Terror threat level: Critical

I was once again at the centre of a terrorist scandal today when the authorities raised the Terror Threat level to 'critical' and banned all hand luggage on the transatlantic flights that weren't cancelled. I passed the buck on to 20 poor saps in High Wycombe, but I will no doubt fulfil my divine mission next time! May Allah give added strength to my Chanel no. 5 explosive concoction.

Seriously though, if the plot is substantiated, what a bunch of vicious little bastards. I don't know how it's appearing your end but the Americans are alarmed at the British police's recent revelation that they wanted to wait another day before making arrests. The news seems to imply that there is very little evidence to throw at these guys. Time to scour their laptops for 'Teen Dreams'.

I spent the flight watching the Enron documentary, 'The Smartest Guys in the Room', and enjoying the pantomime villainry of Skilling, Lay & co. Maybe if they knew that they'd eventually get caught, they wouldn't make so many shareholder convention speeches basically consisting of the words "MONEY! We have all the MONEY in the world! Your pension funds are OURS!" I came away with a rosy glow inside about unbridled, unregulated capitalism; the moral seems to be that if you jump ship early enough, it's perfectly ok for you to keep the money and the lap dancers. Just don't, for the love of god, be the last guy.

I landed in New York expecting my French passport to be greeted with a cry of 'you're no patriot!' but for some reason the border control was easy and much nicer than it had been on previous visits. I would like to add that in the long queue were burka-clad Saudis with their little eyes peeping out and crazy men in white sheets with long beards shouting at me in Urdu; for a country that persecutes Muslims, the US seems to attract quite a few of them. After another few hours we were in Greenwich, Connectitut, the kind of suburban area where every second house is missing.

Looking back on this post, I see I'm already writing like a gossip columnist in the New York Post. All before my journalism course has even started...this place is great.