The sequence of events....
I'm guessing a little background info might be helpful - so to fill in what brought me to the U.S. here is a little history.

My story begins on September the 11th, 2001. That tragic day that will forever be remembered around the world. The events so indelibibly etched in our minds that the nomenclature "9/11" is all that is required.

It was actually my day off work that day and when I climbed out of bed and turned on the TV all hell had already broken loose in New York. I work in TV, and worked for a small company in London that sent video signals around the world. My wife (although she didn't know it back then) worked for a large American news network - and as a result of that day, our two respective companies started working together, sending video signals around the world to cover the war in Afghanistan, and later, the war in Iraq. She was one of a group of people who booked the transmissions. I was one of a team of guys that made it happen. We talked on the phone, at work, for work, for over a year before we met in person. So I guess from that moment on my future life was always going to be influenced by America. I like to think that for all the tragedy that occured on that day, something good came out of 9/11. I met my wife.

It's funny. When we tell this story now to people, about how we met over the phone and then met and then dated trans-atlantically for nearly three years, they say "Oh that's so sweet."

I don't get it. I don't get why that is any more "sweet" than meeting your life partner in a club or a bar. Surely just the fact that you've met someone that you love dearly and want to spend your life with is "sweet" in itself - regardless of the circumstances. Isn't it?

So yeah, that's what brought me to America - eventually - but of course there was a major hurdle called "immigration" that had to be tackled.

Whatever happened to Alistair Cooke?

Who you Ask? Alistair Cooke. For more than half a century he was the voice of "Letter from America," a BBC radio show which served as his own personal diary and observations of life in the U.S. of A.

I never listened to his show because I was young and more into Radio 1 on the BBC than the more "grown-up" Radio 4 which his journal was broadcast on. However, now I am older and find myself having slid down that radio numerary scale I ponder that question, "Whatever happened to Alistair Cooke?"

He died, last year, poor fellow - at the ripe old age of 95, but I wonder if I should have listened to those hundreds of broadcasts. Why? Because maybe he had some advice for me. Maybe he had some nuggets of information about what it's like to live in America, and more importantly, New York, because now I find myself here.

I emigrated to the U.S. in January and so far the past 7 months have been a whirlwind - arrived, got married, honeymoon, an on-going search for work, getting a book published, looking for a new home. Crazy - but more on all of that in later blog postings. Really, I'm just starting this blog as a personal diary of life in a new city, in a new country, where I'm foreign but don't feel foreign. Where the culture is familiar but at some times pretty strange and where, whatever walk of life you are from, you can find a niche.

So if you want to come along for the ride I'd love to have you along. I don't know what it's going to be but mainly, I hope, it's going to chronicle the observations I make along the way that bring a little smile to my face - and hopefully you'll see the funny side of it too.

I don't ever expect to replace Alistair Cooke - the man was a legend - but he left a void that maybe another "Letter from America" can aspire to replace. I figure - new commentator, new medium - why the hell not? - and if nothing else, the family I left behind in the UK (who complain that I never mail them enough) will be somewhat up to date with what I am doing. Maybe at the same time I'll drag them kicking and screaming into the world of webcams, broadband and VoIP. I'll leave it there for now - but I hope to post regularly so come back and visit soon.

I'm off to go and listen to my new Anthem by Sting..."I'm an alien. I"m a legal Alien. I'm an Englishman in New York"