This Is Sammy

Fayetteville, Arkansas: The Scientist

2012-02-17T21:00:00.000Z

Life can be random, it can daze and confuse, amuse and astound; it can hit us when we are down and thrust our weary souls onwards and forwards to the stars themselves. The visciditudes of our brief span, the exigencies of our existence, often emerge without focus, out of nowhere, unforeseen and unbeknownst in the most unknowing of situations. We can plan for absolution, for certainty, and find our hopes and dreams in reality ride a wave of fortune, of serendipity struck upon a star. Every so often we look up and we are reminded that, within and without of the chaos theory of our daily struggles, great beauty can emerge, surprising and special, temporary yet tantalising, an impermanent impression that destiny and fate are as relevant to each and every one of us as the gritty sureness of a mundane Monday morning. In Fayetteville, Arkansas, such dreams, such visions, such providence does and will exist. You can reach them with a glance, a smile and a “Hello, I was wondering if you could help?”…

Look at the stars; look how they shine for you

Coldplay might not be to your taste, their middle of the road, mid-tempo media may not delight and dazzle. For Dean and I, their melodies and lyrics punctuated our time in the beautiful state of Arkansas, where Chris Martin’s motifs of light and shade, hopes and dreams, shining stars and new journeys, take on a broader, ethereal meaning.

At the state line between Missouri and Arkansas, on a narrow, winding country road far from the maddening crowd of urban thoroughfares, in the space between day and night, we witnessed for the first time the transcendental tranquillity of the Natural State. Gazing up to the heavens we saw the galaxy explode in to focus, a black sky interrupted by millions of stars, a solar system exposed by the clear Arkansas atmosphere: a sign, a harbinger of the purity to come. These Yellow stars were shining for us, and they seemed to will us on, like airplanes in the night sky, like ten million fireflies, to write a brand new song for the people we would soon meet: in their place, yes, but never feeling lost. It’s true: look how they shine for you. Here, thousands of miles from home, was a message to replace fatigue with fascination: this is the right place; drive on.

Not shaken but Stirred

The gothic sublime of the night sky in all its glory affected Dean and I in different ways, in the former awaking his soul for the creation of another epic; for the latter forming an inner warmth, a contended glow that longed to be followed by restful sleep. Yet a roadtrip, an adventure, is not for sleep and so we headed in to Fayetteville, Arkansas, having checked in to our Super 8 roadside motel.

Fayetteville is most famous for being the home to the University of Arkansas, the Razorbacks. The town is a perfect encapsulation of American college cool, with its wide spaces, well maintained quads and pathways, lined with deciduous trees and backpacked students, shuffling and socialising from department buildings to libraries, dorm rooms to lectures, bookshops to bars. Dean and I felt the supportive shroud of student security envelop us like an old friend, embracing its warmth and nostalgia: a welcome return to campus life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is hard not be taken by Fayetteville with its liberal charm and conservative traditions, its warm welcome and inspiring visual vistas. This is a town proud of its heritage, its youth, its sports teams and its cultural nuances, embracing its sororities and geography, resting and nestling in the hills of north-west Arkansas, at the start of the Ozark range, cavorting, meandering and rolling in the deep South.

At the heart of the main university area, a brief walk from the enormous college football stadium and the rows of picture perfect sorority and fraternity houses, is Dickson Street, a straight strip of bars and restaurants that explodes in to vitality on a Saturday night. Dean and I noticed this immediately, despite still being tired from our exertions in St. Louis, Missouri, one night previously. Our cab driver, an ex-US marine who was less than complimentary about Europe after his stay at a base in Germany, at least redeemed himself by offering the first in a series of fortunate events that dramatically changed our perceptions of not only the town of Fayetteville, but of our entire American adventure. While hardly ingratiating himself to two boys from Europe, he suggested we start our evening in a bar called Stir. Dropping us off at the top of Dickson Street, we took to heart his advice on where to sample a Fayetteville night out and glossed over the rest of his ignorant indifference to our homeland.

Armed only with the knowledge and providence of the whims of a singular taxi driver, we wearily made our way in to Stir, oblivious to what would soon unfold. Within moments of these English feet braving the slight gap in an American door, our Fayetteville guardian angel’s second act of serendipity played itself out, as the doorman at first barred and at the last agreed to our entrance in to the bar. The original problem stemmed from our British identification documents and the doorman’s orders not to accept them. Whether it was a word from a senior manager, or the logic of common sense momentarily hijacking the otherwise intransigent electrodes in his brain, the doorman stepped to one side and allowed us in to this din, this cauldron of college camaraderie.

Settling in to our seats at the bar (whiskey for me, gin and tonic for Dean) and enjoying the music video projections, we were content to adjust to the scene by taking it all in, by sipping our drinks and marinating in the vibes of the room. Out of the corner of Dean’s eye, and then subsequently in to the peripheral vision of my own, two characters came in to view, engaged in conversation and heading for a space at the bar directly to my left. Serendipitous moment number three was about to take place.

Roxi music

The effect was not immediate. Dean and I continued to sit facing the bar, watching our mirror-reflected selves inversed in front of us, sipping our drinks and mentally preparing to break down the fourth wall of awkwardness. On my left, two girls nestled at the bar, talking, joking, laughing, all the while pining forward to make eye contact with the bar staff. Sometimes it is possible to grasp feeling and meaning without being able to specifically locate what it is about a person that imbues such surety, such a mortal lock of synchronised sentiment. Whether a twist of fate or an illustration of initiative, it was not long before a conversation had been created.

Dean and I were both in agreement that the two girls to my left seemed like friendly people, amiable to a British question about what to do and where to go in Fayetteville. Plucking up some courage to instigate interaction, I turned to the blonde-haired girl by my side and asked her if she attended the University of Arkansas and whether Dean and I were in the right place to sample the Fayetteville scene. The girl, with her deep set eyes and quizzical smile, looked at us with initial bewilderment and subsequent interest: were they really English and why were they in the middle of Arkansas on a random Saturday night?

In that moment we witnessed the radiance of Roxi Hazelwood, at once both fascinated by her European interviewers and determined to help. All through

America

Dean and I have noticed and relied on the kindness of strangers and here it existed in its most emblazoned and emboldened to form. Over the next five hours and ensuing two days, Roxi introduced us to her friends, her home, her local hang-outs, her overriding philosophies of courtesy and kindness, fun and charm.

Next to Roxi was Courtnie, who took to these two Londoners with a little more suspicion, perhaps appropriately so given that Fayetteville, Arkansas, is not renowned for its British connections. Courtnie, tall, beautiful, and with a perfectly pitched level of dry humour that would not be out of place in old London town, originally thought that Dean and I were Americans attempting to sound like Prince Harry. Only a number of forms of ocular proof would convince Courtnie that we were bonafide British, including verification via Facebook, drivers’ licenses, Wikipedia articles and Twitter accounts.

Courtnie’s suspicions were out of concern for her friend, Roxi, who had struck up conversation with both Dean and I. Anxious to support and protect her friend, Courtnie’s questions and one-liners were entirely appropriate, frank and honest, arising as they did out of a sense of duty to a higher cause. Roxi and Courtnie, it transpired, were Sorority Sisters and so had a responsibility, an obligation, to look after each other, a code entrusted and passed down from generation to generation, influencing and informing its members’ values of truth and respect, loyalty and kindness. Courtnie’s misgivings and unease stemmed not out of malice to two boys from London but out of solidarity with her kin.

The question of sororities was raised earlier in our meeting, when I asked Roxi if she was a member of any. She replied in the affirmative and I then prepared to guess which one. Given that my experience with sororities is limited solely to Chi Omega, I naturally went with what I know and confidently suggested to Roxi that she was a member of this most respected of houses. To mine and their astonishment I had guessed correctly first time. In reality, however, Dean and I should have realised immediately that these girls would be Chi-Os. After all, our collective experience taught us that Chi Omega sorority sisters are always the most interesting, polite and impressionable of any attached to the Greek student culture. Roxi, and indeed everyone introduced to us as a result of that first connection in Stir, epitomised such values from the moment we first met to our ultimately difficult and long goodbye.

The girls, of course, were somewhat stunned that my first guess had accurately been Chi Omega but perhaps our familiarity with this most hospitable of sorority houses helped alleviate any lasting remnants of awkwardness as we prepared, at Roxi’s recommendation, to leave Stir with our new friends for our second bar of the evening, West End.

London in the West End

West End was a grittier venue than Stir and offered a more obvious and realistic portrayal of a Fayetteville Saturday night. Students lined the bars and shuffleboards, the open spaces around the dancefloor and stage, piling in through the steamed door and around corners and corridors to the central aspect of the room, a squared off middle zone for talking and flirting, singing and dancing, all built around a raised performing area in the corner where an acoustic guitar, singer and percussionist provided an easy-listening beat to the cheerful sounds of this din of student living.

By now, Dean and I had garnered somewhat of a reputation with our North London accents and unusual dress sense in comparison to the ordinary look of a Deep South twentysomething. Roxi and Courtnie, who by now was more disposed to her new British acquaintances, introduced us to a number of other friends in West End, and we happily chatted and whiled away a number of hours in the bar together.

