NEW YORK - Wednesday shopping

"New York, New York
It's a hell of a town.
Plenty of buildings,
predominantly brown."

Touring around New York is a well documented activity and, therefore, for the purposes of the Phworld we need to tackle this exciting city from another angle. Therefore, I ask you to join me for our exciting activity: Wednesday afternoon shopping in New York. New York may be a bustling metropolis with millions of peple trying to traverse the same few square miles of tarmac. It may cater to any art/museum/cultural whim you have. But can it cope with the contents of my simple everyday shopping list? Let's find out.

1) Buy hayfever tablets.
This request was for fellow New York Wednesday afternoon shopper, Sarah. We scoured the glitzy, ritzy glass fronted Madison Square Gardens and leafy Battery Park but, alas, phamecuticals were few and far between. but New York is not so easily beaten! Penn Station. A twenty four hour drug store and a small row of scary looking white boxes found us the drugs we required. As well as both pregnancy tests and 'make yourself fertile' applicators. I wondered what would happen if you used them at the same time...

2) Visit the post office.
There are post offices, and there are post offices. Then there is New York. A block long and hundreds of metres wide. Pure post office in its natural enviroment... And not a person in sight. The New York 24 hour post office (look, I know this is the city that never sleeps but this is ridiculous...) has perfected the art of automated postage. Automated address finder. Automated payment and automated labels. Sadly it could not provide an automated pen which didn't explode in my hands and make my fingers torquoise blue for the rest of the day. I am aware, of course, that this could all be a nasty trick and that the automated slot I posted my automated package may lead to nowhere. (The intended recipitent of the automated parcel, the delightful Merry B, needs to comment in a few days time to see if it arrives. And whether it's appropriatly automated)

3) Buy sunglasses.



Sarah proves how easy it is to be sidetracked when sunglasses shopping by big, big hats.

Never the easiest thing to buy so we decided to put New York to the test and go to the largest department store in the world, Macys, and see if it was possible to buy two pairs of sunglasses at a reasonable price and not end up with other assorted rubbish (of course, such an act would be not out of place on a typical Wednesday afternoon shop. However, I was feeling thrifty) Things weren't looking good when we realised Macys wasn't open 24 hours (in your face, New York city!) but, astoundingly, it passed the ultimate test. Sunglasses were found, tested and paid for in the space of twenty mintues. And bonus points were awarded for the entertainment provided lovely pair of teenage girls ahead of us in the queue attempting to buy hundreds of dollars of merchandise on a non authorised credit card. God bless America.



So there you have it. New York. Metropolis. Mega city. And darn fine Wednesday afternoon shopping centre. Milton Keynes eat your heart out.