I actually began to write this out when I was brought up short. 'Wait a second -- since when does AA compile a written dossier on the names and addresses of my friends? Why are you asking me this? Do you have a privacy policy and a data-retention policy I can inspect prior to this?'"

As someone who has had American Airline's "security" personnel ask for a) proof of employment [and how do you prove that in an airport transit lounge?] and b) proof of funds to cover what they plainly thought was an excessively long summer holiday, I sympathise completely.

It is strange that over the last decade or so the only two people I can remember ever having really lost my rag with [i.e. they reduced me to a state of incoherent rage] were both employees of American Airlines.

Yes, it was bloody cold in Manhattan on Monday, although it was also very clear and sunny and quite beautiful in that super-cold winter way. Monday night was absolutely Arctic, however.

As a result of #1 and #2, I do now feel rather rubbish. Not sure being on 5 flights in four days helps either.

The building itself is remarkable, and has been rightly hailed as it is massive yet simultaneously minimalist, completely lacking in ornamentation [well, in garish ornamentation, if you want to argue that the design details are minimalist ornamentation, which I wouldn't disagree with]. While hailed as an example of Japanese minimalism, I thought it was more of a combination of Bauhaus and Walter Judd, particularly the latter writ large. Now while I am at times not the biggest fan of Judd, his influence is palpable, and the few of his sculptures that were on display were perfectly integrated into the larger whole. Large portions of the building are tremendous, with views across the galleries and across streets cleverly fitting the building into its wider context.

The galleries are huge, both horizontally and vertically, and I can see how it will be a tremendously flexible space. Bits of the galleries however are very dark [particularly around the banks of escalators] and the fourth and fifth floors are impossibly fragmented, with the effort to open the spaces up [allegedly as it was too 'constraining' for visitors trying to flow through spaces] resulting in a seemingly random set of curtain walls that allow you to move wherever you want and ensuring that you've got no idea if you've actually seen everything, which to me does rather make the change rather pointless. The fifth floor walkway provides a stunning view down and across the central galleries, though it did vibrate alarmingly under the weight of the traffic crossing it to the restaurant. I do wonder how long it will be before someone jumps off of it though.

While I loved the building, I was rather less impressed by its contents.

Now, when you do this elsewhere, like in Bermuda or in Toronto, when you've cleared Customs you're effectively on a US internal flight, and you just get your bags and wander out of the terminal and go off on your merry way once your plane has landed. But we didn't do that, no.

On arrival in JFK, we entered the immigration hall where all Aer Lingus passengers were told to just walk around the Immigration stands and straight to the baggage carousels. Thing is, we weren't the only flight whose passengers were entering the hall [including one from Kuwait...] but passengers were allowed to just walk past immigration [and the fingerprint machines and the finger scanners] if they felt like it. Nobody checked if we were actually on the Aer Lingus flight...

So all you have to do to bypass the whole US-Visit system is to make sure you fly from somewhere where you won't be pre-cleared by immigration, be on an airplane that's arriving at the same time [and in the same terminal] as a pre-screened plane, follow these passengers and bypass immigration completely, get a stamped customs form from somewhere and away you go. No fingerprints, no pictures, just someone on the airplane manifest they've got no picture of [excluding surveillance cameras of course...] who didn't go through immigration.

Whoops.

But I digress. On the flight to Dublin nothing interesting happened.

On the flight to Shannon I was sitting in the window seat when a woman came down the aisle dressed in all black and with a general demeanour that shouted NUN [and bloody unhappy nun at that...], and when she saw me, sitting in the seat next to her... well, let's just say that she did not look best pleased at having to sit next to the spawn of Satan for the next 45 minutes. So she sat down and we spent the next five minutes fighting over the arm-rest and my rather petty belief that she should at least keep her elbows over the arm rest and not lodged firmly in my ribs.

After which she pulls out her book and spends the entire flight reading why it is IMMORAL to KISS BEFORE MARRIAGE.