What was remarkable for Dean and I was that, perhaps for the first time in our travels across

America

, neither of us felt recourse to reach for a drink, to shield ourselves away from potential embarrassment by the secure envelopment of holding a glass in one hand. So fascinated were we by our new hosts, so at home and at peace, that time became immaterial, alcohol impractical, thoughts of home impossible. Such feelings of contentedness are rare and hard to replicate, arising as they do out of nothing, out of chance. Or perhaps they do not; perhaps there is a pre-ordainment to such moments of magic. Sometimes we settle for half, for the middle ground between faith and fact. When it becomes too difficult to evaluate, when the battle between hope and practicality threatens to confuse and corrupt conjecture and confidence that we are each on the right path, it is perhaps best to remember the line from Forrest Gump: “I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it is both. Maybe both is happening at the same time.”

At this time we were introduced to another mutual friend of Roxi and Courtnie. This girl, an inquisitive, intelligent and ingratiating future lawyer by the name of Lauren Summerhill helped contribute significantly to the vitality of our many conversations with the remarkable individuals from Fayetteville. Lauren asked critical questions, looked at issues with a clever, diligent eye, demonstrating all of the inquisitorial skill that a lawyer needs, an attention to detail and articulation that leant an academic flavour to absorbing exchanges that ranged from legal study to the state of American politics. For this writer, it was a pleasure to discuss these topics with such a knowledgeable and sharp soul.

As the bar closed for the night, none of us wanted to part. There was a mutual keenness to cement these new, budding, embryonic friendships, now numbering six of us with the introduction of Caroline Lang, an eminently ranked member of the Chi-Omega sorority, who kindly drove this rather haphazardly formed but affectionately fastened gang to the colonnaded majesty of the Chi-O house itself.

Waffling

The Chi-Omega sorority house stands in the middle of the main campus area of the University of Arkansas. Best seen in the daylight, it nevertheless radiates an imposing majesty, with its columns and steps, its hedgerows and white painted shutters. Inside, lounges and living rooms spill out in to extended corridors, each accompanied by plush rugs and couches, widescreen televisions and grand pianos, lit by looming lampshades and modern spots and home to a number of Sorority girls who share in everything from dorm-room to dogma to dinner.

There is a popular misconception about the nature of a Sorority, one that I have explored in earlier blogs from Baton Rouge, but worth repeating, worth extending. The Sorority system that many Europeans believe stands for frivolous procrastination and partying is a considerable misnomer. These are centres of tradition, of altruistic ideals and ideas passed down across many generations, each instilled with basic human values of philanthropy, kindness and respect. Sororities, particularly Chi Omega, demand the highest of standards in its members’ academia and social interactions. Specific grades must be achieved, precise manners must be met. The net result of these philosophies is not a pagan paradise of immorality, but a network, an ethos, a system of honour and community, of charity and affection. If such values did not exist, Dean and I would never have enjoyed the company of the Arkansas Chi-O girls, would never have developed such strong bonds, and would never have been able to rely so happily on the kindness of strangers that became friends. To those that question the Greek student system in

America

, I put it to each that they should better research the facts and not rely on the Hollywood bastardisation of Sorority Row.

In any event, Dean and I stepped in to the Chi Omega house for just a few minutes that Saturday night, albeit meeting and chatting with more of Roxi and her group’s social scene. We posed for photos, lounged on the sofas, and then headed off in Roxi’s car with Courtnie and Lauren to grab some late night, early morning food.

The Waffle House stands just outside of the main University area in Fayetteville. Open twenty-four hours a day, it serves a wide ranging clientele from residents and students to passers-through, from weary travellers looking for a coffee to student revellers in need of sustenance. Roxi, Courtnie, Lauren, Dean and I arrived to line our stomachs after a long night and further cement a budding friendship in a diner that is symptomatic of, and epitomises, the best of

America

: a twenty-four hour café with an almost embarrassingly long menu and terrifyingly sized portions. To the consternation of many, the employees of the Waffle House included, I ordered the harsh browns with ‘Bert’s chilli’. This seemed to cause a mild panic and informed on me the idea that I was perhaps the first person to voluntarily decide to have chilli made by an individual named Bert in quite some time. As it was, the chilli, much like the atmosphere more generally within the establishment, was lovely and we were each able to quench our appetites and find out more about each other at the same time. Tired but happy, we were dropped off back at our Super 8 motel and, after an in no way ironic group hug in the car park, retired to bed, to sleep, perchance to dream.

Calling the Hogs

The following day was resplendent in stunning sunshine, with a deep blue sky filling the horizon and lifting our already considerably high spirits. Aware that we were not meeting our new friends until later in the afternoon, Dean and I enjoyed taking in the views of Fayetteville in the daylight, and were able to grasp more clearly just how beautiful the state of Arkansas can be in good weather. Subtle inclines and gentle drops in the road helped to bring new contours and colours in to view, with university buildings dotting the horizon, each symbolic of American university patronage: well funded, cleverly constructed, neatly designed, spaced out across a manicured campus with inspiring buildings in which to learn and study.

On the recommendation of Lauren via Roxi, we drove slightly out of town to try some regional soul food at Moma Dean’s. This was apparently a Fayetteville institution and particularly pleasing for Dean given his identical name with the venue. Moma Dean’s is the perfect encapsulation of good food off the beaten track, of taking somewhat of a risk based on the recommendation of a local and rolling with it to see what happens. On first glance, this establishment looks unkempt and derelict, with dirty floors and misty windows cornering plastic chairs and stained cutlery. These are but initial impressions. Look again, deeper, and you find history here: the same family preparing the same food, itself inherently tied to the region, across generations, all with an amiable welcome to regulars and new guests alike.

After our meal, Dean and I started speaking with a waiter, Caesar, who then introduced us to Moma Dean herself. The Moma, as she is known, was a wonderful character, full of questions and hearty laughing, youthful in her obvious experience, with the sort of sentiency that belies her local tethering. These are eyes that have seen good times and bad amidst great change in

America

. They signify a broader theme in American history; that communities can continue to enjoy their traditions, their nostalgia, but do so now in a parlance of plurality, with a surer understanding of the past and a better hope for the future.

Mama Dean was chatting with some of her guests when Dean and I approached with our camera. Amused and intrigued by our accents, the other visitors were soon also engaged in conversation with us. This led to a rousing rendition of ‘calling the Hogs’, a chant heard across the region and particularly at Arkansas football games as both a cry of support for the team and a deliberate and passionate acknowledgment of the region’s agricultural origins. It was fascinating to hear the cadence and metre in the calling, to imagine for just a brief moment how it must sound when 90,000 Razorbacks fans each call the hogs in unison at a college sporting event. Armed with the good food, the friendly conversation, and the power of the hog-calling Razorbacks chant, we drove happily to the main campus area in order to chat more with our new friends at the Chi-O house and take in a tour of the grounds.

Take a shot like a Chi-O can

Dean and I fell in to an almost state of stasis-like serenity in the Chi Omega house. We were made to feel so welcome, so at home, by our hosts, that it was impossible not to feel the warm glow of comfort and security that comes with the knowledge of friendship, companionship and mutual affection, even so far away from home.

Our return to the Chi-O house after visiting Mama Dean’s, then, felt like the obvious move, the natural direction to drive in after our late lunch. We toured the floors and dorms, the lounges and kitchens, meeting other sorority girls, and posing for photos outside the beautiful main entrance to the house. Roxi, Courtnie, Lauren and now Morgan, who had since joined our group, took Dean and I around some of the other areas of the University of Arkansas campus. Particularly interesting was the fact that the institution engraves the names of its graduates in to the sidewalk, so that you are literally walking in the path, following in the footprints, of those who have gone before, those have who shown the dedication to graduate college and move on in the world: a permanent persuasion to current students to keep striving for the next step, the next goal; a particularly inspiring notion in a university.

Standing together. Shaping tomorrow.

Dean and I had envisaged staying just the one night in Fayetteville. However, as Sunday afternoon began to slip in to the developing chill of evening, we were still in the town, still learning more, still discovering. Roxi, it transpired, had to attend a campaign meeting at a fraternity house called Lambda Chi. Running for the position of Student Treasure on a ticket that included other likeminded individuals running for other positions on the ballot, Roxi needed to attend the meeting to discuss campaigning techniques and deal with other practical issues ahead of the main election process in a few weeks. For many this would be a cue to leave, to interfere no further in the private matters of an individual and the democratic process of her academic institution. Not so Dean and I. This was roadtrip documentary gold. It made perfect sense to accompany Roxi to the meeting, to take in what was to be discussed, to witness first hand the youthful strands of American democracy, to watch and learn from student politicians who one day may shape the destinies of states and nations.

For the amateur politico or West Wing aficionado, this was heaven. We sat and listened as the Campaign Manager discussed next steps in the election process, what posters would look like, where candidates needed to be going on the campus, how social media and networking tools would be harnessed to raise awareness, what specific events were being created for the candidates so that they could meet with voters and get the message out. This grass-roots, activist element of politics and democracy is both inspiring and crucial, engineering in its protagonists a fundamental sense of belonging to the larger American political process, a democratic movement, regardless of who you support, that takes ideas and policies, questions and answers, plans and strategies, in to people’s homes and schools, their bars and sidewalks. The gap between the individual and their representative is reduced by the myriad of ways that candidates are expected to communicate with their electorate, to imprint their message, their dreams, their ideals on the body politics entrusting them with their own hopes for the future, their own demands for tomorrow.

