Good Hair Guide

I have decided after much intellectual thought that the choice of President of the United States of America finally comes down to one crucial thing - hair. A guy or gal has just got to have a good head of hair to stand a chance of entering the White House as Chief Resident. And by good head of hair I don't mean lots of it, I mean styled in a way that smacks of Hollywood or breeding. Which is why I don't yet eliminate Rick Perry from my personal list of potential "Most Powerful Man in the World" candidates. He has a lovely sort of hmmm my hair is so well looked after, so shampooed, so well... beautiful, and along with the rather craggy looks and instant smile, he could pass muster as a lead character in a TV or film blockbuster. The American voting public likes a looker and Perry is a looker. Trouble is, every time he opens his mouth wide enough to emit a few chosen words, he generally finds the part of his body which is furthest from his lips (foot) gets firmly stuck between his teeth. The Washington newspaper boys and broadcasting know-alls don't give an inch. Never mind his hairdo, if he says he's going to shoot every illegal immigrant who comes across the Mexican border - hurray, says a lot of rednecks - or that he'd bomb Iran the first moment he has to summon the generals to the Situation Room, then the wiseguys, especially from the liberal press, are going to hammer him. So Mr Perry, I've got a piece of advice for you. Just show off your hair, keep smiling but saying NOTHING. You'll win! 

There's no one else really in the hair stakes who can match up to his shampoo. Newt Gingrich - excuse me, with a name like that you can only be a guardian of reptiles at the Washington Zoo - has hair but like the rest of him it doesn't look as if he has given it sufficient care and attention. Mitt Romney's hair looks like one of those fancy barber numbers. You know the ones. You walk past a hairdresser's and in the window are a bunch of pictures of previously satisfied clients. The haircuts are all what I would call "police inspector" style. Slightly pouffy, not a hair out of place and never moves in the wind. Well we know enough about Mitt or is it Mutt Romney by now to know that he will be the most boring president since Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter, although at least the latter had his peanut farms. The two women who have either entered the race or not entered the race, ie Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, both have nice locks (I said locks not looks) but Michele is too small and Sarah who would have absolutely wowed both Nicholas Sarkozy and Vladimir Putin (can you imagine President Putin meeting President Palin for the first time, he'd be stripped to the waist and riding his stallion before you could say Pass ze Vodka Darrrleeng), decided that after failing to find anyone who wanted to be her Vice-President she might as well pull out and stick to showbiz. 

Re hairstyles, I don't need to mention Donald Stretchover Trump. You can't be President of the USA with such unreliable hair. Standing in a howling wind reviewing the guard of honour, every photographer would have a field day. Now John Huntsman, the former ambassador in Beijing, has quite nice hair, but it doesn't look as if he knows how to project this asset. Put your fingers through it nonchalently before you do your next 60 Minutes interview, Mr Huntsman. The women will love it. 

The great presidents have all had distinctive hair: Kennedy of course, enviably thick and brown and eminently suited to his boyish good looks, Reagan, well not exactly I must have his hair type of hair, somewhat rigid and strangely coloured and immovable, but nevertheless sort of Clark Gableish lacquered and ready to go. Big Bill Clinton has pretty pretty hair and until he grew a radish on the end of his nose looked pretty good too. Enough said of Our Bill. Eisenhower had very boring hair but there are those, particularly in these oh so much smarter days,who believe that he wasn't a great president anyway. He won the war - excuse me, it was Churchill and Monty who won the war! - and rescued Private Ryan but as a president he was no George Washington. In fact Mr Washington, who formerly fought on the side of the British in the Indian/French war of the 1880s, turned out to be an even better general too. Sorry Ike. I'm not going to even bother remind you of the hairstyles of Richard Nixon, LBJ and aforementioned Jimmy Carter. But none of them was great presidents, so I think I have proved my point to a degree.

Today, a decent hairstyle is crucial to enter the White House. Obama looks pretty damned cool wherever he goes, and has always gone for the short crop. Always wears dark clothes, too, I notice. Hollywood has definitely got into his bones. So on the basis of what I have been arguing, in a rather historic manner if I may say so, Obama has got his rivals by their short and curlies. He wins by having the cutest hair. Rick Perry's hair will take him far but not far enough. So it's Romney's Chief Inspector look or Gingrich's mess. I'll go for Chief Inspector Romney against Denzil (Washington) Obama. The only chance Romney has of winning will be if he asks his hairdresser for a Number One and go for the Marine look. But John McCain tried that - well he didn't try, he was a tough nut anyway - and it didn't do him much good after he decided to ask Sarah Palin to be his vice-presidential running mate. Whoops, both feet right down the gullet!

On a less serious note, I have discovered over the years that generals who get anywhere being generals are the ones who are the most media-savvy. One trick is to find out as quickly as possible the first name of the reporter/broadcaster you're talking to and then drop his/her name into the interview as often as possible. It makes the interviewer feel good and the interviewee feel smug.  A classic warning, though, please make sure you have got the name right before you repeat it several times. A frightfully important general in a video briefing from Baghdad to the Pentagon Press Corps last week was a prime example of this dangerous pitfall. Admittedly, he did have the excuse of trying to pick up our names from a rather faint and crackly line. Amazing really, 21st Century communications and yet at times it was like that wonderful sketch in Blackadder when Captain Blackadder claims not to be able to hear the orders from his general to charge the German trenches: "Bzzzz psssst vooip vooip, oops, sorry the line is gone kaput!" Well, here's a smattering of the exchanges between the US general in Baghdad and the Pentagon Boys and Girls in the media briefing room.

"Hi General. Justin Fishel with Fox News blaa blaa blaa...."

"Yeah, Jeff, thanks for the question.........As you well know, Jeff, there are blaa blaa blaa."

"General, Nathan Hodge at the Wall Street Journal....blaa blaaa blaa."

"Yeah, Marvin, that's a great question...blaa blaa blaa."

"Hi General, it's Courtney Kube from NBC News....blaa blaa."

"Yeah, Coral.... blaaa blaaa."

By now we're all in hysterics, including the Pentagon Press Secretary. It doesn't matter whether the general declares world war or announces he's joining the insurgents, we ain't listening. We're just dying to hear the next whoops moment. The next questioner is Viola Gienger from Bloomberg News. I think someone must have whispered into the general's ear because he made no attempt to repeat her first name, let alone her surname. But he did say: "That's a very very good question". Which was followed by the blandest answer which didn't address Ms Gienger's question but at least he didn't call her Burt or George. For the record, when Mike Evans of the London Times asked the general a question, he replied: "Well, number one, Mike, thanks for that question blaa blaa blaa." Hurray, Mr General, you've done it. All that media-savvy work has paid off!!! After it was all over some of us gathered round George Little, the Press Secretary, to discuss something very serious until I asked him: "Jim, can you tell us blaa blaa blaa?" A burst of laughter from all assembled, including George/Jim Little. 

GTMO!

Last week I took the same route as hundreds of terrorists/enemy combatants en route to Guantanamo Bay detention centre, what used to be called Camp X-Ray and is now renamed Camp Delta - flight into Guantanamo Bay US Naval Station, bus to the ferry, onto the ferry and a 25-minute ride across the water to the windward side of Guantanamo and voila, there it is, the most famous/infamous detention centre in the universe. No orange jumpsuit for me fortunately (orange just doesn't suit me my dears) but a warm welcome from Rear Admiral David Woods, commander of Joint Task Force Guantanamo, the Big Cheese boss of the camp. When I say warm, I doubt he's naturally a warm soul. You don't get to run a prison camp for the most dangerous human beings on the planet by being a nice soul. He was a fairly typical toothbrush-haired American commander with a smile but absolutely no intention of telling us anything. 

