Travel: 8/8/09, Monday: Vancouver and Island

Turns out Blenz must have been good as I went back there the next day. I was getting coffee to take in the car, which being American had dozens of places to hold drinks. From in number of drink holders you get in American cars, you would think that the average American drove everywhere with half-a-dozen cokes and coffees ready at any moment to be slurped. Some cars even have pull-out trays for eating burgers whilst driving, and I'm sure there are Sat-Nav systems that can automatically send your drive-through order to the nearest outlet of your choice. The obvious joke is to call it a Fat-Nav, so I won't. I'll call it a TumTum system instead.

We checked out of the hotel and drove to one of Vancouver's many ferry terminals. It seems to be Vancouver's top export. We had allowed a lot of time, expecting Monday morning traffic to be quite heavy, but instead arrived super early. We paid up and joined the queue. We were on holiday and I had coffee, so waiting was not a problem.

We were waiting for the ferry that would take us to Vancouver Island, British Columbia's wilderness paradise. Well, actually British Columbia is nearly all wilderness paradise, but this bit has even less trucks driving through it as it's an island.

The ferry, it was announced, was delayed due to a "stall on discharge" which is a very serious medical complaint where I come from. We chuckled a while, getting the full comedy value from the statement. But we acknowledged that it was a pretty bad thing to happen to you. Experiencing a "stall on discharge" and holding up all the other people eager to discharge behind you is bad enough, but to have it announced over the tannoy on top of that... Gloik!

After an uneventful and somewhat productive crossing we went back to our car. Those of you familiar with comedy karma (or karmady), will not be surprised at what happened next.

Sitting at the front of the boat, scores of cars behind us, I turned the key, but the car wouldn't start. It just stood there. People behind us got annoyed, eager to shoot off out of the hull. We got flustered, I turned the key in all sorts of directions, pushed it, tugged it, nudged it, but nothing we did could start the car. We had "stalled on discharge." We had not only delayed people the way we had joked about other people doing, but presumably it got announced to the next generation of passengers, who sniggered into their coffee beakers like stupid immature children.

It was acutely embarrassing and I'll never forget the look of disappointed seamen. But it does happen to a lot of drivers. You've heard that, right?

-

Once safely on the island and moving, we headed for the tiny harbour of Tofino. It wasn't too long before Cath spotted her first deer and sometime later a chipmunk. This could only mean more wildlife was on its way. We started reading up on what to do in case you encounter a bear.

Soon we arrived at Tofino and the guest house that was to be our home for the next week. They excited us with news that only that morning they had to scare a bear away from pestering their bins. It's funny that one of the very things we wanted to see was actually a pest to those who lived there. But I suspect there are people somewhere in the world who yearn to see a rat, pigeon or mosquito.

Our room was a nice size and shape and the furniture new and clean. The bathroom window opened up on a splendid view of the forest. It was almost like bathing in the jungle.

After settling in, we drove into Tofino itself to check out the lay of the land. It's a quaint holiday village still with a thriving local population. A large part of this thriving local population is Native American. There are numerous Native American settlements around the area. A small group of teenagers hung outside the supermarket, you know, like they was regular kids and all that. Cath was quite surprised to hear them refer to each other as Indians, as in the US, the word has long fallen from favour. Especially as it was wrong in the first place. Well, it makes sense they are not called Native Americans in Canada, and Native Canadians sounds silly. In Canada, they call them Indians, Aboriginals or First Nations People. Or, often, by their name.

That night we ate at the Shelter pub/restaurant where Cath tried the local delicacy Thai yellow curry.

Microsoft Mouse Instructions

These instructions came with a Microsoft mouse. I love their simplicity and beautifully illustrated statement of the bleeding obvious.

Travel: 7/6/09, Sunday – VA, BC, CA (Vabcca)

The racial mix of a city is often what gives it its identity as much as the architecture, street signs and predominant shops. Certainly as far as visitors are concerned. Vancouver has a very large Asian contingent. It seemed to me, from my unscientific survey, even more so than San Francisco, but Wikipedia said, "No." Seems that they came to dig for gold, build railways and, more recently, to get away from Hong Kong to somewhere else with the Queen's picture on the money.

On a junction near our hotel, two Starbucks stand on opposite corners like identical twin boxers. Starbucks breed like rats and spread like fungus. It has a business model very similar to that of cancer cells. We adjourned to a branch of local chain Blenz and planned our day. (We don't know that Blenz is actually any better, but their clone army is no where near as developed as Starbucks' and so they seem less dangerous.)

In fact, having taken too long to write this up, I am no longer able to read my writing fully and can't be sure whether the coffee at Blenz was "tasty", "nasty", "pasty" or "roasty." I think the latter. And the breakfast we had there seemed to be very gree.

It was a slow news day in Vancouver, which I am sure is an expression somewhere. "This conference is as dull as a slow news day in Vancouver." The local Metro headline read: "Vancouver 2010 Games Ticket Design Unveiled." I realise that it's the Olympics, or at least the Winter Olympics, but in very few places round the world would the unveiling of ticket designs fill the front page of anything except the Ticket Designers' Gazette. Or perhaps also The Counterfitters Courier. But not normally the newspaper for a city this size.

In other non-news, a scout volunteer faced sex charges. Again, this would not normally be news. We were under the impression there was now even a badge for that.

Having failed to be entertained by the newspaper, we moved on to the money. The money is actually very interesting. It has both French and English on it as well as a picture of the British Queen. On the back of the 20 dollar bill, there is a depiction of a small boat laden with Native Americans or, as the Canadians call them, Indians. They looked like refugees trying to find somewhere to preserve their culture.

Fully caffeinated, we ventured off across the city. We walked over a long bridge that passes over the island of Granville. A sign advised us "Left turns restricted ahead, use hemlock." Hemlock is a good old fashioned poison, the one that was supposed to have killed Socrates, in fact. Somehow it seemed to us that no matter how impossible it was to turn left, resorting to any form of poison seemed a tad drastic.

We fully expected to see follow up signs like, "Lane closed ahead; consider driving your car over side of bridge" and "No Parking: It really is quite pointless when you really think about it."

As our next point of call after Vancouver City was the semi-wilds of Vancouver Island, we were heading to an outdoor clothing store to stock up on non-extreme survival products. We caught a bus for the rest of the way. Canadian bus drivers are very, very friendly and very, very helpful. In most places in the world, bus drivers are grumpy and petty. Not in Canada. Here, they are more than happy to tell you how to pay; to not worry about a lack of change; where you should get off; how far you will have to walk afterwards; and what better ways there are to get there. It was only marred by the fact that our bus driver on the way back told us to change to get a connection that would take us closer to where we wanted to be, but the second bus never came. It could mean that beneath the very, very friendly exterior, Canadian bus drivers are actually more twisted than bus drivers elsewhere, but I find that hard to believe. We were probably too impatient by Canadian standards or something unexpected had happened, such as the bus driver stopped the bus to help deliver a calf.

It wasn't a big problem as we were not too far away from where we wanted to be and there was an ice cream store on the way. The weather was that kind of ice cream hot. It was also in part a pleasant walk, through a small park where a sign warned of coyotes. Coyotes were very much dissed in this sign. I'm sure they're just cute, misunderstood pooches who just need a hug and a tummy rub.

We traversed a small wooden walkway and found ourselves on Granville island, which is basically a huge market place filled with sumptuous, fresh delights and a gathering point for street performers. There is even a theatre there where a local group of thespians do some of that improv stuff I've been hearing so much about. How do they do that? They're like magicians or something. You should really check it out.

We took a cute little Disney ferry back to the main downtown area and walked back to our hotel.

Canadians, as well as having the Queen on their cash, do spelling correctly. Harbour has the necessary extra "u" and centre is spelt like that and not the American way, which I believe is "santa."

For dinner, we took ourselves to the Gastown part of town, famed for its gas. We ate so-so food and drank great self-brewed stout at the Steamroom bar, built around a room famous for its steam. After eating and visiting the Vapourcloset, we jumped on a larger ferry across a larger stretch of water to North Vancouver.

The ferries are almost exactly the same as the ones that chug people and bikes to and from Amsterdam North. Already a tad delayed, we had a little trouble finding the way out of the ferry terminal on the other side, which made us even later. Eventually we found a way out and climbed the steep, deserted streets to find a tiny community centre. I had managed to locate us some improv on a Sunday.