At once both inspiring and practical, it made perfect sense for Roxi to be involved. Her immediately welcoming and engaged nature when meeting Dean and I for the first time, we hope, will mean that the wider University of Arkansas population are as equally taken with her as we were. Much of politics is about first impressions, about instinct, about eye contact and trust. These are but some of the many attributes of Roxi Hazelwood, and we look forward to hearing of her ensuing election win. Standing together, shaping tomorrow, these inspiring students and the ticket they represented in that meeting inside Lambda Chi, will forever have contributed to a personally memorable moment in this American roadtrip. Grassroots democracy is alive and well in the great state of Arkansas.

Pulling your puzzles apart

One might have considered this an appropriate point to bid these remarkable girls adieu, to retreat to our car to continue our road trip across the state line in to Oklahoma. Yet a warm glow of contentedness is not to be ignored, rare as it is when thousands of miles away from home. To feel so completely at ease, to be so fully and purely welcomed, to have the opportunity to sample and learn from the culture of others, helps transcend the truth of travelling; that across unfamiliar terrain in a different part of the world it is possible to connect, to entrench ties that bind, to broaden horizons with smiles and whispers, laughter and looks.

Inevitably, then, we returned to our safety net, the comfort blanket that was and is the Chi Omega house. In the main living room we sat and talked for so long that it became clear that Dean and I would not be reaching Oklahoma City that night and, with specific dates set to see close friends in Louisiana, it became necessary to stay one more night in Fayetteville before driving to Shreveport the following day. This was after another new acquaintance, Rose, had kindly told us much about Oklahoma City, even providing some tips from her English Dad who now resides in the city. Although we would never make it this land of friendly cowboys and farmers, Rose’s generosity in even trying to establish some helpful facts for Dean and I will not be forgotten and we were happy Rose joined our group for the rest of the evening.

Certain of our stay for one more night, we were able to relax in the lounge with our new friends for several hours. During this time, Erin and Claire joined our party, probing and asking intelligent and intriguing questions, delving in to the cultural similarities and differences between two inextricably linked nations, bound by common principles and ideals, laced histories and sensitivities, religious and linguistic parallels forged across centuries of generations, from times of conflict to an era of allegiance. Politicians, President, Prime Ministers and Monarchs call the British-American partnership the ‘special relationship’. It exists, it thrives, in Fayetteville.

While much binds our two nations, certain facets remain in contrast, including our cuisine. Dean, it transpired, had never sampled a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. This most pro-American of Englishman was obviously eager to put this smite on his atlanticist record to rest and hungrily tore in to what looked like an excellent example of this quintessentially American delicacy, prepared by Roxi and Erin and presented to Dean in the Chi-O lounge. With the impatient eyes of a number of girls on him, plus a somewhat quizzical look from your humble author, Dean delved in to his sandwich, spilling some contents, but otherwise managing to maintain a degree of British decorum, poise and delicacy despite being stared down by his inquisitors. It was, Dean said, a very tasty sandwich.

The surreal nature of this serenity continued unabashed when another Chi-O sister arrived with an accent straight out of Gone With the Wind. Nicole, who had previously chatted with me on loudspeaker, arrived in the living room to proudly let the assembled masses know that her endorphins had been released, that she was full of energy, vim and vigour, that she had been perfecting a new ‘firehouse’ dance move, and that she was excited to hear some English accents. Not half as bemused as we were by her accent, that is.

This was the most Southern of Southern drawls I have ever come across, all elongated and rounded vowels, mixed with slight glottal stops and rising inflections, completed with wide eyes and a radiant smile. There is a notion, perhaps stereotyped, perhaps unfairly prejudiced by Hollywood depictions of the ‘Old South’, of the Southern Belle of folklore, the lace hats and gloves, the curtsies, the deference to men, to society. The modern South, as epitomised by its sororities, is contemporary, pluralist, progressive, while still retaining the Southern charm and hospitality, the grace and humility, the style and magic of its nineteenth and early twentieth century pomp. Nicole, as with all of the girls we met, characterised such values and traits and helped Dean and I appreciate all the more the wonder of this region.

As the evening twilight merged from a grey dusk in to the depths of night itself, Dean and I found ourselves fielding further questions, meeting new friends, providing an impromptu piano and guitar version of The Scientist and making plans for the night ahead. The song we performed became something of an anthem for Dean and I, its lyrics at once prosaic and personal, a perfect blend of the rare certainties in life, the ocular numbers and figures, and the subjective sentiments they often surround. The Scientist longs for the start and so, in a way, did we: to begin again the adventure so we could relive rather than end it, to concentrate on hellos that meant the world rather than goodbyes that meant ‘see you soon’ but not knowing when.

Such disheartening motifs were soon addressed, however, by another roadtrip highlight for Dean and I, as we journeyed in the car with Roxi, Claire, Rose and Erin to the University of Arkansas basketball stadium to watch a flash mob training session take place. The aim of the session was for volunteers to practice for an impromptu, but in reality planned and choreographed dance, which would take place within a time out during the Razorbacks’ weekend basketball fixture. This was a sensory delight for Dean and I as we took our seats in the stunning auditorium. Seating upwards to 20,000 people, it was frightening to think that this bowl of basketball is home to a college team. In the

we have no such college culture, no interest in university sports. Our school, the University of Nottingham, did not contain a stadium of any kind. The University of Arkansas enjoys use of fully functioning, world class facilities, complete with camera galleys, executive boxes, dressing rooms, gyms, physiotherapy centres and health spas, all across a number of sporting pursuits, from the 90,000 American football stadium, to the beautiful soccer field to the athletics arena.

Such is the investment in American higher education. Yes, it may rely on private donations, on state support, but the comparative prices for students to attend such colleges are not much more than what British students pay for our equivalents. In the

United States

there is a clear culture of providing its youth with enough opportunity to grow and thrive, to offer and supply the right resources in the correct environment to learn and develop. As a result, the students treat their facilities with respect, honouring their parents’, government’s and entrepreneurs’ own commitment to their education, their walk of life.

Enthused and inspired by what we had just seen, by the university’s commitment to its students and by the students reverence for the facilities and opportunities they have, we left the stadium with the flash mob, itself a perfect encapsulation of American positivity and enthusiasm, still rehearsing. With the bright lights of the arena still dazzling, still igniting like stars in our eyes, we took in some food at Mexico Viejo and then rose ever higher, in both gleeful spirit and literal altitude, to take in the fullness, the wholeness of the city sprawl from Mount Sequoyah, just outside of town.

Bring me that horizon

Mount Sequoyahh rises in the hills that surround Fayetteville, and is arrived at by a steep drive up winding country roads, themselves lined with the colonnaded mansions of Southern folklore, with gabled vistas and long, snaking drive ways, covered and draped by Spanish moss and arching oaks, through thickets and copses, shrubbery and streams, and then up higher as the street widens and arches, carving a crevice out of the hillside and spinning to face the town from which it rises, springing forth like lunar tranquillity to a wider aspect, a broader focus: the city, the sprawl, the twinkling lights of the horizon, stretching away beyond in to the night, untethered and inexorable, correlated but never attached to the murky land of the republic.

This vista of Fayetteville was at once inspiring and astounding. Not the largest of towns, it nevertheless took on new meaning, partly imbued by our happy state, our joyful singing of songs from Glee as we took on the inclines to reach the vantage point. From up here, from this height and this sentiment, Fayetteville stretched wider than before, from downtown to its University campus, from its residential zone to its industrial exterior. In the cold night sky, we saw taillights and headlights, flashing blues and dotted greens: forwards, progress, movement.

Next to the vantage area is a large, illuminated crucifix, not of Cristo Redentor magnitude but bright, visible, deliberate and towering over the metropolis nevertheless, as if to remind the citizens below that, out of the pure facts of academic study, out of the cement of serious life, the gritty reality of the grey area between youth and adulthood, there is still room for faith – any faith – and dreams, uncaused causes and intangible tangibles. This view, these people, that moment: beauty and wonderment, happiness and perspective, new horizons and old comforts, from atop of Mount Sequoyah to the hinterland beyond.

I’m going back to the start

They say that it is easier to leave than to be left behind. Whether this is true or not depends on our point of view, on your relative position in the context of the departure: whether you are leaving or being left. Regardless, Dean and I braved a snowy, grey morning with a gritty but necessary certainty: the road trip must continue, the show must go on. We packed our bags and prepared to drive.

Our final stop was to pay a last farewell to our new friends as they ate brunch in the Chi-O house. We were meant to merely step in briefly. We stayed for three hours. Three times Dean and I tried to leave, having enjoyed a quick meal of corn dogs, mozzarella and tomato crescents and fried green beans with Roxi, Caroline and Erin. Alas, as we moved through the splendour of the house one final time, Dean and I found ourselves in further conversations, new introductions at what was meant to be our denouement.

This was the long goodbye, an aching and constantly revolving set of salutations and platitudes. It was also a hello, as Dean and I happily conversed with the likes of Laura, Cory, Ronnie, Mindyrose and Ali. As we finally prepared to leave, to exit centre stage and retire to the Chevrolet, a song rang out, a chorus of comfort and hope for a reunion, a return, a resolution. The Chi Omega girls sang their anthem of affection, an aching and at the same time moving lyric of remembrance, of merging a past with a future, of moving forwards, yes, but also going back to the start. The song ends with a beat, an impact, an almost spoken final stanza: “We’ll remember you.”