But first of all, just to put The Guardian's headline story last week into some perspective. The headline said "Guantanamo Torture Centre". Well, between you and me and all the readers of The Guardian, the paper did not have a representative on the small party of journalists who went to Guantanamo this week, and I can tell you that the torture days - under President GW - are over. I went into Camp 6 where 80 per cent of the detainees are held and although every moment of their lives is watched over by guards they live a weird communal, albeit twilight, world where they can wander around, unshackled, unfettered, read books, watch endless television, paint etc etc. It's not Alexandria or East Sheen but it ain't waterboarding for breakfast, Mr and Mrs Guardian readers. They look pretty healthy, too. Abd al-Rahim Nashiri, the mastermind (alleged) of the suicide boat bomb attack on USS Cole in 2000 which killed 17 sailors, and numerous other al-Qaeda operations - and the reason I was in Guantanamo, to witness his first appearance before a Military Commission tribunal -swaggered into court looking positively bursting with health, almost pudgy. The only previous photo of him, used by every newspaper since his arrest in 2002 was of a thin-faced very Saudi-looking Saudi with a neat beard and turban. The guy in court looked nothing like him. He was round of face, unbearded, with a layer of stubble and oiled hair. Apparently he had a moustache but I couldn't see that from where I was sitting - at the back of the hugely secure courtroom behind a glass screen. Normally it's the dangerous defendant who sits behind a screen or in a cage. In this case it was us lot!!! 

There was much questioning of his civilian lawyer afterwards about whether Nashiri was fat, sturdy, stocky or muscular. The lawyer, quite rotund of stomach, replied: "I'm fat, he's muscly." The fact is, muscly or fat, this gentleman is never going to leave Guantanamo or at least he's never going to be released because even if he's acquitted - he's facing a death penalty if convicted - no US Government of whatever persuasion is going to free a terrorist (alleged) who was reputed to have been the leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (a grand title for such a horrendous terrorist network). Tricky one for Obama! By the way Nashiri is kept in Camp 7 which is so secret that no one, except those in charge of that particular facility, knows anything about it. There are 15 inhabitants, the most dangerous of the most dangerous, including Sheikh Mohammad Khaled, the 9/11 architect, Certainly we weren't allowed anywhere near it. There are six centres within Camp Delta: Camp 5 for Camp 6 detainees who have breached discipline where the regime is much less congenial and they wear the Guantanamo orange designer uniform to let everyone know they are "non-compliant", Camp 6 for the vast majority, Camp 7 for Nashiri and co, Camp Iguana, Camp Echo and the hospital. Allegedly Camp Echo is for the snitches, the detainees who have spilled the beans. I'm not sure about Camp Iguana. Everything is so hush hush at Guantanamo Bay, you don't often get a straight answer to a straight question. Except for : "Do you torture the detainees?" "NO." 

Nashiri's main lawyer who has been involved in 35 US federal death sentence trials, was upset when we said his client had swaggered into court. He said he didn't swagger,he just walked like he normally does. Then, whoops, he revealed he had never actually seen him walk before and he had been coming to Guantanamo Bay to see him for three years!!! Wow. how about that? At Camp 6, the easygo of sorts camp where the detainees don't wear shackles of any kind, they can make requests which are often granted. "Can I get off this island and go home please?" NO, sorry. "Can I have some sweets for trick and treat for Halloween night?" Of course you can, provided you share them around. "It's coming up for the Muslim Eid festival, we normally sacrifice a sheep, any chance....?" Does that involve using a knife to cut the throat? "Eh, yes." Then , no way, we might think about the sheep, but no knife.  Actually, that was one of the questions posed by the woman reporter from the Miami Herald when Eid came up as an issue. The Camp 6 commander showing us around said just that, although I assume he was kidding. "No they couldn't sacrifice a sheep with a knife, but we might have considered giving them a sheep."

Now,don't get me wrong, I am not saying, after one visit to Guantanamo, that the detainees are living a jolly life by the sea, although technically they are by the sea, or at least the bay. They are cooped up in a heavily barbed wire encampment with no family visits, and most of them will never get to visit Disneyland. But remember who these people are? The problem for Obama is that at some stage they should be presented to a court, either federal or military, and charged. But it's going to be a long business. I am reliably informed - actually by the US military's chief prosecutor himself, a tall incredibly intelligent general and total dude extraordinaire who was first in his class at West Point, a Rhodes scholar and a Harvard lawyer - that just for the Nashiri case alone there are likely to be half a million pages of documents, none of which have yet been handed over to the defence team because they are so steeped in top secret stuff that the authorities want to make sure that nothing smelling of CIA could ever get out into the hands of the public (via WikiLeaks!!). The defence lawyers have been security cleared to above top secret but even they have got to wait before they can see anything of the prosecution's case. I asked the defence lawyers what Nashiri had told them about his incarceration and the reply was: "I'm afraid I'm not allowed to tell you. Everything that comes out of his mouth has to remain top secret. Why? Because he was in the hands of the CIA for four years, so whatever he says is top secret."

Anyway, a great experience. I came away with a mass of notes, two stories in the paper and a statue of a nodding Castro! I said to  the woman from some television station in Chicago.  "Well that was three days of 16 hours on the trot." "Oh, I love that, on the trot, I don't know what it means but it sounds so English. I'm going to tweet that." And she did.

On an even lighter note, I was sitting having breakfast in one of the American cafeterias, along with two American journalists and the National Guard female driver who had taken us there. I was tucking into bacon and sausages - no ration packs at Guantanamo (but no hotels either, we all slept in tents) - when the National Guardswoman asked: "You gart any jokes?" Sorry? "Jokes, you gart any jokes?" It was 7am!! She then said: "What jou get if you throw a piaaano down a mineshaft?" I don't know, what do you get? "A flat minor". Ho ho ho. But then, wait for it, one of my distinguished American colleagues, intervened with: "Or you could get two flat miners." Er no Mr American, that's not a joke, you see on a piano you can play a tune in A flat.......oh forget it.

Back to civilisation. Meanwhile 171 Guantanamo Bay detainees continue their life in the Caribbean. I expect Bush has forgotten all about them.

Mr President I presume?

Sometimes I get classified information in my capacity as a trusted, vetted, security-investigated Pentagon Correspondent, albeit a Brit, and normally I would not impart any of this secret intelligence to anyone else. But there are some bits of intelligence which I feel the wider public needs to know. So, here goes, brace yourself. There is a CIA facility in Virginia, not the HQ at Langley, whose location I am not able to divulge which has a very special department known only within the intelligence community of which, of course, I am now a member, well a sort of associate member. The secret department is a gift shop and I am reliably informed by a contact who has to remain anonymous but I can assure you he is very much of the intelligence community, that in this said gift shop it is possible for a visitor to come away with a mug with the following letters inscribed on it: CIA.  I'm not kidding. If I play my cards right I could get a CIA mug. The unfortunate thing is that the only people who will know for sure that I have acquired this mug from a CIA facility and not from some street seller who has mugs with every kind of inscription, including WH (White House), BO (Barak Obama), GWB (George W Bush) and OW (Oprah Winfrey), are of course inmates of the Central Intelligence Agency. But I want everyone to know that if ever you spot me drinking coffee, tea or hot chocolate from a large white mug with the letters CIA on it, you will know for sure that it has been purchased/purloined from a certain CIA facility in Virginia, the US of A! 

I haven't lived in the US for long enough or spread my wings far enough within this great country to become an expert in the different ways and traditions of each of the states.  But here's how to behave on a beach on the west side of Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. When you arrive at North Beach, for example, you are handed a list which makes it clear that while you are welcome to swim and sunbathe, and even talk and breathe, there are certain rules and regulations which have to be observed (the words in brackets are mine, not the Maryland beach authorities): "Thongs, g-strings, swiss strings or micro bikinis are not permitted on beach, pier, boardwalk, park or parking lot (very disappointing obviously), disorderly, ill-mannered conduct or drunkenness will not be tolerated and will result in dismissal from the beach areas (Sir, you are diasmiassed!), fireworks are prohibited at all times (Sir, whatyamean it's Guy Fawkes night and who the hell's Guy Fawkes?), no smoking (quite right), no fish-cleaning on beach (well, that's a relief), no alcohol (see disorderly conduct), no tents or overnight sleeping (but all the B&Bs are full!), no coolers larger than nine quarts (that's cool), and, above all, no loitering (pardon me?!!), ah said, no loitering (what constitutes loitering on a beach? Standing oggling perhaps, although remember there are no micro-whatsits, or walking slowly from one end to the other, or strolling towards the water maybe!). Anyway you get the picture, there's no messing on a Maryland beach.

American friends came round for dinner the other night. After eating, the question was raised, do we stay where we are in the dining room talking or go to the sitting room where it's more comfortable. No decisive answer. So I said: "Well, let's go next door then." One of the American friends replied, a little bemused: "Are they expecting us?" Boom boom.

