Blighty? Where the hell's Blighty?

Sitting at the back of a bus, an American late teens guy sits down next to me, says excuse me, they always say excuse me, Americans. I say, no problem, Brits in America always say no problem. The following conversation takes place, word for word, promise:

"You from London?"

"Yes."

"Cambridge?"

"No, London."

"Whereabouts in London?"

"Southwest."

"Manchester?"

Total bewilderment on my part.

 "No, London."

Total bewilderment on his part.

We change the conversation. This and that. Then he gets up to get off, shakes my hand. "Nice talking to you." Mutual, dear boy, mutual.

It suddenly hit me. After nearly three years in this wonderful superpower country with a deficit the size of the rest of the world's income, I realised what's wrong with everything in the US of A, or put it another way, why they get everything wrong whatever they do. It's geography, stupid. I've sort of mentioned this before I think. This kid, nice manners, gentle soul, well educated I guess, knows he's not allowed to drink alcohol and doesn't - he said so, we were talking about weddings - will probably end up being the President of the United States and still won't know that London is NOT a country. He'll make his first foreign state visit to London, will meet the Queen, sorry Ma'am, probably King by then, will stay at the London Palace, will go to a London football game, probably Premiership leaders QPR, will sip London beer and go back to Washington DC and say to his First Lady: "Well that's London done, such a tiny country." Geography or lack of it puts everything into perspective. It certainly explains all the wars. Geography for Americans is one thing and one thing only - the US of A.  There ain't no other place on earth. And if there are other places, they are unfathomable, alien, and above all, not American.

So, Second World War: been going for ages, lots of dead, lots of world-changing events, Nazis dominating Europe, so-called allies suffering and dying for the cause. America? Zilch. sorry guys, no way buddy, we ain't getting our fingers dirty, you sort yourselves out wherever you are, where are you again?" Then bang, Pearl Harbour gets zapped, well Japped actually. What, shouts the President, I know Pearl Harbour, isn't that where we have our all our warships? Get me the Secretary of Defence, yes yes yes, it's war. We can't have them bombing OUR warships. Tell who? Oh yeah, that Churchill chap. Tell him we're coming to win the war for him. Where the hell is Japan anyway?" And so on and so on and so on. Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, it's all about geography and massive power. 

Shock and awe was the greatest phrase ever invented by the US military. The aforementioned countries have all been subjected to US of A shock and awe. I don't want to be a cry baby but shock'nawe don't necessarily work, gentlemen. The Taleban, who still wear flip flops to war, appear to be deeply unimpressed by shock and awe. They - well they were called Mujahidin then - had all that stuff from the Ruskies in the 80's and laughed them back to Moscow. The Brits, by the way, did the opposite. They sent 3,300 troops to Helmand province in 2006, a province which at that time was pure Taleban, unused to interfering foreigners - about 100 Americans were in the capital Lashgar Gah doing humanitarian and school-building stuff but never ventured into Taleban country - and were expected to stand guard, protect the civilian population and not do a lot of fighting unless they had to. Remember Defence Sceretary John Reid's wonderful comment, how he hoped the soldiers wouldn't have to fire a shot in anger? It was unbelievably British, Rorke's Drift stuff, hold fast there, Private, the damn fuzzy wuzzies are coming. Well, as we know the Brits in Helmand got slaughtered. No one has ever properly been blamed for such appalling military and political judgement.

Anyhoo, I digress, back to Geography classes in the US of A. When Ronald Reagan ordered troops to seize the Caribbean island of Grenada from the Commies in 1983 and neglected to tell Mrs T, I know, I KNOW that the former Hollywood B movie star thought Grenada was in Spain which had nothing to do with the Brits. He couldn't possibly have known about Gibraltar, where the hell's Gibraltar!! So, stuff the Spanish, they're probably all Commies, we gotta get this Granada sorted out. It's a miracle that the GIs found themselves heading for the Caribbean and not to "Eurup". Reagan couldn't believe it when Mrs T rang him to say: "Ronnie, what the hell do you think you're doing? This island belongs to the Queen. She is NOT amused." "Margaret, for once you don't know what you're talking about, it's Granada, it's Spain, your Queen rules much of the world but the last time I checked, Spain is not a member of your Commondooda." As he spoke, he was watching ABC News which proved his point. There was a map above the head of the TV presenter which clearly showed the Spanish city of Granada and arrows pointing towards it representing the approaching might of the shock and awe boys.

So, thanks to my bus companion, everything about this great country has to be seen through the Grenada/Granada prism. The world is out there, guys, but you just don't have a clue where it is. Another thing, the world is not centred around the US of A. The President is no longer "the most powerful man on earth". (Right now that man is Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner). Take this little conversation as another example of how even the brightest Americans think. Travelling with an American friend in his car, my BlackBerry goes off. It's The Times in London, could I do this, could I do that, could they pick my brain, could I write 500 words, the usual stuff for a nice Sunday off. I reply and have a chat and agree, sort of.

My American friend: "Were you talking to London?"

"Yep."

"Amazing."

"Sorry?"

"Just like that, could you hear what they were saying?"

"Er, yes."

"Amazing, you sitting here in my car talking on your BlackBerry to someone in London."

"I do it all the time."

"You know something?"

"What?"

"I've never rung abroad in my whole life."

Honest, I promise, he DID say that. You see, it's all about geography.

