New York comes to London in a nursery queue

New York is a city of superlatives. It’s a point of pride. New Yorkers believe that their city and their city alone holds the mantle for being the place with ‘the most. . . ’ â” the most crazy folks, the most intense lifestyle, the most fashionable restaurants â” you get the picture. There’s a belief that nothing can compete. Nowhere else on earth could possibly come close. Cindy Adams, the famous New York Post gossip columnist, always ends her articles with the celebrated phrase: ‘Only in New York, kids, only in New York’, and people believe it.

I’m just not so sure that this is true any more. It strikes me that London is actually becoming more and more like New York with every passing year.

I recently had lunch with two university friends who had just become fathers. Over sushi and sake, they started comparing parenting stories â” the sleepless nights, the projectile vomit, the curtailing of social lives and pre-schooling.