Did I mention I've met the future President of the United States? No, not Mitt Romney or Rick Perry but Herman Cain, Pizza King and author of the 999 policy. That's nine per cent payroll tax, nine per cent retail sale tax and nine per cent corporate sales tax. It's such a catchy idea that he's currently at the top of the Republican presidential candidate polls at the moment. That's all you need in this wonderful country to be able to join the bandwagon for the White House. You could be a 5ft circus cannon ball who eats broccoli and chips and nothing else and lives in a shack in Colorado but if you have an idea that rings well with the voters then you could be President of the US. Well, that's a slight exaggeration, you need some money and supporters and a campaign team and at least some notion that Afghanistan is not Argentina and that Iraq is not Iran. But Herman Cain has got away with a large slab of ignorance - actually he just admits he hasn't a clue when he hasn't a clue, so don't ask him about Afghanistan - but push your 999 idea and wham it's a goer. Well he walked into my office the other week for a video interview with one of the reporters and shook our hands. I assumed then he had as much chance of becoming President of the USA as Sarah Palin. But he has made a fortune from pizzas and if he has a good recipe for pizzas, perhaps he has a recipe for solving America's economic problems. Perhaps he is unaware of the fact, though, that back in good old England, 999 means HELP!

Hello and Goodbye

The Pentagon loves a good farewell. Quite a few of the top dogs at the US Department of Defense have been skipping off into retirement recently, and before they go, they like to do the rounds of farewells. Nothing unusual in that. But here in the US of A, it’s on a much grander scale and it generally includes a formal farewell party with the Pentagon Press Corps. Now that is unusual. In one case this week there was even a formal party with the  press for someone who is leaving his top job (goodbye) but then  moving down the corridor 200 yards to take up another job inside the Pentagon (hello). First of all, let’s look at Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff for the last four years, both in the Bush and Obama era. He’s a doughty fighter and has been making much loud music recently about the dastardly Pakistanis whose intelligence service called the ISI he described as being the “veritable arm” of the Haqqani terrorist network which is now seen as the most deadly of the insurgent groups operating in Afghanistan. Anyway, Chairman Mullen retires tomorrow (Sep 30) and two days ago he appeared in the Pentagon press briefing room for a knees-up farewell.

Well, that’s what I thought it was going to be. But actually it was the most sycophantic display of oh thank you Admiral for being so nice to the press stuff that I could ever have imagined. Heavyweights from CNN, CBS, the Washington Post etc all stood up to make speeches to say how wonderful Mullen had been. The CNN lady, a heavy-duty, no nonsense, speak it like it is, I want answers to my important questions sort of reporter, spent ten minutes praising, not Admiral Mullen, but Mrs Mullen, for her work with service families. Now nothing wrong with that per se but she went on and on saying how amazing she was until the embarrassment pips squeaked. It was a total reversal of her usual deadpan blunt questioning of Pentagon officials. The other dudes followed suit telling us all what an experience it had been travelling with the admiral on his various shouting matches with the Pakistanis, and how appreciative they had been when the admiral had returned from a trip and had told them everything they needed to know on the phone on background. The admiral’s press spokesman gave a “what the hell….” type of look, realising that his boss had gone behind his back to speak to the press over the last four years. Actually he probably only spoke to the giants of the US media world. Little old me hardly got to know him. But then I’m just a Brit working for a paper he’s probably never heard of. A paper incidentally that is older than America itself.

The final offering came from the lovely guy from NBC who recounted how he once travelled in the back of one of those VIP black super-chunky SUVs on a foreign trip and there were crowds gathering at the place where he was due to visit. Speaking quietly to himself before opening the door and exiting the SUV, Admiral Mullen muttered:”I am a rock star!” Well, quite. After the speeches were over, everyone had to queue up to have their picture taken shaking the great admiral by the hand. The picture will soon be adorning my wall, along with the one of me shaking the hand of Robert Gates, the exceptionally fine (whoops, I’m doing it now) US Defence Secretary who retired in July.

So farewell Admiral Mullen and your CNN-adored wife. Have a lovely retirement. Next week there’s a hello ceremony. General Martin Dempsey, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is holding court before the Pentagon Press Corps. Hopefully, there’ll be no cause for long flattering speeches by reporters who at some stage in his climb to the top shared a helicopter/armoured vehicle/Jacuzzi with the general. But I’m not counting on it.

Storm in a Tea Party

America is a crazy place. Everything is on a different scale, especially its weather and its politicians. An earthquake and a hurricane in one week is going it a bit. The earthquake was like being at a fairground and riding a moving floor. I was on the 4th floor of the National Press Building where The Times is housed and everything moved after an initial rumble. I was aware that everyone in my office rushed to take shelter in a doorway, apparently that's what you are supposed to do. I just ducked under my desk. It's an old habit. When bombs and mortar rockets get thrown around I tend to duck under something, and I was reminded of an occasion in 2006 when I was in Basra in southern Iraq and was on my way to interview the British brigade commander in his office at HQ when three mortar rockets landed about 100ft away with mighty explosions. I ducked somewhere for a bit, then emerged unscathed and continued my way to the brigadier's office. I entered the office and a very flustered secretary asked me to wait because she thought her boss was probably still under his desk. When I went in he was actually emerging from under, looking a bit sheepish. So ducking under the desk is a sort of old tactic.

Well, I was under my desk, but thousands of Washingtonians headed for outside and crowded round in bemused groups. Apparently all the animals in the DC zoo knew it was coming. They all started to head for safety minutes before the earth quaked and those animals who could climb trees climbed trees. You humans, you have no idea! The hurricane was a bit of a damp squib in DC but you've never seen such panic buying. Every torch ever made had gone from the shelves. Americans do what is called "hurricane prep", ie prepare for the onrush of wind and rain and that means buying up bottled water, bread, milk, torches, batteries etc. We Brits are a bit cooler about weather. Ok we don't have too many extremes, but one thing we do know in good old Blighty is that you should never believe what the weather forecasters say. Right?

As for politics, the Republican candidates for ousting Obama are now pretty well lined up although I think there may still be a surprise or two, perhaps Mel Gibson or Charlie Sheen or maybe Piers Morgan? Just kidding. Piers by the way is a dead flop over here on tele. He's dreadful, smarmy, and so full of himself. Well he always was. The Republican candidates are all either scary, boring or both. But politics being the way it is in the US of A anyone of them could make it to the White House. Rick Perry is like George W Bush but seriously nutty, has a thing about gay scoutmasters (against not for), Mitt Romney is supposed to be the businessman's man but sends everyone to sleep he's so lacking in charisma, Michele Bachmann is 5ft but makes up for lack of height with extreme right wing views, the rest are also rans and don't get me started on Palin, Sarah not Michael. If she runs for President and by some quirk of fate gets to the White House, we're all doomed. This is a superpower nation but thanks to the great American Dream a moose-eating cookie who doesn't know that Lithuania is a country can end up the President. My money is on Obama squeezing it for another four years. If he can persuade Scarlet Johansson to be his Vice-President he'd be a sure bet. Sorry, I quite like Scarlett Johansson. But it's not out of the question, not in the US of A!

Good shot, old chap!

Sorry for the long gap. I have just returned to the US of A from three weeks in England where I played one game of cricket. I mention this because cricket is to be the subject of this blog. For those not in love with the game I will not be at all hurt if you give this missive a miss and carry on with your life as if this blog never appeared on your computer. But of course it's more than about cricket, it's about life, about different cultures, about tea, travelling to the countryside, meeting fellow human beings, focusing on a small red leather ball rather than deeper issues such as the relentless death toll in Afghanistan, the diving US economy, the desperation of America's first black President, famine in Somalia and the Arab Spring which turns out to be an Arab Winter. That little red leather ball has left its mark on my whole life, from about the age of seven, and, on this occasion, has left a very angry-looking bruise on my right shin which, in the humid heat of Washington DC, appears to be getting angrier each day and transforming my perfectly decent leg into a swollen yellow and black lump. Gangrene, I have no doubt, will set in in due course. 