Way back, when the hills were mere mounds and people still believed electrons moved around the atom, I learned how to do a crazy little thing called improv. It's basically making stuff up like kids do and follows a simple pattern of basically agreeing with everything. One of my first teachers was Canadian Alan Marriott. Since then he's gone back home and formed his own group there.

Sunday, when the sun is still shining, in a part of town barely connected with the centre are not things that help shows have audiences. We arrived (late) and doubled theirs. But, we were on holiday and so having what felt like your own improv show given by one of the best improvisers I've known just adds to that holiday feeling. After all, it's what a Saudi prince would do.

After, we took the ferry back and wandered around Gastown, with its trendy and sleazy drinkeries. We found these kid's pyjamas. Had the shop not been shut, we would have bought them for any of our nephews and nieces we were planning to give nightmares to.

We eventually decided to grab a Guinness in the Lennox Irish bar on the edge of the old China town area. We sat near the window and watched people catch the helpful busses home. We also realised that even in Canada, there are people who are homeless. "Jebus, where is this Utopia you promised us? You did promise us a Utopia, right?"

Travel: Five Best things about hotels

1. The tiny pads and free pens
2. You get your own safe. Just like you were a millionaire. *
3. They are the last bastion of the trouser press. *
4. All the cleaning is done for you.
5. There is always a handy Bible and sometimes other folklore books about things like Zen or Islam.

* - participating hotels only.

Travel: 6/6/09 pt2 – Saturday, eh: Vancouver, Canada

Canada is the US's personal New Zealand. On the surface, Canada looks very like the US. Same roads, same street signs, same stores, same clothes. Only a slight preponderance for beards gives you a hint at the vast difference that lies beneath the surface.

First thing that caught our eyes as we drove along the highway was a mega mosque. This is the equally vast equivalent of the American mega church and confirmed our suspicions that Canada is in fact a Muslim country.

There are several subtle differences that we immediately noticed with the Canadian way of doing things. Their traffic lights do a strange flashing green light thing that seems to mean, "go, but I ain't taking responsibility." Also there seems to be a conscious effort to make blocks of flats and other tall buildings ugly.

After driving into the core of Vancouver and finding our hotel, we headed out for food. We had received a recommendation from one of Cath's colleagues. A place called "Sanafir" which is a Silk Road / fusion restaurant. Basically you are served a series of dishes based on points of the Silk Road which connects the Middle East / Mediterranean and Asia. It was great, enormously tasty food served by Bond Girls. I kid you not, all the women were supermodels in their own unique interpretation of the tight, black uniform. Any one of them could have met James Bond at the roulette table and ended up back in his hotel room, chastely under the sheets not realising this was their last night on Earth.

The street that the restaurant was on was one of the major going-out / shopping streets in the city, despite being in the process of being dug up. (If that's not too many "beings.") There were lines of young and enthusiastic "pimplies" lining up outside all sorts of pubs and clubs getting ready to shake their pimples to the music of their choice and maybe even, if their luck held out, meet another like-minded member of their sect and press pimples with them.

We passed a great human statue. Normally, I have a problem with human statues as the only real skill involved is being able to keep still. Personally, I feel if you have this skill, then buy a camera and produce great wildlife photography or buy a gun and become a sniper. Don't clutter up the streets. It almost only becomes acceptable when the outfit and makeup is intricate and, when there is movement, it is done well and in keeping with the theme. But in general, anyone with a few motors, some Mechano and a cloak could build a machine that does exactly the same thing; freeing the human version to go and work in a salt mine or something like that.

In Amsterdam, especially, the art-form has been lost. If you go to Dam Square, you'll see scores of "human statues" but instead of standing still in an intricate outfit with painted skin and stylised hair, you'll see middle-aged men in ill-fitting rented costumes, standing fidgeting on a box. However, sometimes they are so bad they become fantastic. (This is Rule 9 from Ed Wood.) My personal favourite is a man with middle-age spread, a Batman suit and a bored, dejected expression on his face. Only the truly ironic (or a rose-tinted child) would want their picture taken with this guy.

On one corner there was an enthusiastic troupe of Christian street thespians performing for a small group of mostly other Christian street thespians. I think they were re-enacting the parable of the non-Samaritans who passed by on the other side rather than help an ailing art form.

Travel: 6/6/09 pt1, US – Saturday in Seattle

Today is definitely a slow news day. The headline of the Seattle Times was about a dead cow and sightings of wolves.

After our breakfast waffle and coffee (or rather mine, as Cath had something healthier with her tea), we packed up and headed out. We first made an unscheduled stop at the kilt shop. That's right, the kilt shop. We'd seen a couple of people around town in kilts the colour of khaki shorts. I believe the colour is called khaki. They looked practical and not too out of place. And now we'd found the shop. I was sorely tempted: I even got measured up and talked models with the assistant. But the fact that they are only really practical in warmer climes and would be seen as weird in most places in the world put me off. I would not wear them enough. I'm still torn, and reserve the right to buy one in the near future.

We did some research in Borders and bought a selection of magazines, including the essential Bitch. This was one of the few Borders in the country without a public restroom. This is due to the undesirables who often hang out on the street out back and on one occasion set fire to it. Having bought some stuff, we were allowed to be escorted to the bathroom.

Car rental companies always offer about 15 schemes all of which probably work out to cost the same amount, but the implication is if you pick the right one, you'll save money. The fact that Messrs Hertz, Avis and National are very well off implies otherwise.

Mr Hertz, feeling very generous in his vast mansion (so big he probably needs to rent a car to go from one wing to the other), we got a free upgrade to a "brand new Toyota Camry." Somewhat like being supersized for free. No, exactly like that. The car really was brand new. It had 104 miles on the clock. It felt so new, I wondered if it had been a stowaway on the Hyundai boat I saw the other day.

We drove back to our hotel to pick up our bags and use the toilets. I'm glad I did because I solved the mystery of the washroom sign. This mystery was caused by a sign on a door stating that the toilet was out of use, whereas last year the same door lead to the spare dining area which Cath was certain had no toilet facilities.

I also got to witness a slightly drunk and increasingly annoyed homeless guy being seen off the premises. He was insistent that he had been given a cheap room before and wanted one again. The hotel staff didn't deny it, but said the hotel was full. Which, judging by the breakfast room, was true. He started off calm, but eventually got frustrated and threw some business cards off the counter. He wasn't dangerous, crazy or particularly drunk, as far as I could tell; it was more like he was grasping at straws.

And then we were off. The US has so many small towns dotted around its vast and mostly empty country that naming them got hard after a while. There is a lot of repetition and many end up with quite odd names like (all from the Seattle area) Possession, Humptulips and Aberdeen.

We passed by a couple of Sacred Gambling Grounds (or "casinos" as the Slotmasheen Indians call them) and stopped off at a gas station / minimart in a genuine "redneck" community where I made the mistake of trying to find a healthy snack.

We slipped into the border patrol area and, where a sign declared that it was is open 24 hours. It's good to know as some countries aren't.

As the most foreign, I had to answer a few questions. But because this was a drive-through point, we didn't have to leave the car. In fact it was no different to finding a curious and chatty toll-booth operator, which is not uncommon in the US. She raised the barrier and we were in the fabled land of Canada.

Travel: 5/6/09 – Seattle, Friday

So, as the fates of breakfast oft decree, the breakfast room was pretty full. We managed to find a table, but, once three teenage sisters arrived, there was no getting near that waffle machine.

We had a specific lunch place in mind that our small guide spoke highly of. As we walked towards it, we realised it was not as close as we had thought. There should be a warning, "things on guidebook maps may be further than they appear."

On the way we passed four random pillars. Someone had built four pillars in a line as if there had once stood an old amphitheatre. They sit in a tiny area of concrete surrounded by some trees and this seems to qualify it being called Plymouth Pillars Park. The pillars commemorate a church that was knocked down to make the nearby interstate highway. The church was built in 1891, which could have made it America's oldest free-standing building.

When we arrived at our chosen destination, we found the place had a completely different name and menu. There should be a warning, "things in guidebooks may be less actual than they appear."

We doubled back and found a PF Chang, one of a chain of stylised Chinese restaurants. The décor is typical, slightly upscale American restaurant and not at all Asian. Their gimmick (and most US restaurants have a gimmick) is that the waitress mixes a sauce for you at the table. Pointless in our case as our food already came with a sauce, but the waitress enjoyed herself.

Because we are dangerous rock and roll funsters, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the library. That's it, bitches, the library. We had some future-fortune related research to do. But that didn't mean we couldn't browse for fun.

