How New York challenged Anneka

The last time I was in New York I was arrested by store detectives at Bloomingdales. I was shopping too fast and they were convinced I was a criminal with a stolen credit card.

They apparently watched me agog for over an hour as I broke some sort of record for the sheer quantity of merchandise purchased in the shortest time.

I felt enormously chuffed when they led me away to a basement cell. They were hugely apologetic when they discovered my innocence and congratulated me in a truly admiring American way for winning the Olympic Shopping Gold Medal. On this visit, ten years later, I planned to break my own record, but events were to take an unexpected twist.

I had come to New York to meet Erin Brockovich. She had just finished an 11-day book-signing tour and ought to have been exhausted.

But she's no flower and her instant purchase of three leather jackets should have warned me competition was going to be stiff.

The reason for our meeting was that Erin was about to film the pilot programme of Challenge America - the US version of Challenge Anneka, the show I devised and which ran on the BBC for six years.

It had been a long struggle finding the right person for the job.

We had trawled through names of actresses, presenters, ex-Presidents but always hit the same block.

The person had to have an immediate rapport with the entire population of America. She or he also had to be blissfully happy hanging about on a building site in the rain at 3am, freezing mud up to the thighs with not a make-up bag in sight while still motivating a task force.

When Erin's agents contacted us I felt a resounding 'Yes!' Any lingering pangs I had about handing over 'my baby' vanished on our first meeting. Erin is tall (including boots and hair) with a gravity-defying cleavage.

Everyone in America knows who she is - the single mother whose epic campaign to win compensation for victims of a pollution scandal was portrayed by Julia Roberts in the Oscar-winning film of her name.

She'd have the task force eating out of her hand.

My boyfriend and I checked into the Parker Meridien Hotel on 56th Street, a block and a half up from Fifth Avenue. The management, perhaps sensitive to the world's fears of tall New York buildings, had put us low down with a view over the dustbins but we were soon in a suite on the 35th floor overlooking Central Park.

And it was a magnificent sight. I hadn't been to New York since the opening of Miss Saigon on Broadway, ten years ago. In fact, I'd only ever been to New York to attend the openings of Cameron Macintosh productions - Les Miserables, Phantom Of The Opera, Miss Saigon - and I thought that maybe my fond memories of the city were based on hugely glamorous gatherings of friends and relations who had also flown in for the event.

But none of the magic had gone. Looking over Manhattan's skyline is still to marvel at the sheer ingenuity, invention and labour of Americans.

Of course, the reminders of 'Nine Eleven' are everywhere and will be for a long time yet. Troops guard the bridges and tunnels into Manhattan. Posters lining the expressway from the airport applaud 'Our Heroes', the police and fire services.

The stores sell US flag T-shirts, NYPD and FDNY accessories, with the profits going to the relevant funds. The highest-selling toy on the market was a Fire Department truck. And in the hotel itself - perhaps the most gutwrenching reminder - the new street maps for guests have a large white space where the Twin Towers used to be.

But the resilient New Yorkers are going about their business again. the old Carnegie deli by Carnegie Hall is open - and packed - from 6am to 4.30am and still sells the best corned beef hash around.

The 'Broadway Danny Rose' beef and pastrami sandwich could still substitute for Sunday lunch for a British family of four. We also ate for Britain at the Ben Ash Deli on 7th Avenue.

I always marvel in New York at how, even in the equivalent of a British corner cafe, the waiters look immaculate and treat you as if you'd flown into New York expressly to eat at their place.

On our first night we dined outside at the Medi in Rockefeller Plaza. The outdoor ice rink across the street boomed rock music as we sat in shirtsleeves and ate superb, basic cod.

HERE is no middlemarket equivalent in Britain, where you can dine so well al fresco, without reserving a table, and have an exhilarating live show going on across the road.

The next day Hurricane Erin blew in. We met at the fashionable Greek restaurant Milo's on 55th Street. Owned by a Greek from Montreal, Milo's is a huge twostorey concrete space with pipework bare on the ceiling, but a real feeling of intimacy has been created by dividing the dining area with sheets of muslin weighed down with garlic bulbs.

In one corner there is a wet fish platform with tanks for lobsters, in another a vegetable stall and a chest spilling over with more garlic. It's a bustling place with a low roar of conversation and a fish menu to salivate over. If ice needed to be broken, this was the place to do it.

It actually turned out to be a great place for an all-out party, which is what we had. By the end of the evening - and 6am in London - it was clear that we'd only scratched the surface of a new friendship.

Next morning, my boyfriend announced he needed to do some shopping. I was curious to know what, in the absence of any previous shopping experience, he planned to buy. He told me there was a place called 'Dave's' between 16th and 17th on Avenue of the Americas which sells Carhartt clothing.

Carhartt, he tells me, is the best American work clothing you can buy. 'But you don't do any work,' I pointed out.

I left him to his dreams of building a boat in his new 'work' clothes and took off for the ABC building on Times Square.

The seventh floor of the ABC building has a roof terrace where Erin and I were photographed for the forthcoming show. It was a great place from which to view the acres of neon on Times Square and the endlessly circulating electronic news tickertape.