The truth is that Dean and I arrived in this town expecting a couple of days of student security but little else. We left with new friends and new dreams, of a desire to reciprocate if any of them decide to visit London, with a new appreciation of how deep the universal values of hospitality, kindness and kinship can run, how they can bring even the most frivolous of vacations a new meaning, a higher focus. Not goodbye, then, but see you soon. Until we meet again.

A postscript

At the heart of the success of our stay in Fayetteville, Arkansas, was Roxi Hazelwood. It was Roxi who first engaged with me in the bar on the Saturday night. It was Roxi who took us on to the West End, introduced us to her friends, brought us in to her meetings, toured us through her campus, and let us in to her home. In doing so, she also articulated a substance of herself, her own hopes and fears, dreams and aspirations, of trepidation of what might be ahead for a girl with many interests, many attributes, many visions.

Throughout our stay in Fayetteville, we played and heard The Scientist. In leaving, it became clear what the song truly meant: its deliberate bridge between fact and fiction, science and faith. Roxi, a biochemistry major, was our Scientist. Her studies involve the pursuit of proof, of certainty, of ocularity. Yet she stands at a precipice, interested in law, politics, language, travelling, at the cusp of graduation and yet still nestling within the refuge, the sanctuary of academic structure.

The reality is that nobody can predict a future. Certainly Dean and I could not have known what would await us in Fayetteville.

