Tweet tweet

Since I am tweeting far more than I am blogging, I thought I'd compile some of my tweets since easter. Please read from the bottom up :-)

• Still following Paul McKenna's eating principles. Feels like second nature now. Combined with the running, I feel really trim & fit.
  
  
• 2 chapters left to write and draft 2 of my novel will be written. Will have to a draft 3 though...
  
  
• Still doing my Couch to 5k runs three times a week but have had to repeat a few weeks as I find this running lark a bit tough.
  
  
• Lil P is having a Halloween party with her childminders this afternoon. From 7pm bedtime my lights will be off & I'll be ignoring the bell!
  
  
• I was (am) so lazy & NEVER wanted kids as I liked my life but Mr P persuaded me & am so happy he did! It's an adventure
  
  
• I am thankful for the time change and am looking forward to running in daylight again tomorrow (I am an early morning runner)...
  
  
• Clocks went back in the early hours of this morning but we still got a lie in and had to WAKE Little Planet up. Hurrah!
  
  
• Little Planet dressed all day today in her Halloween witch's dress & hat, running around like a crazy loon with her magic wand.
  
  
• Kali puja yesterday, pheasant & pumpkin pie for dinner tonight, slow cook venison stew on hob for dinner tomorrow, preschool starts again.
  
  
• I am naturally lazy so follow the "benign neglect" school of parenting. Little Planet seems fine inspite of it :-)
  
  
• Besides, you're not with your kid all day long - they go to school, sleep loads (hopefully). You DO get time for you.
  
  
• Yes, kids a lot of work but LIFE is a lot of work and that makes it so much more rewarding. Think about the longterm.
  
  
• I love fireworks but not when they keep 3 year olds, recovering from colds and still coughing, awake when they want to be sleeping.
  
  
• finished A Village Affair by Joanna Trollope amzn.to/s3Serk #Kindle
  
  
• I've actually stopped watching it (Downton) as I've lost interest in the plot. Sunday night is now just Curb Your Enthusiasm :-)
  
  
• finished The Photograph by Penelope Lively amzn.to/mXO0hc #Kindle
  
  
• We're back from NYC. Will post photos soon.
  
  
• finished The Summer Without Men by Siri Hustvedt amzn.to/etWgfG #Kindle
  
  
• Today we're off to check out diners, galleries and boutiques in Williamsburg. But first, brunch at Freeman's. The weather is glorious!
  
  
• Saw the great Sam Shepard as Butch Cassidy in Blackthorn last night in a fab indie cinema on the Lower East Side. A great Western for 2011.
  
  
• Great NYC eating: strawberry milk & bagel bombs @ Momofoku Milk Bar, pizzas @ Keste, burgers & sausages @ DBGB, coffee/cake @ Ground Support
  
  
• Little Planet happy w. Grandma back in London but I am missing her like crazy. I admit I shed tears leaving her at nursery before flight.
  
  
• Lots of shopping in NYC - DKNY, JCrew, Barney's; biscuits & gravy at Peels in the East Village; De Kooning retro at MOMA.
  
  
• Momofoku Noodle Bar (NYC) in two words: Delicious, NOISY! I'm getting old.
  
  
• Off to NYC. Back next week.
  
  
• We have such great weekends. Love having Mr Planet home so we can enjoy life as a family. Must blog about our weekends again but time lacks.
  
  
• Lovely day today: Morning in Hyde Park, lunch at Rowley Leigh's very child-friendly & elegant Le Cafe Anglais, book shopping in Piccadilly.
  
  
• Countdown to our trip to NYC next week begins. Yippee!
  
  
• finished An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel. superb story of growing up in 60s england. amzn.to/rtxra5 #Kindle
  
  
• Lovely day today: Yang Fudong films at Parasol Unit, beef/bone marrow & pork/apple sliders at Spuntino, home for fun in paddling pool.
  
  
• Will stick to Anne Rice I think. Silly me for reading a teen book and thinking I might enjoy it. Oh, wait, Judy Bloom was awesome...
  
  
• Only a third of the way through the teen novel Twilight but really, it's quite poorly written isn't it. Still not understanding the hype...
  
  
• Struck down by food poisoning AGAIN! This time Mr Planet too. Will give eating out a wide berth for a while...
  
  
• finished Every Last One by Anna Quindlen. intense and detailed account of a family tragedy. amzn.to/m0wCS3 #Kindle
  
  
• There is something strangely meditative about ironing name tags to tiny pairs of socks.
  
