cool.

Right now I cannot walk out of my house without raising my hand to my head and saying "Owww!", while puffing like a Grandma in pain. Sometimes I even start singing Billy Idol's Hot in the City to myself like a social retard or I yell "Scorchio!" like Caroline Aherne's weathergirl on the Fast Show.

Today it was 99 degrees with no sun. Cloudy with a chance of heat rash. Disgusting. As disgusting as the sweat that is running down my back and into my arse. Butt crack sweat, what could be erotic than that? Good thing I'm married already.

From that image, I segway neatly into our bedrooms, where we have relief in the form our air conditioning units. The rest of the apartment has to make do with a freestanding fan that just circulates the hot air. The bathroom and kitchen have become go-only-when-necessary zones. It's so hot in those rooms, I am considering renting them out for Ashtanga Yoga classes. I have all but given up cooking- summer in the city is no time to turn on an oven, just the exertion of chopping means perspiration is the main seasoning in my homemade coleslaw.

Leaving the house is no better. It's for the foolhardy and employed only. As well as facing the roasting rubbish scented Eau de New York streets, you also have to pack a survival kit: Copious amounts of water, dollar bills to buy more water and a scarf in your bag to cover your arms when you go back into buildings with over zealous air cons. Take my office for example-better known to most as 'The New York Library'-it's the worst culprit. Never mind the petitions to stop closures, try making it a little less igloo and you'd save enough taxpayers money to solve the budget deficit.

The stifling heat is all to do with the humidity apparently. Am I alone in not knowing what that really means? Everyone is always banging on about it, but I don't really think anyone truly understands it. All I am certain of is that humidity is a city problem and my Mother would describe it as 'close', which is as nonsensical as the rest of what she says.

The American is a bit obsessed with humidity, mainly because it's another factor in his growing weather related arsenal against New York and in favour of his California homeland.

"Whiney whine whine New York weather whine whine whineyyyyyy." he says

"Uh huh." I say

"Blah blah blah terrible humidity."

"I know!"

"Na na noo na, not like this in California."

"Yeah?"

"La de da da lovely L.A. blah blah bad New York, la de da da DRY HEAT."

I didn't think it was possible to become more weather obsessed than when I lived in Cardiff, but since the start of Welsh Alien I have blogged about all the seasons and have now come full circle with Summer, or 'Satan's armpit' as I heard it referred to recently.

There are a few days of perfection in September and April. Precious Manhattan times when it's in the early 70's and the wind blows gently and no one needs clinical strength deodorant and everyone's in a good mood. I don't really remember them, I must have been inside blogging about the weather and missed them.

So what is the ultimate way to keep cool in the city? Aside from frolicking in a virus infected public pool like this foolish child?

I just stick my head in the freezer. Right in there. Ahhhhh. I have the perfect spot, between the ice lollies and the frozen prawns.

It is the only corner of Manhattan where true solace from the heat lies.

*

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There's a price on my head in Brooklyn

The last piece of advice I had before going to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, was "Don't upset the locals."

"Viiiiie you take my peecture vivout permission?" snarls an old Russian lady, after cursing me in her native tongue. The only Russian I know is 'Glasnost', 'Perestroika' and 'Double Vod-ka' and by her tone I guess she doesn't want to discuss any of those.

I also am pretty sure she won't appreciate a diatribe on how photojournalism relies on catching your subject unaware, so I lie and say I was taking a picture of the building behind her. She stares are me so intently I feel a piece of my soul breaking off and crumbling into dust.

From there on, it is not just my imagination that every other old lady on the beach is giving me stinking looks-The Teenager notices too. There is a price on my head with the elderly women of Brighton beach and I'm scared as they all have big umbrellas.

I continue to document our day at Little Odessa with my camera though. Hey, I've been chased out of town before, it's no big deal, especially when you've done the dreaded death knocks as a reporter. Sometimes then, there was Alsatians involved and I was on The Gurnos estate in Merthyr, so I am pretty robust.

After what seems like about three minutes tanning on the beach, The Teenager announces she is bored. I thought at 16, we had moved on from this hyper attention deficit problem, yet we enter into a bartering phrase about what time we can leave.

"Can we go at 3 p.m. Mum?"

"No."

"Can we leave at 3.30?

"No."

"3.15?"

"Huh?"

"I would go sooner that later if I was you."

"And why is that?"

"Cos there is another old Russian lady coming towards us and she's giving you like, proper evil stares."

So we pack up swiftly and make our way down to Coney Island by walking down the shoreline.

On the way a man is practising Yoga and he's doing the crab. On the beach. I am fighting to find the pun.

A mile down the coast and we arrive at Coney. The Russians are replaced by a motely crew of ghetto unfabulous, freaks, schoolkids, tourists and Manhattanites enjoying the 'irony'.

