World greets 2014 with dazzling fireworks displays

In New York, adult diapers and a tolerance for bone-chilling temperatures were the order of the evening as revellers rang in the New Year in Times Square.

Across the pond, celebrations in London had a different flavour as edible peach snow and strawberry mist descended on partygoers watching midnight pyrotechnics. Around 50,000 people there took part in what was dubbed the "world's first multi-sensory fireworks display", poking their tongues out to catch the flavours designed to match the colours on show.

Dubai shattered the world record for the largest ever pyrotechnic display on New Year's Eve with a show involving more than half a million fireworks, Guinness World Records said yesterday.

But such spectacles held little appeal for Brianna Becerril, a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Chino, California, who persuaded her grandparents to join her at Times Square.

"It's Times Square! It's the ball!" she said. "The fireworks may be better in Dubai, or in London, but this is extra special."

As evening fell, they huddled together for warmth under big, furry hats, dined on cold chicken nuggets and drank nothing so they wouldn't have to leave to find a toilet. "It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience!" Becerril said.

The sea of horn-tooting, hat-wearing humanity that filled the Crossroads of the World was part celebration, part endurance sport because post-9/11 security measures force spectators into pens at least 12 hours in advance, with no food, no warmth and no place to go to the bathroom.