Cricket has always been a dangerous sport which is partly, I guess, why I have always enjoyed it. Danger in one form or other, though without meaning to sound too Hollywood dramatic, has played a part in my life since 1991 when I covered my first of many wars, learning the art of dealing with maniacal militia, banditos and insurgents, dodging bullets, artillery shells and mortar rockets - and glue-besotted child soldiers with long-bladed knives and Kalashnikovs in Sierra Leone. I'm digressing, apologies, but it has just struck me that cricket has much in common with knowing when to duck and when to run in war zones. The ball hurtling and swinging towards you from 22 yards away - it always seems much closer when the bowler puts his front foot right on the crease, a centimetre from being called "No Ball!" -  brings back memories of mortar rockets literally - or liderally as the Americans would say - flying over my head in Bosnia, AK47 rounds skipping between our convoy of cars driving in the mountains outside Tusla in Bosnia, dodging the sniper's bullets at Vitez at sniper's alley, diving to safety from rampaging Russian BMP armoured personnel carriers at Pristina airport in Kosovo, stepping daintily between the unexploded cluster bombs and rockets in the Kuwaiti desert from the 1991 Iraq invasion, cowering from the withering Taleban fire across the poppy fields in Helmand, and looking in the eyes of the deadly Shia fanatics in southern Iraq and waiting for the next explosion in Baghdad. Oh yes, there are a lot of similarities with cricket! 

But I had not set out to inject warfare into my musings about cricket. This is about a game I have loved all my life - and partly feared. That terrible waiting for the bails to fall when it's your turn to bat, that first over when everyone on the field expects you to bowl on the spot and get wickets, that moment of panic when a ball is skied and it's coming towards you from a great height and the whole match depends on you grasping it in your hands, that occasion when one of your sons is plumb LBW (when the ball smacks the pads in front of the wicket - leg before wicket) and, as the umpire, your index finger on your right hand knows instinctively that it should be raised boldly into the air to declare he's OUT. but remains in the pocket which causes outrage from the bowler and the whole of the opposition, including the man on the boundary at cover point. There are things that are more important in life than giving out your son LBW. 

Anyway, cricket is in my blood and there I was, living as I am in the US of A, thinking that perhaps my cricketing days were over. The fear factor had taken precedence over the love factor. Perhaps I could survive by never playing again, I could just umpire or make the tea or sit in a deckchair and ruminate on the moments of glory - not many - when I returned to the pavilion a hero in the team's mind, having completed a 50 or taken five wickets or engineered a wondrous acrobatic twirl to catch an impossible catch. I know cricket is played in America, I know there are clubs everywhere where Brit ex-pats, Indians, West Indians and Pakistanis continue the traditions of the game, but I was afraid to offer my services in case I fell short. I can fall short amongst my dear cricketing friends in England, they would sympathise, but in America playing for a hot-shot team of 20-year-old fast-bowling Indians, this ageing cricket-lover might soon be patronised as the old English goat who thinks he can play but who can no longer contribute much, apart from filling up the numbers. You see, the Fear Factor had taken over. Also, I can't see America as a cricket-loving nation. They do baseball. As someone delightfully said to me: "Cricket, that's on horseback, right?" A friend in Philadelphia tried to explain the rules of baseball and I reckon I made a pretty good fist of it, but I still don't get it. Where is the elegance, the sweet late cut, the flick off the legs, the gentle push through the covers, the sweep (or attempted sweep in my case), the snick through the slips that has the fielders scrabbling desperately for air? Only the mighty clout over mid-wicket's head bears any comparison.

So there I was, standing at the wicket, as one of the openers (!), awaiting the first ball I had faced for two years. It was a moment of acute introspection, worrying about failing, imagining I had forgotten how to watch the ball and choose the right stroke, anticipating a clump on my unhelmeted head. Humiliation was upon me. But I thought, as the bowler marked his spot and began to run up looking determined and menacing, at least if I was out first ball I could take satisfaction from the realisation that my time as a player was over, that age had caught up on  me, that I was never much good anyway, and that there was more to life than cricket. The bowler bowled, I watched the ball as it curved towards me and then suddenly veered away. I reached forward and struck it sweetly, not quite a late cut, but a cut of some nobility, and the little read leather ball swept away towards the boundary for four.  My first shot for two years was a boundary. I had stared the bowler (gunman) in the face, I had shaken off the fear and had dealt with his venom with finesse. "Good shot," said my fellow opener. A faint sound of clapping could be heard from the pavilion steps. 

I was back in the cricketing groove I had known and loved for so many years. Let it be recorded that I scored 30 runs. The Fear Factor had gone, the Humiliation had been spared, the adrenalin was flowing, and when I was finally out, heaving a full toss into the hands of Mid On, it didn't matter. I was on the scoresheet. There's a phrase in journalism when a reporter is at his desk and his hands are idle. "Not bothering the printers today?" Well, on that bright, sunny day on that cricket pitch near Marlow, I had bothered the scorer - with a row of 4s and 2s and singles. I was back! Today as I sit in my quaint house in Old Town Alexandria, I have my spectacular bruise to remind me of that afternoon. I might even go looking for a cricketing team in Washington, although it sounds like I may first have to learn to ride a horse!

I know nothing!

.

The Pentagon is about to be hit by change at the top. Robert Gates, long-suffering Defence Secretary, is desperate at the age of 67 to retire after serving eight presidents during his 40-year career. He has a fancy lakeside house in Washington State and is heading off on June 30. At least some people know when to retire!! He is being replaced by a man six years older than him, Leon Panetta, CIA Director. It's a great swap, a former CIA Director (Gates) handing over to the present CIA Director.

 I have it on good authority that the following conversation took place between Gates and Panetta the other day. The dialogue is based around the famous quotation from their predecessor at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, who, you may recall, once said at a press conference: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me because, as you know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones."

Thank you, Mr Rumsfeld, for this gem, always worth repeating. Anyway, here are Mr Gates and Mr Panetta facing each other at the Pentagon, two weeks before Mr Gates is out of here and yippee to the house in Washington and Mr Panetta is why on earth did I say yes to the President, now I'm stuck with this dreadful place for the next two or three years.

"So Leon, what do you want to know?" asks Bob Gates.

"I already know what you know," Leon replies smugly.

"Yeah, but you don't know what only I know."

"Bob, I'm the Director of the CIA, I know everything you think you know and probably what you don't know."

"You can't know what I don't know because even I don't know what I don't know although I've got a pretty good idea."

"Ok, I don't know what you think you don't know but I do know what I know you don't know."

"So how can I help?"

"Hm, how the hell am I going to cut $400 billion from the Pentagon budget over the next 12 years, as the President is demanding?"

"I don't know."

"And how are we going to get out of Afghanistan by 2014 and declare a victory?"

"Haven't a clue."

"And is there any point in Nato?"

"***** Nato."

"Well thanks, Bob, that was very useful."

"My pleasure. Anything else you want to know?"

Leon shakes his head and the two men shake hands. Being Defence Secretary of the only superpower on the planet is tough.

Something entirely different. Musical events in Old Town Alexandria. The world's worst musicians perform every weekend on the streets of Old Town and I am close to a plan to eliminate the lot. My top victims are: the saxophonist who stands on the corner of Royal Street where I live and King St, the main street, with a bucket in front of him and plays two tunes, only two tunes. I will NEVER give him a cent.  The harpist, a strange Romanian gypsy woman who sits on a rock overlooking the Potomac River, plucking at a harp and singing so quietly I feel like saying, "SING UP, LADY", but I don't because she's total rubbish. Her plucking fingers bear absolutely no relation to the unlyrical vocal meanderings claimed to be a song, it's like someone singing God Save the Queen while the band is playing Moon River. The old boy who sits on the steps of a shopping courtyard and strums at the guitar. I say strums but actually he feathers the strings so that to hear it you need to place your earhole one centimetre from the instrument, and apparently he sings as well but whatever sound is coming from his throat makes my gypsy harpist sound like Mick Jagger at his most raucous. The drummer, well forget drums and forget drumming, he sits all day on the pavement with two empty buckets in front of him and just hits them with a sort of drumstick. It's unbearably awful, lacking any sort of rythm. There's also a guitarist who stands up outside a restaurant. But he CAN'T play the guitar. He has never learned how it works. He might as well sit on a bucket and blow a whistle. I'm going to tell him that next time I walk by. Anyway, secret plans to eliminate the lot.

 On the other hand, I've discovered a restaurant where upstairs after 9pm on Fridays and Saturdays, a bunch of guys and girls get round a piano played by a woman who looks 102 and wears a wig but is pretty damn good on the ivories, and the singers are cool too. When we arrived the other night, a bloke with a belly the size of the Grand Canyon was belting a number from one of the musicals, and later a guy who looked like a waiter with the longest nose I've ever seen sang a sexy number and sashayed around the room swaying his hips at all the girls. Great stuff. Proper music. Real entertainment. Eat your heart out gypsy woman.

