Monday October 3rd

Urggglrelrugh

Hangover time … Have a horrid feeling I got to bed sometime around 3am, Jo can’t remember anything at all past the 1st bottle so I cobble together some eggs Florentine for breakfast which proves beyond a doubt that Jo is a much better cook than I am.

I then try to blag a meeting for Jo with the senior photography curator at MOMA but come up against a fairly effective PA who prevents me actually getting to speak to him despite my Irish wiles. I do however get her e-mail address and a promise that she will forward the email I then compose to the curator … so we may yet get a meeting later in the week.

Eventually stagger out of the apartment to head up the Empire State Building which as you will have gathered from the photographs, is practically opposite us – well, that’s how it looks given we are 30 floors up and so somewhat higher than everything in the way of the view.

It is at this point that I must digress to inform you of the sad demise of the English supremacy in the queuing leagues. It turns out that you only think you are good at queuing because you haven’t visited America enough because, boy, can they do a good queue these days. Even better (well, worse of course), they are now top of the queue management leagues as well with plenty of people seemingly paid to start and stop the queues from actually moving for, well, no apparent reason whatsoever.

With admirable fortitude, especially given the hangover scenario, we duly made it to the top and generally admired the view – which was of course a daytime one rather than the nighttime vistas you and I have previously shared.

Somewhat in a trance, we eventually emerge into the heat and humidity of what seems to be a brief Indian summer stateside and settle in Bryant park for a small sun worshipping session. After some fruit for lunch I trot off to buy a book (having left the one I was hoping to read on holiday back in London, Doh!) and leave Jo laid out on a pleasantly sunny bench – which sounds innocent enough you may think – but no, the police have a different view and when I return from book buying, a rather startled looking (or maybe it was just the hangover) Jo tells me that the police came over to her and said “hey lady, no laying on the benches” – most odd.

Wombled over to Times Square to check out film times for the evening and then went back to the apartment to see if MOMA had been requesting Jo’s presence yet … but sadly not. Dined at a nearby Japanese sushi restaurant which one of the neighbours had said was the best sushi in NYC … and proceeded to over order big time! Slightly comic as more and more HUGE plates of food kept appearing from the kitchen and heading to our table … and despite the fact that Jo can seemingly eat for Yorkshire, even she has to admit “death by sashimi” is becoming perilously close! We have to rush the meal a bit as we’re now in danger of missing the film but hop in a taxi and make it in time to see a cheery number entitled “The Exorcism of Emily”.