Time to write a few more words, I think. Basically because I'll be off again for another week as of tomorrow afternoon, this time to France with my choir for a couple of concerts in churches in Paris and Normandy. Should be great! But more about that probably in about three months' time, when I finally get around to writing about September...

Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, just back from a scorcher in Rome. Well, I had about 18 hours to do a load of washing etc. and get my bags packed for my next trip, this time to New York. (It's sickening I know, but I really am jealous of MYSELF sometimes, with all that jetsetting!) Rich & Paul kindly agreed to put me up again in their house in New Jersey, like last year in May.

But the trip was altogether different this time. I had more time to play with - nine days instead of six - and more people to catch up with too: Dan has now moved to Queens to work as a doctor in a hospital there; Charlotte & Sarah were over from Dusseldorf for a long weekend of shopping; and Bezi was over for a few days with her cousin who had just been in Canada.

Ah! New York! It's just too good, it really is. City, nightlife, people, sights, country, rivers, seaside, islands, drinks, views, food, culture, international flair: it's the city that's got it all. Plus, Rich had a few days off work to spend with me, which was really great because I always love to visit a place with a local rather than have to rely on a guide book. So I got to see a broad spectrum of what NYC has to offer.

My first evening was a quiet one at home with Rich & Paul, reacquainting myself with their decadent hot tub in the back garden as well as with Rich's culinary prowess. The next day, after slightly iffy jetlaggy sleep, we went into Manhattan for lunch and a wander round. Initially we thought we might pick up tickets for a Broadway show, but just as we joined the monster queue for last-minute seats the mother of all downpours came!

I haven't seen rain like it in I don't know how long. It was tropical and crazy. (Rich reminded me how far south NY actually is, which explains how it is that they get their weather from the Caribbean.) It was raining so hard, the parts that were sheltered by our umbrellas were soaked through by the drops bouncing off the floor. We held fast for a minute but then decided to screw the tickets and head for some shelter, whereupon I came face to face - or rather, face to hat - with a recent New York phenomenon, the Naked Cowboy. YouTube him, it's mad!

No, he's not naked - at least, not in a European sense: he wears a white ten-gallon-hat, white knickers, white cowboy boots and a white guitar. But for an American he's pretty naked! And now he's standing for mayor of New York City. He was strumming gently whilst standing next to a table with flyers and info about his campaign. Which was handily under cover, hence our proximity until the worst of the rain had past.

From Times Square we jumped in the Subway and headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where we had a quick mad dash round for an hour before they closed. It's great! A bit like the British Museum, with bits of everything, including a whole Egyptian temple complex, whole frescoed Roman villa rooms, picture galleries, statues, and a fabulous exhibition of art from the National Museum of Iraq that had been buried to protect it from the atrocities of recent times.

After chucking-out time at the museum we had a lovely walk through some of Central Park back into Downtown, then headed back across the Hudson River to New Jersey for dinner at a sushi place near Rich & Paul's. After all that walking and weather-beating, I was most ready for a bedtime hot tub visit!

The next day Rich was kind enough to drive me out of the city and a little way upstate. We headed for the town of Beacon, and more precisely to a converted biscuit factory that now houses the Dia: museum of modern art. It's a huge huge huge space devoted to 20th-century works that by their nature are difficult to display in normal galleries. For instance, the enormous iron sculptures of Richard Serra have their own wing here, as do a giant series of Dan Flavin flourescent tube installations. There's also stacks of Warhol, Beuys, and other important artists.

I have a little confession to make at this point: I found a large proportion of the art on display to be utter shite. But I delighted in the whole shiteness of it all!! As I strolled from gallery to gallery, I marvelled at how well-off human society has become that it can devote time, money & energy to such pointless exercises in artistic masturbation. It really does make me ever so happy in my heart to think that mabye one day war will be forgotten and differing opinions on abstract bits of plastic/wire/cardboard will constitute mankind's major source of confrontation.

So you can imagine my elation when, from time to time, I found a piece I actually found arresting as well as self-important! There were works by Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain and Sol LeWitt that I really quite liked. And the extension that's been built on the waterfront of the Hudson River was also most pleasant, especially when we got to watch a guy taking his windsurfboard out onto the water, and to see him gradually get smaller and smaller as he headed out into the middle of the river.

Back in New Jersey, we met up with Paul outside his office and then headed for dinner at a Colombian restaurant. The food was tasty but most importantly HUGE! I had a grilled whole red snapper with avocado and fried banana that would have fed a family of four in the UK. The piles of food on the tables of those around us (who were almost without exception Latinos; we were the only white guys in the place) were eye-wateringly generous too.

Amusingly, the waitress couldn't understand a word I said because of my accent. When she asked what I wanted to drink and I said "a glass of water" her faced clouded over and then she turned to Rich & Paul asking "what does he want?". To which they replied "a glayass of waaaaahaterrrrrr". To which she said "oh okay". Two nations divided by a common language.

On Friday Rich & I drove out to Fire Island, that wonderful retreat from the hubbub of the city. Although this time, in contrast to last year, there was plenty of hubbub on the island too! Well, it was midsummer after all, and the weather was supposed to be hot & sunny again after the lashings of rain that had fallen across New York in recent weeks. We had a very relaxing time, walking on the beach, having drinks with friends of Rich, and bodysurfing on the big waves that were rolling in from the Atlantic.

Paul joined us on Saturday afternoon and that evening we had a big barbecue party on the verandah of some friends of theirs, where I got to chat with a Dutch lady and not be the only European on the block. Then on Sunday Rich & Paul dropped me off in Queens at Dan's house, where I had a great reunion with him before setting off with him & his girlfriend to a kosher Turkish restaurant. An Israeli waiter there had some very unsavoury views about Muslims which I expect he only shared with me because he thought I was Jewish.

Right, I'm going to leave it there for now. We can't have you getting eye fatigue from reading an overlong blog now, can we!