It's cotton pickin politics

Three days to go before The Election, I will have to devote this missive to everything Obama/Romney. Well history dictates what history dictates and this is my time for pronouncing  on the prezzie election campaign. Everyone says Obama is going to win, but Romney is beginning to look and sound quite presidential. He may have been coaching in front of the wardrobe, sorry dressing room in his case, mirror, but he looks kinda White Housey. But Obama has a huge advantage. He’s the Commander-in-Chief, the Boss, the Guvnor, it’s so much easier to swan around the country as the President than it is as the would-be president, especially when there’s a helluva storm going on. Obama, and I’m not being cynical here, seized on Hurricane Sandy to grab all the headlines. He wore Commander-in-Chief jackets, hugged everyone he could lay his hands on and “directed” everyone to do everything. Actually it’s quite easy being president. All you have to do is gather all your cabinet ministers etc around you and after a lot of chat about this and that, you give a “directive”: Mr Panetta, go kill Osama bin Laden (OK Mr President), FEMA, (Federal Emergency Management Agency), do everything you can to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy (Yes Mr President), Secret Service, please stop being naughty in hotels before I arrive (Too late, Mr President), Michelle, where’s my dinner? (Get it yourself, Mr President!), this Benghazi affair, who’s to blame? (Not you Mr President), Am I going to win reelection? (Of course, Mr President, we’ve fixed Ohio good). Well done, guys, off you go, my directive is, get me and Sandy together as much as possible, I am the Commander-in-Chief after all (Yessir!). So there we are, it’s pretty well a done deal. Never mind how presidential Romney is, Obama is The One. Not quite The One he was in 2008, but just enough of a One to stay in the White House. I think. All depends on Ohio. Romney knows he has to win Ohio to get a chance. My prediction,  Obama wins 294 Electoral College votes, Romney, 244. I can’t see anything happening in the next few days that would be so dramatic as to change the college votes which, as you know, is how the Prezzie gets picked. Some commentators have suggested there could be a tie, 269 each. Then what? Well, this is what: The House of Representatives gets to pick the president because the House has always been a democratically elected body, unlike the Senate which has only been an elected body since around 1912 I think. The House is Republican-controlled, so Romney gets to be Prezzie. The Senate is just about controlled by the Democrats, so they pick good old Joe Biden for Vice-Prezzie. Wow,  that would be something, wouldn’t it? It won’t happen. Remember, Obama’s mates have fixed Ohio good.

 I’ve gone on about the presidential directives, but there’s something else called an executive order which sounds really exciting and sort of dominating, big-time leadership stuff. A president can issue an executive order when everyone in Congress says no and he says, stuff it I say yes and here’s an executive order to put in your pipe and smoke. My grandfather on my mother’s side used to say that when he handed me a packet of Rollos. Well, I’m thinking that if Obama IS reelected and the House remains Republican and the Senate is wishy-washy with a tiny Democratic majority, the reinstated Commander-in-Chief is going to have play pretty fast and loose with his executive orders. Otherwise, he’ll get nothing done in the next four years, like he didn’t get that much done in the first four years. (Osama being the exception of course!) He promised to close Guantanamo but chickened out when Congress said, nooooo way, and the New York mayor said, you ain’t bringing those GTMO detainees over here in my backyard,  and, by the way, there were no votes in closing the place which is nicely shut away from everyone’s minds in some place called Cuba (Doesn’t Castro live there? Least that’s what Jack Nicholson said in that film, right?) Obama could have issued a, yes you’ve guessed it, an executive order, but he didn’t , surprise surprise. So my second prediction is: if Obama wins reelection, GTMO will stay GTMO for another 15 years. At least, probably more. One thing’s for sure, Castro will die before the world’s most hated detention centre, sitting on leased Castro territory, gets dismantled. It’s all so weird! I wonder if it keeps Jack Nicholson up at night. Ha ha ha.

A warning! You may think the prezzie election is drawing to a close. But even as I write this there are serious people plotting and planning for the 2016 election. Chris Christie, for example, the gargantuan-sized Governor of New Jersey, and hardworking good guy post Hurricane Sandy, has begun a diet so that he can be the new-look slim Guvnor when the next presidential election campaign begins which is NOW! The US of A is obsessed with elections. They never stop. But, here’s a thing, your average hillybilly twanging his banjo in West Virginia like what he has always done, and your average polar bear watcher in Alaska, and your mind-your-own-business populace living in the deep south or  in the middle where the buffaloes roam,  most of whom (the people, not the buffaloes) have never been abroad (what’s abroad?), ain’t too cotton-pickin worried about anything that happens in Washington DC. So all that fuss about Obama or Romney and which bloke might look better, let alone serve better, in the Oval Office,  don’t matter a ....Pass me my sawn-off, Chuck, will yer!! There's a squirrel on my broccoli!"

Hacks and rats

Back for my fourth trip to Guantanamo Bay. Apart from the obvious huge importance of whether Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can wear camouflage in court, whether the five detainees charged with the 9/11 terrorist plot have to attend court and whether their experience in the hands of the CIA for three years should be kept top top secret, this visit is also about Joe and Josh and Jess and banana rats.  The first three are American reporters covering the pre-trial hearings of KSM and the four others, and banana rats are big in Guantanamo. I mean big, because they are a big nuisance and big because they are big, the size of an average cat  but with more hostile intent.

First the guys, especially Joe and Josh. They are frontline super reporters from the New York tabs (tabloids), friends but  round-the-clock 352 days of the year rivals. What one has got the other has to get, or else the editor is on the phone screaming. I remember this from my tabloid days when the Daily Express and the Daily Mail were the fiercest rivals in Fleet Street. If the Mail got the guy (hoodlum, drug baron, wife-beater, adulterous MP), the Express would get the wife. That’s the way it was, and sometimes the other way around.

Josh and Joe  mix it, and it’s fun to watch. They're good guys. Take this conversation in a bar the other night. Joe: “So in my view what the defence was saying today about KSM was the bona fide statement that the judge took notice of.” Josh: “Look, Julius Caesar, speaking Latin may impress some people but it sure as hell doesn’t impress me.” We had arrived at the bar at 9pm and asked for food. We were all desperate for food. “No,” says the barman, “kitchen closed at 9pm.” A lot of ranting and raving but all we got was a basket of sort-of warm chips, all that could be found in the empty kitchen. Josh: “Well, if you have a choice of food or beer, it’s easy, right?”