  
• I've been ironing name tags to socks. I used to be so fun. (Actually, I really enjoyed it, ironing, listening to music loudly!)
  
  
• Really loved Great House - so beautifully written. Only issue I had with it is that all the characters had the same "voice".
  
  
• finished Great House by Nicole Krauss amzn.to/qI0b2D #Kindle
  
  
• Been ill for a week with food poisoning and a cold. Feel better now but am so glad I don't have to go into an office: I feel a bit skanky.
  
  
• ......And Twilight for when Little P is careening around me and reading concentration is not required.
  
  
• Currently reading 2 books: Nicole Krauss' Great House for the hours I can read without interruption (usually after Little P's bedtime)......
  
  
• As the "I Don't Know How She Does It" film is released SJP is annoying the hell out of me. Yes she's a mother but she has HELP & LOTS of it!
  
  
• At last, a reason to watch TV on a Sunday eve: Curb Your Enthusiasm & Downton Abbey return. Hurrah!
  
  
• finished Black Album, The by Hanif Kureishi amzn.to/rdYDNF #Kindle
  
  
• Week three of Couch to 5k completed. Still finding it hard though.
  
  
• It's time to apply for a September 2012 primary school place for Little Planet. Currently surrounded by OFSTED reports and SATS results.
  
  
• This little program (Mac & Win) forces me to turn off the Internet for a specified amount of time, forcing me to work: macfreedom.com
  
  
• 1st run of week 3 of Couch to 5K completed. Phew! It was hard. Can't believe I'm supposed to be running non-stop for 25 mins in 7 weeks?!?
  
  
• finished The Pile of Stuff at the Bottom of the Stairs by Christina Hopkinson amzn.to/gL2vGF #Kindle
  
  
• finished The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood amzn.to/pgtMJJ #Kindle
  
  
• I am spending so much time reading novels on my Kindle that I'm no longer surfing the net so much. Result!
  
  
• Da Polpo do delicious Nutella pizzettas. Also this weekend, a trip to the Childhood Museum in Bethnal Green.
  
  
• We had a pizza weekend. Saturday lunch at Da Polpo in Covent Garden and Sunday lunch at Pizza East in Shoreditch (the best pizza ever, IMO).
  
  
• I managed an afternoon nap today too, albeit with Little Planet bouncing around on the bed singing. The things mothers get used to!
  
  
• Holiday Monday spent at Hampstead Heath fun fair (candy floss!) then long lunch at Burgh House (showing Little Planet where we got married).
  
  
• Sunday morning in fabulous Clissold Park. Now a lazy afternoon at home: Little Planet playing, Mr P gardening before it rains & I'm reading.
  
  
• Mr Planet transforms the humble pork chop with buttery mashed potatoes & cabbage stir fried with onions & juniper berries. Comfort food.
  
  
• Lovely Saturday spent in Hyde Park & the very Zen Serpentine Pavilion with beautiful flowers. Survived the freakish downpour under a tree.
  
  
• Have bought a Kindle. Arrives Tue. Have already downloaded Siri Hustvedt's latest & Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album to my iPad Kindle app.
  
  
• Week 2, run 1 of couch to 5k done! Yipppeeee!
  
  
• Final week 1 run of Couch to 5k completed this morning. Hurrah! Week 2 commences Saturday.
  
  
• Finished 2nd (W1R2) Couch to 5k run today in the pouring rain. Feeling terrific!
  
  
• Actually, Little Planet's 3 and the "Whys?" have already started. At least she keeps me on my toes and my brain ticking over.
  
  
• Maybe I need to start tuning out occasionally... We want our kids to be bright & enquiring but we also want them to quiet down!
  
  
• Bliss, she's totally absorbed in playing. Peace at last... for now...
  
  
• Argh, why can't 3 year olds come with a mute button?
  
  
• Week 1, run 1 of Couch to 5k completed. Feels good!
  
  
• ... enjoy some art (Richard Long, Chapman Brothers). Blog post coming. Also bought beef & bone marrow burgers from Ginger Pig. Yum!
  
  
• And Mr Planet & I had Friday off to shop (DKNY, UNIQLO), eat (Nordic Bakery, So Sushi), buy books (Anita Desai, Julian Barnes) &...
  
  
• Great morning @ V&A Museum of Childhood, delicious pizzas @ Pizza East in Shoreditch then stroll through & play in Finsbury Park (the park).
  
