It wasn't until 8.30 Wednesday morning, half an hour before the limo would arrive to take me to the airport, that I thought to double-check my ticket to make sure I'd gotten the time right. Well, I had got the numeric part of the time correct; my flight leaves at 11.30. Unfortunately, it's 11.30 p.m. not a.m. So suddenly I had a spare day in New York. Question is, what to do with it. I was already packed, and I knew it was going to be hellishly hot today. I had to check out of the hotel at noon, and I didn't necessarily want to be walking around in the heat all day, covered in sunblock, getting sweaty and dirty, and then have to board my flight like that tonight.

While I was on my way out of my hotel room to the cafe, still trying to decide what to do, I ran into this strange woman in the corridor outside my hotel room. At first, I thought she was a cleaner, since she seemed to be messing around with the maid's cleaning cart. Then she spun around and asked me out of the blue if I was in film. Weird thing to ask, but, as it happens ... That was her tigger to launch into a perfect tangle of disconnected ideas, half-finished sentences, and dropped names (Blythe Danner and Stanley Kubrick are the ones I remember) of famous people who she's working with.

By the breathless conclusion, I was left wondering if she truly was the animator/film-maker/writer she claimed to be, or was she schizophrenic? On the one hand, she showed me a draft of an idea for a children's book (or was it to be a cartoon, I'm not clear) about how babies get made. There were actually some nice graphics, but, against that, it had been scribbled on one of those small notepads with the hotel's crest on it. She also briefly flashed open the door to her hotel room to reveal an Asian-looking man sitting bolt still on her bed, looking into nothingness. She said that it was her brother. I asked, somewhat bemused, how come he's Asian and she isn't. To which she responded that he's not Asian, he's a genius. Ah. That explains it all.

Later, I ran into the real cleaning maid, who'd witnessed part of our interchange. I asked if the lady in room 531 was crazy. In a strong Russian accent, she said "Think so. Bed covered with cosmetics, and eight pillows." The point of this story is ... that you meet weird people in New York hotels. And be very wary of whom you collaborate with in the film-world.

In the end, I had a scattered, not altogether satisfactory day. It started well, with a couple of hours at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design, on Fifth Avenue. They had two exhibitions; one called "Skin", and the other on the designs of Russel Wright, who was the Martha Stewart of his day back in the 1930's to 50's.

The Skin exhibition was a thematic exploration of the use of skins in various designs; from building skins, to skin-like material in objects such as bags, lamps and clothes. It was much more fascinating than my description makes it sound, and there were some great, intriguing objects to look at. My favorites were the handbags with a skin which included life-like human nipples, a diagram of a recyclable/portable skyscraper (made of scaffolding, floor-boards, construction-site elevators, and a fabric wall), and last but not least "stool-pants". No, they're not the latest form of diaper, they're for adults, and if you blow into the tube coming out of the back pocket, the butt of the pants expands into a cushioned stool, so you can sit down on your pants while you're still wearing them. How practical.

The scariest photo was of a design proposal for something called "Skinthetic", which "extends consumer branding to the human body. A quilted pattern derived from Chanel's brand identity is applied to the human torso."

In the garden of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum

Aftewards, I spent a pleasant half hour sitting in the beautiful garden behind the museum, thinking, not for the first time, that I'm liking this vacation. From then, though, the day went off the boil. Although perhaps that's the wrong metaphor to use, because the reason things were less enjoyable in the afternoon was that it had gotten incredibly hot and sticky. Even in the shade, it was impossible to stop sweating. I escaped into the Whitney Museum of American Art for a while, but, by this time, my feet were tired and all I felt like doing was taking a nap. But I no longer had a hotel room in which to nap. So I explored the permanent collection of the Whitney. Some great Hoppers, and two new artists on me: Oscar Bluemner - who I liked; and Marsden Hartley - whose work I thought was pretty unskilled. But I suppose he's hanging in the Whitney, he must be good huh?

I also saw an exhibition of Joan Mitchell's work. She painted huge abstract canvases filled with color. Although the exhibition space was filled with an unusual number of appreciative older ladies of the arts, there were also, clearly, many people whizzing through the exhibition with a fixed look on their faces that said "Is this art?" I think that ten or fifteen years ago, I'd have had the same reaction. And even now, I can't say I liked much more than half her pieces. But they're hard works to ignore; you're confronted with their massive scale and profusion of color. And there's something appealing in them, even if I can't exactly state what it is.

It was too hot, aftewards, even to sit in the shade at my favorite outdoor cafe, so I sought refuge at the movies, where I watched "Reign of Fire", a thoroughbly enjoyable apocalyptic fantasy about English dragons destroying the world's cities. Where's St George when you need him? Well at least they had Matthew McConnaughy and Christian Bale, both of whom have been trying to outdo each other in the muscularity department. All I can say about McConnaughy's body is wow, what a piece of man-flesh he's become.

But wait, the day was not yet over. It was now only 6.30, still another two and a half hours to go before the limo would arrive. So I had my fourth meal of the day, this time at a place called Artie's Deli, on 80something and Broadway, which, I'm guessing, is an institution. I had the biggest chicken-caesar salad known to man, and mounds of cole-slaw. Untouched, was the plate of pickled peppers.

Finally, here I sit in Starbucks, where else. It's a Starbucks that's playing extremely avant garde chamber music which isn't well-suited to overheated nerves. It's still hot outside, and ... it's only 7.37 p.m. I'm running out of air-conditioned escapes. Next journal will come to you from England. No air-conditioning there, not that it's needed mind you. Hoping to see a dragon or two though.