If there's any place that looses my purse strings, it's New York. I step onto the sidewalk and dollar bills just start flying out of my wallet. Ever wondered how they afford all that subsidised travel in Manhattan? Thank StopShop's Barney's bills, my friend.
I currently visit New York a great deal for work, and while I have been known to moan about other business destinations (sorry Lagos), it is never a chore to head to NYC. I fly out with my suitcase empty. Yet whatever my schedule, I seldom come back without that suitcase plastered in overweight bag stickers.
I blame Virgin Atlantic. My personal air travel is modest. A Yorkshire husband and three teenagers sees to that. My usual airport experience sucks: frantically switching belongings between bags while Ryanair check in staff look like they want to beat us with sticks. Not the most relaxing start to a holiday. Fortunately for work I get to fly Comfort Class so long as the journey's long enough. London to New York is - just.
Most of my colleagues fly with BA Club Class, but I can't do it. From the moment I step into the plane and turn right, I am naggingly aware that richer, more important people are sitting neck deep in cashmere and foie gras a couple of rows away in First Class. The BA staff don't help. They make it all too apparent what a comedown it is to be ministering to us Club proles (whose tickets cost a mere £3000) when they could be hobnobbing with Cheryl Cole behind that curtain.
But Virgin Atlantic has only Upper Class, and in most ways it is well named. They pick you up in a nice car; whisk you to their extremely nice lounge via your own personal check in and security scanner. Scarlet uniformed staff address you by name. Sometimes you even get to turn left when you enter the plane. But most of all you know that everyone, even Richard Branson himself, sits in the same Upper Class compartment. There's only one better seat on the plane and the captain has that. It's strangely relaxing. We're probably all slumming it in comparison to BA First Class, where for all I know, everyone is massaged from top to toe by swimwear models with PhDs. But at least we aren't tortured by the tantalising glimpse of higher echelons from which we are excluded.
Sorry to gloat but it just gets better: a limo to a NY hotel, where the doormen are good looking, attentive and remember your name. Why, it is enough to turn a shallow feckless woman's head! After that flight and fifteen minutes in downtown Manhattan I'm a whole different person: a slightly famous and rather rich one. Not a helpful frame of mind when wandering around the stores.
This time I arrived in the New York snowpocalyse. I was shockingly under-equipped. I can now say with some authority that a leather jacket and four inch heels, unless accompanied by sealskin tights, is not an outfit to be recommended for deep snow and compacted ice. If a St Bernard dog had seen me it would have drunk its own brandy barrel.
Now, the Artist Formerly Known as NonStop Shop would have immediately hopped into a cab to the nearest antarctic emporium and emerged dressed like Captain Scott. Not so StopShop me. I... and I can hardly believe I am typing these words... made do!
I'm not saying it was glamorous, picking my way across the sidewalks like they were mined. But goodness, it's hard to look in shop windows when you have to focus on not coming face to face with the pavement.
The crunch came at the weekend. Usually, alone in NYC, with only my debit card for company, I often find I have to take it on outings. Occasionally I let it have a little play in Bloomingdales - it loves it there. We might go and visit MOMA. It's not all that keen on the art, but it really enjoys the shop. In and out of stores all day we go until the poor little chap is quite exhausted from sliding and swiping. Then I let him have a little rest and take out his good friend Visa.
But how to get through a whole weekend without shopping? I quickly dismissed the idea of galleries and museums. Not simply because I am a souless philistine, but since galleries etc cottoned onto the fact that if they put the gift shops at the front of the building, there are fewer queues to see the art, I seldom get past the ticket booth. And I now have that discount card to the MOMA shop. Risky.
So I consulted the locals. Turns out if you live in Manhattan you don't go clothes shopping all weekend. Apparently you do some exercise, see friends and chill out.
For a true New York experience a friend recommended David Barton's "Look Good Naked" gym. Frankly this is not my kind of objective. Naked is a condition in which I aim to spend as little time as possible. That's what clothes are for. "Look Good in Acne Leather Leggings", that's my motto.
Surprisingly it turns out that clothes feature quite heavily in David Barton. Instead of the intimidating Sue Sylvester types you see on reception at a British gym, David Barton is full of people who do their best to look they have nothing to do with exercise at all. Instead, the overall look is as if they're working the bar at the Brixton Academy. At reception they have a clothes store. It sells Vivienne Westwood shoes - some have six inch heels. (not something I remember Miss Reddy, my PE teacher, wearing). Up in the main gym, where there is a giant disco ball and a DJ booth, several people were working out in outdoor shoes, jeans and hats - not beanies or baseball caps - trilbies! It is the campest place I have ever exercised in. - and I've been to the Pineapple Dance Studio.
Hence I was less surprised by the class timetable: "ASSolutely ABBulous"; "Six-Pack Attack!", "Pain & Pleasure", "Fight Club" and more mysteriously, "Melt", "Gravity Surfing" and "Shredded". I was in time for "Rope Attack" led by a mean faced, shouty bloke in construction boots and jeans with a rope. It was hard to tell if he was going to lead the class or take one of us hostage. Thankfully it turned out to be a skipping class. Next day I was reassured enough to go to "Ass Blast".
What with ass blasting and rope burning, seeing friends and even chilling out, the weekend passed off, extremely enjoyably, if not cheaply and with little actual shopping. At the end of it I was relaxed, refreshed and, yes, pretty damn smug. I must confess to one purchase however. But it is one I can recommend to you all: fleece lined tights. Warm as toast and and only twenty bucks. The perfect accompaniment to a short dress and a leather jacket for any antarctic explorer.