  
• My new exercise regime: Couch to 5K - Live Well - NHS Choices - nhs.uk/LiveWell/c25k/…
  
  
• All appears calm here. Loads of locals protecting the streets it seems & most businesses open as usual.
  
  
• Police all over here too, but hoping it's precautionary rather than expecting trouble.
  
  
• Every time I hear a police helicopter over the house I think Shit! We're not in the thick of it but we're close so we could be #londonriots
  
  
• So first #londonriots and now #birminghamriots? Crazy.
  
  
• Walking barefoot in wet grass after dark. A most blissful meditation.
  
  
• I am Little Planet's PA. So far I have arranged her first playdate & booked her ballet & gym classes for next term. She needs her own diary.
  
  
• Early birthday present from Mr Planet: an iPad 2. Bliss! Though I'm spending more time downloading apps for Little Planet than for me.
  
  
• Recent outings - Southbank and Portobello Road Market. Photos soon.
  
  
• ... drink and eat out in the garden!
  
  
• I've prayed all day for rain because I'm not good with the heat, but Mr Planet has bought home beers & is making tonkatsu & I want to...
  
  
• Animation exhibition at Barbican (disappointing), pizza, Carter's Steam Fair at Clissold Park, lots of gardening. Lovely weekend & weather.
  
  
• ...I distracted her with a story about a giant dollshouse where Mr Moon lived in the attic and soon she was trotting nicely beside me. Phew!
  
  
• ... she had a little tantrum at the beginning and I thought "Uh oh, it's wet and she's on the wet pavement refusing to move!" But
  
  
• Weather like this makes me wish we still used a buggy. Fortunately she managed to huddle under the umbrella next to me and run along... but
  
  
• Mr Planet is making pasta ribbons with chicken livers for dinner tonight. Can't wait!: bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/p…
  
  
• Since Lil Planet turned 3, we've ditched the buggy altogether. She's walking absolutely everywhere now & building up her stamina. So proud!
  
  
• And excellent shops on the Blackstock Road - so much better than I remembered it. We found a Scandi '70s armchair there for our living room.
  
  
• The new & improved Clissold Park is really great - can't wait for all the improvements to be 100% completed.
  
  
• We're now thinking of introducing Little Planet to sushi. Perhaps at one of those conveyor belt places first.
  
  
• A three-parks-weekend this w/e: Finsbury Park, Clissold Park & Highbury Fields, plus delicious Mexican food at Mercado Cantina in Stokey.
  
  
• A weekend at home doing nothing and everything but most of all chilling. Taking walks, baking, cooking, gardening, playing, reading. Bliss.
  
  
• Got my hair done @ Aveda tday. It's no longer cascading down my back but barely skimming the top of my shoulders. Looks stylish but... gulp.
  
  
• Lovely day: boat on Thames to Greenwich, pizza for lunch, Maritime Museum where Little Planet made paper pirate ship, dinner chicken & figs.
  
  
• Attended a sublime Rabindra Sangeet (Tagore songs) concert today. Voice like honey. I'm in love.
  
  
• This "eating when only genuinely and physically hungry" makes food taste even better than before. Loving intuitive eating & am still losing.
  
  
• Sunday: Church (very good for training Little P to sit still-ish for 45 mins and try-not-to-talking) then Islington (Highbury end) shopping.
  
  
• Dinner was tuna steak, very lightly grilled, with wasabi mayo, watercress rocket salad w. orange zest made by Mr Planet.
  
  
• Grt wknd: sci-fi @BritLibrary, sliders @Spuntino, Phil-Lorca diCorcia @SpruthMagers, shopping @APC,Albam,Fenwick,RLauren,OliverSpencer,Folk
  
  
• Little Planet particularly loved the samosas, aloo chaat, uthappam and sag & paneer dosa at Ravi Shankar. She loves spicy food. Hurrah!
  
  
• Natural History & Science Museums then Hyde Park yesterday; Church, London Zoo then lunch at Ravi Shankar on Drummond St today. Lovely days.
  
  
• Ok, am getting all gushy but for a woman who once didn't care whether she had children or not, I sure am so so happy Little P is in my life.
  
  
• Then both Mr Planet & Little Planet crashed into sleep at 7.15pm - all that fresh air & chocolate! I'm left alone to surf the Net in peace.
  
  
• Fab Easter, made so special by having Little Planet :-) Church, brunch, Easter egg hunt, gardening, roast lamb & chickpea mash & asparagus.