In that daily struggle between what you know and what you think, between what you expect and what will ensue, it is sometimes appropriate, sometimes apposite, to let the music play out. The point of The Scientist is that, within its lyrics of ‘numbers and figures’ are less concrete creeds, of puzzles, of progress. Roxi, our scientist, our friend, changed both our roadtrip and our perspective of this great nation. It was a shame for us to part but the beauty of this smaller, interconnected world that we live in, just as in the beauty of the song itself, is that, while it may not be easy, while it may not always work out, while variables still exist and time changes and affects each of us in different ways, there will always be chances, always new roads to travel, always ways to go back to the start in search of the answers. In search of tomorrow.

~~~

‎"Happiness, AR"

The twinkling lights of a Saturday night,

Flicker past over the brow of a hill,

While diner signs and motel lines keep out a winter chill.

A force of weary travelling,

Of a need to stop and sleep,

Countered by the smile of another friend to keep.

This, my friends, is Arkansas,

Headlining at the top of the bill.

Who would have known that such seeds were sown,

In a town called Fayetteville?

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

Fayetteville, Arkansas - 12 February 2012.

St. Louis, Missouri: Good Moon Rising

2012-02-15T19:52:00.000Z

Some cities live by the day; other by night. Shedding the cloudburst colour of their daylight façade they take on new meaning, new focus, in crimson sunsets and softly enveloping darkness, caressing and promoting a nocturnal nuance, a moonlit majesty. St. Louis, Missouri, surprises and delights while the world around it sleeps, arising out of the industrial grit of its waking hours to form patterns of red and yellow taillights, twinkling stars moving from staging post to meeting point, breathing in the city’s juxtaposition between its cold heart of darkness and its awoken witching hour soul. This good moon rising, this silhouetted siren of love and life, hopes and fears, a glance and a whisper, brings the night of St. Louis in to an ethereal glow of happiness ahead.

Delmar Loopy

Arriving in St. Louis, Dean and I had little idea that the next two days would be amongst our most adventurous, interesting and exciting so far in

America

. Our main impression of St. Louis upon checking in to the Moonrise Hotel in the Delmar Loop area of the city was that this was a weird and wonderful town without necessarily being the most thrilling place in

America

What was clear almost immediately was the city’s propensity for wackiness, its ability to pastiche and humourise everyday norms, from hospitality through to exhibitions and museums. Our hotel was a case in point, so dubbed the ‘Moonrise Hotel’ because of the manager’s obsession with our lunar satellite, and therefore decked out with moon-based photography, paraphernalia and artefacts. This was less ‘boutique’ and more ‘niche’, with a number of bizarre features that enforced on Dean and I the fact that this was no ordinary town and no normal accommodation. Certainly I have not heard of any other hotels that boast ownership of the world’s largest man-made moon.

In our room a guidebook to the hotel detailed the various amenities available, including the concierge service, known as the ‘Manager of Desires’ at the Moonrise. I have never before experienced the services of a Manager of Desire, let alone phoned through to reception and asked to speak to my own personal and dedicate desires specialist. While in some ways a gimmick, in others the idiosyncrasies of the hotel illustrate a broader sensibility of St. Louis; that this was a town with an important and influential history but, equally, a strong sense of humour, of uniqueness, of independence. The Moonrise Hotel, with its Manager of Desires and a machine in each bedroom that played out on loud speakers a choice of supposedly relaxing sounds and noises, including heartbeats, falling rain and the din of the jungle, was one of a number of examples from our stay in the city.

The hotel itself sits on the edge of the Delmar Loop, which is both a district and a street in St. Louis and close by to Forest Park (the largest municipal green space in America) and both Washington and St. Louis universities. The Loop proudly reminds its visitors that it is officially recognised as one of the top ten best streets in the

United States

, a fact that was borne out the following evening when Dean and I began what would become a seriously heavy night out there. The area itself is populated with bars and restaurants, independent outlets and boutique shops, split across a wide boulevard signposted with flashing neon and a bustling intensity befitting its position and status as a cultural and recreational heaven set amidst the student populations of two big universities.

Go West

After a good night’s sleep Dean and I headed towards the Mississippi river, which less snakes and more thrusts its way through downtown St. Louis. By this stage in its epic journey across the continent, the Mississippi is wide and forceful, latching on to industrial ports and spanned by steel and iron bridges of metal meshed with asphalt. St. Louis is a hard working, blue-collar town, its industrial heart beating its way from the agriculture of the Midwest to the south beyond, straddling regions and cultures with its northern grit and southern charm, flowing like the Mississippi itself from every street corner, every building and every passer-by. This is a purposeful part of the

United States

, a land of expeditious exploration and discovery, both a staging post to uncharted terrain and a venue of vision in its own right, a half-way house and a settling zone in equal measure.

Adjacent to the banks of the river is the area of Laclede’s Landing, itself running parallel to the business district of St. Louis, with its international corporations and gleaming towers. Laclede’s Landing sprung up over the past decade after the Mayor of St. Louis received funding to develop the old waterside warehouses of the original port of St. Louis and turn it in to a new district offering food and drinks and other amenities. As a result the area boasts restaurants and bars that sit inside the port’s former storage centres, large stockrooms and depots with high ceilings and broad windows, accessible down narrow, cobbled streets that offer an almost European vista.

After a quick brunch in one of the establishments lining the main thoroughfare in Laclede’s Landing, we headed towards the most famous of all St. Louis attractions: the gateway arch and accompanying museum of westward expansion. To reach this curving, towering spiral of stone and significance, and its basement museum, we walked along the Mississippi itself and then up in to the Jefferson Expansion Memorial park.

In the context of the gateway arch and its associated exhibit, both the river and the pioneering policies of Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States and referred in the name of the park, are important and relevant. In the early nineteenth century, after claiming independence from

Great Britain

, the

United States

needed to access and profit from the vast array of natural resources that surrounded the newly freed colonies of the east coast. Slowly, but impressively, America coursed westwards, expanding over the horizon to establish new outposts and settlements, gathering new states and heartlands to add to those already firmly within the union, discovered, harnessed and at times purchased using a combination of currency, character and sheer courage.

Thomas Jefferson was a president dedicated to consolidating what the

United States

already had, aware as he was of the dangers lurking from complacency and territorial weakness. To survive, to ensure that the original thirteen colonies’ experiment with self-determination, with government by the people, for the people and of the people, would grow in stature and worth, power and popularity, America needed a ruthless policy of expansionism: not foreign, not brazenly in spite of the sovereignty of others, but nevertheless robust and hearty in equal measure.

Jefferson promoted such values through a combination of presidential orders and proclamations, at times sending willing explorers out in to the unkempt wilds of unexplored lands armed only with a missive to forge ever onwards; at others bartering and negotiating with other world and regional powers to acquire ownership of and stakes in the promise of the bountiful beyond.

Jefferson trusted in both the appeal and potential of

America

. If any president best illustrates the concept of American exceptionalism, its can-do culture of constantly looking for what is next, what is over the horizon, then it is Thomas Jefferson, for this is a president that, other social issues aside, helps represent the America that so many outsiders fall in love with: its strength of character amidst hardship, its steadfast and fervent commitment to exploration and enthusiasm, daring to dream and contribute to the timeline of freedom and liberty, truth and light, drive and determination that are the hallmarks of the creation, growth and future of this bewildering, bewitching and beautiful land.

Political opinion aside,

America

’s current commander-in-chief, President Obama, has himself had much to say on the concept of American idealism. Himself the unlikeliest of presidents, Obama has positioned himself as the modern Jefferson, the human incarnation of the promise of progress, of this country’s ability to reinvent and reinvigorate, to take the lessons of the past and apply to them to a better future, to use America’s pioneering spirit, its frontier tradition, to look beyond petty partisanship and instead concentrate on the work at hand, the rebuilding of this nation’s confidence and courage, acknowledging the work of the founding fathers, the hands that built America, the teeming masses yearning to breathe in this fresh, green beast of the new world and, slowly, ever so slowly, learn once again to reclaim that American creed of discovery and brotherhood, to bend the arc of history once more toward the hope of a better day.

St. Louis, then, exists as the critical mass, the crucial stop-gap, in

America

’s chronicles of discovery. It was the last town before the landforms of the continent careered in to view for the first westward settlers, the original pioneers of what would eventually become modern

America

. This town, on the banks of the river system that would exist as the explorers’ life and blood supply, grew and prospered as travellers arrived to set up bases before heading in to the vast unknown of uncultivated union, and was often the first port of civilisation for those returning from the west. Within and around its metropolitan zone St. Louis saw rapid development in the nineteenth century: gold traders and agricultural companies, cotton producers and railway suppliers, as roads, tracks and boats converged on the urban core of the town. St. Louis became, and remains, the gateway, the entrance to

America

’s unplanted, untilled western territories.

In this way, the Gateway Arch, standing just less than 200 metres tall on the banks of the Mississippi, represents more than just impressive architecture, more than just a tourist attraction. This is an impressive and imposing structure of marvel, a curving, caressing centrepiece of contemporary cool, underpinned by a nostalgic symbolism, itself the very definition of America: ahead, out of the bold and wistful concepts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fashions and flows a nation. Its deliberate arched structure characterises the city’s position as a gateway, an access, a portal to the romance of

America

: pioneering motifs of folkloric frontiers. The view from the top, of rivers and roads, fields and forests, skylines and cityscapes, of the steady certainty of the east and the wishes of the west, is at once immediate and inspiring, a rare combination of symbols and specifics: evidence of principles unseen and the substance of what is hoped for.

City Museum

Impressed with and inspired by our visit to the Gateway Arch, Dean and I set our Chevrolet’s satellite navigation system for another popular St. Louis landmark: the City Museum. We were told to expect surprises, to look out for weird and wonderful exhibitions of random architectural feats and artistic apparitions. We found instead a new rival to the Moonrise Hotel’s kooky idiosyncrasies, for the City Museum was less an acclaimed institute of learning and discovery, and more of a dramatic, colourful, bombastic, temple of turmoil, a layer of lunacy,

Whether or not you agree that the City Museum does indeed contain works of art will no doubt be determined by your own views and presuppositions on what art truly means and what it can fairly and appropriately constitute. To Dean and I, this whacky world of weirdness was purely random, purely entertaining, and helped to reinforce the overwhelming view that St. Louis thrives on its reputation for being somewhat peculiar, that it embraces its deliberate difference if not through its history then certainly via its contemporary concepts and institutions.

A major element of the museum are its tunnels and caves, accessible across all floors of the building, and leading to an array of walkways and corridors, each containing strange and beautiful images and icons of modern America. These potholes and crevices are meant to be suitable for all visitors but the reality is that many are not large enough for averagely sized Brits, let alone the large number of metabolically challenged Americans. Dean and I struggled to edge our way through, or climb our way up, most of these structures, eventually resorting to normal stairs to find our way to other parts of the museum.

One floor housed an old, dusty, out of tune and utterly wonderful piano, with keys that would stick down and the foot pedals removed, but it was impossible to resist an impromptu gig for the assembled tourists and bemused locals. Dean and I serenaded our audience through a number of songs, including rousing renditions of Let It Be, Don’t Look Back In Anger, Man In The Mirror and The Scientist. This is the beauty of such a strange and seductive city, that it is possible for two English boys to sit down at an out of tune piano in a borderline psychopathic museum and play successful renditions of mainly British chart hits to unsuspecting yet no less appreciative Japanese tourists.

Elsewhere the City Museum continued to delight and deceive the eyes, with rooms dedicated to arts and crafts, gymnastics, a human-sized hamster wheel, a donut emporium, a storytelling centre, a series of vaults that lead in a circle back to the original starting point, a passage of rooms mocking infamous scenes of American culture, including a diner, a garage and a vintage clothes shop, as well as a slides that led from room to room, floor to floor, and existential crisis to existential crisis: a weird and wonderful world of random chaos and bonhomie.

Moonrise

As much as St. Louis sounds like an amenable daytime destination, its true power arises at night, after the sun has set and the city is shrouded in a magic mystery that awakes and ignites the soul. This is the beating heart of the nocturnal nuance that is St. Louis, as the cityscape takes on new meaning, new focus in the long shadows of a magic hour sunset. Slowly, as the earth spins and lurches away from the warmth of the sun, a neon haze appears, punctuated by revolving glitterballs and centred spotlights, each inviting and illuminating, shedding light in the encroaching darkness of the night ahead.

After dark, the Delmar Loop rightly earns its position in one of the top ten streets in

America

. The main thoroughfare pulses and throbs with teeming humanity, party-goers and passers-by starting or ending their night in one of the area’s many bars and restaurants. There is an atmosphere of prodigality, of warmth and candour, sociable streams of students sampling the scene. Chief amongst such lunar luminosity is Three Kings, a new bar and restaurant with excellent ribs and friendly staff. Dean and I happily chatted with the waiters and waitresses while taking on whiskey and beer and enjoying the positive energy and busy vibe of the joint.

Unsure of where to go to next, we were told to check out an establishment called Bar Louie, in the Central West End district, and close to the Delmar Loop. It was here, suitably removed by now from any lasting remnants of sobriety, that our evening changed to dramatically. It began at the bar, as Dean and I queued to buy a drink. Momentarily distracted by the haphazard yet beguiling movement of a dark-haired hen party participant, I moved away from Dean for all but the briefest of seconds. When I returned Dean was accompanied by a gentleman wearing a very similar shirt demanding to know where Dean was from. Alex, for this was who the gentleman was, welcomed us to the bar, and seemed intrigued by the presence of two boys from London. This attracted further attention and we were soon joined at the bar by others in Alex’s social scene, including Dave and Joanna, who would later be pivotal to our story.

As Dean and I spoke and answered more questions, our accents instigated further glances, further inquiries, further offers of a drink. At this point, fuelled by our enjoyment of both the rapid consumption of alcohol and our new-found status of objects of intrigue for the assembled masses of the bar, Dean and I lost all control of the evening and so began a spiral of drinking and dancing, talking and texting, feeling and flirting, that would last well in to the following morning.

The girl from the hen party, or Batchelerette Party as some in the States call it, perhaps interested in what the commotion was about, purposefully and impressively imposed herself on the situation, demanding that I sign a white handkerchief for her friend, who was to be getting married. The handkerchief, she explained, would hopefully contain the names of all of the men the bride-to-be could have chatted to that night had she not been engaged. Although I was not sure what the ultimate point of the handkerchief signing really was, I duly obliged, which resulted in the bridesmaid cheering our British boldness. This, in turn, was picked up on by others, including a girl who we would later come to know as the wonderfully named Libby Hotfelder, who had been dancing nearby.

These are the seminal moments of random roadtripping, the sort of unexplained, unplanned flashes of sheer and random joy and mayhem. Dean and I would often talk of trying to instigate a night of meaning, a night worthy of happy memories. The reality, however, is such feelings and moments cannot be artificially shaped out of a mere longing for the epic, the sublime, the surreal. The best occasions arise out of accidence and circumstance, out of serendipitous suspensions of the standard form.

So it was, then, that half an hour after first meeting the lovely Libby, and other new friends like Joanna, Alex and Dave, we found ourselves in the back of Dave’s car en-route to our third club of the evening, known as Tulane’s. Dave was a congenial and willing host, kindly and considerately taking us from Bar Louie to Tulane’s and extending a hand of friendship to these two travel-weary souls. This was classic American hospitality, of working hard to welcome two strangers to the exigencies of St. Louis on a Friday night, of bothering to take the time and make the effort to support new guests and help them feel at home. For this, Dean and I are forever grateful to the many fantastic individuals we met that night in St. Louis. Dave, and his partner in chaperoning crime, Joanna, deserve very particular thanks for helping Dean and I enjoy one of our best ever nights in

America

Back at Tulane’s, the club was busy and sticky with merging and meshing people, a sweaty, boozy cocktail of beats and bass, teeming with life and laughter that would travel over the chords and riffs of songs and rise in a cacophonic crescendo of conversation during the small gaps in between.

By this time, already well past 2.00am, Dean and I were in our element, enjoying getting to know our new friends and thriving on the disco hits on the dance-floor. Through my conversations with Libby I was able to engage with a similarly minded individual and enjoy her company as the night progressed. What appeared to have been the ending of an exhausting day of touring the inspiring and significant cultural attractions of St. Louis turned in to a twenty-hour blitz of accents and adventures, of beer, women and music, of new friends and sore heads, played out to a soundtrack of glances and looks, pauses and gestures, breakneck tunes and sinking shots, under the pearly white light of the man in the moon.

Sunrise

The following morning was actually a continuation of the end of the night before. We did not arrive back at the Moonrise Hotel until after 5.00am, before finally settling in to some semblance of sleep as the sun rose higher above the city as the morning wore on. Exhausted and parched, Dean and I emerged blinking in to clear blue skies with foggy heads, still dumbfounded by the twenty-fours that had just passed, with all of the previous day’s views and news, education and dehydration, singing and dancing, playing out in a continuous and hazy loop in our delicate, shattered minds.

Yet the road cares little for the weary explorer. The open expanses between the country’s cities require attention and skill. So it was that, with a long drive to neighbouring Arkansas to come, Dean and I had little choice to but press on, to continue undiminished to the next step in the adventure, armed this time with real, tangible memories of a city that promised much and delivered, of a day that taught and intrigued, and a night that amused and delighted. St. Louis, Missouri, became the gateway not just to

America

’s mythical passion for the great unknown but for our own development, our own comprehension not just of our most recent stopping point, but of the people behind the places we visit, the faces and voices that give colour and vibrancy and truth to our pursuit of the real

America

. Important facts and feelings, then, as we sped away from this moonlit paradise.

We journeyed on to Arkansas armed with such sentiment and stopped just once: to give a lift back home to one of our new St. Louis acquaintances.