Josh is short and stumpy with legs like baseball bats, shown off because he is wearing shorts, and of course the inevitable baseball cap. Loud mouth, big mouth, plenty of teeth, head drawn back in super confidence though pretty short in stature. Joe, much quieter and less brash, no shorts, so I can’t reveal the shape of his legs, but somehow a good foil to Josh’s exclamations.  The two New York tab reporters spend their time in the Big Apple staking out doorways to wait for the arrival or exit of key players in whatever the going story might be. We Brits call that doorstepping. One famous Brit crime reporter once said: “I’ve been on more doorsteps than a milk bottle.” Those were the days by the way when a milkman turned up in a milk float and placed bottles of milk on the doorstep, a service almost unknown in much of the UK these days I guess.

Bursting with loudness, Josh says he has a deal with Joe. If they have been staking out an address all day and, say, it’s 9pm, they agree to ring their news editors at the same time and say the rival paper is “pulling out” and nothing is happening. “Then we go to the nearest watering hole,” says Josh.

By now you’re asking what about Jess. Well I only mentioned Jess, a reporter with an upmarket newspaper, because for 48 hours I couldn’t remember who was which. I got Josh pretty quickly but I kept on calling Joe Jess and Jess Joe. It was the bar evening and the introduction of Julius Caesar which helped me finally to realise that Joe was Joe, Josh was Josh and Jess, far less interesting with a rather penetrating and boring voice, was Jess.

Oh, there’s also a John, but he is set apart. He looks exactly like the tall thin comic who always appeared with The Office star  Ricky Gervais. I think his name was Stephen Merchant. Anyway this guy John is Stephen Merchant, so apart from risking calling him Steve, I generally am ok with calling him John. Since the Julius Caesar intervention at the bar there has been much mirth and jollity over the bona fide comment. Anything smelling of Latin or over-cleverness brings back the bona fides.  Just tab talk but great fun.

Banana rats come out at dawn and dusk in Guantanamo. They attack in packs. A reporter jogging along the road the other night was literally ambushed by these beasts determined to feed on him. He screamed and shouted and they hesitated. He escaped but it was warning a to us all. One of the defence counsel, a somewhat fierce lady,  has told the judge the office she has been given to do her research work at Guantanamo has been invaded by rats and mice. As proof, she described how the floors and tables and walls were covered in rat/mouse faeces and urine. Sorry if you’re reading this over breakfast. Now it’s not clear whether she is referring to common or garden rats or banana rats. If the latter, she is in serious trouble. As it is, she appears in court each day covered from head to foot in a black robe, with only  her pinched worried-looking face and her high-heeled shoed feet visible. She claims she’s wearing the garb in respect for her client, one of the 9/11 accused  who is a Muslim and is not allowed to see any other part of her frame. But me and the New York tab reporters know it’s to protect her from the sharp teeth of the invading banana rats. Grrrrrrrr.

A changing America

Meet Dave and Christy, quintessential American hard-working independent couple, with six kids between them, both married for second time, looking to the future, worried about the way things are going in the US, especially the economy, and wondering what's going to happen to their business if there's to be another four years of Obama. OK, they are Republicans, not Obama fans, but their hopes and fears for the way the United States of America is heading right now are, I suspect, mirrored across a broad spectrum of "typical" American families. The economy is struggling, unemployment remains at more than 8 per cent, American influence in the world is diminishing, defence spending is being slashed, the anti-American voice around the world is increasing in decibels alarmingly, and the huge debts are weighing heavily on the nation's ability to plan for the years ahead. Congress is a mess of frustrated, obstinate, irresponsible, partisan, self-seeking politicians who seem to have forgotten what their role is and the meaning of serving their country. Meanwhile, American servicemen and women are dying each day 8,000 miles away in a war that increasingly has less purpose and less meaning - and there's still two years to go.

So Dave and Christy, in their early 50s, believe another four years of Obama will make things worse. Christy believes the nation will go bust if Obama continues spending at the rate he has in his first four years, and Dave just says his country has become dependent on government - a very un-American concept. He ran a fish restaurant in Virginia for years, knows more about scallops than most people and was famous locally for his dishes. But when the lease ran out, he closed down. He didn't blame Obama per se but he said the economy, the job problems, uncertainty over the future had driven many of his customers away. The price of scallops had also shot up after the BP Gulf oil spill and the nuclear power disaster in Japan which forced Japanese restaurant owners to buy scallops from the US, because the Japanese ones were "hot".

Dave is now a tree-feller and has already lost a finger! His business is building up, but he fears his nation is no longer the entrepreneurial, go-get, American dream country he knew and loved, but has become a place where a huge number of people rely on the government for benefits and have lost the work ethic. I know that sounds like Mitt Romney. But this guy doesn't like Romney either. Dave is a salt-of-the-earth kinda chap who employs social misfits when he can to give them a chance. Christy works with deaf students and supports her Dave all the way.

Yes, a typical middle class American couple, fearful of the future for themselves and for their six kids. This is America today.

Everybody out

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
Back in orange jumpsuit country for my fourth visit. Supposed to be for nine days for legal hearings inside the massively secure courtroom, concerning the upcoming (actually it could be four years away) trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, "I did it" architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and four others with names and multiple aliases too difficult to spell, all of them staying at the pleasure of the US Government at the Guantanamo detention centre. Have Castro or his brother ever been asked what they think about having a terrorist detainee camp at the tip end of their island? Anyway, the only real drama during this trip was the threat of Tropical Storm/Hurricane Isaac washing over the island and threatening the assembled media, all sleeping in tents. After 48 hours of wondering whether we were all wasting our time and our Foreign Desks' money, the military judge puts his finger in the air, sniffs, mouths hurricane, and we get the order: "Everybody out!" It's to be my first official evacuation. I guess sleeping in a tent in hurricane-force winds would have been a bit hairy. Yes it's strictly tented accommodation for the hacks. Apart from incoming hurricanes, the only other danger sleeping in the tents at GTMO comes from banana rats and mosquitoes which is why the US military turns up the air conditioning in the tent to Arctic conditions. Totally freezing air blasting into your face the whole night. The banana rats bless them don't like the cold, so they stay outside the tent in the warm. But inside the tent, the nine-man beds are quivering with trembling reporters trying to wrap themselves in sweaters, anoraks and bobbly hats to have a fighting chance of a few hours' kip. Personally, I'd rather be a banana rat.

