Doctor Death

It was the big Halloween party weekend in NYC this weekend and the Toshi Party was the destination of choice for the Mountbatten types. Everyone had fantastic costumes: there were Ghotobusters mingling with pregnant nuns, Hooters girls dancing with pirates and cops talking to zombies!

The Toshi party was supposed to have a free bar but because of problems getting an alcohol license for the venue it turned into a soft drink only event; a glorified school disco. Everyone managed to still get a little drunk....I can't imagine how!

Me, Owen and Ayomi

James

Dan and John

Fran, Sally and Jack

Nicola and CJ

Chris, Riz, Louisa and Dave

The American Voting Franchise

History Homework 1 – The Constitution

October 18th 2006
Christopher Rath

Democracy is defined as a form of government in which the power lies with the people of the country. In the United States, the people vote for the officials who represent them in the various political institutions. In Debbie Minchin’s lecture she explained how the right to vote was initially restricted to a privileged few, namely males aged over twenty-one years. As the country advanced this fundamental right was extended to the whole population. Women, freed slaves and 18 years olds were among those given the right to choose who should represent them in government. Having been told this I was surprised to read about voting anomalies that existed throughout America’s history.

Individual states granted voting rights to specific minority groups, for example, New Jersey allowing women to vote between 1776 and 1807. This shows that the power does lie with the people but only if the geography works in their favour. This leads me to question the validity of the belief that the U.S. has been continually extending the franchise to ensure all citizens have the right to vote. Granting voting rights and subsequently taking that right away in individual states demonstrates a lack of coherency in the political system. Thankfully the ratification of constitutional amendments has meant this particular injustice has been removed to help make America a truer democracy.

However, as the New York Times article suggests, this practice of disenfranchisement may be happening again in polling stations around the country. The House of Representatives has passed a bill that requires citizen’s to be in possession of government-issued identification if they wish to vote. As a result there will be a reduced number of people able to exercise their democratic right to elect a representative. Given that these representatives are the very same ones who have stopped them from voting in the first place, do they really want to elect a government that do not supply a basic right, like the right to vote?

Entry Clearance Assistant

Job Description

Foreign and Commonwealth Office
British Consulate-General
845 Third Avenue
New York
NY 10022
Monday 16th October 2006

Christopher Rath: Entry Clearance Assistant

As an Entry Clearance Assistant my role is to perform essential administrative tasks, which ensure that all types of visa applications are processed according to Best Practice. I do this by assuming six responsibilities that are rotated between all the Entry Clearance Assistants with whom I work. These duties are described below.

Information Desk

• Reception duties which include responding to telephone enquiries, passport distribution to applicants and couriers, providing appropriate visa forms and referring Britons to the Consular Officer
• Receiving client’s and consular enquiries
• Liaising with the visa section’s outsourced telephone enquiry service

Mail Processing

• Checking correctness of received applications and taking appropriate action
• Entering received applications onto Proviso, the FCO’s visa management system
• Correlating supporting documentation for Entry Clearance Officer

Cashier

• Identifying the correct visa fee
• Accepting payments from applicants and operating the cash register
• Being responsible for all payments until there are passed to the accounts team
• Preparing visa fee spreadsheets for the accounts team

Visa Registry

• Scheduling visa interviews
• Bringing up deferred applications
• Filing visa application forms (VAFs) and refusal notices

Entry Clearance Writer

• Checking correctness of visa details before printing
• Printing, embossing and inserting visa vignettes into passports
• Being responsible for the safekeeping of visa vignettes

Troubleshooter

• Scanning passports for the refusing or senior entry clearance officer
• Contacting applicants who have sent incomplete applications or included an incorrect fee
• Checking and entering settlement applications onto Proviso

The Certificate

I'm sure most of you know this but while I'm in the city I'm studying for a Certificate in International Business Practice. This involves taking classes in American History, Managing Information, Managing Markets, Career Development and American Cultural Studies. Together with reviews of my personal progress, my progress at work and my life in the city this makes up the key elements of the certificate.

So if you see any strange posts on the blog, you will know they are pieces of work that I've put together for the certificate and I'm just sharing. Apologies if they're a bit dull!

Famous Types

When you're living in a city like New York you'd expect to celeb spot occasionally but you might not expect the famous people to come up to you requesting a new passport. June Sarpong of Channel4 and T4 fame had lost her passport and needed a temporary one to get her back to the UK. Shame I'm not allowed to ask for an autograph.

I have been told by my colleagues that this sort of thing happens fairly often and that Chris Martin, lead singer of Coldplay, came in asking about the citizenship of his children. Despite my office job internship I am mixing with stars, sort of!

Who knows maybe I'll get to meet the Queen...!

New York Cares Day

Saturday was New York Cares Day, a day when thousands of people in the city give up their time to volunteer on a range of community projects. Our team, the Mountbatten Marvels, were assigned to a school in Brooklyn. To help revitalise the school we painted classrooms, cleaned fencing and some of the more artistic volunteers drew murals. It was a fun day and made even more worthwhile by the NY Cares after party! Free beers, free food and best of all a free T-Shirt. Hopefully I'll get the opportunity to volunteer again before the end of my year in the city.

Fox On Friday

On Friday myself and a few friends had been out for some tasty Thai food and were walking along 8th Avenue when we were stopped by a reporter from Fox News. He interviewed a few of the girls while the rest of us giggled out of the camera shot. In the end they didn't use the clips on the news but it was another random New York moment nonetheless.

Cherie Blair

The prime minister's wife was in my office for a visit yesterday. That is all.

More updates this weekend, I promise!

The Central Park I Never Knew

This morning as part of the certificate part of the internship programme I was required to take an Architectural tour round a neighbourhood of New York City. So I chose to walk off Friday night's beers around Manhattan's 'emerald jewel', the one and only Central Park.

The tour of this vast man made park took us from the an East Side entrance at 64th Street to our exit point on the West Side at 72nd Street. On our way we saw the Arsenal building (one of two things that were located there before the park was built), the Central Park Zoo, schist (Central Park's other native - it's a type of rock formation), The Mall a.k.a. Literary Walk, the fountain in the photograph below (I can't remember its name!), The Ramble (a part of the park designed to feel like you are walking in a remote part of upstate NY and a great place to get lost), The Lake (that's its name - precise I think!) and finally Strawberry Fields (the area of the park designed in memory of John Lennon). All that in 2 short hours......goodbye hangover!

A 'typical' Central Park scene

Umm...the fountain!

The Lake

Strawberry Fields

Columbus Day

I had the day off work today (Monday October 9th) for Columbus Day and decided to take a tour round the United Nations HQ, which is located on First Avenue between 42nd and 48th Streets in Manhattan. This area is, by agreement between the UN and the US, international territory and is officially like stepping into 192 countries at exactly the same time!

When I had finished the tour I decided to take advantage of the 25 degree (76 fahrenheit!) October heat and headed to Brooklyn where I happened upon a statue of the gentleman who had entitled me to the day off work....thanks Christopher! I walked back across to Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge and took a few photos. I hope you enjoy these and hopefully I'll be able to catch you up on what I've been doing during my first month in New York soon.

Bye for now!!!

My New York Blog Begins

Hello everyone!

I hope to use this blog as a way to keep you all informed of all the goings-on during my year in New York and so I don't have to mass email all the time.

Fingers crossed it works!

Christopher.