Top 5 Reference books found in random search of Seattle library:
1. Handbook of Structured Concrete (Kong, Evans, Cohen, Roll – who would appear to cover all four corners of the Earth.)
2. Shopping Centre Directory
3. Directory of American Firms Operating in Foreign Countries
4. 2005 Japan Statistical Yearbook
5. The International Book of Wood

Top 6 magazines found in random search of Seattle library:
1. Western Horseman
2. Water and Sewerage Works
3. Tea and Coffee Trade Journal
4. Trailer Park Management
5. Square Dancing
6. Sugar

Fire engines in Seattle (and probably other US cities) are very, very loud. And if the very, very loud siren isn't enough, they have a horn that is even louder. The firemen all wear headphones because otherwise they'd be deaf. Even people in the street in danger of being deafened. But if any country is going to over-react in terms of safety and somehow add a whole other level of danger, it's going to be the US.

After a semi-nap at the hotel, we searched the town for healthier food options. In the end we had gumbo at the Steelhead Diner. ("Gumbo at the Steelhead Diner" was a hit for Joyful Horse Cakes in 1971.)

We rounded the evening off watching more improv; this time the same group as yesterday doing a Theatresports battle. It was enjoyable to watch skilful players with a lot of character (and characters) strip away much of the faff you get with theatresports and just make it fun. Even the judges were fun

Afterwards, we walked home through the crazy street people; past the alley rats; and home to the hotel to dream of the coming waffles.

Travel: 4/6/09 – It could be Thursday in Seattle

Our new hotel was equipped with one of the wonders of modern breakfast technology – the waffle maker. This one was about 30 years old, but still makes a mean waffle. Or maybe the reason is that it is so old. We managed to pick a time where not so many people were down for breakfast and so there was plenty of room. There is a constant need for strategy in hotels with limited dining space to come down for breakfast at the right moment. The trouble is everyone else does the same and it's quite common for everyone in the hotel to assume a particular time will be the quiet time that day only to find the entire hotel trying to fit round a few small tables.

We did a little work at the hotel and then rewarded ourselves with some of Seattle's Best's coffee, not necessarily Seattle's best coffee.

Being "downtown" the crowd in the coffee house was less "authorly" and more "slice of life." On one table, a very large guy was telling his new Filipino bride how much he loved every little thing about her and how awkward the wedding had been. She seemed not so enthusiastic. And I was desperately searching for evidence to show this was a mail-order wedding or not. My slender gut says yes.

On another table a divorce defendant discussed the fineries of their case and some of the inconsistencies with the other side's case. It all sounded very confidential, so I listened all the more. It was hardly whispered so it couldn't really be called eavesdropping. In fact you'd have to try not to listen.

We checked out a place called Fuel that was advertised as dealing in "sports eats and beats." "Sports eats" sounded like healthy food, until we discovered the text had been "trussed" and should have read "sports, eats and beats." It was a noisy sports bar selling the sort of food enjoyed by sports fans, not the sort of food enjoyed by athletes.

This was definitely the hobo quarter (or down-and-out-town). Seattle seems to have its fair share of down-and-outs. So many in fact, that many must be down-and-out-of-towners. It's not clear why there should be so many or appear to be so many.

In a square near the tramp district, there was a market of several stalls. Almost not enough to call it a real market. They were spread out along a path so that market took up as much space as possible. The theme of the market was "things that aren't very good." The only food on sale were something like popcorn, but not exactly popcorn. Music was provided by a guy playing the violin over the Star Trek theme tune. He wasn't very good. Even with most of the music provided for him, so that he just had to play something at the same tempo and with notes that weren't too discordant with the original, he still wasn't very good.

We looked lost for a bit and a garbage man stopped on his beat and asked us where we wanted to go. We explained we were looking for healthy food, perhaps vegetarian. He radioed back to base and they looked up and recommended a place round the corner as probably "doing vegetables." It was the best they could suggest. But, nevertheless, it was a great and surprising service. We never found out how wide-spread this "garbage man tourist guide" service was.

What we were directed to was a pho place. Phos are a once-fad Vietnamese noodle soup. These were a bit bland but not as bland as the one I'd had a few days before. The bar opposite called Mitchelli's offered "Cock Tails." I'm sure they mean "cocktails" as the picture was of a cocktail glass with olive, not chicken feathers. I personally think it's some kind of gay code for a specific type of bar.

Dinner that night was at 94 Stewart, a cosy little place around Pike Place Market with a very friendly waiter called Andy, great food and good wine. I had a lamb burger and a beer from well-named Oregon brewery Hair of the Dog. Cath had muscles and a 2008 William Church Viognier.

The evenings entertainment was an improv show by Unexpected Productions, whose work I have admired before. They did a show called "The Improvised Man" in the style of Ray Bradbury stories, which was exceptionally well done, despite an audience of 11. Incidentally, I think I was 11 when I last read Ray Bradbury.

Travel: 3/6/09 – Wednesday = Seattle

First order of the day was to check out. The conference being over today, we couldn't justify our luxury hotel any more. We left our bags and Cath went to the conference and the free coffee there whilst I went to a branch of Tully's, another local coffee outlet. I sat, read, wrote and listened to the eclectic mix tape the store played. One track was in Dutch by great Dutch band Bløf. It seemed unlikely to be listening to Bløf so far from Bløfland but I'm sure a local music journalist could explain it in terms of the local music scene.

I picked up some lunch-like things from a Chinese bakery and wandered through some more of the market. I watched some more fish being thrown, a giant squid being abused and tourists being scared with a monkey fish, before heading back to Tully's. While I was in there the second time, the chairs were replaced. Two burly, not-too-much-nonsense guys came in and replaced the chairs around as people sat and drank coffee. I assume they were official and not part of some elaborate plan to steal old chairs leaving newer ones in their place. I'm glad I was there when it happened, because even though the new chairs were quite different, I doubt I would have noticed whatsoever had I come back after the fact. I like to think I am that observant, but men don't notice the minutia like women do. Minutia like new chairs, new shoes, changes of hair style or colour.

Actual lunch was a plate of Thai food served by a Middle Eastern man. I had it with that exotic Thai drink, Dr Pepper. Actually I had the Dr Pepper because I never see it and there was a stage, when I was knee-high to something mid-sized, that it was my favourite drink. I am way taller than that thing now and Dr Pepper is just a quirky cola that you only find in unexpected places. Although I hear that in some quarters it is still popular and people even drink it warm. I kid ye not.

In full conference husband mode, I made myself feel better about not being the main bread-winner by visiting the hairdresser. My hairdresser (or barber, as he corrected, although he had been a hairdresser) was originally from Mexico but eventually found his way to Seattle and has been cutting hair for 25 years. Because of the length of my hair his first question was if I was a musician. Nope, lazy comedian. Being a Seattle barber, he'd cut a few rock star hairs, including members of Nirvana and, one time, Kurt Cobain. Were I the type, I would have said "wow" and been part-, full- or even over-awed. It was at least a cool thing to tell the kids back home. And to tell the truth there is a modicum of awe as it is my closest, if somewhat tenuous, connection to a dead rock star whose work I do admire. I guess closest connection apart from seeing his widow in concert.

The barber asked an innocent question at the end about if he wanted it cleaned up underneath. I said, "yes" expecting some clipping action under the back of the hair. Instead he got out the vacuum cleaner and hovered up the back of my hair! I'm not sure if it was just a local thing or something only he does to dumb tourists, but it certainly was a first.

Sporting my new post-grunge locks, I grabbed an iced decaf latte and skipped over to the conference centre and used the free internet until Cath came and only just recognised me.

We carted our stuff over to our new hotel on Pioneer Square. Coming from the old one with it's fluffy bears, four-poster beds and real coat hangers, there was a period of adjustment. Our view was now of a blank wall instead of Puget Sound (it's a kind of bay).

We seafooded at McCormick's and of course saw a rat on the way home. A gallery a couple of doors down from the hotel was preparing itself for something big. That thing, explained an emerging artist, was the next day's art walk. The artist added that he worked a lot with larva and insects and they seemed as much the creators of the art as he was. We said we'd try and come by, and maybe shake antennae with a few of them. We didn't make it.

Travel: 2/6/09 – Tuesday, must be Seattle

Due to time travel, I woke up at 6:20 am. I sat on the balcony over the sea and listened to the roar of the city. Like many big cities, Seattle has a background roar of traffic and... well, just traffic really. I observed a pair of seagulls clamour around the tin roof just below our balcony. One had an odd tendency to stand on one leg. In fact, for the first 15 minutes I thought he only had one leg. Every now and again one or the other would fly off or disappear under next door's balcony. They didn't even know or care that I existed.

