New York is really fun. Every time I'm here, I'm struck by how it really is just like the movies. The scale of the city, the real urbanity as opposed to London's rather ridiculous cramped Victorian terraces, the intensity of life...it's great. I could live here. And with the lovely exchange rate continuing to hold up, it still appears cheap.

I'm also getting a blast of NYC architecture world stuff due to my architect friends here. It's such a crazy thing, so far from what I've been involved with recently. Crocodile-proof lap pools and suchlike. Fun, ridiculous, joyful, gossipy, self-referential...which is also what architecture should be about, not just the super-serious politicised stuff.

But it's still amusing as I try to explain New Urbanism and how it has taken hold of middle America's urban planning scene to mystefied Manhattanites, or mention weird governmental policy acronyms to universal shrugs. However, Cameron Sinclair has made it onto the Gutter today so even these hipster archi-nerds will now know of at least one warrior for the greater good...