Safe House: no hawkers

The Obama bin Laden Raid

Correction: The Osama bin Laden Raid (White House ed)

Now we know everything about the famous raid. But do we know everything?!!! Here's a different take on this mammoth story (please swallow after reading):

 Bin Laden was traced to the compound in Abbottabad in August last year. Well not exactly traced but everything pointed to it. No one had actually seen the bloke reading the New York Times in his backyard but if you're in the intelligence business which of course I am, a few leads are as good as "a smackeroonie we've gotim" situation". So the CIA boys set up a safe house. WHAT!!! A CIA safe house in charming Abbottabad?! Perhaps with "No Hawkers, no nosey Pakistanis and definitely no snoopers from the ISI [Pakistan's naughty-boys Taleban-loving intelligence service] notices on the front door. What did they do for food I wonder. Had to go down the local super for burgers and stuff, a dead giveaway. Anyway, here we have smart-looking Ivy League graduates sitting it out with their dark glasses peering through the window and seeing, well seeing what? Apparently not much. The safe house must have been so far away from The Compound that it was... well safe from being spotted by anyone. I guess that's why it was called a safe house. So on Day One, through fancy binoculars, they spotted this bloke pacing up and down in the inner courtyard of The Compound. He was about 6ft 4ins, longish beard though not as long as the one in the usual bin Laden photos, a bit stooped and head down, always looked thoroughly miserable. "What you reckon, Chip, bin Laden or what?" asks Watcher 1. "Sure, looks like it, but this place is kinda nice, let's stick it out for a few months, there's a mound of DVDs to get through and that local kebab place is a beaut," replies Watcher 2. They high five each other and settle down to watch The Magnificent Seven for the third time.

Days, weeks go by. Langley (CIA HQ in Virginia) asks what the hell is going on. "Not 100 per cent sure yet, boss, s'looking good but gotta be sure. We think it might be Obama, sorry Osama, but it's difficult from here to be absolutely you know whaco certain. Chip, put the other one on, no that one, we haven't seen that yet." Langley:"What! what you say!" "Oh sorry boss, I was just talking about the eh, eh.. camera feed." Langley:"We're going to send over Boogey III." Boogey III (I made the name up for security reasons), is a super-sleuth Stealthy spy drone that can't be seen from the ground because it has been painted to look like a cloud. Boogey III spends the next two months hovering in an otherwise cloudless sky trying to check out The Pacer in the courtyard. The CIA Boogey III operators at a secret base in Pakistan devote most of their time shouting: "Look up, damn you, look up, we can't see your face!!" But The Pacer is always head-bowed. He knows a thing or two about what floats around in the sky after a lifetime of avoiding passing US satellites, but because he never looked up into the sky above The Compound he failed to spot the sole little fluffy cloud with the ever-so-tiny brrm brrm noise attached to it.

It's now December. The CIA boys have got through all their DVDs and the local stock is rubbish. So they're getting bored. Between them and Boogey III, they have signalled back to Langley the following secret intelligence: "There's a bloke about UBL's height [they always called Osama bin Laden UBL except when they called him Geronimo] with a beard living at The Compound. Spotted three or four women - doesn't he have four wives? - and some children and a couple of blokes who go out each day and come back with a mound of groceries. Watcher 8 followed one of them and it seems The Family eats nothing but aubergines. Please check files for UBL's diet."

Biggest worry is: is this a UBL decoy or the Real Deal? Safe House Team panics at the thought of getting it wrong. Osama would be furious. Sorry Obama would be furious. Reputation of the CIA at stake. Or at steak, medium rare please. There's also another spanner in the works. A bloke about 6ft 4ins with a beard and looking quite like UBL has been spotted going into the rear entrance of the ISI headquarters each day with a name tag round his neck. CIA followers couldn't quite make out the name but it looked something like Mr O'Laden.

Back in the Situation Room at the White House Obama (yes Obama) is into his fourth special Osama meeting to decide what to do about all this fascinating non-information. It's February. Most of his advisers advise the evidence is all circumstantial. Ok it looks like UBL, but you can never be sure with foreigners. And the beard looks too short. And what if the right UBL is the guy clocking in to work at the ISI. Can't take out a staff member of the ISI without causing a right rumpus. There's also concern about The Safe House. There had been an odd complaint to the local authority in Abbottabad that two non-Pakistani blokes had been at the centre of a street scene after someone tried to grab a bunch of DVDs from their shopping bag. (Yes the CIA boys had finally given in and had begun to watch the local DVDs, having seen The Magnificent Seven 14 times and The Right Stuff 20 times). Obama says it's time to make a decision. Everyone in the room says, "Don't do it, Mr President, if it's not UBL, you're going to make a fool of yourself and it'll be all your fault. We as your most senior advisers will tell The New York Times that we advised against it."  Obama scratches his chin and pronounces: "Ok I'm going to do it. Send in the Seals, and make sure one of them is 6ft 4ins, so when they shoot whoever is in The Compound, he can lie next to the body and measure up." Everyone in the Situation Room shakes his head wisely. There's only one Seal who is 6ft 4ins and he was due a weekend off on May 1 but instead became a hero of US Special Operations Forces, the man photographed lying next to the dead body of the Most Hunted Terrorist on Earth.

So it was the greatest intelligence feat of all time. The Safe House closes down. The CIA Watchers emerge into the sunlight humming the theme tune from The Magnificent Seven, and the UBL look-alike continues to clock in each day at the ISI HQ.

PS Don't forget, swallow this good.

PPS How do you know the toothbrush was invented in West Virginia?

Because if it had been invented anywhere else it would have been called the Teethbrush. Boom boom.

Crisis, what crisis, just shine my shoes, boy!

Apart from being a five-sided monster of a building alongside the Potomac River (and that's PotOmac), the Pentagon in all its glory is like a town with all the necessary facilities required to keep its thousands of inhabitants fed, watered, haircutted, dry-cleaned, gift-wrapped and, above all, shoe-shined. If your shoes are even slightly musty from the outside air - and boy, do the US military like their shoes to bristle with shineness whether in uniform or civvy dress - then the little shop just round the corner from the escalator that takes everyone up into the building from the  Metro entrance entrance is always in fine business. Always a queue. Always men sitting in chairs awaiting their polishing moment. I swear the barbers are not half as busy. Big meeting in Room 987, Corridor 3, full of exceptionally serious-looking dudes in army and marine uniforms about to ponder contingency planning for invading Iran, there's an empty chair. "Where's Colonel (everyone's a colonel) Mc.....?" "Sorry sir, the colonel's unavoidably detained." "Well, hell this meeting has to start, get me Col Mc on the line." "Col Mc, where the hell are you? I want to start the meeting." "Sorry, general, the queue was longer than I expected." "Shoe shine?" "Yessir, shoeshine." "Ok Colonel, we'll wait. You get a good shine now!" "Yessir." I haven't dared introduce my tacky shoes to the shoeshine man yet. Whenever I think I'm tempted, there's a row of heavy combat guys or oversized Pentagon civvy boys waiting to be treated. I pass on by. As for the barbers, well, far too risky. "You wanna what?" "Just a gentle trim please." "No 1, 2 or 3?" "Er, in England, a gentle trim means...." "You British or retarded?" I actually heard that the other day. Not said to me but relaid by someone else.

