A Weight Watchers leader from the dim and distant past once told me that when you fall off "the bandwagon" the only thing to do is to get straight back on. I had fallen off in spectacular fashion and being in New York wasn't going to stop me from leaping back on.
The Weight Watchers leader in the Village Temple, Manhattan was called Lenore. Now, I admit I had my doubts about a woman apparently named after a fabric softener, but it turned out she was just what I needed to get myself back on track. The American members have it a lot better. I noticed at least 12 different flavours of low-fat chocolate bar on display, and recipe books for everything from Jewish to Spanish healthy cooking. Lenore looked me in the eyeball and said in her husky, Jewish-American drawl: "Listen, you ain't got a snowball's chance in hell of shifting that weight if you don't follow the programme." Lenore, as they say around these parts, is "the bomb".
In New York, you can bump into Eddie Murphy on the street. In a restaurant in the Meatpacking District, Beck might walk in and out while you wrestle with a shrimp cocktail. At a corner table, having lunch with a friend, you might spot Sandra Bernhard, who played a stalker in The King of Comedy, with Robert de Niro. If it's one of your favourite films, then as she leaves you could tell her you're a fan, and you might be surprised by the friendliness of this brash New Yorker. Kirsten Dunst might walk up a soggy red carpet, looking beautiful. This happens in New York.
I was there last week for a concert in which the corporate and music worlds collided. The makers of Hennessy Cognac have spent millions persuading three very different artists - Kanye West, The Strokes and Goldfrapp - to become its "global ambassadors". "Hennessy Artistry" is what this musical cocktail is called. The global art of mixing.
I decided to mix it myself on the red carpet. I've always fancied myself as one of those MTV reporters with ice-blond hair, oozing attitude, wielding a whopping big microphone. The Americans said "Hey, Irish, you brought the weather with you," as it lashed down. From the get-go, I think I irritated the bona-fide red-carpet reporters. "Hey, X!" they'd yell, trying to persuade some size-zero reality-show contestant to offer them a few words. "Who is X? who is X?" I'd ask excitedly beside them until they moved farther down the carpet in disgust.
Lots more people I don't recognise pass by. Then some I do recognise arrive. Ewan McGregor, Carmen Electra and some beardy bloke from That '70s Show. Now a fire marshal is on the red carpet, insisting that nobody else can come in and that, no, he doesn't care if Drew Barrymore, actress and girlfriend of a Stroke, is waiting outside in the rain. Eventually, we all get in, and The Strokes play, and then I'm just thinking I might go back to the hotel, when Kanye West appears on stage.
Things happen in New York. Transformations. I'm not sure whether it's his dance moves, his lyrics, his passion or his ability to slag off journalists that I like more. All I know is that he's rapping on about how before he dies he's gonna touch the sky and that, suddenly, moved by an invisible hip-hop force, I'm waving my hands in the air (like I just don't care). I'm at the front of the stage, mesmerised as Kanye talks about his near-death experience and this gold-digger he knows. It's over way too soon.
I wander out to a sofa and a cocktail. A black dude - Pepé le Pew jacket, gold chains, sideways baseball cap - calls me over. "You're pretty," he says, patting the seat beside him. I know this is because he must recognise a kindred hip-hop soul. His name is Spliff. I tell him I can't call him Spliff, so he says his real name is Jamal. "I got a boyfriend, Jamal," I say. "What, in Ireland? That's, like, 17 hours on a plane. Come sit over here." "You sweet as sugar, Jamal," I say, "but I gotta head on home, aiight?"
Back at the Village Temple, Lenore was telling us about a delicious breakfast of pancakes and blueberries and low-fat yoghurt and I was telling her about my killer chilli recipe. Being in Manhattan, I felt a bit freer in the meeting and confessed that my healthy eating plan had gone as pear-shaped as myself. Of course, with a joyous inevitability, a voice from the back says "Ah, it's great to hear the Dublin accent, makes me homesick." So then I had a chat with the woman from Churchtown in Dublin who used to work with Riverdance, married one of the crew, and settled here. Have I mentioned, how much I love New York?
Róisín Ingle was in New York courtesy of Hennessy Cognac