Ships came in and out the harbour. I watched the steady progress of a huge container ship laden down with containers bearing the name Hyundai.

At shortly before nine we grabbed some coffee from the conference breakfast area, and I attended one of the sessions available to anybody (only Cath had paid up, I was a conference husband for the next few days; Free to play golf and have tea with other conference husbands, of which there seemed to be none).

During the late morning, I wandered through the maze of Pike Place Market and then topped up my caffeine level at a branch of Seattle's Best Coffee. It's pretty good, but I'm not sure it's the best.

After that, I wandered around some more; joined Greenpeas; bought an ironic hat and some bubblegum cigarettes; and visited the bubblegum wall. I don't normally do so many bubblegum related things in one day, but when in Rome... The latter is a wall outside an improv theatre which has lots of bubblegum squashed into it. It's a local attraction and somewhat artistic and somewhat gross at the same time. Back at Pike Place Market, I finally got to see some fish being thrown. It's apparently one of the things that you must see and there are often tourists hanging about the same corner waiting for a new fish to emerge.

For dinner we had Vietnamese and were happy to see that some places do serve more normal American portions. Nouvelle cuisine isn't very American, being French and hard to spell. And small in size.

In a random drugstore, we found another of those American products that make you shake your head in wonder. This month it was Identigene – home DNA test kit. "for mother, child and alleged father." It's not really a home testing kit. It's a kit for taking the necessary swabs and an envelope to send them to the lab. It does not include the $119+ for the actual test.

Down one of the narrow alleys between buildings, we caught sight of a scampering. And sure enough, as large as life and twice as smart, was a rat. We pretty much saw a rat every day after that. Seattle is all about coffee, rain, rats, fish, tattoos and totem poles. Not necessarily in that order. Somehow grunge got dropped off the list.

On the way back, we had to wait for a huge long train heading from the harbour area out of town. It was loaded with Hyundai containers. I guess they'd finished unloading the boat I'd seen that morning.

Luxury hotel it may be, but either the walls are really thin or the people next door were really loud.

Travel: 1/6/09 pt3 – Monday in Seattle

Having taken off at 11 am and flown for 9 hours, it was now, obviously, 11 am. The day had nearly run its course, yet it was still morning. Welcome to the exciting world of jetlag.

The second language of Seattle-Tacoma Airport for signs and announcements is Japanese. (That is except for a couple of signs where Spanish was the second language.) It seemed an odd choice, but I'm sure there is a good reason for it.

We drove through the industrial part of town in a taxi that reminded me of the death traps that used to patrol the streets of Beijing. In fact when Cath got out, she nearly brought a bit of the interior with her.

We checked into our luxurious waterfront hotel with its four-poster beds made out of tree trunks, balconies over the bay and TVs the size of cinema screens.

In Seattle there are fish motifs on everything including most hotel pillows; and you are never more than a few hundred yards from the nearest totem pole. But the real motif for this hotel was the bear. Bears sat on the pillows waiting for you to hug them, bears leant against columns on the reception desk, bear footrests stood proudly in the room. Not a place to be ursophobic. I hear that they get a lot of large, bearded gay men in the bar too, but it could just be a rumour.

We had lunch at a fast-food middle-eastern place in one of the mazes adjoining Pike Place and followed it up with iced tea in a crumpet shop. We were too full to try the crumpets, although they looked authentic and hand-made.

There seem to be a lot of runners in this town. We watched a couple jog up the steep hills. And then noticed a few heavier people struggling up the same hills. It seemed to contradict Cath's theory that larger people should be healthier as are used to carrying more weight around.

Back at the hotel, we napped and enjoyed the cooing gulls that nested in hotel crevices.

After registering early for the conference so that Catherine could collect her free rucksack, we had dinner at the hotel's restaurant. It's a five-dollar place. That is in any guide it will have five dollar signs next to it. It was what is still called nouvelle cuisine, despite it being as old as I am. I ordered the ribs as I was feeling hungry, and a plate arrived with two of them. Two ribs! Tasty and attractively complimented, but a rack it was not. If that was a rack, Kate Moss has a rack.

That night, as the door proclaimed "No Moleste" to the world, we slept on Catherine's observation that we seemed to be only two people in town without tattoos.

Travel: 1/6/09 pt2 – Somewhere above the Atlantic

Airlines still have not taken on board my idea of having a separate section for families with children, or making the children travel in the hold with pets. After all, smoking is banned and second-hand smoke doesn't shorten your life like having to deal with screaming kids does.

At the front of our section was a kid with a misshapen head who screamed even before the plane even took off. You can imagine how he was when the plane left the ground and the pressure swelled the air in his odd little ears to painful levels.

The choice of food on flights these days seems always to be "chicken or pasta." Which is an annoying choice. I mean, "how is the chicken prepared?" and "what's in the pasta?" Perhaps there really is no choice, just chicken pasta? It's like asking "4x4 or Hyundai?" or "White or electrical appliance?" Crazy. Anyway they ran out of chicken two people before me, so there was no need to choose.

Cath always avoids all this by playing the "lactose intolerant" card. I must admit "lactose intolerance" always makes me think of some old geezer sitting in a bar saying, "Ah, these lactoses, coming here and flooding our cornflakes! Why can't they go back to cowland?" Idiot! Everyone knows it's Cowtania.

After food, the crew announced the availability of "doody-free" items, implying both the chicken and the pasta contained "doody."

After this, there were the compulsory entertainment system problems. In my experience of long-haul flying, there is always one entertainment system problem per flight. This time it was an entire entertainment system failure. You never want to hear the word "failure" announced over the aircraft PA system, but that was exactly what happened. You just hoped and prayed they reset the right box or that the entertainment system wasn't directly linked to the flight control system. Liberal use of the word "failure" over an aircraft PA system is exactly the sort of thing to make your underpants entirely not "doody-free."

Travel: 1/6/09 pt1 – Schiphol airport, Netherlands

"Anywhere I go, a fly girl will please me," NWA

Having checked in online, we didn't have to queue up at the check-in desk at the airport. However, as we had bags to check, we had to perform a queue up at the baggage-drop desk. The baggage-drop desk is a check-in desk relabelled "baggage-drop desk" at which you queue in exactly the same manner as you did when it was a check-in desk.

We were checked in, sorry: our baggage was dropped by Mevrouw Room (or Mrs Cream, which is clearly a name from some novel). After this we went through the security check, which is still called the same thing, but is now a much longer process.

Since shoes have been thrown at the last US president and belts have killed several actors and rock stars in hotel rooms, both are now considered deadly weapons and must be x-rayed. I am dreading the day terrorists hijack a plane by strangling the pilot with a pair of underpants. In fact in the 1974 sexploitation classic Deadly Weapons, I'm pretty sure Chesty Morgan kills a man with her enormous boobs. If the FAA in the US ever see this movie, I expect that boobs over a certain size will have to be kept in a resealable plastic bra.



After the regular security comes the extra travelling-to-the-US security, which employs the same travelling-to-Israel security techniques of X-raying things a second time and asking a lot of questions. They don't really listen to the answers, I've notices, but, I guess, to your nervousness in answering.

NWA is currently undergoing an identity crisis and can't decide whether it's called NWA or Delta. I think it should call itself something even more hip-hop like NWA vs Delta Posse featuring The KLM Crew.

The plane was from NWA, but the safety rigmarole (video) was from Delta. I hadn't seen Delta's safety rigmarole before; it's cute. In it a chirpy actress with an LA smile perkily tells you all the ways to avoid death. Or at least things to help you feel you can avoid it. It doesn’t help fill you with confidence when your ticket says, Destination: SEA. I preferred my first ever long-haul ticket that proudly proclaimed, Destination: SIN.

Travel 30/3/09 – Dallas, Texas; International Airspace

Today's news was full of massacres and drive-by shootings. It is a coincidence we are leaving the US. News of this ilk always confirms my European perception that in the US you are never more than 100m away from a crazy neighbour or colleague. And all of these crazy people have access to guns.

I may have mentioned the difficulties we had with booking the flight, well there was one other minor little thing that occurred when we tried to change details online, that I haven't mentioned. A small bug meant that I was forced to select a meal type from the "fussy eaters" list. Normally, you can leave this field set to "I'm not a fussy eater, I'll eat whatever crap you throw at me." But somehow, it forced me to select something more specific. Probably because we had selected lactose free for Cath, some screwy back-room logic meant I had to select something too.

