Today I have decided I do love New York City after all. I spent the day wandering around the West, East and Greenwich Villages, SoHo and NoHo. They are all beautiful and have far more locals and less tourists for some reason. I can see why Greenwich Village is the place most people want to live. It's all trees, cobbled streets and old buildings. I saw a nice 3 bed place for sale. Can anyone lend me $7,000,000? I also discovered that walking 'a block' in this town can mean two very different things. North and south it's not very far, east and west it's time to lace up the hiking boots. Bear that in mind if you are here. It's been a bit easier since I worked out the Subway system. However I never want to hear any complaints about the Tube being dirty and old and crappy again. The stations here are filthy. The system here is also designed to confuse visitors as much as possible. How I long for a nice clear diagrammatic map like London. Or actually any map at all. I realised today that each station only has one system map, usually hidden round a corner, and once you get through the turnstile there are none. At all. So if you don't know where you are going before you get to the platform you are in for a very short ride.

I had the slightly bizarre experience of seeing a signed picture of Ainsley Harriott up in a diner where I had breakfast this morning. Is he even famous here? Or anywhere? It did make me wonder if these people walk around with signed headshots to give out at every establishment they go shopping in. I've seen them everywhere here. I now know where James Gandolfini get's his eyes tested.

My love affair was sorely tested this afternoon however after spending a lovely hour in the US Postal Service. I just had two little packages to post. After queueing for 45 minutes at one counter I was directed to the automatic postal machine. This is like a very complicated, self-service franking machine. After another 20 minutes in the queue I finally managed to get some postage on my parcels. This is when I got abused by the woman performing customer service. Apparently you can't do international postage at the automatic machine, even though it let me and I'd been sent there by another USPS employee. When I tried to explain this I was shouted down. "You people are always trying to buck the system" she shouts at me! You people? You people! I assume she meant "you foreigners". I think I was just racially abused. By a black woman. What an odd experience. If I hadn't been so shocked and hadn't been in there so long I think I'd have been more angry. Should I complain? Is there any point.

Suffice to say I can now understand this definition:

Going postal

Going postal is a US slang term for a form of mass murder or killing spree, generally induced by job stress. The term comes from a series of US Postal Service workers whom in the 1980's had mental breakdowns on the job and returned to the workplace with a gun, severly injuring their coworkers. In 2000 the USPS released a study which it said refuted the belief that postal employees were particularly prone to his behaviour, claiming instead that workplace violence at USPS was around the average for comparable US workplaces.

Usage: "If the boss keeps giving me a hard time, I'm going to go postal."

I wonder if it applies to their customers too?