London-bound

We left New York City yesterday with a mixture of sadness and excitement. We were sad for leaving NYC and vowed to return next year; but we were also excited because we still had a weekend left to enjoy our beloved London again before we returned to work.

We had done so much shopping in NYC that yesterday morning we had to buy a cheap new holdall from a luggage store around the corner from the Rivington in order to pack all our new clothes and books. Wary of paying VAT at British customs, which would have nullified the savings we'd made by buying in New York, we cut out all the tags and ripped up all the receipts before packing. The flight was an evening one. I hate night flights because I never sleep on planes and always end up with more severe jet lag as a result.

Once we'd returned to our home sweet home in the late morning today, we caught up on our sleep, did a big grocery shop at Sainsbury's and now we've just finished watching Woody Allen's DVD Hannah and Her Sisters, set in New York City, and CSI:NYC on the TV! Hannah and Her Sisters trivia, according to Internet Movie Database:

• "Many of Hannah's scenes were filmed in Mia Farrow's actual apartment. Allen said that Farrow once had the eerie experience of turning on the TV to a chance broadcast of the movie thus viewing her own apartment on TV while she was sitting in it.
• According to USA Today, upon the film's original release, a movement was afoot to try to make Allen's script the first screenplay to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
• Woody Allen has said that he was inspired to write this film after a chance re-reading of Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina"
• With a box office gross of $40 million, this represents Woody Allen's most financially successful film to date.
• Four of Mia Farrow's real-life children appear in this film. Two appear as Hannah's son and daughter in the movie, while the other two (including Soon-Yi Previn, who Woody Allen would eventually marry in 1997) appear as young guests in the Thanksgiving scenes."

The Big Apple 5

Our penultimate day in New York City has been a cooler, greyer one. Despite the drizzle, we strolled through Central Park to the Metropolitan Museum of Art - a huge, grand, elegant beast of a museum that is by far the best we've ever been to. London's British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum boast a terrific and vast collection but they are collections housed in cramped and badly lit surroundings.

The Met, on the other hand, dazzled because everything was exquisitely spaced and lit. Two million square feet of European, African, Oceanic, Islamic, Asian and American art and artifacts are displayed here - including entire rooms given over to reconstructed Eygptian and Buddhist temples and American houses.

Paintings, sculptures, statues, pottery and prints fill every room and it would take several more all-day visits to appreciate everything this spectacular museum has to offer. The roof top courtyard had dramatic views overlooking the city and Central Park.

For lunch, we filled our basket at posh deli Dean & Delucca and picnicked in Central Park on meatloaf, sweet yellow beet salad and mashed potatoes (me) and chilli chicken with greens and garlic (M). I'm always blown away by the abundance of food on display in American supermarkets and delis - from South Dakota through Santa Fe to New York City. A nation of plenty indeed!

As the rain poured down, we took refuge in Barnes & Noble book store and Saks department store on 5th Avenue and then came back to the hotel, where we dined on roasted cod (M) and parmesan and mushroom risotto with garlic chips and pea shoots (me) followed by a luxurious fig cheesecake in our hotel's chic restaurant Thor.

The Big Apple 4

Today we took the F-line south into Brooklyn where we wandered around the middle-class, listed Brooklyn Heights, filled with beautiful brownstone homes and a mellow atmosphere. We walked along the massive steel Brooklyn Bridge to the financial heart of NYC - the heavily-policed Wall Street with its gleaming concrete, steel and glass skyscraper canyons and reflected in silence at the empty cavern of the former World Trade Center.

From there we walked to Battery Park, took one look at the long queues and decided against getting a boat to the Statue of Liberty - preferring to gilmspe her highness from the Hudson River promenade. Chewing on salt pretzels, we strolled the promenade alongside the Wall Street district where city workers jogged or power walked in their sneakers and expensive sweat pants and vests during their lunch break and remarked on the large number of Indian financiers.

Onto Tribeca and its row upon row of expensive loft apartments to trendy and busy SoHo with its expensive wholefood stores and boutiques, where we lunched on vegeburgers, french fried and green salads and shopped in American Apparel and APC. Toward nightfall, we made it to Greenwich Village with its coffee bars crammed with NewYork University students and were struck by how little public drinking there is in NYC. Bars are less ubiquitous than in London and coffee houses are more packed out at night.

