The mission

Can Matthew Sweet beat New York's tic-tac-toe chicken and propose marriage on top of the Empire State?

his week, you get two Missions for one in a glamorous transatlantic setting. On a visit to New York the other week, I determined to achieve two things: propose to my partner, Nicola, and go head-to-head with the famous tic-tac-toe-playing chicken of Chinatown. "If you put me second to a chicken, there'll be trouble," warned Nicola, when I mentioned that this story would be appearing on these pages. But since the bird helped me out with the bended-knee bit, the two have to go together.

I'd seen it in the movies: you pay your money and do battle with your clucky opponent, who, by pecking at buttons inside her coop, illuminates little light bulbs on a nought-and-crosses grid. She invariably wins, and launches into a squawking victory dance - possibly the result of a mild electric shock. Unfortunately, when I arrive at her address - a videogame arcade on Mott Street - I discover that the bird has flown. "It's gone," explains the cashier at the change desk. "Went away about a year ago."

"What was her name?"

"Oh, it didn't really have a name."

"And where is she now?"

"On a farm with lots of other chickens. And very happy." She gestures to a clip-frame on the office door that's filled with photographs of a very scrubbed-looking bird gambolling about in the grass.

Making my way back to the street, I notice that the nameless gambling hen has a polymerised replacement - one of those glass cases containing a motorised chicken that lays you an egg with a toy inside. I slip in two quarters, listen to it gurgle, and catch the lurid plastic capsule as it plops out of the chute. Inside is a pinkish plastic ring.

I've arranged to meet Nicola on the top of the Empire State Building at 6pm the same evening. But there's bad news when I arrive. "Visibility is nil," whines the man at the ticket office. "The only thing you'll see is the odd pigeon. Do you really wanna go up there?" I explain that I have an appointment to keep, pay my $6 and squeeze into an elevator with eight Japanese tourists. After an ear-popping ascent, I scramble out. The Japanese party makes straight for the souvenir shop, and I dash out on to the observation platform.

The rain is belting down, and the fog is so thick that it's like standing on Flamborough Head in November. The advantage in this is that the only other person up here with me is Nicola, who is wet and shivering and trying to shelter from the wind next to a telescope. It's wonderful to see her, and I'm glad that unlike Deborah Kerr in An Affair to Remember, she's made it up here without being run over by a cab.

Huddling in a corner with the gale whipping around us, I explain that ever since I saw her slide over drunk in the kitchen of our student house, I've wanted to marry her. "That's not true," she returns. "Well, pretty soon after that, anyway." I take the plastic egg out of my pocket and pop it open. Happily, she says yes, with rain dripping from the end of her nose. But the ring doesn't fit where etiquette demands, and we have to jam it on to her little finger. "It's for a child, this, really, isn't it?" she says. I concede the point. We can't see Manhattan for fog, but at the moment, that doesn't feel very important