There's a skyscraper - the Heron Tower - slowly appearing on the City's skyline. Two floors are added every fortnight; it's like watching a flower gradually break through the soil, sniff the new air, then begin to flex and push upwards.

I love walking past and seeing the cranes swing the beams over, then watch them guided into place and swiftly riveted into position. A giant urban meccano set.

You can't make 'em high enough in my book. I've been entranced by them from the very first time I glimpsed the Manhattan Skyline sat on the Carey Bus heading in from JFK in the summer of 1982.

Manhattan, then and now, was a jungle riot of tall, sleek, pinnacles. Mysterious, alluring and enchanting. Almost like a fairy tale city of spires and turrets. It would take the hardest heart and one stripped of any romance not to be inspired by this. Never fails to lift me or make me feel somehow special, that I'm a participant in something electric and magical. These are cloud factories.

London's skyline is crinkly, a ragged, torn strip of roofs, mid rise towers, gloriously stumpy buildings, and now, a brood of skyscrapers beginning to dominate. Seeing the Heron Tower unfurl is a visual intoxicant. I feel like a proud gardener, even parental, whenever I walk past: "look how tall you've grown...".

Hurry up and finish building. Don't slack, either, on the Pinnacle, and get the Leadenhall Tower started. Make the London Skyline magical.