 

Talking of Pentagon, I had an interview planned with a US Air Force general last week but was running late. Osama (not Obama) bin Laden had been shot a few days earlier and I had to do an instant profile of the admiral in charge of the Seals who carried out the mission. I dashed out of my house in Alexandria Old Town and spotted a taxi. "The Pentagon please and quick, I'm going to be late." The taxi roared off. One minute later the taxi driver asked: "Have you got the address?" "Er, no, but it's the Pentagon, you know that building full of generals and admirals." Silence for two minutes. "Have you got the address?" "NO, BUT IT'S THAT HUGE OFFICE BUILDING, FIVE-SIDED AND I'M GOING TO BE LATE!!" Five minutes before I'm supposed to be sitting in front of this general.the taxi driver is playing meaninglessly with his SatNav. I've been in the taxi ten minutes - he said it would take ten minutes to get to the Pentagon - and make the mistake of looking out of the window only to see the Pentagon to my left but about three highways to my left. "There it is, where the hell are you going?" He mumbles and takes me into DC, past the Washington Monument. The Pentagon has disappeared. I'm LATE. The general's aide rings me. "Where are you?" "Not the foggiest", or words to that effect. "Come to the southern car park entrance." Frankly I'd be happy with any entrance provided it has something to do with the Pentagon. I see a sign for Chevvy Chase and decide that the only option is to leap from the taxi and run back. But miraculously after three three-point turns, fourteen requests for directions from bewildered police officers and a near running over of a poodle with a tartan coat, we return within sight of what used to be - still is? - the biggest office building in the world, and by some chance of fate I spot a sign which says southern car park entrance, I scream at the driver, l pay him 20 dollars thank you very much - the metre read 48 dollars - and run like mad towards the Corridor 3 entrance where my general is waiting. Fortunately he turns out to be pretty cool and relaxed and I notice that his boots are not over-polished. Clearly needs to join the queue.

From back pain to insanity

Washington is all about politics politics politics. But ordinary life also goes on where Obama's future, if he has one, is not the main topic of conversation. I approached a couple the other day in one of the prettiest sidestreets in Old Town Alexandria. He was standing on his raised porch and she, quite an attractive woman , was standing on the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) looking up at him. A sort of Romeo and Juliet in reverse. As I got closer I was imagining the most likely conversation, perhaps, "Darling, don't just stand there, come in and let me cook you a souffle," or "Have I ever told you how beautiful your eyes are." In fact, when I got near enough, the charming gentleman was saying: "I've gotta put the trash out for tomorrow." Hey man, what's with you?
 
Television adverts for new medicines remain one of the funniest shows in town. They go something like this: "Chuck Ferrari had back pain so bad he couldn't work for months or lift up his children, but now his life is changed. He took Avarazismell (they're always called something ridiculous) and in just two weeks he was back at work and playing with his kids." A picture is then shown of Chuck throwing a large kid into the air, failing to catch him and they both fall in a heap on the ground, but he gets up laughing and smiling at the camera. Then comes the bad bit. "Avarazismell could change your life too, but if you suffer from frequent colds it could cause your blood to stop flowing leading to death, if you suffer from diabetes, it's likely that one of your legs will fall off, and if you are taking any other form of medicine, whether Aspirin or throat lozenges, you should see your doctor because the combination of Avarazismell and other medicines could lead to insanity." Then the advert reverts to Chuck. "For Chuck, Avarazismell was a life-changer. See your doctor to see if it could change your life too, always read the small print." It comes from living in a highly litigious country where everyone sues.
 
God bless America.

Feeefty feeefty

Travelling with Robert Gates part two. This time in some style. All the way in his Air Force One type plane, reasonably comfy seats, attentive staff, not to my every needs, but food and water etc. Not much sleep, no lying down beds, just airline-type seats though a bit bigger. Himself turned up on a couple of occasions to brief us about Libya, him sitting in a large chair facing us as we all gathered round like expectant pigeons in Trafalgar Square. The trip this time was more exotic. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan were on the itinerary, instead it was Russia, Egypt, Israel, Palestine and Jordan, all in six days. But Libya was on all our minds, in fact except for a brief flutter of different news in Israel - rockets landing from Gaza  - I wrote exclusively about Libya. It turned out to be a very expensive way to get information, my bill for the six days was extortionate, largely due to our charming hotel hosts in St Petersburg and Moscow charging for two nights on each occasion although we only stayed for one in each establishment. Why? Because Mrr Eevans you arrived urrly and we gave you yourr rroom straightaway, so we charge you for twoo nights. But... No buts Mrr Eevans, you're in Rossia now, this is the way we do beesness.

To relieve the frantic rushing around, going from one meeting and briefing to another, largely ignoring whether we were in St Petersburg, Moscow, Cairo, Tel Aviv or Ramalla, the personalities on the trip helped to provide some comic moments. At the start of the trip standing at Andrews Air Force base in Washington, waiting for the rest of the journalist clan to turn up, a bloke I hadn't met before approached. "Hi, I'm from the Wall Street Journal," I said hi and then asked why Adam wasn't coming. Adam Entous is the paper's Pentagon man, a nice guy and I knew he was coming on the trip. "Well," said the columnist, "Adam is a reporter, I'm a columnist." Well quite. They both came and in fact I sat with them on the plane journeys and got to know The Columnist quite well.  He had an amusing view on life. We were all in the hotel in St.Petersburg after dinner, waiting for a briefing from one of Gates's senior advisers. I had eaten at the gloriously named National Vodka Museum with about eight others, Mr Columnist had eaten elsewhere with a few others. We swapped food notes. Various people spoke of delicious blinies, pancakes with salmon caviar and cream etc, then a voice from an armchair said: "I had bear." It was The Columnist. After the briefing, I asked him why he had eaten bear and what was it like. "Well," he said, "It was a choice between bear or duck. I asked the waitress what the bear was like. She replied, 'Feeefty feeefty'. I asked her what that meant. She replied:'Feeefty times eez goood and feeefty times eez not so gooood' ".

The waitress asked: "So, you will have the duck?" "No, the bear," he replied.  I asked: "Was it gooood or not so gooood?" "It was disgusting," he said. For the rest of the trip, we ate out and briefed out on that wonderful line from the waitress. "So, what did you think of the briefing from the Russian Defence Minister?" "I thought it was feeefty feeefty, ok in parts, otherwise rubbish." Despite his culinary adventure, The Columnist suffered no after-affects. A venerable columnist of the Washington Post was also on the trip. I think he gets invited to them all. He is a favoured writer. Such a serious dude, always engaged in very quiet, very earnest discussions, always with his arms folded and his head tilted to one side, and such elegant sunglasses sported in Tel Aviv where the sun shone.  A good bloke, very courteous and polite, but I've never heard him speak above a sotto voce. Everything is turned inwards to go with the cerebral arms-folded persona. The "Bear" columnist had a nice line in humour and didn't even blow his top when, after interviewing Gates on the last leg of the trip, from Jordan to Washington, he took too long to write his piece and when he went to file it on the plane, the Internet had gone down and he missed his deadline. Now that's pretty cool. I mean not blowing his head off in frustration. He just said, oh well, they'll probably use it on Monday instead of tomorrow (Sat). That's the difference between a reporter and a columnist. A reporter would never be allowed to miss his deadline. He was right though. The Wall Street Journal did use it on the Monday. It was a very good read. No mention of bear though.
PS
The blog picture, for those curious about the background, is of me standing by the frozen Neva River in St Petersburg.

.

Yessir, yes maam

Americans are very polite, very careful, very obliging when confronted with verbal diarrhoea from the person sitting next to them on the Metro/bus, and in Washington, always labelled. You just don't see anyone walking the streets without an identity wonga flapping around their belly or attached to their chests, unless of course they're tourists from Ohio, Alberqueque, Florida or name your town/state in which case they have no labels other than the statutory tourist US garb, shorts and tops for both men and women, the women often in very short shorts never mind the legs, and they never know exactly where they're going and always have to ask someone with an identity label sitting or standing on the Metro whether they get off at Metro Center, Foggy Bottom or Faragut West to visit the Spy Museum/National Portrait Gallery/White House/nearest McDonalds etc.

Tourists and labelled Washington staffers thrown together, the latter buried in their BlackBerrys and I-Pads and the tourists just wanting to chatter about everything. Here's one I listened to the other day: "A'm fraam Ohio, me and ma hursband Chuck, that's heem over therr, he comes fraam Nebraska and has a seester still living therr, she's never been to Warrshington though we've tried to persuade herr but it's her leegs, her carsin jerst hates Warrshington, says it's full of wonks and people eatin salads but I don't think that's true we had a good chile harttdarg in Clarendon but now we're off to the Spy Mooseum but don't know whether it's near the White House or not, we'd like to do both in one day, ma leegs are ok but Chuck has a prarblem with you know whaat, no not his leegs, his you know whaat, isn't that right, Chuck, you can't go for too larng without, hmm, visitin... so we have to time it, and I reckon we can do the Spy Museum, they'll have rest rooms and then we can go to the White House which I guess won't have rest rooms, at least not ones we can use, this Obaama hasn't done murch has he, I mean he prarmised change and Ohio looks just the same to me and Chuck says Nebraska hasn't changed either. It's another reason why his seester won't think of comin to Warrshington. She blames Obama for her leegs, she can't get Medicare to do anythin, they say they don't do leegs, not under Obamacare, which seems kinda unfair, but we're lookin forrard to seeing the Spy Mooseum, is Obama in the White House, I'd like to see the darg, we have a darg, we're only here for three days."

