Hello everybody,
Hamilton 1 Dundee 6 (SIX) 
Trust me to watch all the pish as we sat at the bottom of the league for the first 10 games and then work every saturday in December when they hit top form and tank their second team in a week. The 10 goals we have scored in 2 games has doubled our tally for the season!!!!!!!!!!! 
I've been to Noo Yoik Noo Yoik and ran the marathon Markk (I may have mentioned it once or twice). The ballot is about as easy to get through as London's i.e. somewhere between zero and none so don't hold your breath unless you like turning a funny purple colour. When I went I went with 2:09 events and spent fairly silly money to take one of their packages which included a very nice hotel in Noo Yoik Noo Yoik. I have to say that I didn't get all that much out of travelling with them other than a flight, a wee run on the Friday morning, my race place and my flight home. I took the flights from Glasgow rather than Heathrow, had to make my own way to my hotel from Newark, didn't catch their 4am courtesy bus to the start designed for stupid foreign people and caught staten island ferry instead which gave me a spare couple of hours of sleep in a nice warm bedroom rather than a freezing cold start village and they didn't have any organised get together after the event for the folk that had travelled with 2:09. If I did it again I would take their flight and race place only entry. You will pay a premium for the flight and the race entry where you are pretty much buying a charity golden bond place for yourself with no requirement to raise any cash. You can then book a hotel in Wall St area at south end of manhatten a few minutes walk from staten island ferry and avoid the worry of having to find your own way to the start and catching corporation busses at 6am or sitting about for 5 hours in the freezing cold at the start. The hotels near Wall St are much cheaper than the ones near times square or beside the UN where I stayed, handier for the start, as close to most touristy stuff as the others and only a few stops on the underground or a few bucks in a big yellow cab from the night life and the finish in central park.
Other than that there is the charity option for New York which is a bit different from London in that the more you raise the more you get paid for you by the charity. Not sure of exact figures but its something like if you raise a grand you get your race fee paid for you, £2000 you get your hotel and £3000 you get the flights as well. If you raise enough the charity will basically pay for your holiday. Its an option (not one I would like to explore) but if you want to do it that way and save your pennies you can.
