January 31st

1pm: Katz's Delicatessen is a fixture on the Lower East Side on the corner of Houston & Ludlow. 100+ years old & looking pretty much the same inside that it must have done in the Sixties/Seventies. Once inside it's a mosh pit of shouting, scurrying staff and bemused punters - myself included - trying to work out the ordering system. Katz's is famous for it's pastrami on rye and that is what I ordered - you get a taster from your sandwich maker at the counter before he assembles the most monstrous sandwich you will ever see - I had mine fully loaded with mustard & pickles, but I could only eat a half of it & needed no further sustenance for the rest of the day. The food? Well it was OK - not mind blowingly good, but the pastrami was fresh & tasty, the rye bread so-so, the pickles distinctly average and the ambiance - amazing!

January 30th

11pm: The utterly beguiling Meg Baird at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn. Meg is the lead singer of top-notch wyrd-folk group Espers & I could not believe my luck that she was playing a solo set in Brooklyn that coincided with the Saturday night I had to myself in town. The venue itself, an old jam factory converted into a minimalist art gallery and concert space was a beautiful setting & the surprisingly sparse audience - probably no more than 50 people - was perfect. Meg finger-picked her way through her repertoire of old English folk tunes & Gothic Americana - a memorable evening, a dash of culture.

January 29th

4pm: The big freeze continued all day, I had time to my self now to wander the streets of the Lower East Side, Greenwich Village & NoLita. This typical streetscape has to around Bleecker & 7th - although the shops & restaurants have modern facades, the fire escapes and old doors/windows can place you in an old 50's Film Noir thriller without too much imagination.

January 28th

6pm: Freezing, bone-chilling cold in New York today - the wind whipping in from the river & lowering the mercury to 15 below. We had walked around Battery Park after passing briskly through Ground Zero - hardly able to comprehend what had gone on there a decade or so ago. Nicky & I got engaged on top of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre in November 1999 on a similarly freezing day - I can recall clearly how your sende of direction in New York was always anchored by your relation to those towers.

January 27th

11pm: Times Square, New York - another desperation shot after a full on busy day with work colleagues & clients. We ended up in a restaurant just round the corner from our hotel & this was shot as we stumbled back. Times Square is truly, truly horrible but people are drawn to it like moths to a bulb. Everywhere gawping tourists take crappy pictures (much like the one above), whilst hustlers of every description attempt to part them from their cash with shitty comedy shows, bus tours, CD's and god knows what. Awful chain restaurants draw them in for brown, deep fried food & ghastly drinks - what an unmitigatingly fetid hole this place is, in an otherwise magnificent city.