We did the photo shoot as quickly as possible so Erin could rush downstairs to Serafa's, a huge cosmetics emporium which has shelves of unguents and potions I hadn't even dreamed of; cranberry skin cream, balsamic eyeshadow, that sort of thing.

We adjourned for another trainsized-sandwich in the famous, but down-at-heel, Lindy's across the street in Times Square. Erin sprayed us throughout lunch with her new raisin face mist while I sat realising I had more than met my match in the shopping stakes.

We spent an enjoyable afternoon in Central Park doing camera tests. ' Right, Erin,' I would say, 'You're building a bridge, it's 4am, you're cold and hungry, there's a force 8 gale brewing, the steel hasn't arrived and the whole project has fallen apart. Tell me about it in 30 seconds'.

I could see Erin looking more and more anxious about what was in store for her.

In traditional 'Challenge' style, she had no idea what her task would be the following week. We were just going through scenarios so that she could get used to speaking to the camera.

This meant I was now poacher turned gamekeeper. For once, I knew exactly what was going on.

We went back for tea to the Four Seasons Hotel. Tea turned out to be laced with brandy and went on for several hours. In the middle of it, Erin and I adjourned to her room with Lauren from ABC, who was in charge of Erin's wardrobe requirements for the show.

She had brought along some workmen's overalls for Erin to try on. 'Aren't they sweet?' she asked. 'I don't like sweet,' said Erin. 'I like seductive, sexy and powerful.' She wanted her look to be more Elizabeth Hurley in Austin Powers than Bob the Builder; a tailor was sent for.

My entreaties to wear something warm were falling on deaf ears. It can be very cold at 3am on a building site but seductive, sexy and powerful were going to win over practicality.

The Four Seasons is the highest hotel in New York and also one of three New York hotels in the 'Hip Hotel City Guide' (the other two being the SoHo Grand and the Mercer, both in SoHo).

The prices match the hotel's fondness for height; a martini cocktail was $14 - about £10 - though admittedly it came on a tray with a silver bowl of dried cranberries. A decent round of drinks would buy you a room for the night anywhere else in New York, but not at the Four Seasons.

By now I wasn't sleeping on London or New York time and I could have been a 24-hour waitress at Carnegie's deli. We set off for SoHo next morning red-eyed. The place was a revelation. First, we managed to cheat on visiting the museums by going to the MOMA and Guggenheim design shops instead.

In the Guggenheim shop, on Broadway and Prince Street, there were mobiles, bags, candleholders by Jacopo Masini, Degas jigsaws and weird Vasa acrylic forms that absorbed and reflected light.

At the MOMA, there was an amazing kaleidoscope dolls' house by Laurie Simmons and Peter Wheelwright. All the furnishings had been created by renowned contemporary designers - sofas by Karim Rashid and tables by Dakota Jackson.

We also visited The Apartment, my favourite shop. It's divided into rooms. The kitchen is complete with resident chef who will knock you up a cappuccino or salad while you ponder whether you most need a passion fruit juicer or a guava peeler. The bathroom has a shower and bath and decking underfoot with grass growing through it.

I love New York. It's so weird.

By this time, the temperature had dropped 25 degrees and it had started to rain. We had already discussed a visit to Ground Zero and couldn't decide whether it would be unseemly voyeurism or not.

In the event, we couldn't get a taxi because of the rain and walked down Wall Street to the site. Flashbulbs exploded from cars passing the ruins. Other tourists clearly had fewer qualms than we did.

There is a platform for viewing what seems like a pitifully small pile of rubble for so huge a catastrophe. It is an eerie, shocking sight which New Yorkers have been reminded of by the Pulitzer prize-winning biographies of the dead printed daily in the New York Times.

Not being arrested at Bloomingdales or Bergdorf & Goodman, or Saks or Barneys before midday on a Sunday should have put me well ahead of Erin as she hadn't got out of bed by then.

But she had an ace up her sleeve. We met up for brunch at the Four Seasons and we tucked into French toast, smoked bacon and maple syrup and arranged to lunch at an excellent Italian restaurant called Serafina's on 61st Street to talk about the Challenge she was to receive next morning, live on Good Morning America.

It was a brilliant move on Erin's part. Across the road from Serafina's was a leather and fur shop. She'd chosen a floor-length shearling coat for £2,000 or so within ten minutes of entering it. I knew I was beaten even before the shop wouldn't accept her card because she'd run out of credit.

Meekly, I passed over my own card to pay for her coat. I'd met my match.

One final note. If you are going to New York, you must visit the beautiful East River Park and amphitheatre between FDR Drive and the river within sight of Ground Zero.

The theatre now seats 2,000 and there are jazz festivals and other theatrical events planned. It was Erin's challenge to transform this former wasteland into a beautiful place of contemplation and performance.

ABC billed the programme when it went out A Miracle In Manhattan. Slightly over the top you might think, but then so is everything in New York.

Getting there

America As You Like It (020 8742 8299) offers a special rate at the Parker Meridien from £136 per room per night. It also offers return flights from London from £333, Manchester from £400 and Glasgow from £387. Room rates at the Four Seasons are £547 per night.

Destination guide: New York