The "fussy eaters" list is quite long these days, and includes religious fussiness (kosher, halal, etc), conscience fussiness (vegetarian, vegan) and allergic-related fussiness (lactose-free, gluten-free). And even sub categories of these. I chose "Asian Vegetarian" because Asian vegetarian meals can be pretty good. I know people who always chose a special meal because they get their food before everyone else and they figure it's had more attention than the ones everyone else gets. However, I prefer to get my food at the same time as everybody else and not feel that the rest of the plane is looking on at me with resentment. Even when they probably aren't.

When my meal arrived, way ahead of most other people's, it proclaimed "Your Special Meal" in bright letters. I felt like I was 8 and not very gifted. It also had scrawled on it some garbage like "The smell of a fresh meal... on your face." It made no sense and made me feel this was a meal for someone so "special" it didn't matter what you wrote on it.

The "fussy" part of the meal only replaces the main part of what they give you, the extra ancillary bits are the same as everybody else. Which is why Cath, having been singled out and handed a lactose-free meal, free from any products containing or related to cow's milk, she was offered a pot of ice cream. Ice cream! It's hard to get more lactose than ice cream. She declined.

Obviously as we are talking about flights, the subject once again comes up: children. Why, oh, why are they still allowed to run, shout and scream in the same section of the plane that the civilised, adult members of the world pay for? Why has no airline started using the hold for the purposes of housing the children on a flight? I'd use that airline.

I don't say it to be mean to the kids, I say it as a way to get some relative peace. You can fill the hold with balls so they enjoy it. All pets travel that way and Children are just pets that will one day grow up to become people. Children love screaming in enclosed spaces; so why not give them an even more enclosed space in which they can scream to their little hearts and lungs' content.

To shut out the little buggers, I watched my first ever episode of Gilligan's Island. Now I have a clue when Americans in the audience shout out "Gilligan's Island." It was cute, but definitely of its day. I snuggled back and tried to dream of being on a desert island surrounded by coconut trees and not a single screaming child for thousands of miles.

Travel 29/3/09 – Relatives & Music: Dallas, Texas

Church of the day: St. Peter's Vietnamese Catholic Church.

Not many people realise St. Peter (or San Pi Ta) was Vietnamese. In fact only a handful are even aware there were Vietnamese Jews in Israel in and around 0 AD/BC. What we do all know is that AD/BC was the rock band that Peter fronted. It's not mentioned much, but when Jesus said, "Peter, you are my rock," he actually screamed it out from the front row of the Jerusalem Amphitheatre (now the Cellcom Arena).

First port of call for today was a pleasant, well-run nursing home currently housing one of Catherine's relatives. It's usually hard not to be depressed around nursing homes, but this place does almost everything to make itself seem like a hotel. Except that most of the staff dress like nurses. Mind you, many people would pay very good money to stay in a hotel where the staff dress like nurses.

Lunch was ambushed at Spring Creek Barbeque. Here there were several options for getting your food. You could shuffle along the canteen-style line to pick out what you wanted; or you could stand at a desk and request it for take-away from the smiley lady. There was also an extra stand selling "cobblers." Cobblers are a kind of filled dumpling. If you're British, never has "carry-out" food been so "Carry On."

In-restaurant music was provided by a CD of Christian rock. For those of you who don't know Christian rock, this was a highly typical example. It was bland, country-tinged AOR (Adult-Orientated Rock) with choruses of the sort that go, "Jesus is alive!" with a portion of the gusto that other bands use when celebrating women who "shake." No matter what your views on religion, it's safe to assume Jesus deserves better than Christian rock. Most bands are very pale imitations indeed of the legendary AD/BC.

The middle of the day was devoted to golf, the gentleman of sports. The only sport that comes with its own special buggy (except, of course, buggy racing) and where you have the chance to see bobcats (except, perhaps, bobcat buggy chasing). I was very pleased with how it all turned out. My previous experience with golf had been limited to knocking balls about as a way to get out of more physical sports at school and a couple of practice rounds over the years. But I still remembered how to swing that stick and thwack that ball in roughly the right direction and for a reasonable percentage of the distance required. Not quite Tiger Woods, but perhaps Pussycat Bracken.

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If TV ads are to be taken as showing what Americans think they need, then the answer is: cars and medication. In fact the number of car ads is down since the auto industry rolled over the side of a cliff and burst into flames. Of the medications, very popular seem to be Viagra and "Cialis," which I only know about from my email box.

The best thing about the ads for medication (including Viagra, Cialis and the like) is that so much time goes towards (a) making sure you check with your doctor first; (b) warning you about possible side effects; and (c) making sure if anything unusual occurs, you go to your doctor. More time is spent warning you about the product than is spent trying to sell it.

America has come a long way and I never thought I'd hear the words "erectile dysfunction" in the middle of the day on a US TV station. Not that I really wanted to. The "erectile dysfunction" ads show a lot of men older than 30 sitting on sofas with women and talking. And thus by implication, not having sex. In fact, had the announcer not said the words "erectile dysfunction" you wouldn't have guessed he was hoping for sex, except for the fact he was a man alone with a woman. There is nothing suggestive of the situation except a mild sadness in the couple's eyes. In Italy, no doubt they have a cartoon penis to advertise these products who starts of flaccid and out of breath. In the US, this would cause heart attacks and riots on the street. My campaign for Viagra would be hosted by former cartoon dog, Droopy. He would be perfect for the role. There's almost certainly a cartoon where he drank growth serum.

Dinner was had at Chedders a chain of restaurants that are pleasantly decorated but frequented by noisy people. The food is the usual sweet, salty fare. Even the carrots were sweetened, which is a crime against humanity. Or at least against veganity, which I'm sure is nearly as bad. They had music in the background and, guess what, Chedders plays pop. (You have to be British and over 30 to appreciate that joke.)

In the evening we visited Cath's spirited Aunt Vora, who lives in one of those neighbourhoods with faux-wooden bungalows on each plot.

I was told not to walk on the grass because of things called chiggers. Chiggers are local-grown little critters that live in the grass but prefer skin. They cause itching and rashes and things like that. Nobody seemed to have a good word for them. There ought to be a joke about the sort of music they play, perhaps only suitable for Brits over 30, but I can't think of what it would be.

On the subject of music, I'll leave you with a tune that was following us around on the radio waves this trip. It's something like New Wave Electro English Beat Queen Gary Numan Pink Floyd. Ladies I give you Late of the Pier with Bathroom Gurgle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYuwGGqd0y4

PS Of course, right at the end should come the set-up for both the jokes in this entry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4TmQxLjELI Glorious!

Travel 28/3/09 – Pool: Dallas, Texas

Every meal today came with a side-serving of Anniversary cake. That is, except the one we had in the evening at David's, who does very tasty things with fish. Obviously when we came home we had cake.

It was a typical day after, but without the hangover. Not too much happened. A trip to CVS, which like most American pharmacies (chemists) is the size of a large supermarket. We rounded up the day with a big sibling and sibling-in-law pool tournament.

Travel 27/3/09 – Anniversary: Dallas, Texas

I spent much of the day digitally scanning old slides from the 60s and 70s and ripping music from the 50s and 60s. It was clearly what you call a retro day. I remember thinking that as I sat there in my spats and zoot suit.



What wasn't retro was the edible bouquet that arrived in the morning. In these "Hard Financial Times" (as I believe the newspaper is now called), people consider flowers somewhat extravagant, not having a practical value. So the new thing is fruit in the shape of a bouquet of flowers. The fruits are peeled and shaped and stuck on plastic sticks. This being the US, some fruits are covered in chocolate. I'm not knocking it. In fact, the banana covered in black and white chocolate won several Saliva™ awards or the Droolies™ as they're known.

The county where Cath's parents live is dry. This doesn't mean arid, although Texas is somewhat desert-like; it means alcohol is not for sale. Anyone who wants alcohol and time, day or night, has to get in their car and drive as far as the next county. Although, in fact, the local law was recently relaxed and it is now possible to get some alcohol at certain places and times, although I'm not sure of the specifics. This was fine by me as I was using this week to have a rest from the old short-sighted devil called alcohol. It was a scheme that lasted nearly a week after I got back to Amsterdam.

