DATELINE: New York, New York

Everything in New York feels automatically… right. It’s partly to do with the weight of US pop culture that most Brits carry like a backpack sutured to their shoulders, but it’s also something innate for Londoners, something umbilical tying the two great cities together.

In New York politics is trapped in the pigeon-wire-mesh of everyday big city life. The primary campaign is in all the newspapers, on all the TV news networks, and even on peoples’ tongues now and then, but it’s no longer the defining factor in everything, the way it was in Iowa and New Hampshire.

The familial weekend chatter and all-weather traffic hum drums through the city air, elevated by animal twittering in a busy neighbourhood park in the East Village. Squirrels scamper and compete busily for nuts, couples dutifully follow their immaculately clad dogs (doggy couture is a big deal out here); nature chases its tail amid the fumes.

Suddenly a squirrel crashes down through the air like a meteor and lands right in front of our noses with an almighty THUD. Its smug, victorious rival sits on branch ten feet up, nut grasped firmly between paws. These are big city squirrels; the niceties of nut-sharing do not apply. Tom, Rachael and I exchange startled glances: such fierce aggression from such cute little animals.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore Tom.”

Tom looks confused.

“We haven’t been to Kansas Dan. They’re not voting until February 9.”

“Okay then, New Hampshire. We’re not in New Hampshire anymore. Satisfied?”

He is. We both are.