So after just two days in GTMO, writing pieces about things that were not going to happen - ie the legal hearings and debates about torture and the judge's pronouncements on the US government's secrecy classifications - we were told to pack up our belongings and head for the airport. The ferry going across to the US Naval Station where the airport is located was packed with journalists, lawyers, human rights observers, families of 9/11 victims, military types and a general in a fancy suit - the chief military prosecutor, a cool dude if ever I saw one. Bye bye GTMO, until the next time. If and when Isaac turns up, presumably the 168 detainees will be told to lie on the floor (shackled for their safety) until it blows over. But although the detention camps I have visited, Camp 5 and Camp 6, don't look that strong, apparently they are Hurricane Four-proof. Well, we'll see.

Out of the blue, we got some drama after all. We all piled onto the chartered aircraft, run by Ryan International Airways - no not Ryanair as we first thought - and the media were settled into the back rows of the plane. The judge and general were up front of course. Then a steward came to see us and pronounced the following: "Okay, can you listen please. We need you all to move further up, grab what seats you can find because 34 prisoners are coming on board and they are going to sit at the back where you are." WHAT? 34 prisoners? 34 GTMO detainees? What what what!!! What an amazing story and we are going to be on the spot  to record it. Everyone whipped out their Blackberrys, not to warn Foreign Desks because BlackBerrys don't get a signal at GTMO, but to be ready to take photos of detainees being brought down the aisle in handcuffs, hopefully dressed in orange! Wow wow, the expectation was immense. But wait a minute, 34 "prisoners" leaving Guantanamo and hitching a lift on a passenger plane, stuffed with journalists, 9/11 victims' families, a judge and a general?! Surely this can't be true. No one in Washington would ever contemplate such madness, would they? Please, let them be mad, we were all saying. The Fox News lady was beside herself with excitement. I began to smell a rat - not a banana rat. I walked up the aisle, spoke to a military type who knew nothing about it, and then grabbed the senior stewardess. Excuse me, are you really telling me that 34 detainees are about to get on the plane? I don't mind giving up my seat for them, but I am wondering if this is true. Well, she said, I've just come off the phone and apparently it has been cancelled. So, I said, no detainees after all. Er, no. So, I said, can I go back to my seat? I guess, she said. End of story boo hoo. I walked down the aisle and said loudly, it's all a joke. The judge did not look amused. The general just looked cool, such a dude.

Someone had to have an explanation. The steward who had announced the scoop of the century was beginning to look a bit sheepish. A military spokesman gathered us together and said there had been a slight misconception. I SHOULD SAY. Apparently, someone had said that there were two federal marshals on board, and federal marshals would only be on board if they had prisoners to escort. By a series of Chinese whispers, the message came down to our friendly steward - poor chap - that the last four rows of seats needed to be vacated pronto because of the expected arrival of 34 prisoners. A stewardess even said, oh don't worry, they'll all be handcuffed, WE weren't worried. We had our notebooks and pens poised. The anti-climax was huge. The steward started worrying about his job and we all felt thoroughly let down. The rather intense Fox News lady said: "I was that close to it, I could smell it." Yeah well, scoops don't come too often and anyway, lady, there are 22 other reporters on this plane, so it wasn't going to be a Fox special.

I did begin to wonder whether Ryan International Airways really was an offshoot of the blessed Irish Ryanair. It all seemed like a wonderful Irish joke.

God bless the military

After more than two years of soaking in the American culture, language and funny ways, it might be an appropriate moment to point out some of the differences between good old Brits - God bless em - and our American cousins.

First of all, this is an intensely patriotic country, and I'm not just talking about all the Stars and Stripes flags that hang outside people's houses, and there are plenty of those all the year round. Bering patriotic also means being appreciative. Forgive me if I've become American-biased, but I don't think there's any real sense of American-style patriotism in the UK, and with those Scots hankering after independence, Britain's national identity, patriotic or otherwise, is going to become even more blurred. 

Here in Washington, the city is full of guys and gals in military uniform who walk the streets, sit in the Metro and generally display their medals and their badges with pride. As a result, especially when the city is stuffed with tourists from across the US of A, the military get a lot of attention, the commonest of which is the following: A large lady in tight shorts and screaming t-shirt spots a military type sitting reading his IPad on the Metro and goes up to him. "Excuse me, I'm from North Dakota, I just want to thank you for your service." The uniformed bloke thanks her for her appreciation and everyone in the Metro smiles. Even the Brit military out here, working at the embassy or at the Pentagon, walk around in their uniforms. I saw one the other day, an occifer, a lieutenant colonel I think, striding very fast through Farragut Square, not far from my office, I suspect he was striding, rather than ambulating, because he couldn't quite believe he was appearing in public in his uniform, or maybe he was trying to avoid all the large ladies in tight short shorts just desperate to shake his hand. A gushing "thank you for your service" makes a Brit chap somewhat uncomfortable I suspect. Either that or he was genuinely late for his appointment. He looked SOOOO British, made me feel quite homesick. Anyways, the military in the US are properly appreciated and honoured and wowed by the general public. At the fireworks display on July 4th up in town, I was exhausted in the heat and lay down on the grass before the fireworks started, until the band nearby struck up with the National Anthem and I realised that everyone was standing up, the men with their right hands pressed to their hearts. Oops! I stood up and furtively placed my right hand across my chest. I know I'm not American , but it sort of gets to you. We were also with American friends and I didn't want them to think I was being disrespectful. 

