Ooh, sir! Do you? At your age, sir? Well, yes. Revolting though it may seem, I still love New York. Every time I go there — as I did earlier this month — I fear I am not going to like it, but every time I fall in love all over again. I think it was Evelyn Waugh who said that when we are young we are Americans, but when we grow up we become Frenchmen. There is some truth in that. Although I cannot claim to have grown up, I do find as I hurtle towards my seventies that I have more in common with cheese-eating surrender monkeys than with Twinkie-scoffing war-losers. Not that I have anything against Twinkies, mind, and, in truth, I remain -rather fond of Americans, among whom I count a wife and a son.
So. New York is flashy, fast, noisy, brash, impudent, venal, bumptious, and dangerous, though not nearly as dangerous as she likes to believe.
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