The reason for all the earlier retro activity was that we were celebrating Cath's parents' 50th anniversary. There was a party, held at a nearby hotel. There was a bar, but it was not a bar-partaking group. Many of the kin being god- and beer-fearing folk. I can't say as I have ever been to a gathering like this where someone didn't get drunk, so that was a novelty.

There was a toast and everyone was given Champagne glasses. What was in the glasses was not actually Champagne, but cider. And it was not actually cider, but what Americans call cider, which is really fizzy apple juice. Even so, people had to be told this, as there was some concern that it was alcoholic. The uproar had they been told it was Champagne and they must drink it would be nothing compared to the uproar at a British wedding were they served alcohol-free fizzy apple juice.

The party had a lot of speeches and reminiscences about the happy couple, most often about how helpful and supportive they were. In Cath's family there are a lot of people who have seen and done a lot and paid witness to great social changes. To me it's a history lesson every time they get to speak.

The downside of many people being older is that they don't stay up late and party like they used to. Although for jetlagged people always looking for their next bed fix, that's not necessarily a downside.

We chipped in a bit to make sure the bar staff got some tips for the night. It's quite normal in America for bar staff not to be paid by the venue, but by them receiving the tips. To European eyes, it seems morally suspect, but Americans are generally happy with it as part of their culture as they tip almost everybody. I've put a jar by the bed just to see how strong this compulsion is in Catherine. Not very, it seems.

Travel 26/3/09 – Shopping: Dallas, Texas

The main reason for our wee trip to Texas was to help celebrate Cath's parents 50th wedding anniversary. They've been married for longer than I've been and seen a lot of the world as well as some big shifts in the American socio-political landscape.

Unfortunately, preparing a shindig of this importance requires an awful lot of shopping. Fortunately, the US is a country designed around the concept of shopping. We went to Sam's Club which is a kind of wholesale warehouse where members (who pay the nominal joining fee) can buy anything from CDs to cakes. The Sam in question is the founder of Wal-Mart.

We next took in a pet superstore (the size of a large human supermarket in the Netherlands but just selling stuff for pets). Cath bought various cat-related things whilst I checked out the snakes and lizards. As ever the snakes and lizards were adorable. They sat in tanks surrounded by cheerily chirpy crickets. The crickets were of course oblivious to the fact their sole purpose in this new environment was to be a tasty treat for the reptiles. No lunch ever sang so contentedly.

Ourselves, we lunched at Schlotzsky's where they do Jewish-deli-inspired fast food. Every fast food place has to have a gimmick and Schlotzsky's is that is sells things like what a Jewish deli would sell, only made quicker and with more salt and sugar. The Mexican wait-staff only added to the air of authenticity.

Next we trawled around hobby and craft shops in buildings the size of aircraft hangers. The sewing and knitting sections of some of these stores are bigger than whole craft stores in the Netherlands.

In Hobby Lobby, whole shelves were given over to carved figurines all of which carried a label stating "for decorative use only." Really? What other use could there possibly be for them? I can only assume these were added after the store lost a law suit in favour of someone who tried to use one of their decorative objects for a dangerously functional task. The American legal system is a sort of Robin Hood apparatus, taking money from rich stores to give to the poorly intelligenced.

One quarter of the Hobby Lobby seemed to be given over to objets d'art that were inscribed with one of the following words: "Dream", "Hope" and "Faith." Apparently it’s a common thing in churches to have banners and things inscribed with similar things. Had there been one indefinable thing on which were carved large letters spelling "Object," I might have been tempted. But a box that says, "Hope?" What on earth would be in there. Now a little, black telephone book inscribed "Hope," that might sell.

Everywhere we went, we encountered black crow-like birds. They seem to like to stalk around car parks. Or it may just be that in Texas the place you spend most time outside in is car parks. Anyway they do a lot of wandering around car parks, cawing noisily and threatening to gang up and menace in a Hitchcockian style.

Church of the day (seen on a sign on the side of a pick-up truck): "Shiloh Cowboy Church." I know nothing about this church, but I have a very vivid image of what the congregation and services look like.

Travel 25/3/09 (5) – to Dallas Fort Worth, Texas

During our wait for our plane at Minneapolis / St. Paul airport, we met up with Cath's sister and brother-in-law. This was by design: We were catching the same flight.

Our plane for the 2-hour hop down to Dallas was a CRJ-700 which is a tiny little tube with torture-chamber seats. I kid you not: they were as uncomfortable as you can make a seat without adding spikes and electrodes. I stuck a jumper behind my back to stop the metal bar digging in it quite so much. I was not the only one who complained, and a quick search on the web-wide internet will show that these planes have a reputation of being as hospitable as any mediaeval dungeon. One thing that was noted was that the manufacturer of the plane was never mentioned. Normally it's a Boeing 747 or Airbus A380 or Tupolev Tu-144. But this was only ever referred to as a CRJ-700. A quick check on the wwwinternet shows you that the plane's full designation is a Guantanamo CRJ-700. The CRJ-700 is the luxury edition. The CRJ-640 has seats that are upside-down over a bucket of water.

Actually, the truth is not much better. The reason the name of the company that makes the plane is never mentioned is because it is actually called Bombardier and nobody likes to advertise the "b" word in relation to planes.

To add the razor-filled cherry to the top of the whole CRJ-700 experience, because I could not check in at Amsterdam for this flight, the seats near Cath and family were all gone, and I was up near the back where the plane gets narrower and people wider. I had to share my seat with bits of a Texan teenager. I bit my tongue from saying, "these two chairs ain't big enough for the two of us." It would have been rude and offensive, no matter how amusing it was.

Being a newer plane, the CJD-700 didn't have a "no smoking" sign. Smoking on planes ain't ever coming back, baby. It was replaced by a "switch off electrical equipment" sign. As yet there is no symbol devised for this act and so it had those exact words. My plan is to design a logo, copyright it and become rich. Rich, I tell you!

As well as taking in-flight discomfort to new levels, the airline also took in-flight shopping to new and dizzy heights. The "sky mall" magazine was a thick tome listing anything from the usual perfume and model planes to furniture. That's right: If you wanted, you could buy a whole bed unit complete with shelving and underside drawers! Obviously, said bed was not folded up in the trolley, but would be delivered to your house some days later. I predict this will start a whole new phenomenon of "unwanted air-travel purchase deliveries." Huge cabinets or whole kitchens turning up on your doorstep after a long-haul flight spent tired and/or drunk.

We were all met at the other end by Cath's parents who could not possibly make you feel more welcome. Due to the lateness of the hour, it was decided to find an eatery that would be open late. Denny's was the first choice because it known for being open late. However it's also known for "cookie-cutter" meals. There was one in Singapore that made fast-food versions of local dishes. My curiosity only took me there once and only because it was very late.

But before food, we had to pick up a rental car. Half the party took the shuttle bus to the car rental depot, and the other half tried to drive there. Except there didn't seem to be a car entrance for the car-rental pick-up place. Seems reasonable, I guess. Who drives to the airport car rental depot to pick up a car? Not many people. But it doesn't explain how the bus got there.

In the end, we ate at Chili's, which also happened to be open. Chili's is a chain of "Grill and Bars." Given the length of the day, you won't be surprised to hear we slept like transatlantic logs.

Travel 25/3/09 (4) – Minneapolis / St. Paul airport

What I know about the "twin" Minnesota cities of Minneapolis and neighbour St. Paul could be summed up by the twin words "Diddley" and "Squat." Although Minneapolis clearly means "The Tiny Apple" (an ironic reference to New York) and Minnesota means "tiny drunk." Also, the occupants of St. Paul are famous for having pen friends in Corinth, New Jersey, I believe.

I have since learnt that Minnesota is actually known for moose, bears, snow, Native Americans and ice fishing. We saw snow out of the airport window, moose and bears depicted in large effigies outside several stores and Native American artefacts for sale in several of the same. Of ice fishing saw we nothing. But we didn't venture out of the airport, so what did we expect.

One question we found ourselves asking of the same was: Why there are direct flights from Amsterdam to these two places when there wasn't even one to Dallas a year ago? The answer is surprisingly simple and nothing to do with customer needs: It's because NWA have their crib in Minnesota, and so it's really to allow executives to swan over to Amsterdam at a moments notice.