We ate the best pizza we've ever had at Lombardi's in Little Italy - America's oldest pizzeria, established in 1905. According to their website:

"Lombardi's was originally a grocery store, but it soon became a popular stop for workers looking for something to take to work for lunch. Gennaro started selling tomato pies, which were wrapped in paper and tied with a string, and the many workers of Italian descent would take them to the job site. Most could not afford the entire pie, so it was often sold by the piece. There was no set price or size, so you asked for whatever lets say 2 cents would buy and you were given portion of what was equal to the amount offered."

We ate an 18-inch thin-crusted pepperoni and black olive pizza and drank moreish Brooklyn beer (M) and non-alcoholic root beer (me). We saved dessert for a dessert bar called Room 4 Dessert on Cleveland Street, which we'd first read about back in London in Wallpaper magazine. Sitting in a dark, narrow room more akin to an intimate cocktail lounge than a restaurant, we rested our weary feet and indulged in a glass of layered on grapefruit liqueur, chesnut puree, foam of pomegranate and dried, powdered coconut. Then I had a tasting plate of assorted miniature white, black and milk chocolate desserts and M had a tasting plate of assorted pear-based treats. It was all very glamourous and hedonistic.

Although I am loving New York City, I am also feeling a little underwhelmed by it. Perhaps this is more to do with the fact that NYC does and can not ever live up to its own legend as built up in the movies, in literature and in the photography of NYC I love so much. I miss the history, the winding streets and the architectural diversity of London. I miss the fact that in London we have numerous big parks, each with its distinct personality, and that the modern art scene is more comprehensive. In London, we have more smaller, independent art galleries that show a greater eclectic range of work, and London's Tate Modern receives twice the number of annual visitors than MoMA.

The Big Apple 3

Alot more shopping got done today, at Banana Republic and Bloomingdales in and around 5th and Madison avenues, Uptown. As someone who loathes shopping for clothes in England, I doubted I would spend time going in and out of shops in New York City. How wrong I was.

Shopping in New York is as stress-free as they come. As soon as you have more than a few garments in your arms, a shop assistant will whisk them away and hold open a fitting room just for you. You can then deposit there any other clothes you pick up and there is no limit on how many things you take in, making it easy to try on different styles and sizes. The assistants work on a commission so it's as much in their as your own interest to help you. The result is alot more sales for them and a comfortable experience for you.

It wasn't all shopping today, though. We visited the glass-fronted Museum of Modern Art in Midtown. MoMA has a strong, worldwide reputation despite, in my eyes, paling in comparison to London's Tate Modern (which houses its treasure in a building as stunning as its collection, which is in a sublime location on the River Thames and which receives twice as many visitors per year). Unlike the Tate, though, we were allowed to take photos so long as we didn't use flash, so I took photos of artists I have loved since I was a teenager: Marc Chagall (below), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (above, third) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (above, first and second); as well as of artists recently discovered: Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Gerhard Richter.


For lunch, we ate burritos with beef and chilli (M) and sweet potatoes with black beans and corn (me) and Oreo chocolate bars at Digby's. We had dinner at the cosy, teal-walled, basement restaurant Cafe el Portal on Elizabeth Street in NoLita, where we ate authentic Mexican comfort food: chicken tamales and chilaquiles (tortillas soaked in lemon and smothered with refried beans, chicken, salsa and chilli sauce) and drank extremely strong mojitos and margaretas. The last time I had tamales as good as these was 8 years ago on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. The perfect ending to the perfect day.

The Big Apple 2

Jet-lag drew me out of bed and to the picture window of our hotel room at 3 in the morning. My eyes wandered away from the still glittering skyline to the busy Lower East Side streets around Rivington: the grocery store with its brightly lit yellow signage was still open and a couple of old men with brown paper bags wrapped around cans of beer were hovering by the doorway; young clubbers were milling around a trendy nightclub.

The scene reminded me that though the Lower East Side has traditionally been an immigrant (first mainly Eastern European Jews packed into the mass tenement buildings that define the Lower East architecture, now more likely Latin Americans), working class neighbourhood, it has undergone gentrification in recent years and is increasingly populated by young professionals, artists, musicians and students. As a result, the Lower East Side today is an eclectic mix of cut-price garment stores, groceries, Jewish delis, trendy bars, chi-chi boutiques and thriving restaurants.

I woke up again at 7am in time to watch, from my bed, a beautiful pink dawn wake up the Wall Street and Midtown. I showered with hotel-supplied Ren products in the black tile and slate bathroom then breakfasted on ham and cheese on rye, peach pastries and coffee in the Rivington's famous Thor restaurant.

