The kind of honesty this world needs.

A great weekend.

Well thanks to Marie and Julian we’re all clinically exhausted. Manhattan is fresh out of Gin, there’s nothing left in ANY store, and that includes most of fifth avenue, but what’s missing is our sense of love at a great weekend. We did laugh. We did certainly drink, and all the while Marie and I were under the influence of cold medication and warm hearts. Thanks for the flowers guys – it was very sweet.

So life returns to (ab)normal, no one’s here, it’s just the two of us and Top Chef. Sweet joy and sorrow.

In other news, I’ve had to put a note under the downstairs neighbour’s door. Their bass is kicking out and literally moving our sofa with every Def Leppard record they play (I’m not sure it’s Def Leppard – and isn’t it amazing that man can play the drums with one arm?)… but it’s bass-y. I drafted it in a warm and friendly way, simply saying could they please turn down the bass before we come down there and rip their feet off. (Seemed like a novel way to make a point: as is writing a book I suppose).

You may or maynot know that when we lived in Islington, London, we had some serious noisy neighbour issues, so although I’m lighthearted right now, it could all change. If you turn on Sky News/CNN and see a 23 pound lighter communications ‘whizz-kid’ holding a bunch of shabby chic loft dwellers hostage – c’est moi.

Is there anything left to buy?

So Marie and Julian are here. That’s Ben’s Sister and her husband. And they’re a big part of my family. It’s Julian’s first visit to New York and I have to say his wit is really refreshing; as is his addiction to shirt buying. In effect we are both shirt-lifters – albeit in different areas… as it were.

Marie looks amazing – she really has lost a lot of weight (not that it was at all necessary)  and she radiates in her brand spanking new Uniqlo adjusted-for-free jeans. Ben, meanwhile adjusted the fragrance shelf once more with more Tom Ford. It smells good on him, you’d think given that he’s told me countless times he’d drop me in a heatbeat for Mr. Ford I’d be against it – but I’m not.

And me? Well I’ve got into pants. That’s American for trousers.

With having lost nearly 24 pounds in the past 3 months (don’t ask me how – I just ate less) I was overjoyed to find trousers in The Gap of all places, that fitted and looked quite nice… Clearly my recent adult life has been based in the small cul-de-sac’d town of ‘Low-Self Esteem’, twinned with ‘does my head look big in this?’… so to enjoy being in a changing room was quite some moment.

So we’ve actually been ’shopping’ for 7 hours. 7 hours. Can you Adam and Eve it? And you know what? It was FUN. A lot of fun. That’s me saying I enjoyed shopping. As Shaun would say ‘well shit in your hat and punch it’.

Anyhoo. We’re back home now. I’m sipping beer and and we’re preparing for a last-night dinner at BoBo – in the West Village, it’s tres tres

More later.

‘The Dolce and The Gabbana’

Apparently, Princesse (and hell hath no fury should you scorn that last ‘e’) used to work in Neiman Marcus in San Francisco and has ALL the big names in. So much so that she refers to D&G as ‘The Dolce and The Gabbana’.

I’m certain should the boys pop into this basement homed, money-stealing haunt of the underly-brained and overly made-up witches of Las Vegas they will at once recognise her and flood her with sweet air kisses.

My arse they will.

For us (us being my assumed wife Rachael and me) Princesse was pricelesse when she sort of gave up on giving us advice for the sunglasses and preceded to try a pair on herself and ask for our comments.

I wanted to say ‘you look like the runner up for ‘Most Like Jeff Goldblum in the final sequences in the Fly II’ but in fact I said, ‘yeah really nice’.

And continued to believe in my mind that my jet was waiting for me at McCurran and I’d be out of this retail hell soon.