Language: well it's not just the different "English" words and the jarring pronunciations, it's the whole thing about conversations between strangers which I have alluded to before in previous missives from the US of A. For example, last week on my bus from King Street Metro station, a very large white lady in her 40s/50s, a black dude with gold earings, gold chain and fancy casual attire, me and the bus driver, a black guy with a slow drawl of a voice, very friendly smile, sitting quietly. The woman then moved up a few seats and addressed us, asking if the bus went as far as Madison Avenue which it didn't.

"I'm coming back from there later this evening and I don't want to walk on my own," she said.

"What's cher problm, lady?" black dude said.

"Not a nice area."

"Ain't no sumbitch gonna take you on, lady."

She didn't know whether to take this as a compliment or an insult.

I watched the Wimbledon final but instead of nice but dim Tim Henman commenting, it was Supermac, John McEnroe. His pronunciations were terrible. He referred to Andy Murray as Murry as in furry, and made frequent reference to some bloke called Joke-e-vich, reminding me that the Americans say Kosovo with a long 'o', as in mauve, although of course they say mov, not mauve, if you follow.

As for restaurants, when you're three quarters the way through your meal, a waiter will often come up to your table and ask: "Are you still working on it?" What does that mean?

Politics: well I know politics in UK is going through a difficult patch, the coalition becoming increasingly disjointed, but the US of A is a superpower, and it beggars belief that the Most Powerful Man in the World is as helpless as Nick Clegg. He can't improve the economy, he can't create jobs, he can't beat the Taleban, he can't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons - all because power doesn't mean what it used to any more. Everything Obama tries to do is thwarted by the opposition in Congress, and his attempts to be nice to everyone abroad have fallen on stony paths. George W Bush went around bashing everyone and invading, and failed, Obama has tried the opposite and has failed. Mitt Romney who I reckon will be the next President of the US of A - no one else seems to think this by the way - will have to find a third way.

So there we are, political chaos reigns on both sides of the Atlantic. But at least we don't have rain every day over here.

My kind of town, Frank!

Hello from Chicago,
Well actually I'm back from the windy city, location of the Nato summit, and now reimmersed in sweltering humid Washington. They say that Chicago in the winter is like Kabul. For those of you who haven't tasted the delights of Kabul in winter I can tell you it's mighty cold. But Chicago in May is warm, and it's a pretty city. The only time I visited Chicago before was way back when Tony Blair was PM and I flew with him to Chicago before going on to the Washington Nato summit. You see, I'm a real Nato summit afficiniado. Truth be told, I've covered nearly every summit since 19..! Blair, in his usual fashion, delivered a speech - for ever known as the Chicago speech - in which he pontificated about the need for the alliance to intervene around the world, especially Africa, wherever the need arose. Wow, that was some vision, and obviously beyond the capacity of the alliance then or now. Still, Mr Blair bless him had such wonderful visions, none of them quite reaching fulfillment. Anyway, I digress. This time the Nato summit was all about Afghanistan of course and I won't bother you with the details, but here are a few idol observations and incidents that kept me from going mad while trying to write the same story each day.

The summit coincided with the European Championship final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich. I kept an eager ear open and was then glued to my laptop when it reached the penalty shoot-out. A phenominal result, even for a QPR fan. Back in the hotel later that afternoon, I stepped into the lift all aglow with Chelsea's amazing achievement and was greeted by a couple who said: "Hi." Sounded distinctly English, so, still brimming with enthusiasm, I said: "So, Chelsea beat the Germans then!!" The woman turned to her husband and said: "Ich bin oulenzy zveniart donna und blizten." Or words to that effect. I don't speak German, so sorry to you clever German-speakers. But you get the idea. Hilarious. Straight out of Faulty Towers. Needless to say, the couple didn't talk to me for the journey upwards.

Another Faulty Towers scene: To get to the Media Centre to cover the Nato summit, you had to go through an elaborate security process at the hotel, involving alsations sniffing your laptop bag, while you had to exit the room with the dogs and go somewhere else to be personally examined before being reunited with your dog-approved laptop bag; and then entering a coach which drove down a back route alongside a railway line, guarded all the way by police until we arrived at the centre. That was fine, and quite sensible to do the security checks at the hotel and not at the media centre. But on the last day of the summit, I had a plane booked to return to Washington in the evening - a bit of a squeeze, but it would save The Times another hotel night. So I took my luggage down as well as my laptop bag.

Big beefy bloke: "No luggage."
"But I need to bring my luggage because I'm going straight from the media centre to the airport."
"No luggage."
"But..."
"The dogs don't do luggage."
"But if they can do my laptop, why can't they do luggage?"
"You have to leave your luggage with the concierge."
But I couldn't leave my laptop while I went off with my luggage.
I couldn't think straight. My only plan was to somehow bring my luggage and my laptop to the media centre at the same time. Perhaps they could security-check my luggage at the media centre. I went upstairs with my luggage and laptop bag, three escalators. I left the luggage temporarily with the concierge and returned downstairs - three escalators. I retrieved my now woof woof-approved laptop bag and went back upstairs to collect my luggage, brought both back down again and met the same beefy bloke.

 "Ok," I said,"my laptop's been done."
"No luggage."
"But, can I get it checked at the media centre?"
"We can't security-check your luggage here or anywhere."
"But...."
"I'm just the messenger."
"So I have to take my luggage upstairs again and leave it there? I have to come back to the hotel before I can go to the airport?"
"I'm just the messenger."
I set off back up the three escalators with my woof woof-approved laptop bag and my luggage, placed the luggage back with the concierge and returned, anger boiling up, to the beefy bloke.
"So can I go through to the coach, you've done my bag."
"Have you been upstairs with it?"
"Yes, but..."
"You've got to go through it all again."
"But... ok ok I know you're just the messenger."
The alsation said: "I've sniffed this one already, sunshine, what's the story?"
A shaggy dog story with a very annoying end.

Despite Obama waffling on endlessly at his mid-afternoon press conference, I managed to write a new second edition piece and head back to the hotel before finding a taxi for the airport, making the flight with 22 minutes to spare.
Woof woof! I'm still out of breath.

