WEIGHT-WISE I WISH I WERE IN MAMARONECK

There's someone I know who lives in the village of Mamaroneck in the suburbs of New York City, from where the train rushes you, in a steely clatter and in next to no time, to the great cathedral of Grand Central Station. Unlike the names of so many public buildings, this one is absolutely accurate. Grand Central Station, for anyone who has never been there, is grand, central and a station: it does what it says on the tin, as the advertisement has it. And it is a lovely place with a high domed ceiling covered in stars as though it were some eastern or renaissance monument.

Nevertheless there is a problem. Grand Central Station is not designed for tourists; it is strictly a utility. You are not supposed to have time to stand and stare, whether at the ceiling or the walls, or the offices or the throng of people going about their business. If you stop moving for a second people bump into you. As most of them are moving very fast, they bump into you quite hard and swear. Not nice. All the same, you don't 'make-it' in New York by standing still, you see.

Anyway, back to my friend and Mamaroneck: she has in her bathroom something very special. They are a pair of bathroom scales - ordinary looking old fashioned scales that don't need a battery and don't have a digital display. They don't look expensive and I think they are pink; some friendly but unmemorable colour anyway. The needle points to zero as you contemplate whether you dare step on to them, bloated and jet-lagged from too much to eat and too little sleep and your digestive system having anyway gone into lockdown mode, which in my case it always does whenever I venture further than the end of the road.

I'm not sure that others suffer this same design fault. My genes obviously reflect the time before carriages and railways were provided with 'conveniences' or 'rest rooms.' Provided I am travelling, my alimentary system decrees that nothing shall pass bar the days. Voyaging once as a student from London to Athens it took me a week to get as far as modern Serbia when something inside me rebelled and I had to seek urgent comfort in a field of cabbages.

But I digress, let's go back forty five years and, courtesy of Virgin Atlantic, reach Mamaroneck again, although, just quickly in passing, I have to say that I used to dream about New York long before I actually ever got there in person. The airline of choice then was PanAm with its blue and white logo.

And most comfortable it was too, though I remember waking from one of these dreams when I realised the plane had come to a halt and the engines had been switched off and there I was in New York City. My heart leapt in anticipation. But only for a moment. For then I realised that I was still in my pyjamas. Worse, I had no money or passport or luggage, or even any shoes. I stood on the ladder like some celebrity with the whole world looking at me in my Viyella pyjamas and there was me trying to smile a relaxed comfortable smile for the cameras while meanwhile calculating how I could persuade the stewardess to let me remain aboard and ferry me back again to London in time to catch the train to school.

But with Virgin Atlantic I did arrive and with shoes, luggage, passport and money. I took a bus towards the Connecticut sticks and eventually my friend picked me up from some hotel or country club and eventually again, I ate and slept and in the morning made my way to the bathroom, bloated and water-retained as I have said, where the pink scales awaited me.

On to them I wearily climbed, expecting the needle to shoot far past the comfort zone. But it didn't! Lo and behold I was four pounds lighter than I had been when I had set out. My heart leapt.

My hostess later spoiled the effect slightly by telling me that all her guests marveled at how they lost weight on those scales. But how comforting, how warming, how welcoming! How what you need after Christmas! My own digital scales are cruel and unforgiving. Weight-wise I wish I were in Mamaroneck.