We took the subway (the F-line) to Lexington, amazed at how grubby and bland the NY Subway is compared to the brightly-lit, cushion-chaired, more designed London Underground. We strolled through the 2.5-long and 0.5-wide rambling green oasis of Central Park and watched the thick mass of joggers pounding the pathways against the magnificent backdrop of residential and commercial concrete skyscrapers.

We walked down the oppulent 5th Avenue with row upon row of ornate, pre-war concrete residential blocks, designer shops and restaurants for ladies who lunch, to the Guggenheim and Cooper-Hewitt museums. At the Cooper-Hewitt we saw the Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran: Tourism and the American Landscape exhibition showing the rising popularity of paintings and drawings of such places as Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon and Yellowstone National Park to encourage tourism amongst 19th century Americans. At the Guggenheim we saw a retrospective of the designs and drawings of innovative and maverick Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. We were disappointed with the bittiness of the museum's permanent collection of modern art, but the dramatic white spiral building designed by one of my favourite architects Frank Lloyd Wright delighted.

We walked down the down and dirty Lexington Avenue - made personally famous for me by The Velvet Underground's song Waiting For The Man, about buying heroin and featuring the line: "Up to Lexington 125 / Feel sick and dirty more dead than alive". At the 81-year-old diner Lexington Candy Store, in a bottle green leather booth with a candy pink formica table, we ate cheddar bacon burgers dripping with grease and salty french fries, and drank vanilla cokes served by middle-aged waitresses in candy pink.

And then we shopped till we dropped on Madison Avenue: The Gap, Ann Taylor, Barneys department store, Banana Republic... At Jil Sander we were served by a clerk who loved to shop in Leeds, London and Manchester, but who also loved, for some bizarre reason, Huddersfield!

As night fell, we joined the tourist hordes in the bedazzling, neon-lit Times Square, then into the beautiful and ornate 1913 Beaux Arts Grand Central Station, and a view of the gleaming art deco Chrysler Building built as an homage to the automobile and complete with radiator-cap eagle "cargoyles".

Exhausted, we returned to the Lower East Side for a dinner of red snapper, phad thai, mango salad and flambe ice cream at Thai On Clinton, while trying to both ignore and eavesdrop on the guy behind us trying very loudly to impress his female companion with tales of wanting to get married and having orgasms in his sleep.

The Big Apple 1

The 7-hour flight on Virgin Atlantic had the best in-flight entertainment package I've ever experienced - hundreds of movies (including indie Japanese and Korean flicks) and TV shows viewable on a monitor at the back of every seat. To get in the NYC spirit, I watched the rivetting Jodie Foster and Denzel Washington thriller Inside Man and the hilarious and light Meryl Streep comedy The Devil Wears Prada. I always bring too many magazines and books on flights. In the end, I read nothing but a single Glamour magazine, watched the two movies, and ate vegetarian risotto and GU chocolate mousse courtesy of Virgin.

We took a $45 yellow cab from JFK International through Queens and Brooklyn, across the Williamsburg Bridge and into the Lower East Side, where our hotel - the trendy, sidewalk to sky glass Hotel on Rivington - was located. My first impression of the Lower East at 5pm was dismay: "It's like Brixton rolled into Wood Green, but ten times worse," I foolishly thought as I looked at the graffiti-splattered walls, the five and dime stores selling cheap clothing and luggage and the shuttered-down cafes and bars. Mild paranoia is one of my worst traits - along with snobbishness and impatience - and of course, when the bell-man disappeared with all our luggage, my first thought on the Lower East Side was that he'd scarpered with them.

But the hotel was sumptuous and modish with dark, bordello-red hallways, white linen sheets, Babes in Toyland goodies in the minibar, flatscreen TV on the wall, black slate bathtub and heady views of Wall Street and the Empire State Building from our floor-to-ceiling room windows.

Of course, on strolling the neighbourhood in search of dinner I discovered that the Lower East Side springs to life after dark. We ate blood sausages, chorizo, french fries and 10 oz filet mignon steaks and drank Malbec at the Argentinian restaurant Azul Bistro on Stanton and Suffolk Streets and saw how fantastic the Lower East is, buzzing with people, bars, restaurants and clothes boutiques that wouldn't look out of place in London's Soho or trendy Hoxton.

More fool me for having been so judgemental.