SHHH Big Pants Boys About

First a file from Guantanamo Bay, my third visit to the Caribbean detention centre, three eighteen-hour a day days to record the pre-trial hearing of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others, all accused of helping the orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. Seeing them walk into the courtroom - with one notable exception who was brought in strapped to a "restraining chair" - made you think, these are the human beings accused of masterminding the most horrific terrorist attack in history. For most of the time, they sat in their chairs saying and doing nothing, but during the recess time they smiled and chatted and passed verbal messages down the row of chairs as if they didn't have a care in the world. How is it possible that people who allegedly believe in a supreme being can conjure up such hatred for others. They plotted to kill 2,976 people and brought down two symbolic skyscrapers - well allegedly, I supposed one should say. Anyway I was there to  record all the colour and drama for The Times which for those of you who are sensible enough to read the best newspaper in the world, will be already familiar, although as the hearing itself was on a Saturday, it meant my 1,500 words on what happened appeared Online, not in the paper. Such a shame, especially as I was the only British newspaper reporter who not only got a seat on the Pentagon plane to Guantanamo Bay - 60 out of more than 200 applicants - but then had my name drawn out of the hat for the 10 places inside the courtroom. It was a day to remember.

 Only one bit of the hearing was blotted out when the security officer in charge of such things thought one of the defense counsel said something which was deemed to be classified. Because there's a 40-second delay for the audio feed to reach those of us sitting in the public gallery behind a glass panel at the back of the court, we didn't hear The Great Secret, just a splurge of white noise. But after due thought by the Pentagon and co, it was decided that the blotted-out bit could be released after all. One of the defending lawyers said his client, the shifty one brought in in the restraining chair, couldn't hear what was going on in court because he didn't want to wear the headphones supplied by the court. This was because headphones had been used "by the big pants boys at the CIA" to torture him during interrogation. The words in quotes were the actual words of the lawyer. I wrote a blog for The Times about it and said that "the big pants boys at the Pentagon" had decided that these words were not classified. HO HO HO! So goodbye Guantanamo, until the next time. I'm now a veteran of the place. But unlike the inmates - 169 are still there - at least I get to leave. I can't see them ever being released, but if Obama gets reelected - definitely not guaranteed - he's going to have to turn his mind to Guantanamo. What to do with it, what to do with the detainees etc. I don't suppose Mitt Romney will give it a second thought, if he wins the White House. Just keep them, charged or uncharged.

Talking of politics, went to see the delightful Magic Exotic Marigold Hotel the other day, but first had to witness a strange incident which can only happen in the US of A. One of the ushers, an overweight shy boy, went to the front of the screen and started to speak. There were three people at the back of the front section and a huge number higher up behind them, none of whom could hear anything. The Fat Boy raised his voice a touch after being told to speak up, and then explained why he was happy for everyone to be there and thanked us that they had chosen this cinema to watch this film and that rival cinemas didn't have this film and that they chose rubbish films to show their customers, and he then said he wanted us all to get on. A clever spark shouted: "You should run for Congress". Everyone laughed into their popcorn. Fat Boy retreated.

Took a suit which I had bought for nothing in a charity shop - ok ok, but times are hard - to a repair shop to have it relined and the trousers taken out - well, come on, this is America, I've been on a burger,chips and everything with sugar diet!  Every dry cleaner and repair shop in Washington is run by Chinese. I asked the lady how much it would cost to take the trousers out an inch to make room for more burgers. The following conversation took place:

"..awty dollars."

"Forty dollars?!"

"..awty dollars."

"Forty dollars!!!"

"...awty dollars."

"Fourteen dollars?"

"..wenty dollars."

"Twenty dollars?"

"..wenty dollars."

"So, twenty dollars?"

"..wenty dollars."

I have no idea whether I misheard in the first place or whether we had engaged in a wonderful bargaining ritual. If the latter I did so in all innocence. But ..wenty dollars it was!

The race for the White House is now truly tedious. With all the potential rivals out of the way, Romney, the man whose wife has two Cadillacs and whose home has a car elevator, is not far behind Obama  who tells us how he has improved America's national security by sending in The Boys to do his dirty work, but then gets his sidekicks to leak all the operational details to the Los Angeles Times, New York Post, Washington Post and Miami Women's Journal etc, and then pretend he's aghast when the papers run amazing drama stories. I always remember Michael Portillo when he was Conservative Defence Secretary under Thatcher boasting at the annual Tory Party conference that he would send for the SAS if he wanted anything sorted. It didn't do his political standing any good and the SAS was thoroughly miffed at being exploited for political reasons. Obama should watch out. Anyway the US presidential campaign still has the rest of May, June, July, August, September, October and November to run, so it's going to be a long yawn, unless there is drama overseas. I'm off to the windy city - Chicago - for the Nato summit about Afghanistan where I'm sure Obama will declare that US troops are being pulled out "responsibly" after the thrashing of the Taleban. Mr Pootin, reinstated at the Kremlin, will be laughing. His lot - 150,000 Russian troops - left Afghanistan after thrashing everyone and no one, a total victorious defeat. Oooh, I'm getting over-cynical. I blame the burger diet.

Miami Nice

Hello from Miami!
Miami is about cars. Ocean Drive is the hotspot place to be seen in Miami South Beach, especially if you have a car, sorry a CAR.  If you're a dude with a dude car in Miami you need to park it in Ocean Drive outside the most popular restaurants. In fact if you have a very very special car like an old-style Cadillac with leather upholstery, open-top and wheels the size of the London Eye, owners of restaurants actually employ guys to flag them down and offer them a valet parking slot as a way of attracting customers. The coolest dude of all sits the whole evening in his black Buick outside one of the most favoured eating-places with a hat perched nonchalantly on his head, bending forward as if he's preparing at any moment to climb out and acknowledge the admirers. But the dude turns out to be a wax dummy. How cool is that?