Because this was our place of arrival in the U. Ss of A, we had to queue and show our papers. My line was serviced by a jovial rookie for whom speed was not a pressing concern. Whilst we were queuing, we found an adorable puppy in our midst. A cute beagle pup who scampered around our feet dragging an officious woman behind it. Every now and again, the beagle stopped to sniff a bag. Mostly it would simply move on, but sometimes it would stay sniffing or put a paw up to it. One of the first suspects she singled out was Catherine. It gave her carrier bag a damn good sniffing. The trailing woman asked to look inside. Sniffer dogs let loose on passengers from flights from Amsterdam can only mean one thing, right? Right. Fruit!

We had foresightedly left our two remaining bananas on the plane as they had become an alarming shade of black. But the wee fruit-dog could still smell them on the bag. In fact even us humans could still smell them on the bag. Having got the all-clear, the dog scampered on and investigated other smells. He never found the banana bread we'd made a few days before in my bag, but perhaps he only smells for fresh fruit. One thing we did notice was how gladly people opened their bags for the cute little critter. No one can refuse a beagle pup. The fact he was the fruit dog also helped. I'm not sure what the penalty for inadvertently bringing in a banana to the US, probably confiscation of said banana and a stern tut-tut from the handler. Whatever it is, it's definitely far less severe than the life in prison you get in the US for living next door to a cannabis dealer.

It was also nice to see the dog was the one in charge. He went wherever his nose lead him, and his handler just jogged along behind ordering people lower in the chain than she to put their bags down for the pup. After some 10 minutes of sniffing around and a few suspect but innocent bags rifled, the dog lead the way from No Man's Land to the Front Line Camp. He presumable wanted a cigarette and a sit down.

It was after we'd got through all the checks and things, and picked up our luggage and then had it x-rayed again that we realised there'd been a casualty. Cath's fleece had been lost somewhere en route. We had to go back through the whole departure terminal to see if had been lost at the connecting bit from the international arrivals terminal. It was an epic journey, and at the end we did not find our quest. But the tale of Catherine and The Bluish Fleece is no doubt a tale the simple folk of Minneapolis will tell for centuries to come.

Americans, despite their love of life-simpling gadgets, make their ATMs quite hard to use. And expensive. We got a small bit of cash ($20) out of a machine owned by Wells Fargo. It charged us a $3 transaction fee. This, quite frankly, is highway robbery. Which is highly ironic given Wells Fargo's origins. But then these days bankers are far more likely to be like Jesse James than Messrs Wells and Fargo.

With some of this money, bravely brought through the frontier of the world wide west by on highly expensive Wells Fargo packets, I bought a Caribou coffee. It's a local chain, before you ask. It was pleasant, but somehow let down by my decision to go for a cost-saving "steamed-milk" instead of a full-on "latte." (The irony is, I bet Wells Fargo directors always get their latte. In fact we'd just paid them enough money for them to give one of their executives a free latte.) To answer your other question, I like my coffee how my women like their men: weak and milky.

The airport stores sell a lot of local products, particularly faux and genuine Native American gear. We went to one that seemed more authentic. They even had full pelt ceremonial headdresses which were impressive, but bulky and impractical. However, having not bought one you know that in a week's time someone's going to ask me if I'd like to head up a rain curtailing ceremony but only if I've got the right thing to wear. They also had dream-catchers, tiny totem poles and genuine Native American back-scratchers (often in the shape of eagle claws). Many artefacts were clearly labelled with things such as "Made by Julie Smith, Navajo census #123456" (Name and number made up). As Catherine pointed out, having a census number is somewhat at odds with the ethos of the Navajo. We bought a couple of dream-catchers. These were gifts; however, something needs to be done about the fact that dreams, even if initially remembered, are as solid in the mind as morning mist.

Whilst we were looking at the dream catchers, we got a call that the flight, initially to be delayed and hour or two was boarding only 30 minutes late. We legged it back and climbed on board.

Travel 25/3/09 (3) – In the air over the Atlantic

Coping with long-haul flights is different for each person. Catherine can often manage to sleep on planes, especially in her ear-plugs, eye-mask and mind-shield. I can rarely it. Even with less than four hours sleep under my lids I still was not able to drop off on the plane. Two large coffees didn't help matters. But then being stuck on a plane is a good chance to catch up on the three W's: watching, writing and reading.

Out of curiosity, and the fact I've watched all the others, I took in Quarter of Sausages (also know as The Bond Conspiracy). In it, Jason Bond moods and broods through a succession of killings frequently juxtaposed with similarly dramatic performances (operas, fiestas and other fights). Bonds are a lot more psychological these days and villains no longer want to take over and/or destroy the world. In Question of Sportsnight, the secret organisation (excitingly more spectre-like than Spectre ever was) wants to get in on the lucrative game of utilities management. Anyone who didn't already think that water providers were more evil than al Qaida of Saudiarabia can feel a Quantum of Smugness.

In all, Quest for Seweragerights is enjoyable and somehow gritty yet over the top at the same time. Three Roger Moores out of 5.

Sitting in a plane, you can't help but get a glance of other people's screens. These, half-glimpsed images (always from the same small subset of films) often get merged in the mind and you wonder how you missed the subplots in the film you saw about the street kids in India and escaped cartoon zoo animals. Personally, I think this would have made a much better film (worthy of 4 or even 5 Roger Moores) and would be called Quantum of Slumdog Madagascar.

The second film I watched was Suspect X, a Japanese cop drama starring your favourites: Masaharu Fukuyama, Matsuyuki Yasuko and Tsutsumi Shinichi. A repressed yet somewhat tense story where emotions are kept in except for the odd crime of passion or vent. In the end, love wins over science although this being a Japanese film not in a happy singing-dancing way but in an "everyone's doomed to a life of depression" sort of way. Two Masaharu Fukuyamas out of 5.

Sometime during the films, the cabin crew offered "doody free" items. Implying everything else they offered so far had been filled with faeces.

Travel 25/3/09 (2) – Amsterdam

Having convinced the security guy our electronics were our own, we could finally get to see the plane. Although we booked our tickets with KLM, the flight was operated by NWA (who I am always disappointed isn't owned by rappers and doesn't stand for Niceguyz With Altitude (or whatever their name was)). And although the flight was operated by NWA, the plane was emblazoned with "Delta."

This all seams confusing until you realise that Delta now owns NWA and all three are members of something called SkyTeam, which to me sounds like a 1950s superhero collective.

SkyTeam

From More's Uncyclopaedia, the free uncyclopaedia
The three main members of SkyTeam were Kite-Like Man, Negro With Altitude and Delta, who - along with Aero Mexico, the flying Mexican; the clumsy Russian superhero, Aeroflot; and the seductive Alitalia - fought crime and generally made the skies safe until the mid 1970s when the comic series was stopped after allegations of racism.

The plane saying Delta was a disappointment to Cath who had vowed never to fly with them again after they were decidedly unhelpful at a time of family tragedy. However, despite saying "Delta" on the outside of the plane, on the inside all of the entertainment screens and staff uniforms said "NWA." So really they'd just borrowed their boss' plane. It was good to see the NWA safety videos again. They have gone for the inclusive approach of cramming in as many "minorities" as possible, including the minority groups of smiley old women and handsome staring men. After each long passage in English, there is the shortest possible summary in Dutch.

English: "Should it become necessary to perform a water landing, life-vests are available under your seats. Place the life vest over your head and tie the straps around your waist securely in a double-bow. Use the nozzle to top up the air and the whistle to attract attention. A light will come on with contact with water"
Dutch: "Er zijn Zwemvesten."

Whilst all this is going on there is in the background a soundtrack that was pure 1970s Jazz Pop. It is almost, but not quite, porn music. Were this music to be played over the top of the Singapore Airlines safety instruction video, most men would forget that their life was in any sort of peril.

After the safety rigmarole in English and Dutch, a map appeared showing the plane's progress. It was in English and German. And later also in French and Spanish. In fact anything except Dutch. But then, German with added English, French and Spanish IS, in fact, Dutch.

Take off took a long time due to, firstly, the "tug" breaking down and secondly, Schiphol's noise-reducing policy of having most of their runways in Belgium. But eventually we the ground was receding behind us and ready to save the world from SkyTeam's mortal enemies of Commies and the evil Count Von Lufthansa.

Travel 25/3/09 (1) – Amsterdam

It has not been unknown for me to help KLM out with training their support staff to deal with angry customers, so it actually felt weird to call them several times in one day as a genuinely irritated customer. I was sorely temped to get really angry just to see if they'd learnt everything. But in the end I was too nice to get anything more than miffed.