I currently visit New York a great deal for work, and while I have been known to moan about other business destinations (sorry Lagos), it is never a chore to head to NYC. I fly out with my suitcase empty. Yet whatever my schedule, I seldom come back without that suitcase plastered in overweight bag stickers.
I blame Virgin Atlantic. My personal air travel is modest. A Yorkshire husband and three teenagers sees to that. My usual airport experience sucks: frantically switching belongings between bags while Ryanair check in staff look like they want to beat us with sticks. Not the most relaxing start to a holiday. Fortunately for work I get to fly Comfort Class so long as the journey's long enough. London to New York is - just.
Most of my colleagues fly with BA Club Class, but I can't do it. From the moment I step into the plane and turn right, I am naggingly aware that richer, more important people are sitting neck deep in cashmere and foie gras a couple of rows away in First Class. The BA staff don't help. They make it all too apparent what a comedown it is to be ministering to us Club proles (whose tickets cost a mere £3000) when they could be hobnobbing with Cheryl Cole behind that curtain.
But Virgin Atlantic has only Upper Class, and in most ways it is well named. They pick you up in a nice car; whisk you to their extremely nice lounge via your own personal check in and security scanner. Scarlet uniformed staff address you by name. Sometimes you even get to turn left when you enter the plane. But most of all you know that everyone, even Richard Branson himself, sits in the same Upper Class compartment. There's only one better seat on the plane and the captain has that. It's strangely relaxing. We're probably all slumming it in comparison to BA First Class, where for all I know, everyone is massaged from top to toe by swimwear models with PhDs. But at least we aren't tortured by the tantalising glimpse of higher echelons from which we are excluded.
Sorry to gloat but it just gets better: a limo to a NY hotel, where the doormen are good looking, attentive and remember your name. Why, it is enough to turn a shallow feckless woman's head! After that flight and fifteen minutes in downtown Manhattan I'm a whole different person: a slightly famous and rather rich one. Not a helpful frame of mind when wandering around the stores.
This time I arrived in the New York snowpocalyse. I was shockingly under-equipped. I can now say with some authority that a leather jacket and four inch heels, unless accompanied by sealskin tights, is not an outfit to be recommended for deep snow and compacted ice. If a St Bernard dog had seen me it would have drunk its own brandy barrel.
Now, the Artist Formerly Known as NonStop Shop would have immediately hopped into a cab to the nearest antarctic emporium and emerged dressed like Captain Scott. Not so StopShop me. I... and I can hardly believe I am typing these words... made do!
I'm not saying it was glamorous, picking my way across the sidewalks like they were mined. But goodness, it's hard to look in shop windows when you have to focus on not coming face to face with the pavement.
The crunch came at the weekend. Usually, alone in NYC, with only my debit card for company, I often find I have to take it on outings. Occasionally I let it have a little play in Bloomingdales - it loves it there. We might go and visit MOMA. It's not all that keen on the art, but it really enjoys the shop. In and out of stores all day we go until the poor little chap is quite exhausted from sliding and swiping. Then I let him have a little rest and take out his good friend Visa.
But how to get through a whole weekend without shopping? I quickly dismissed the idea of galleries and museums. Not simply because I am a souless philistine, but since galleries etc cottoned onto the fact that if they put the gift shops at the front of the building, there are fewer queues to see the art, I seldom get past the ticket booth. And I now have that discount card to the MOMA shop. Risky.
So I consulted the locals. Turns out if you live in Manhattan you don't go clothes shopping all weekend. Apparently you do some exercise, see friends and chill out.
For a true New York experience a friend recommended David Barton's "Look Good Naked" gym. Frankly this is not my kind of objective. Naked is a condition in which I aim to spend as little time as possible. That's what clothes are for. "Look Good in Acne Leather Leggings", that's my motto.
Surprisingly it turns out that clothes feature quite heavily in David Barton. Instead of the intimidating Sue Sylvester types you see on reception at a British gym, David Barton is full of people who do their best to look they have nothing to do with exercise at all. Instead, the overall look is as if they're working the bar at the Brixton Academy. At reception they have a clothes store. It sells Vivienne Westwood shoes - some have six inch heels. (not something I remember Miss Reddy, my PE teacher, wearing). Up in the main gym, where there is a giant disco ball and a DJ booth, several people were working out in outdoor shoes, jeans and hats - not beanies or baseball caps - trilbies! It is the campest place I have ever exercised in. - and I've been to the Pineapple Dance Studio.
Hence I was less surprised by the class timetable: "ASSolutely ABBulous"; "Six-Pack Attack!", "Pain & Pleasure", "Fight Club" and more mysteriously, "Melt", "Gravity Surfing" and "Shredded". I was in time for "Rope Attack" led by a mean faced, shouty bloke in construction boots and jeans with a rope. It was hard to tell if he was going to lead the class or take one of us hostage. Thankfully it turned out to be a skipping class. Next day I was reassured enough to go to "Ass Blast".
What with ass blasting and rope burning, seeing friends and even chilling out, the weekend passed off, extremely enjoyably, if not cheaply and with little actual shopping. At the end of it I was relaxed, refreshed and, yes, pretty damn smug. I must confess to one purchase however. But it is one I can recommend to you all: fleece lined tights. Warm as toast and and only twenty bucks. The perfect accompaniment to a short dress and a leather jacket for any antarctic explorer.
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