~~~

"Hotfelder"

Blue sky rising from a manufactured moon,

Two nights in St Louis ending earlier than soon,

While glitter balls spin to a disco beat and tune.

Finding out connections from a smile behind a mask,

Gazing ever westwards by a gateway and an arch,

Fighting for more moonlight to make an extra second last.

Where the eastern promise ends and the western dream begins,

Casting Magic Hour shadows from coffee cups and gin,

This pretty Mississippi through the chaos and the din.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

St Louis, Missouri - 11 February 2012

Kansas City, Missouri: Power & Light

2012-02-14T06:47:00.000Z

Missouri is a large state suffering a form of identity crisis. In its northern region it is ostensibly Midwestern, with its plains and farms, its flat trajectories and highways extending straight and south. Further in to this expansive part of the country, hills, rises and ridges gently roll in to view and under the wheels, as the tectonic plates of

America

shift incrementally to the final valleys before the Deep South. In this way, Missouri straddles two contrasting parts of

America

: the liberal leaning Midwest and the folkloric beyond. As a result, this district of disparity greedily but appropriately takes the best from both worlds and throws them together in to a melting pot of old-town sensibilities and modern, urban receptivity.

Splitting the state are the two iconic river systems of

America

: the Mississippi and the Missouri. Each represents the magic and nature of this great land, their snaking paths offering finite staging points for navigating the southern hinterlands and western beyond of a nation still growing in to its immensity. The journey south from Nebraska in to rural Missouri and, eventually Kansas City, is shared by the flow of the Missouri itself, accompanying the interstate roads as they work their way down from the higher ground of the northern states.

From Omaha, Nebraska, to Kansas City, Missouri, Dean and I allocated ourselves four hours travelling time. Slowly the white-coated Nebraskan fields of snow made for the browned allotments of Missouri as we travelled in parallel with the rolling rivers of American legend. The final stage of this journey, as the lights of Kansas City finally emerged over the brow of a bucolic hill, saw the interstate bob and weave and eventually consent to the corresponding progress of the Missouri waterway, as if road and river were as tussling brothers, jostling for position and attention before ultimately subsisting in equal measure as equivalent tributaries to the city beyond.

Power and Light

Kansas City is oft acknowledged by reference to The Wizard of Oz. The metropolitan zone of the town is, however, a far cry from the yellow-bricked roads of countryside lore. This is not, in reality, a city of scarecrows and tin men, but bohemian cafeteria and trendy bars, of a bustling services sector and robust economy. After hundreds of miles of uniform landscape, Kansas City projects its glass towers and brazenly angled architectural treasures with gusto on unsuspecting travellers. Arriving is, therefore, a surprise, for this city has urgency, an imposing sense of grandeur, with its tall buildings and wide boulevards, its pretty fountains and pedestrianised districts and parklands.

Confusingly, Kansas City bestrides two different states, with only half of the town in Missouri, and the other sitting in Kansas itself, accessible via a number of bridges over the Missouri river. The main attractions are on the Missouri side, although much of the city’s industrial prowess comes from the Kansas state section of the metropolitan area. This creates an interesting peculiarity for the city’s municipal politicians, dealing with two different sets of state law, as well as the localised regulations administered by the authorities at work within the Kansas City Limits region. It would be possible, then, to break a state law in Kansas, flee across the river to Missouri where the same action is not a crime, and resist arrest unless the city police department, themselves spanning both sides of the river, decided to get involved and escalate the offence to a federal level. It makes the unwritten British constitution look like the epitome of brevity, a political haiku.

Known as the New York of the Midwest, or the ‘Little Apple’ to many, Kansas City enjoys two extra attributes beyond its links to a twentieth century classic musical. Firstly, Kansas City boasts more running fountains in one urban zone than any other city on the planet apart from Rome. Secondly, it contains the second-highest proportion of officially designated wide boulevards in one city, losing out on top spot to Paris. Yet this is no nearly man: Kansas enjoys its quirky, kooky claims to fame, embracing them to provide a warm and interesting welcome, which was extended further at the Hotel Phillips, where Dean and I checked in for the night.

The Hotel Phillips exists as a neat microcosmic illustration of Kansas City as a whole. Built in the 1920s, the hotel lobby bears the hallmarks of swanky Jazz Age style, with marble and gold, shiny bronzed doors and Greco-Roman inspired artefacts and paintings. That is not to say that the rest of Kansas City is modelled on prohibition-era New York, or the pomp of ancient Athens; rather, it helps affirm that the city retains a sense of sophistication, of status, of significance.

A good example of this rare case of civic and social pride and precision is borne out in the city’s Power and Light District, a pedestrianised arcade of neon-emblazed, sound-blasted bars, restaurants and clubs close to the core downtown area. This is a district that lives up to its name, with sports bars adjacent to perambulated walkways and highlighted street-level routes, each multiplying to the perception that Kansas City is a pro-social paradise, deliberately designed for human contact and interaction.

Such communication is particularly nuanced at Kansas City’s version of ‘Howl At The Moon’, where Dean and I stopped by for a few drinks after a quick meal in the Power and Light District. Howl At The Moon involves two pianos, both facing each other, as well as an array of other live instruments (albeit paying deference to the dual-pianos) and musicians, as they work through a succession of audience-requested, keyboard-friendly songs, each in turn giving one of the two pianos a slice of the limelight as the ivories fight it out for spectator affection. The Kansas City chapter of this interactive, musical feast was a genial affair, and a perfect stopping point for two music fans (and players) from London.

Dean and I were impressed by the musicians’ skill and rapport with the audience, as well as their willingness to try out a number of songs that they were not overly familiar with, at times relying on iPads with piano chords for sight reading new tracks. Naturally we decided to test our hosts’ collective mettle with a succession of tricky requests, including Mumford & Sons’ Little Lion Man and Garth Brooks’ Callin’ Baton Rouge, a song – nay, an entire philosophy – of such pivotal intensity to our previous road trip. After the show, the team members of Howl At The Moon stopped to chat with us about their musical and social history and background, offering the sort of friendly companionship that Dean and I have come to love and enjoy about this inherently polite and respectful country. The British-American banter from our table in the audience to their positions on the stage was a particularly enjoyable part of the evening.

Drunk from the double assault on the senses that were the natural repercussions of good music and good times, that heady mixture of alcohol and music, whiskey and melody, and empowered by both the rhythm and the rye in our blood, Dean and I ambled slowly through the by-now quiet streets in search of a final nightcap and an ever closer harmony before settling in for the night. Our tipsy travelling resulted in a troubadour tune or two as we slalomed down the roads towards a renowned dive bar called The Quaff, away from the neon of downtown, on 10^th and Broadway. Locals may have been perturbed by two British boys’ at times pitch perfect and at other times atonal rendition of Walking In Memphis, arising as it did out of less of a connection to a different town in Tennessee and more because the chords lend themselves well to closely pitched harmonies. They would have done well to point out to us that we were neither singing in tune nor walking in Memphis but, save for the fleetingly frightening feedback described below, the good people of Kansas City, Missouri, turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to a pair of Londoners taking too seriously the name of their earlier entertainment: howling at the moon, meandering under streetlights, skirting gutters and chasing stars.

“Don’t come in here”

As is physiological necessity when having consumed a considerable quantity of alcohol, the liquids pass through the human body quickly, often without respect for the exigencies of a given situation. So it was that, mid Lonestar love-in, my bladder decided to exert a hitherto unappreciated level of pressure, and required some fairly drastic action. Out loud I mused the possibility of relieving myself on a quiet corner, off the beaten track but near enough to my present location to avoid any embarrassing developments. In reality I had no intention of committing such an act, but I happened to nevertheless lend voice to thought as Dean and I passed by a small courtyard next to the street. Out of nowhere, a voice rose up from the ether, the great beyond, from the wind itself, bellowing and echoing a statement at once commanding and intractable, seemingly associated with and attributed to one of the courtyard dwellings, but equally entrenched to the entire episode: “Don’t come in here,” came the cry from this spirit, this Ariel of the airways, this anti-Sammy siren of seriousness. I heeded the advice, the warning, the order, and, terrified, slunk away in to the night.

At The Quaff, a dive bar frequented by students and locals, and the last open drinking establishment in the city, Dean and I were able to calm ourselves from sprinting the final few metres to the bar from the haunted courtyard of Kansas by necking a final sambucca shot and chatting with some friendly patrons. Already well on the way to all-out inebriation and with a busy day ahead, we eventually worked our way back to the Phillips Hotel, albeit not without Dean deciding to hone his best John Travolta moves on the sidewalk outside the hotel lobby, as he twisted and contorted his Jim Beam-fuelled body to the beat-driven slapped funk bass being piped through the hotel’s external sound system. A sight for sore eyes and, a few hours later in the cold, bleary light of another February day, very sore heads.

