The other day I was waiting for the Brooklyn-bound Q train at Canal Street around 6pm. The platform was very busy and I was standing well down towards the front of the train.

As soon as the train pulled into the station and the doors opened people started pouring out. In my usual polite British way I stood well to the side to allow everyone to exit—I can’t stand it when people start pushing to get in while everyone is still trying to get out. As the last person exited the carriage and I moved forward to get onto the train the doors closed and the Q pulled out of the station. I looked down the platform and I was the only one who hadn’t got on the train—a victim of my own politeness.

A set of doors on the following Q train refused to close at Union Square, so the next train into Canal Street was empty and passed straight through. A journey that should have taken 20 minutes turned into about 45 minutes.

Ordinarily this kind of thing would infuriate me but since the NY Subway runs so well all I could think was “well, at least it doesn’t happen all the time”. In fact, I struggled to remember the last time the Subway had let me down and I really couldn’t remember when or how.

When I lived in London during the late 1990s I used to have to wait for two or three trains every morning before I could find one with enough room to squeeze on. Not to mention all the delays and closures due to maintenance or malfunctions. And the expense. And the fact that the damn thing stopped running around midnight.

I’m sure the Tube has improved a lot since then. At least, I hope it has. But the next time you get stuck on the Subway in New York try to remember the last time it let you down. And if you can’t remember, then what are you complaining for?

I think Ben Baruch could have a scoop here. Is JDate posting fake personal adverts on its site? Are adult dating sites ripping photos from JDate? Or is someone having a laugh? You decide.

I don’t know how obvious it has been but I have spent the past three weeks working full time in the city on research work for a book as well as trying to maintain some semblance of freelance momentum.

This week my computer decided to play up and has been taken in for repair and my body decided to give in and, to borrow a phrase, is “drifting into the arena of the unwell”.

I have a Valentine’s interview with the author of thisfish in today’s Metro which can be downloaded as a pdf here. I just heard on the radio that a blizzard warning has been issued for the weekend.

The cartoon row hangs over our apartment like a dark cloud. Most people take little notice of Denmark, so it is upsetting for my Danish wife that this event has brought it to the world’s attention.

The sad fact is that in some quarters Denmark is being portrayed as a semi-fascistic, racist, xenophobic state. In an op-ed I read yesterday, Denmark sounded like Germany circa 1933 (then again, in the same op-ed it was European colonialism and US militarism which were the cause of the protests, not a word of Islamic extremism).

I don’t think you would find many countries in Europe more devoted to freedom of religion and freedom of expression than Denmark. To characterize the cartoons as racist or anti-Muslim is wrong.

The cartoons did not depict Muslims as terrorists. They illustrated the hijacking of religion by extremists. In doing so they offended a vast swathe of Muslims by choosing Muhammad as the vehicle for their attack. Their crime is ignorance not malice. Which is more than can be said for the reaction from some quarters. However, I fear I am wasting my breath.

Links for today:
With a little over two hours to go the Rocketboom advertising auction is at $30,000 with the reserve still not met. My guess is that the reserve is $40,000. Will it jump $10,000 in two hours?

UPDATE: We have a Rocketboom advertising winner. The winning bid? $40,000. Not a bad guess by me!

Harry’s Place reports that ticket sales for Galloway’s next UK tour are slow—unlike sales of Celebrity Big Brother memorabilia he’s flogging off on eBay.