The polite bit comes on the oddest of occasions. Waiting at a Pentagon lift to take me to the 4th floor, a uniformed chappie steps out of the lift and says: "Excuse me." I wasn't anywhere near him. Walking down the long corridor towards Room 4E800 on the 4th floor, another uniformed bloke comes out of his office. "Excuse me." I'd already passed him when he said it.  Robert Gates, Defence Secretary and former CIA Director, says "Yes Sir" when pointing at me to ask a question at a press conference. I like that. A bit of respect. Pestering the CIA to meet me for lunch, a representative replies: "I'm so sorry we haven't yet managed a date, thank you for your patience, if our two countries succeeded in launching Operation Overlord together I'm sure we can arrange a lunch in due course." I replied, heading the email: Operation Overlunch.

Another incident on The Bus - ie my bus(not the Old Town trolley) that takes me from the bottom of King Street, Old Town, Alexandria, up to the Metro. Hey, it's a long walk! Bus stops to let on a big guy in a wheelchair. It's an elaborate process. The driver presses a button and a special lift is lowered to the pavement, the wheelchair guy backs into it, it shunts upwards and then he has to reverse into the bus towards the ticket machine which requires $1.50 to be inserted into a slot. But of course he is facing outwards with his back to the machine. I'm afraid we all watched as he struggled to insert the relevant money by twisting painfully round, but after a few attempts he gave up, stood up, turned round, threw the money into the receptacle and sat down again. "It's a miracle!" we all cried.
 

Burgers and top secret files

This post is a bit out of date. Went on a trip with Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, in August/September last year to Iraq and Afghanistan. But a few recollections.


What's it like travelling with a superpower Secretary and his team of superpower civil servants and military? Well, first off, we get our own Air Force One plane - probably Air Force Three, but you get the picture - for the main part of the journey but then switch to a C17 Globemaster super transporter for flying within Iraq and then from Iraq to Afghanistan. It's decked out to carry VIPs and the like (I and 17 American newshounds are the like in this case). The Secretary spends the whole of the C17 flights sitting inside a steel box, like a giant garden shed at one end of the plane. No doubt with hot and cold running water, a Queen's size bed, DVDs, leather armchairs and a phone to speak to the President. 
 
No sign of Himself on the C17 trips, but plenty to watch from my more humble seat along the side. Everything is about pecking order. One poor Pentagon official pretty high up the ladder was forced to sit in the second row of a line of seats in the middle of the plane. Front row with a scattering of generals had masses of leg room, but his second row seat was so jammed up against the front row - think Easyjet and then halve the space - that he spent each journey with his legs and feet twisted and contorted while he tried to read the endless verbiage in the special Top Secret File given to all the officials to consume before they landed anywhere, so that they were fully prepared to emit verbiage when they got there. He looked bored the whole journey from Iraq to Afghanistan and in total agony. When he was delivered a meal to eat he spent at least ten minutes wondering how on earth he was going to have the elbow room to use his knife and fork to poke at the burger - yes of course a burger - while continuing to read the secret stuff written by teams of super-intelligent people back in Washington. So much for being a high-up defense official.
 
 A man with more leg room and sitting in another section, facing my row of seats was a large official with a protuding belly. He was also engrossed in the Top Secret material and when his burger arrived, he put his file down momentarily, piled the burger, tomato, lettuce, mustard, tomato sauce and mayonese into one huge chunk and took a mighty bite, the various sauces squeezing out in all directions and sending splashes of red and cream onto his shirt. He didn't notice. In between subsequent bites, like a shark grabbing the unfortunate leg of a swimmer off Miami Beach, the official - even higher up the food chain - picked up the file he had placed next to him and continued to read. After each bite and when he wanted to turn a page he would briefly lick his right thumb and forefinger to facilitate the turning of the page. Each lick, and presumably each top of the page must have tasted of burger, tomato sauce, mustard and mayonese. He devoured both the huge burger and the Top Secret File with the sort of concentration and devotion normally associated with hyenas scavenging on the carcass of a hunted-down gazelle. After he finished his banquet he was summoned to A Meeting with The Secretary whose eating habits were fortunately not on public view. Being a former Director of the CIA he would have known everything in the secret file anyway, so he probably enjoyed his burger while watching the New York Yankees losing again. 
 
While the C17 ride was perfectly comfortable, this was a military plane, so no carpets anywhere, just a mass of unexpected floor rivets, and a deadly rail system under the seats in which our scrunched-up senior official was sitting which moved the seats back and forth when the plane took off and landed. The rail was deadly because the end bit stuck up - right in front of me - and presented to the unknowing passer-by an instant metal banana skin. ie everyone from assistant secretaries of defense to the New York Times reporter to the Voice of America broadcaster, tripped up every time they went by. It provided comic moments every five minutes, not a bad bit of free entertainment on long journeys. The only ones who knew to sidestep this jagged piece of metal were the military of course - and me who spotted the problem as soon as the very senior official with the tummy nearly fell into my lap, spluttering apologies and tomato sauce into my face. Incidentally, before he went off to brief The Secretary, Mr Secretary as they call him, he had seen the splash of red on his white shirt and spent five minutes dipping his serviette into a glass of water and sponging himself down. He did a pretty good job although Secretary Gates must have wondered why one of his most top advisers had a large damp patch on his shirt.
 
The mass of officials and journalists, exhausted and overfed, landed at 11pm at some remote Iraqi airbase,  only to find of course the time difference meant it was 6.30am the next day, so straight to work, on to helicopters and down to Ramadi in western Iraq to speak to troops and get hot - 130 degrees and rising. Gates had a different baseball hat for each occasion. Then onto the C17 for Baghdad for the handover ceremony - from combat mission to advise and assist mission (a new lexicon of language is now de riguer in Iraq, the word combat is banned). During the ceremony which went on too long - the speeches getting more and more verbose and more and more unrealistic  - I became riveted by the name on the back of the American soldier standing in front of me. It was Wyrizchkistiwan, or something like that and it reminded me of a wonderful BBC comedy show called the Fast Show which had a sketch about the FBI - or Feebi as Paul Whitehouse, my favourite comic pronounced it. He comes in and says: "Can I introduce you to Sergeant Wzichigh...Wwyzwz...Wyzziff, Sergeant Wozychi.. etc etc.  He never gets it right. Gates looked pretty cool the whole time and must have shaken the hands of more than 1,000 soldiers by the time he had finished the trip - his tradition is to meet about 300 soldiers on each part of the trip, shake their hands and given them a coin. The poor officials, still clutching their Top Secret files, and sweating in their suits, flak jackets and helmets, looked like versions of Quasimodo by the time they climbed aboard for the journey home. I still looked immaculate of course in my smart blue suit, and polished shoes, well ok they were a little dusty.
 

The name's Churchill, Lisa Churchill

I am constantly amazed at the obsession Americans have for their antecedents. They never say, "I'm an American". They say:"I'm half Irish, a quarter Scottish, a tenth Welsh and......" The other day, I was lunching a contact, a Brit, in a restaurant and our waiter was a short stumpy fellow with a ginger sort-of beard and floppy ginger hair. When I put in my order, he asked the usual predictable question: "Where you fraam, are you Bridish?" I said I was. He then said he was Italian. I thought, yeah right, you look as about Italian as my lunch companion looks Venezuelan. The waiter wanted to tell me more. "My middle name's Luigi," he said, to underline his claim to be of good Mafia stock. I cheekily asked what his first name was. He hesitated a second or two and then replied: "Chuck". Well quite. Debate over. You, Chuck, are an American. In a wine bar near The Times office, I had an hour or two to kill and some food to eat prior to meeting Nicky at the airport. A waitress came up to take my drink order, and when I asked for a glass of white wine, she was astute enough to realise I didn't come from Nebraska. "Are you fraam England?" Sighing deeply, I said she was right. No kidding, this is the conversation that followed. "D'you know what ma name is?" "Eh, no, I don't." "Have a guess." "O'Connell, Macpherson, Jones???" I tried, thinking Irish, Scottish, Welsh. She looked triumphantly at me. "No, it's CHURCHILL. Aam so proud!" Well good for you, now can I please have a menu!

