Picking  up my new jeans from the seventh avenue dry cleaners  makes me feel like I live here in  New York.  I meet my brother at Columbus Circle by Central Park and we go to The Meridian Hotel which has an old school  burger shack inside it.  It’s  incongruous to the sleak fittings and fixtures but obviously a mid town favourite cause it’s packed.  Whereas in England the burger is a take out snack,  in America it is a national dish and this is the best burger joint in new york.  I am lucky to have Mehatem as my brother. It’s been ten years that he has known about me and twenty that I have known about him. We say goodbye over fries and diet coke. I expect this is how brothers do it.

Packed and ready to go I make sure to leave my iphone charger in the telephone socket of the hotel. All the phone chargers  left in all the hotel sockets  in all the world must be worth something.  The journalist and I arrive at JFK airport  to be told that the pilot is ill and the
flight has been cancelled. Nice. We are encouraged to check into a hotel to get the flight tomorrow. This would seriously screw up my plans.  The hardy travellers refuse to do this while others go to the hotel. We stay in some sort of Que.  A rumour that the pilot had
swine flu goes around.

Finally  at 8pm an American Airlines plane is hustled we get onboard and travel through the night into tomorrow. This new York trip, a present for The Journalist’s birthday, has been an absolute  blast.