As someone who feels himself to be an honorary New Yorker on two accounts: more visits to the Big Apple than I can remember for one, and a citizen of London, New York's bawling, brawling, excitable, chaotic Siamese twin, as the other, I am relieved that it bore Sandy the once in a life time superstorm with it's typical equanimity, courage and fortitude. Fewer cities have more charm, more brio, more grace under pressure than New York.

I have as many emotional and spiritual memories sunk into the very marrow of Manhattan as I do in the paving stones and streets of West London. Tear any one of those, you tear a strip from me.