The fanciest parking spot of all is outside Brown's Hotel up one end of Ocean Drive which is always massively crowded with diners and onlookers. Me included.  First night, the following cars were parked all together - and all of them shining white. It was definitely white car night, because the following night similar cars were all black. Anyway on this night, one side of the street were a Lamborgini and an Aston Martin, not Lamborgini or Aston Martin like you might recognise in the King's Road, Chelsea, but custom-built and seemingly impossible to climb into they were so low down and groovy and tight-fitting. You needed snake-hips, a bendy back, slim bottom and dainty feet. Perhaps the owners were also wax models. I never saw anyone ease his way into the driver's seats. Across the road, right outside Brown's was a Maserati and a chunky chunky smack-in-the-face, powerhouse Rolls Royce with a chrome front grill the size of Buckingham Palace gates. Grrrrrrrrr!!! You couldn't take your eyes off the cars. Four owners were presumably inside Brown's stuffing themselves with steaks as big as bullocks. Further down the road was a very red sports car with gull-wing doors, both up as far as they could go like a seagull coming into land. This fancy job DID have an owner, well a serious dude with regulation snake hips was calmly sitting sideways in the passenger seat with his feet perched on the pavement. Gold earings in each ear and a smile that was saying," Dis my car, man, bet you ain't gotta a car like dis, dis my car, man." He had a body as thin as straw and trousers (pants in the US of A) that were fashionably slipped well below the posterior. Not a fashion I have taken to I admit, but this guy was seriously cool and could be forgiven.

On one night, four huge, low-slung Cadillacs, all in immaculate condition and with the front wheels bigger than the rear wheels, so giving the impression of a car about to take off, cruised back and forth down Ocean Drive. One of them was mauve, or "mov" as the Americans say. You have to be a pretty special dude to go into a showroom and say: "Hey. man, I wanna Cadillac and I want it in mov". The four Cads spent the whole evening roaring up and down, keeping close together. Restaurant valet parking employees tried their best to persuade them to come alongside their eateries but there was no way you could park four 18ft-long Cads outside without ordering customers with lesser cars to get the hell out of there. So they kept cruising! But dudes with cars like that don't ever park, they just step on the gas.

For those not interested in cars, sorry about the above adulation, but being the owner of a pretty cool classic WHITE 1984 Jaguar Sovereign I think I'm entitled to a little bit of drooling.

Apart from cars, Miami is full of very loud Cubans, especially on the beach, where they gather in large numbers, the men wearing gold necklaces with crosses, flash sunglasses and baseball caps, and the women in skimpy bikinis which reveal 99 per cent of their bottoms. They walk around like strutting peakcocks while their men talk, sorry, shout, all at the same time. For us more modest Brits, it's a strain on the ears and on the eyes!!

After five days in Miami I can now watch CSI Miami, my favourite TV show, with a smile on my face....cars, cocktails and cool cool, well everything.

Language innit!

Language continues to play a fun part of my life here. Try this one, recently at Trader Joe's, the upper supermarket where all the staff are always overjoyed to see you and to wish you every happiness in your shopping, it's kinda shmaltzy but you get used to it and generally feel a sort of warm glow as you buy your nut clusters, your peanut butter cups (oooh yummy), your onions the size of water melons and sip the latest wine sample from the Napa Valley.

"Excuse me, do you have any prawns?"

"Prunes?"

"No, prawns."

Total mystery on the part of the Trader Joe employee. She turned to a colleague. "Jou get that?"

"He means praaans."

"You mean praaans?" she asked me.

Slight hesitation.

"Eh, yes, praaans. Do you have any praaans?"

"No."

"Thanks."

Actually they had plenty of shrimps on another counter, and back in UK those shrimps I think would be selling as praaans, sorry, prawns. Anyway they tasted ok.

In my favourite local restaurant in Alexandria.

"What's the soup today?"

"Tomato and bayzel."

"You mean basil?"

"No, bayzel. we say bayzel.

"OK we'll have two tomato and bayzel."

At the Pentagon.

"The main rowte into Afghanistan has been closed."

"How long will the ROUTE be closed for?" I asked.

Ho ho ho, general laughter.

"He says route, we say rowte."

I am not technically able unfortunately. I had intended to share with you a picture of my companion on the Metro the other day. I took a picture with her/his/its permission. It was a giant, and I mean giant, rabbit, not a real one obviously but a big cuddly made-in-China rabbit (EVERYTHING is made in China, even local novelty tourist specialities, like hand-crafted Red Indian dolls or mini leather wigwams, honestly it's true). The rabbit sat/perched next to me, as good as gold. I didn't hear a psss, or whatever rabbits say, the whole journey but it was kinda cute in a sort of very American way. The girl who belonged to it told me her sister had made it. Yeah right, in her flat in Beijing.

The last few weeks have all been about big big Pentagon defence cuts, the kinda cuts which if carried out by almost any country other than the US of A would reduce its armed forces to a bunch of Boy Scouts on bicycles.  But, as is the way with adroit politicians like Mr Leon Panetta, the US Defence Secretary, the cuts are being dressed up as a turning point for the nation when the armed forces can be transformed into a more agile, more adaptable, more resilient fighting machine capable of still waging at least two wars at once. Fewer troops, fewer fighter aircraft, fewer ships but hey small is beautiful, haven't you heard! Much more focus will now be on the US Navy Seals and pregnant women. Sorry, that probably sounds a non-sequiter but it gives me an opportunity to describe the latest wheeze from the US army chiefs who, bless them, have become very worried that in these days of political correctness, they might not have been giving enough attention to pregnant soldiers training with their non-pregnant male counterparts. The chiefs feared there might not be enough empathy from the sergeant-majors shouting their orders in the gymnasium. So training instructors, all of whom will have served at some point in Iraq and/or Afghanistan, have been ordered to wear, wait for it, fake breasts and fake swollen bellies - contained within a natty piece of clothing made in Shanghai (I expect) - for at least three hours to understand the difficulties pregnant soldiers might have in bending down to touch their toes. Big beefy chaps used to wearing flak jackets have not taken kindly to the new orders and photographs of them doing press-ups with - see above - have produced a heep of belly laughs. The US Army chiefs wouldn't be seen dead in the Shanghai outfits.