The Teenager and I wander up the boardwalk in the searing sunshine, burgers and doughnuts smoke in the air. We stop and stare at attractions like 'Shoot the freak' with it's real human target. I buy a cowboy hat and get the feeling I should be drunk or on hallucinagenics to fully appreciate the place. Everyone else apparently is-all sipping on what looks like giant plastic bongs full of Margarita. Maybe If I got wrecked I would wear a g-string in public?

We sit down by a seafood stall and watch the colour and craziness go by. I snap away with the camera and The Teenager threatens to get the train home on her own if I don't stop.

"Mother. For god's sake! Why won't you put the camera down?"

I pause thoughtfully and look wistfully at the sky and say: "I guess...it's because...you know, I want to document life wherever I go."

She says "Ugghhh. Because you are a *rolls eyes* bloody journalist?

And I say "Nah. Just because I'm a nosey cow."

And we both laugh until snowcone comes out of our noses.

And because nice moments are rare when your children are Teenagers, I take another picture, but this time in my head.

It's the best one of the day.

*

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Sgorio in the city

My mother says I have an answer for everything.

I like to call this 'being a journalist'. The American would say I use my profession as an excuse for most of my personality pitfalls.

But one question flummoxed me recently: "When it comes to England v USA in the World Cup who will you be supporting?"

That one, I had no answer for.

The Welsh among you will be frothing dragon scented spittle that I could even think of supporting England. "As long as we beat the English we don't care." Ok, that's stolen from the game with the funny shaped ball, but it applies to football too.

The English will be thinking it's a no-brainer. We're all Brits after all yeah? Innit? Whatevs'? Ribena? Marmite? Crumpet? And Wales never qualify for any major footie tournaments, so obviously cheering on the neighbours is the next best option.

The Americans reading are probably just confused. You're thinking "What's the problem, you are English aren't you?" and then you'll ask "Where's Wales?" and I will do my frantic arm flapping demonstration of the UK map where I draw in the air with my fingers and point out the four countries that make up The United Kingdom. You will then remain confused, yet entertained when I speak some Cymraeg and you laugh heartily and say it sounds like Lord of the Rings language.

When the world cup rolled around every 4 years in the UK, I would always end up cheering for England. I was brainwashed by The Sun and their clever low rent headlines and reminiscences of '66 and all those Page 'free stunnas' wearing hotpants with The St George's cross on their arse.

Here there was little to no build up. Although now it's got going, there seem to be flags and tournament schedules outside most bars. I think it's seen as another excuse to drink here. Not that New Yorkers need much of a reason to imbibe. The rising of the sun is enough to perpetuate the institutionalised alcholism of this city.

So, last Saturday I go to a bar in Hell's Kitchen to meet with English and American friends. I am asked who I'm supporting and I explain my dilemma of being British but living here and being married to an American, albeit one who has no interest in soccerball.

I make a crack about possibly cheering for The USA, being as I now have American DNA in me. Unfortunately I forget The Teenager is right behind me and old enough to get such inappropriate jokes. She is horrified and I throw another wad of virtual notes in the virtual therapy pot. That pot, however imaginary, overfloweth.

I declare myself neutral in summary. That makes everyone calls me Switzerland. I'm not crazy keen on that, I was nearly arrested there once over an argument about using Euros. Despite their neutrality they are very insistent about their Swiss Francs.

Then I head to the bar, and before I can even be misunderstood with my drinks order it happens... England score. I pause. The small but vocal fans go crazy in the bar... I feel nothing.

Flatline. Passionless emptiness.

We watch the rest of the game and I enjoy not feeling attached to either team, it's zero stress. I clap when there's a clearance or decent shot at goal. The Teenager shouts at me when I do it for USA. but I ignore her-she is influenced by an English boyfriend and has grown up under a united Europe. Sporting Jingoism escapes her.

Then the USA equalise and I laugh. Really hard. America has got it's dick out again, only this time it's like it's pissing on the overinflated egos of the England team. And maybe that's the best thing that could happen to them in early on?

Soccerball is one of the few sports The USA play where they are the underdog. We all agree it's nice to laugh at Yanks doing something badly. However, this time, they are 1-all with England in a World Cup. Unexpected doesn't begin to cover it. Is there an evolution happening where by the USA get less of a joke every 4 years? Maybe Becks has been secretly coaching them in a hidden tunnel underneath The Home Depot Centre?

When the whistle blows not much past 90 minutes the bar goes gaga, chanting "U.S.A." I laugh some more. England played better, but it feels like the right result, even if it's just for England fans to step into a Welsh supporters shoes for one game.

*

The next day the strangest thing happens: a phonecall with my Mother makes everything clear. Really, that never happens.

I tell her of my supporting dilemma and she reminds me of what my late, beloved football crazy Dad Big D would have said:

"I support Wales and whoever England are playing."

In this topsy turvy world where the Yanks beat the English in the World Cup and The New York Post can run this genius headline, it seems like a perfect philosophy for a Welsh alien in New York.

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