I've discovered one way to confuse American drivers in Washington. They can't cope with jaywalkers. In London, Paris, Rome etc,you step off the pavement and weave your way between the moving cars, with an instinctive understanding between driver and pedestrian, the former wanting to continue his way without killing anyone and the latter intent on crossing the road and catching the eye of each driver to let them know that everything is under control. In Washington DC you can't do that. The lights are green for the oncoming traffic, I step off the pavement, having spotted a gap large enough between the oncoming cars to engineer a quickish manoeuvre to the middle of the road, but it creates panic. The first car in line does an emergency stop and the driver honks his horn with indignation. No instinctive understanding, just total bewilderment. I now adopt the matador approach. I bow slightly and sweep my right or left arm in the air in the manner of a matador playing with a bull and mouth "Ole". Still causes confusion but the word is now getting round Washington. There's this crazy Brit pretending to be a matador, just drive around him. Hurray!!

You'd have thought following the terrible shooting in Tucson where six were killed, including a child, and a Congresswoman was severely injured, that America might at last wake up to its appalling gun laws and do something. But no, just the opposite. After the shootings in Dunblane and Hungerford, the government of the day brought in bans on pistols and automatic guns and everyone felt a bit safer. But in the US of A, the majority of people believe the following: more guns mean less crime. Even Obama has failed totally to do anything meaningful about guns. He wrote an oped in some minor newspaper in Atlanta this weekend in which he proudly affirmed the right of all Americans to carry guns in accordance with the Fifth Amendment and added that he had even expanded this right by allowing guns to be carried in national parks and wild life reserves. Then he urged his fellow Americans to consider tightening the laws so that nutters and mental screwballs couldn't walk into a gunshop and come away with an automatic assault rifle. Well boo to you Mr Obooma. I'm indebted to a columnist in The New York Times for this piece of Wild Westery. Since the Tucson shootings, a state representative in Florida has introduced a bill that would impose fines of up to $5 million on any doctor who asks a patient whether he or she owns a gun. WHAT!! Well actually the bill apparently has more to do with Obooma's health care reforms than gun laws but I won't complicate things more than they need to be. And more and more states are now considering laws that would prohibit colleges and universities from barring guns on campus. "It's about people having the right to personal protection," said Daniel Crocker, southwest regional director for.....wait for it......Students for Concealed Carry on Campus!!! This is an organisation of students dedicated to opening up schools to more weaponry. By the way, for those of you confused by the word "concealed", let me enlighten you. In God Bless America you can get a licence to carry a concealed weapon. I met an American female journalist the other day who runs an online newspaper. We got talking about things and she told me about an incident outside her flat where a drunken male was misbehaving by her front door. She then revealed she had a licence to carry a concealed weapon. She also had a licence for other guns, presumably not concealed. I asked what guns she had. "I have three pistols, an automatic assault rifle, a sawn-off shotgun, my grandfather's 12-bore........" This innocent-looking female had an armoury of weapons in her Washington DC flat. I didn't dare ask what she did to the drunk outside her door but I presume she gave him both barrels and some!!

Stay safe, get yourself a gun. Remember, more guns, less crime. God bless America.

 Observations and eavesdropping in Washington DC

*A long queue to get into the Pentagon through the main security office where bags have to go through the x-ray machine and people are checked for metal. A shapely black woman walks through the metal-detector frame and sets it off. She is sent back and forth and still the machine doesn't like her. She is wearing tight trousers and a black top. The black security man is getting exasperated. "Lift your pants, Ma'am." She looks doubtful. "Ma'am, lift your pants." Still no response. "Ma'am, I want to see your legs." "Don't we all," muttered one of those waiting in the queue. She got it, at last, and hitched up her trousers to reveal her ankles. No sign of anything dubious there. "Okay, Ma'am, you can go through."

*Admiral Eric Olson, the first US Navy Seal to be given command of the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, desribes the direct action his men get involved in in Iraq and Afghanistan: "Manhunting, killing, capturing the enemy, or habeas grabas." He had been introduced by the chairman of the conference as having a reputation "tougher than a woodpecker's lips."

*At a "gaggle" (a gathering of journalists) in the office of the then head of the Press Office at the Pentagon, following a background briefing about military aid to Pakistan, all the assembled US hacks, broadcasters and print, are outraged that it was on background and not on the record. A female reporter from one of the networks, cries: "What am I going to tell my viewers? They will want to know why this was on background. I shall have to write that it was on background because the subject was so sensitive. Would I be right to say that?"

"I'm not telling you why it was on background, other than to say that some briefings are on background and some are on the record, and this one was on background," the longstanding head of press honcho replies wearily.

"But I've got to be able to inform my viewers why this one was on background. I don't understand why you can't give us the reason," she persisted.

"All I'm saying is that this was on background. If you don't like that then you don't have to come," the official says.

Get a life, lady, he should have added.

*I get emailed to me all the twitterings from the White House pool reporters who report every cough, spit and golf swing of The President. What a life they lead. Obama is always referred to as POTUS (work it out). Here's an average type of dispatch.

"POTUS had a nine-holer this morning, and nearly got a birdie on the fourth, Went for a hike in the Blue Ridge Mountains with FL (First Lady), told to say this wasn't a holiday, just a short break from work. Retired early, around 9.30pm, said he had a lot to do the next day,  North Korea, Iran, the Republicans in general and Sarah Palin in particular - 'Hell, Veep (Vice-Pres) said on TV he liked her, fancied her moose-ass more like' - Secret Service guys - Bob, Bill, George and Sally - in position for the night. Nite nite Mr President, SIR."

*Love the Washington Examiner, a free sheet and excrutiatingly anti-Obama and right wing, so great fun to read for a laugh. Been a lot of stuff about a bunch of Navy SEALs who have been up before the judge for beating up nasty Iraqi types after the murder of four American contractors some time ago. Latest story is the acquittal of a SEAL who stood by while fellow SEAL did the beating. Headline: "Navy SEAL of Acquittal, Not Guilty of giving boo-boo to captured terror suspect." Doncha just love it.

*Walking down King's Street in Old Town Alexandria, my home town, I spot a chef-looking type standing outside a restaurant with a plastic bucket and a protruding spoon with something on the end of it. "Frozen custard, taste it!" Not on your Nellie mate, thanks all the same. Looked more like frozen Polyfilla.

Mad daaaargs and Englishmen

I'm a Brit in Washington DC, working as the Pentagon Correspondent for The Times (of London), you have to add that here because of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times etc. This is the start of my odds and sods reflections on the American way of life.


You have to know that dogs play a huge part in the American life. I mean huge. We love our dogs but these guys and girls here just luuurv their dargs. Very common sight in Old Town Alexandria where I live are women of a certain age clutching tiny dogs to their bosoms, more often than not attired in sweetie little ribbons - the dogs not the bosoms . But get this for a conversation the other day, and to read this you have to do so in a long Virginia drawl.

Woman and child approaches man and woman with large dog.
"Oh I just luuurv your daaarg."
"Uhun."
"Can I stroke your daarg?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"What d'you call her?"
"George W, Ma'am."
"Well aaright, it was nice meeting you folks, now you have a nice day d'yhear."

Overheard on the Metro going up to DC: Two women, one sitting, one standing, one black and one white.
"Hey, how's your niece?'
"She's guuurd."
Long silence.
"How's your Maaam?'
"She's guuurd, she's with my brother."
"I didn't know you have a brother."
"It's how come I gotta niece."
Priceless.

Another gem. Military-type man walks into the main "restroom" in the foyer of the Pentagon with his young son, and standing side by side before the relevant troughs, as it were, nothing seems to be happening in the son's department. After a while the father says: "Fire when you're ready buddy."


I have to say I'm in love. With American firetrucks. They are something else, two-tone, scarlett red on the bottom and white on the top and shiny shiny chrome everywhere. And they make a noise like a pregnant elephant. Wow, I'm going to have join the Fire Service or buy me one of these babies and have it parked outside my house so folks can pass by and say: "Can I stroke your firetruck?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"Do you have a name for your firetruck?"
"George W, Ma'am."