Nixta Rolls

My brother, Sherlock Furness, pointed out to me just now that while he and mater were visiting last year, I took a photo from our Circle Line tour of the FDNY boat John D. McKean which was inolved in yesterday’s rescue of the US Air flight that ditched in the Hudson (for those living under a rock: no loss of life).

It’s -20C with wind-chill today, so there’s no way in hell that I’m jumping on my bike to head down to Battery Park to check out the half-sunken plane.

But they were lucky that it’s the dead of winter because in summertime the Hudson has a fair few little boats criss-crossing and running up and down. In fact, last year or the year before, we were strolling by the Hudson with Leo’s parents and watched what I think was a Catalina taking off and landing. I recall that the FDNY boat was also cleaning out its hoses or something (it was spraying water rather gratuitously around the place). But the Catalina took a lot of time taking off and landing, with many false starts - the river was just too busy for a clear channel much of the time. If the river had been like that yesterday they doubtless couldn’t have done such a good job of landing.