I expect you're all bored to tears with the US presidential election campaign but there are some great moments amongst the Republican candidates as they attempt to out-argue each other to win the nomination to take on Obama. Half the nation, spurred on by insinuating remarks from the Republicans believe that Obama is a closet Muslim and that the nation's security in his hands is in serious danger. In fact the other way around is true. The nation in the hands of Newt Gingrich would, it seems, bomb pretty well everyone, and under Romney or Santorum it's almost equally scary. Mind you, both being Mormons means that each of them wears magic underpants. No, I haven't a clue what it means but the Washington Post and New York Times tell me that Mormons wear magic underpants. I've asked in every haberdashery for a pair but no one seems to know what they are, what they can do, and where to buy them. I may have to go to Mormon-populated Utah. Did you know, by the way, that the CIA recruits more of its intelligence officers from Utah than anywhere else in the US of A. Mormons are ok CIA material apparently, partly I have no doubt because of the magic underpants, but also because as part of their thing every member of the religion has to be a missionary for two years in some weird part of the world, so they come back speaking fluent Flemish, Norwegian or Tasmanian. Languages are crucial for a career in the CIA, but I bet covert intelligence officers still say praaans, bayzel and rowte.

Shoot first, no questions afterwards

It's only January, 10 months away from the US of A presidential election, but the Republicans are still scrapping like hyenas over the Conservative corpse, turning against each and growling. The sillly thing is that once the candidate is eventually chosen, then the other would-be presidents will all hunker round and support him (That's one thing we do know,it will be a Him not a Her. The Hers all fell by the way side a long time back). This is what happened in the Obama versus Hillary Clinton bout in the last presidential election campaign when the Democrats were trying to choose their candidate. Hillary, sweet-natured lady that she is, tore into Obama, describing him as a no-good, inexperienced jumped-up Senator who hadn't a clue about Big Time politics. But as soon as she had lost out to Obama, and after a period of mourning, grinding of teeth and screaming at the wall, she and Bill came out into the sunshine and said they would give their all for Obama and that he was The Chosen One who would be a great President. We don't know yet, and Hillary isn't telling, whether Obama is or will be or might be a great president. Four years of hassle hassle hassle hasn't made it possible to make an historic judgment as yet. Mind you, I'm just a Brit interloper, what do I know? What I do know - because I was standing a few feet from her not that long ago and asking her a question about Iraq, as you do - Hillary is looking absolutely exhausted. She claims she doesn't want another four-year term as Sec of State if Obama wins and I believe her. She's pooked and fancies a quiet life is my thinking. Meanwhile, the last four Republican candidates left in the race, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, are steadily getting louder, more insulting, more belligerent and less and less presidential and they haven't started on Obama properly yet. I still think Romney will win because he looks more the part than Gingrich, and Gingrich thinks he's another Churchill which he ain't. Word of warning, don't read up about Mormonism if you want to feel comfortable with having Romney in the White House. Apart from the taxi driver who launched the religion, there's something about a spaceship involved somewhere which I find slightly disturbing, although it may account for some of Romney's weird, somewhat unhuman mannerisms. Beneath that Hollywood veneer there's a little green man bursting to get out. I'm surprised Newt hasn't brought this up. After all, in the early days, Republican candidates were scoffing at Obama's birthplace, saying he wasn't born in Hawaii but in a shack in Indonesia. Someone should ask Romney whether he was born in the US of A or on the moon.

Two fashionable ladies sitting in a posh restaurant in Boston and drinking Chardonnay are chatting quite loudly about guns and stuff. One turns to the other and says: "Well darling, the most important thing is if you're going to shoot someone make sure you kill him, otherwise he'll sue you." This little gem was overheard by a Times reporter while on a visit to Boston the other day. It could only happen in America. And this ain't the deep south, this is clam chowder Boston, very upmarket. While on the subject of shooting, and forgive me those of a delicate nature, but the following story in one of the US papers is, I think, worth recording: "Headless body found in topless bar." This requires no further comment.

I have at last managed to break through the biggest obstacle in being a Brit here in Washington, being recognised as someone worthy of asking a question at a press conference. As I have mentioned before, whether it's Obama or Leon Panetta or Hillary or whoever, the same old routine is always followed. It's the big boys and girls from the broadcasting organisations plus the New York Times, Washington Post etc and Associated Press who get to ask the questions, and to be honest, most of the questions are pretty mundane and often stupid, ie we all know the answer already so why ask it! Well, I got my question to Hillary, but that had been pre-arranged. The press conference was for the visit of William Hague to see Hillary. I was told I could ask the Brit question and someone from the US o A would ask the American question. But last week Panetta, esteemed Defence Secretary and former CIA director, was giving a press conference at the Pentagon about the defence cuts - a staggering $487 billion's worth (about 487 times bigger than Belgium's annual defence spending!!). I was sitting at the back of a room packed with about 100 journalists. All the questions were blaa blaa blaa and the answers were blaa blaa blaa. It was falling asleep time. I popped up my hand and caught the eye of the Assistant Defence Secretary (public affairs), and to my astonishment, he said: "This is the last question. Mike?" In my frightfully Brit accent which made everyone turn around - 99 pairs of eyes - I asked Panetta, in terms of security challenges and threats, what was worrying him most, particularly looking ahead the next 12 months. He hesitated and then replied, with a chuckle: "This is a set-up." Everyone in the room laughed. Good old Brit, he's done it again, changed the sleepy atmosphere. Panetta, unfortunately, didn't give the reply I wanted which was: "What keeps me awake at night is that man Ahmadinejad and his nuclear weapons programme." But he gave a reasonably good answer which did mention Iran. Anyway, the other reporters thought it was a good question because they were furiously writing down the answer and came and said so afterwards. Quite satisfying really.