I was calling because my names appeared to have been stuck together and wanted to check that this was okay. The girl said that because the US authorities were such sticklers for accuracy (even though highly organised terrorists are far more likely to get things like that right than the average Joa) it was best to get it changed.
• Plus side: they could easily have this done for me.
• Minus side: a change like this (adding a space as far as I was aware) takes several hours.
• Extra Minus side: we could not check in online until it was done.

So we waited. Some time shortly before 4pm, a new e-ticket was issued.
• Plus side: a change had been made
• Minus side: It was even odder than before, with the Mr put in an odd place.
• Plus side: the (or another) girl confirmed this would be okay,
• Minus side: we now could not check in.

Although our ticket said "this is an e-ticket," and the My Tickets area listed it as an e-ticket, when we tried to check in online it gave us an error message, "This ain't no e-ticket, motherf***er." Or something to that effect. The (or another) girl tried to help, but clearly something had got messed up during the change. Computer records are annoyingly like vinyl, very easily damaged. The airline support fall-back was soon the only option – check in at the airport.

So with only 4½ hours sleep under our lids, we arrived at the airport at 7:30, dreading being given the worst seats on the plane. (The worst seats are usually those right at the back where they do not recline but the ones in front of you recline fully. Although once on an internal flight in China I and a colleague were allocated seats that didn't exist as they had been taken out to make the exit.) As things turned out, we had fine seats and check-in was relatively smooth except I couldn't be checked in onto our connecting flight; we had to do that once we arrived at our stopover.

As we waited in the long line for stuffy security staff to ask about our stuff, we watched the silent TV screens. It's intriguing to see what they show to people in airports. Most airports show you rolling news channels, but sometimes Schiphol likes to be different. Today they were showing curling.

Curling is possibly the world's worst sport. Yet somehow strangely compelling – like an incomprehensible foreign ritual. But as a sport it is, as I believe president Obama would put it, retarded.

Before you complain:

"Retarded, adj: Physics. Designating parameters of an electromagnetic field which allow for the finite speed of wave propagation, so that the potential due to a distant source is expressed in terms of the state of the source at some time in the past" (New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary).

If you don't know, curling is a kind of bowls meets lavatory cleaning on ice. One person bowls a large, solid blob along an ice strip towards a painted target. After this two enthusiastic moppers take over and clean the path (in front of) of the ball with brushes. As Newton's 4th law of Subthermal Dynamics states:

"The cleanliness of the ice is in direct proportion to the maximum speed attainable by an object travelling along that ice." (Old Longer Cambridge English Dictionary)

My main problem with it is that in other sports, the ball is what you use to play; in curling, the sweepers speed along preparing the way for the ball. They are the ball's bitches. The skill involved is the skill of being able to sweep really fast whilst skating. I agree not an easy skill, but at the same time not a useful, elegant, empowering, practical, cool, or indeed desirable skill. Participation has the result of making yourself less important than a large, solid blob of who-knows-what. It's a hard sport to play and keep any form of self respect.

Of Cats and Men

As I may have mentioned before since shacking up with Catherine, I am the step-owner of two step-cats. I come from a long line of dog people, so cats were somewhat new to me. I knew about cats of course; At least the stereotype of independent, resourceful, ruthless creatures beloved of crazy old women, that merely exploit humans for food and show only patronage masking cold disdain in return. Dogs are the opposite and show unfettered devotion from which they only sway to maul the odd small children.

Cath's cats were shelter cats. The shelter they were from seemed to give their charges the names of countries. The male cat is still called Borneo, but the female was originally called Iraq, which isn't a great name for a girl. Sher'll only get teased at school and called Eye-rack. She was renamed Tenzin, after the first man to climb Mount Everest laden with another man's stuff.

They are apparently mostly Maine Coon cats which are hairy little critters: black and white like fluffy racoons. These are not to be confused with Caine Moon cats which look like Alfie's Arse. (This was a topical joke in 1966. For kids under 15 who have seen Batman Returns, read "Alfred's Arse.")

Far from being the stereotypical independent go-getters, these cats are needy, greedy and weedy. Weedy because the list of things they are scared of is immense. From vacuum cleaners and flushing toilets to plastic bags and spoons.

The list of what they like is: eating, sitting, sleeping, eating and playing with wool. When they are not doing these they are complaining that they want to eat or play with wool. Cats don't ask nicely, they can only mew irritatedly. In fact Borneo has a small language of about 8 sounds. All plaintive and irritable. This is not because they are American cats, in case that's what you're thinking, because then they would also have a "have a nice day" sound.

Even Tenzin, who is irritable, but normally silent has undergone a change recently. Since the rediscovery of wool, she has become a first degree wool addict. She needs her play and whines frequently to get it. I hadn't known she could make a noise until this painful little screechlet first emerged. It sounds like a word she picked up from Borneo.

Wool seems to be a sort of cat drug. From the moment Tenzin first got play of a strand of wool, she was addicted. For the first few days, she neglected her food, and now spends many of her waking hours pleading to have a fix. If she could steal to get a play on the wool, she most certainly would.

Cats do not understand mockery. Replicating their noises in exaggerated, mocking tones only makes them repeat their original noise. They do not understand that getting in the way of human legs means getting kicked or squished. No matter how many times this happens to them, they fail to understand that it was their action of moving in the way of the foot or leg in question that caused this kicking or squishing and regard you venomously as if it had been deliberate. I can honestly say, I very rarely kick the cats deliberately. I don't need to. Borneo spends 1/3 of his waking life getting in the way of feet. He thinks he's a feline football. Fortunately I have self control and have never to this date attempted to score a conversion (place kick) with this furry, fat ball. Although I can just hear his plaintive whine diminishing as he flies off through the open top window to score the full two points.


No cats were harmed in the writing of this essay.

Victories from De Fiets

When I was a teenager cycling to school, I wondered at those kids who could cycle no handed. Steering a bike without direct use of one's hands seemed to be a form of magical control over one's environment. As a clumsy, awkward soul forced into a stringy, uncontrollable body, a state where any form of movement didn't feel like it resembled an epileptic ape break-dancing on ecstasy was something unobtainable.

Some people walk effortlessly into a room and the room makes space for them. I would walk in, barely missing the door frame and often even the air itself wouldn't part for me.

Many years lie between me and that self-conscious Kentish boy. I now find myself walking foreign cobbles and, more frequently, cycling on them.

A couple of years after coming to Amsterdam (supposedly for six months) I felt for the first time in my life able to try cycling with no hands. Amongst the Dutch, born on cycles and able to perform things on them that in the UK would only be done in a circus, it was a basic skill, but for me it was still a mystical overachievement.

On the first try, my hands tentatively left the bars; there was a wobble and they returned. They were off for less than a second but long enough for me to realise, despite the wobble, there was some small chance I could master this. After all, I had not instantly fallen off and been crushed by a passing steamroller. I worked at it; the brief period increased, but rarely got beyond a whole second. It was frustrating. The more I tried the less progress I seemed to make. I watched intently the people who could do it to see what I was doing wrong. They didn't seem to put any effort into it as if they were mocking me.

It was one of those wonderful late summer days where the leaves are getting excited about autumn but the clouds are still on holiday so that for a short period the sun is allowed access to every part of the city. It rests itself on the dark canal water that hides surprisingly well-fed fish. It shines in the stained glass above the doors of once-notable narrow houses. It glints off the cycle-bestrewn railings and follows you as you rise and fall over the bridges.

I was "fietsing" along a canal on a bike I loved despite being more rust than metal and having a propensity for punctures. The cool wind was in my hair, the sun on my face and I was surrounded by that pleasing combination of canal, narrow houses and gentle bridges. Suddenly it occurred to me I felt more at home here than in any other city I had ever found myself. Not that I belonged, but that here was a place that would happily accommodate me and that I could feel I owned in a way you cannot with larger cities. I was elated that a place could be seemingly as welcoming as a family and that, by accident, I had found a place with air that parted when I cycled through it. I was in such a state of contentedness I barely noticed I had taken my hands off the handle bars.

When I realised, I fought the urge to put them straight back. I made myself take in the achievement I had began writing off as impossible for someone like me. I asked my body what it was doing and it shrugged. It didn't know. It took a few times of doing it to realise that the secret is this: not to try. Just be relaxed, not worry and let the bike do what it does best.

These days I take my hands off the bars every chance I get. Sometimes to show off, I wave them around. When the mood takes me I celebrate the new confident, contented me by gesticulating like an epileptic ape break-dancing on ecstasy, just so that I know I never really did look like that.