Westport Bohemia

Hungover the following morning, Dean and I prepared to walk off the effects of the night before with a trip to the Westport part of the city. This is a trendy and popular suburb, with cobbled market streets and outdoor refreshment zones, pedestrianised roads and smart squares. Boutique, independent clothing and record outlets vie for attention against established labels and chain restaurants, while original and zany cafes and bars spring left and right with every turn, each and all housed within two-storey Georgian town-houses resplendent with painted shutters and white gables; an ostensibly American main street look and feel with a kitsch European edge, a mixture of Washington’s Georgetown and New York’s Greenwich Village with Parisian charm and the bustle of London’s Covent Garden.

We fed our appetites with a stop at the Westport Beer Kitchen, before feeding our fashionistas by perusing the stores of the area, taking advantage of the reasonably favourable exchange rate to purchase some new items in the Country Club Plaza district.

We had half an eye on the rapidly passing time, aware as we were of a long drive ahead further in to Missouri. As before our task was to trace the river, to chase the streaks of sunlight and ploughed fields ever southwards, to a town steeped in American history and imagery, of pioneers and frontiers, of the rolling Mississippi river and a gateway to the Wild West and Deep South. St. Louis, Missouri, beckoned as Kansas City receded in to the rear mirror distance under darkening skies and hill crests. A natural halfway point on our journey to the south, St. Louis would represent more than just the end of the Midwest and an arch to the beyond; it would involve reconciling a solemn truth: a change was gonna come.

“You’re not in Kansas anymore”, I muttered to my travel companion as we sped away in to the enveloping night.

"Hungover, MO"

This heavy head, this unmade bed,
This city split in two,
Awake my soul as we slowly roll,
Past hilltops cutting through.
To another destination, another latest stop,
With frisky whiskey to clear the mystery,
Of what state we're in or not.
This foggy memory jolts me, as the peddle hits the floor,
With a weary sigh I wave goodbye,
I'm not in Kansas anymore.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

Kansas City, Missouri - 9 February 2012.

Omaha, Nebraska: Locomotive Omaha

2012-02-11T01:30:00.001Z

The British are peripatetic. As former colonisers and empire builders we are used to travelling, to pitching up in unforeseen and inhospitable places the world over.

America

is no different: by far the most popular non-European destination for British tourists. However, when the average Englishman talks about Stateside visits they normally refer to the big cities, to New York and Los Angeles, the beaches of Florida and the attractions of San Francisco, Chicago and Boston. Rare are excursions to Middle America, to this country’s rustic, rural heartlands. Certainly there are some states where the British have no real need or appetite to visit, venues without international airports and global business connections, far-flung outposts of splendid seclusion, separated by extended and rolling farmland and rivers, intersected by long, straight highways and punctuated by small hamlets and communities withdrawn from the urban sprawls and twinkling neon of larger, brighter conurbations. Usually British visits to such isles of isolation are not deliberate, arising out of travelling necessity, using Midwest midtowns as linking posts to broader, wider crossings.

Not so for this pair of intrepid explorers, for whom a sojourn in Omaha, Nebraska, was both welcome and intentional.

Batten down the hatches; here comes the cold

Nebraska in February is cold. Snow, fog and a bitter chill drifts southwards from the Dakotas and

Canada

, mixing against the low pressure feeding the region from the Great Lakes, and resulting in systematic downpours of sleet, ice and snow. These are not conditions for the feint hearted. The weather touches everything and everyone, affecting agriculture and industry, transport and tourism. Dean and I witnessed hundreds of miles of white blankets over frosted fields, drifts of dusty snow cascading across from previously collected piles of powder, buffeting and whipping around our vehicle like successive blows to head and torso. These were swirling winds of warning, ricocheting in all directions from heavy, darkening, portentous skies.

Driving conditions, as we made our way in to Nebraska from Iowa, deteriorated rapidly and our average speed dropped accordingly. On either side of the interstate were abandoned lorries and container trucks, with the occasional flashing blue of emergency patrols: sirens of seriousness, piercing out of the grey mass that extended left and right across the mantled fields of the republic. Looming out of the fog and gloom, upturned articulated lorries fought for our concerned attention against spinning suburbans, while pick-ups parted through the carrousel of carnage. This was a valley of ashes, of soot-coloured grey and black iced bedlam.

In the darkness it was hard to make out much by way of landmarks and Nebraska bore much the same look of western Iowa. What was clear was its disparate desolation. Staging posts became increasingly separated by long stretches of highway, pulsing through the ranches and farms. The gloom made it difficult to appreciate any natural beauty and we focussed on arriving in Omaha, Nebraska, safely, if not some way behind schedule.

Passport to Omaha

It was past 10.00pm by the time Dean and I checked in to our hotel in Omaha and already there was a sense of quiet, of the sleepy satisfaction that attaches itself to indoor warmth while the outside world battles against falling mercury. Not to be put off by the rest of Omaha’s inclination to bury its collective head under a warm duvet, Dean and I took a cab to the Old Market area of the city, in search of some food and well-earned beer.

Omaha’s Old Town is a pleasant quarter of ‘Main Street USA’ styled shops and restaurants, with balconied terraces creeping over the ground-floor outlets and leaning in to cobbled market streets. Dean and I would learn the next day of Omaha’s pioneering pre-eminence, its frontier founding, but on that cold Tuesday night the city bore little of its supposed grandeur. It had instead retreated, leaving two British travellers to brave the elements.

After a considerable walk we eventually found what looked like the only bar that was still open, and stepped inside to the warmth. Alas, we were only able to order half of our planned burgers and beers double act. Despite being armed with our

United Kingdom

drivers’ licenses, the

United States

’ propensity to require ocular proof of legal drinking age resulted in a possibly sensible night of alcoholic abstinence. Nebraska, it transpires, does not accept foreign drivers’ licenses as valid identification documents. The state expects foreigners to use their passports when ordering drinks. While some may consider this to be right and proper, an appropriate response to tackling underage drinking, the practicalities of walking around Omaha, Nebraska with a passport had clearly not been properly assessed by the state legislature. Our passports were locked away safely back in the hotel. Dean and I had ordered our drinks based on the dual notion that our usually universally accepted ID would work in Omaha just as well as it had done in every previous city, and that we both resembled adults of more than twenty-one years of life experience.

Nebraskan negativity towards non-passport based credentials acts well as a microcosm of an occasionally limiting aspect of the

United States of America

. The overwhelming sensation of this great country is that it is as welcoming as it is courteous, as proud as it is eager to learn about others. Occasionally, its own sense of both self-importance and isolation can result in its better angels being drowned out by its own cruel and unusual peculiarities. Not to be perturbed, however, Dean and I finished our meal, waited in the sub-zero sub-climate for a cab back to the hotel, and looked forward to viewing the city afresh in the morning winter sun.

The hands that built America

We emerged the following morning blinking in to dazzling sunshine, reflecting off of the snow in a cacophony of colour and brightness. In an instant the city was transformed from a macabre municipal menace to an atmospheric Alpine Atlantis. With our hoodies, jackets and, refreshingly, sunglasses at the ready, Dean and I enjoyed the sensation of cold air and blue skies, admiring the crisp white snow on shivering pines, and the crystallised icicles dangling precariously from rooftops and fly-overs.

In this light, Omaha took on an entirely different meaning and perspective. We admired downtown’s glass towers and wide boulevards, itself rising out of the snowy fields, reminding travellers and locals alike that this city, this metropolis, has clout and meaning amidst the badlands beyond.

Before arriving in Omaha, I was aware of its significance as a Normandy codeword, a critical landing point in 1944’s D-Day, as thousands of British and American troops stormed Omaha beach in northern

France

from the sea and the air. In this context, with its historical association with power and glory, military might and bravery, Omaha becomes more than another Midwestern urban zone: its very name conjures an image of courage and conviction, force and freedom. Dean and I learnt, however, that Omaha had itself represented the hopes and dreams of a people yearning to breathe free almost a century before it lent its name to the Anglo-American onslaught on the final remnants of Hitler’s

Germany

In the decades after independence from

Britain

, the newly formed

United States

began to outgrow itself. Hemmed in by its easterly colonies and a fear of the vast unknown that stretched beyond the contemplation and mindset of early settlers,

America

struggled to grow, to reach its potential, to access and acknowledge the beauty and utility of the surrounding land. Yet this is a nation borne out of an ideal of progress, out of a dogma of discovery. The unfinished pyramid that sits on every $1 bill epitomises the fact that

America

’s work is unfinished, that the American dream requires relentless labour, betterment, determination. A country of explorers, of pioneers, the

United States

needed to look west not just to enjoy the vast resources and beauty that lay before it, but to survive, to thrive, to shake off its previous shackles of Royal control and internal division.

The hands that built

America

were not necessarily connected to the famous politicians of American legend. They did not always rest in Washington DC. The true story of America’s pioneering spirit is told by the countless crusaders of the frontier, the westward-facing engineers of endurance, the cultivators of a culture that still rings true today: that America’s destiny remains in its own calloused hands, its own determination to work harder and provide more for its children than the previous generation, to strive continually to give to the country and its citizens what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the last full measure of devotion’.