Now I will be honest and admit that the thought of spending another 7 1/2 hours like this was not pleasant and I was dreading it, to put it mildly. So we all got off at Shannon, and went through the completely stupid US-VISIT immigration system [of which more in a subsequent post...] and I went in a fruitless search for munchies as I'd neglected to stock up in Edinburgh or Manchester or Dublin. Whoops.

So I get back on board and see someone different sitting next to my seat... which was a relief, to put it mildly. She was also Irish, and was, well... drunk. As a skunk, having had six whiskies at the bar in the airport and lord only knows how much before that. She thought my nun story was funny, but when the airplane's engines were started she whipped out a bottle of Holy Water and sprinkled her surroundings before crossing herself...

angry traders argue that the huge encampment set up by contractors has scared away customers and left them badly out of pocket

What the contractors have built is a large white dome that stretches all the way across the Royal Mile and halfway across the junction... and since you can't see over/around it, if you didn't know any better and were walking up the street you might think it marked the end of the Royal Mile and miss the Lawnmarket behind it.

And the Council/contractors haven't closed the surrounding roads either, so cars drive up to the dome before having to do a three point turn and go back the way they came.

Brilliant planning.

Those of us who have lived in Edinburgh for a while will remember that the council also had to rebuild the intersection of the Royal Mile and the Bridges, where the pretty cobblestones were laid on a bed of dirt, which promptly washed away under the weight of traffic and which had to be replaced by a concrete foundation. Whoops.

Just when you thought that Edinburgh Council's plans to run a referendum on congestion charging couldn't get any more farcical, it emerges that 57,000 of us won't get a ballot because we asked for our details [i.e. name and address] not to be sold by the Electoral Register.

This cuts down on junk mail, but apparently the council's ballot is classed as junk mail, so we won't be getting ballots unless we happen to either notice the council's advertising campaign on the subject, get flyers in the mail, or notice the relevant ad in the Council's free newsletter [which has yet to be delivered].

If you want to get a ballot you have to phone the Council's hotline - telephone number not printed by the Scotsman [thank you yer much...] but it's 0131 529 4877. According to them, half the flats in my building aren't on their mailing list.

Travellers face chaos and confusion over train bookings this Christmas because the rail industry has failed to agree on a timetable for large chunks of the national network.

Not that the Guardian spells it out in their article, but it's been like this for a couple of years now... funny how the UK media tends to notice things like this around Christmas when they try and book their own tickets, isn't it??

Congestion fees in London are reducing congestion, and radically reshaping how Londoners use both cars and public transport. This we know. The other effects of charging are, to put it mildly, less well understood and if we are honest they are also largely unexamined.

In particular, we know very little about how charging affects retailers. Charging does have some significant positives for retailers - in particular it is very good for their logistics systems. The negative impacts are, however, very poorly understood.

While retailers [particularly John Lewis] argue that the charge is behind a drop in sales, we know that consumption patterns in the UK are still rather fluid and that:

1. mobile customers are still migrating away from inner city retailing to out of town shopping centres
2. direct retail competition to central London is growing, particularly in other city centres [especially in Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow
3. online shopping is still growing fast in the UK: this is money that isn't going directly into high-street stores

So, how much of the retail decline in central London is the fault of the congestion charge and how much attributable to wider patterns of retail restructuring...?

Train firms allowed to ban cycles

Nothing like a little bit of joined up-thinking on the whole cycling/commuting thing, is there??

Now I'm a cyclist and generally very pro-cycling in general but there is a serious need for some sort of sanction against muppet cyclists - the ones who are listening to music as they ride, who overtake on the inside, who weave through cars like they're indestructible... and so on. You know the type.

Maybe the Police should confiscate the muppet's bikes and give them instead to people who've had theirs stolen?? This would have the lovely side effect of making the police record every stolen bicyle, which would be a nice change.