To bring the fruits of the west to the homes of the east, to create and settle new communities,

America

needed transport: to move people, goods and ideas from sea to shining sea. The later prosperity of the

United States

, then, is as much about the foundations laid by its pioneers as it is about the laws passed by its politicians. To comprehend the country’s rise to first international prominence, and subsequently superpower status, is to understand how the states became united, how it was possible to make this vast land smaller then it had ever been while it simultaneously grew beyond recognition.

The railroads were the answer; an interconnected system of engineering brilliance, carving up the country from east to west, dissecting the nation with each new outpost towards the pacific. Without

America

’s commitment to a unified train system it would not have emerged blinking in to the dawn of the twentieth century as a nation of opportunity and plenty. The laying of these tracks was often dangerous, and involved feats of technical aptitude and resilience with every move west, across the plains of the Midwest to the rugged desert of the Dust Bowl. In Omaha, Nebraska, the railroads met at a critical staging point. Here, the lines from the Great Lakes and Chicago, and the eastern territories of New England, met at a grand junction of possibility. Omaha grew as it enjoyed a crucial position in the story of

America

’s advance, a city that no longer simply enjoyed the fruits of others’ labours, but instead facilitated that collective effort.

Omaha’s Durham Railway Museum, housed inside its old union station, itself a grand and imposing building of marble and golden domes, wide ticket halls and echoing, high ceilings, helps inform its guests of the city’s rise to railway recognition. With exciting exhibits, and the opportunity to walk through both steam and electric locomotives relevant to the varying stages of

America

’s infrastructural development, Dean and I enjoyed learning more about the city and its role in the development of the modern nation. This is no simple exhibition for train boffins; rather it is of interest to anyone fascinated by the romance of America, and helped Dean and I reach a new understanding and appreciation not only of the city we were visiting but why it matters to the nation at large.

Sullivan’s

Omaha is also famous for its meat. With its expanses of farmland surrounding the urban core of the city and its flat pastures perfect for grazing cattle, it is of little surprise to discover that the region specialises in prime cuts of beef. Having built up an appetite at the Durham Railway museum, we headed off to Sullivan’s, a well known and well reviewed steak house, to enjoy our very own carnivorous carcass carnival.

The beef did not disappoint, and we felt armed and ready to face the next stage in our trip south towards Kansas City.

Before leaving the city we travelled around some of its suburban districts in order to get a better feel for the real Omaha behind its central zones. With snow touching everything other than the road surfaces, this winter wonderland reminded me of the descriptions of Minneapolis, Minnesota, as set out by the author Jonathan Franzen in his acclaimed novel Freedom. The book charts the life of one family across four decades, and exists as a compelling treatise on modern, at times fragmented,

America

. It rightfully sits in the compendium of the great American novel, and sets out beautiful narratives of the land surrounding the protagonists’ homes.

In the same way I was taken by Omaha’s links to its own land, both its dependence on, and difficulties with, the same terrain that both provides and punishes. As Dean and I sped down the interstates of rural Nebraska on our journey towards Missouri, the sheer immensity of the land and, crucially, what it means to its people, became clear. In the midst of a harsh winter and treacherous conditions arose great beauty and wonder. Lines of ploughed snow stretched in to the distance as the golden rays of a setting sun conjured a magic hour potion of white light. The gothic sublime of

America

: tripping the light fantastic through history, splendour and power.

~~~

‎"D Day"

Smoke stacks rising into another frosty sun,
The signal to a workforce that a new day has begun,
Blue collar scholars with bags weighing a tonne,
While politicians limber for another pointless run.

This isn't meant to say that Nebraska has no clout,
That its snow-filled roads lead to avenues of doubt,
But if the capital wants to renegotiate its standing,
It would do well to recall the glory of Omaha and itslanding.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

Omaha, Nebraska - 8 February 2012

Davenport, Iowa City & Des Moines, Iowa: Fields of Opportunities

2012-02-09T03:21:00.000Z

The roads leading out of Illinois and in to rural Iowa are as uniform as the land they dissect: straight, uncompromising plains interspersed with farm land, rugged terrain and crops. Yet the rural

United States

, for all its apparent monotony, has stood the test and ravages of time. The story of

America

is very much a narrative of battle: for the Republic and for the land. Without this rolling countryside of livestock and agriculture, the westward pioneers would have struggled in their relentless advance across the vast expanses of the union. In this way, Iowa represents far more than corn and wheat, far more than roads that stretch away beyond comprehension. Appearances, as Dean and I would learn during our two days here, can be deceiving. We thought they were just fields but, as Iowa’s state-line signpost rightly proclaims, these are ‘fields of opportunities’.

Big River Keep On Rolling

It is easy to be prosaic about this country; to attach bluster and verbosity and meaning to the bedrock of

America

. Occasionally situations develop where no such recourse to cadence is appropriate. Stopping a Chevrolet Tahoe in the middle of small town Davenport, Iowa, in order to catch a live television transmission of Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur is one such moment where blog-based bombast and hyperbole are unnecessary. Needs must, even on a road trip. Therefore, soon after crossing the state line from Illinois in to Iowa, Dean and I navigated our way to the Jersey Bar and Grille in the sleepy town of Davenport.

This sports bar joint was the perfect setting in which to enjoy a burger, a drink and widescreen high-definition coverage of

America

’s commitment to English soccer. The ensuing 0-0 draw is best left for the sports pages of national newspapers and the rest of the blogosphere, but there is something comforting, something utterly soothing about the fact that it is possible to find a bar in the middle of nowhere that will have a subscription to ESPN and will happily let you watch a football match taking place live six hours in the future and three thousand miles away.

Emerging from the bar, then, Dean and I sought an immediate reconnection with

America

. Davenport, Iowa, is not the easiest place to attribute significance but, with the aid of a guide book and satellite navigation system, it was at least possible to divert our route to the banks of the all-American river: the majestic, ethereal, timeless Mississippi. In its Iowa form, the Mississippi is at some of its most northern points, formed out of streams and tributaries that drain from the glaciers of

Canada

and the shelves and ridges of Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Illinois. Yet even in Davenport, Iowa, this surging torrent of water and mystery is already wide, deep and strong, snaking its way through the towns, cities, plains, valleys and levies of the Midwest. The Mississippi is more than just a river, more than just a natural landmark. Its southward flow carries both sediment and sentiment: the Mississippi has been through

America

’s trials and tribulations, a constant certainty in times of doubt, a recourse for transport, for survival, for wonder across centuries and generations of natives, frontiersmen and contemporary citizens.

The river’s name also lends itself to one of

America

’s states and, while an intended visit to Jackson, Mississippi, would hopefully present itself in the days to come, Dean and I were reminded of that state’s turbulent racial history while in Davenport, Iowa. A barren stretch of land on the banks of the river, just two blocks from downtown Davenport, used to be home to the Davenport Natatorium, a local swimming pool and bathing complex popular in the early twentieth century after its opening in 1922.

However, this local amenity became the focal point for a bitter conflict between the town’s wealthy white landowners and the black community during the 1950s and 1960s. Incensed by not having access to the pool, the African-American citizens of Davenport cried out against the hardship that had been institutionalised against them. It was a cry taken up across the

United States

as civil rights went from being a byword for localised troublemaking to a nationwide liberation movement. Segregation was not limited simply to the South. Endemic across all states of the union, it held back the progress, prosperity and prospects for happiness of many Americans of any and all colour and creed. Friendly, liberal Iowa was no different in this respect to Alabama,

Georgia

and the like.

An attempted solution to the Natatorium problem in Davenport was to allow black people access to the facilities once a week, after which the pool was to be drained and refilled before being used by the white population. This was, in the eyes of the district’s civil rights leaders, less of a compromise and more a further and deliberate separation of the people, a brazen attempt to not only define in contractual terms a disproportionate splitting of the pool’s time between the different groups, but saying in all but words to the region at large that the black community was not worthy, not clean, not entitled enough to any more than one day’s sole use of what was meant to be a recreational provision.

A number of wealthy private citizens, both black and white, raged with indignation at the injustice, and set up their own swimming pool for free use by all Davenport citizens. This was the death knell to the now infamous Natatorium, which was eventually closed in 1977. Today there is no sign of the pool, save for a rectangular slab of poorly fed grass on the banks of the knowing Mississippi, its course spelling progress from more sinister times.

Hawkeyes

We resolved to spend one night in Iowa and, after consulting guide books and friendly passers by, settled on the college town of Iowa City rather than the state capital of Des Moines. Keen to have a few drinks we were told the town, with its bohemian nature and pedestrianised enclaves, would be perfect.

A college town, home to the University of Iowa, the city is famed for its old state capital building, once the central political seat for all of Iowa, as well as its liberal arts scene, with well regarded departments for literature, music, law and philosophy. Known as the Iowa Hawkeyes, the University competes against other Big Ten schools across the region, and takes pride in its name and badge, as was manifest to Dean and I when we were able to get a better look at the town the following day.

Our first task, however, was to check in to our hotel and warm up. The temperature had dropped considerably with warnings of oncoming snow from more easterly regions. This was the Midwest we had been promised, with a bitter wind, frost in the air and ice on the ground. A perfect excuse, then, to increase our body temperatures with a helpful dose of alcoholic refreshments. Unfortunately, the acclaimed nightlife of Iowa City was missing that Monday evening. The bars and pubs were deserted, save for one or two hardened souls braving the freezing conditions for a nightcap or two. Once Dean and I had completed a nutritious meal of buffalo chicken wings and associated condiments, it became clear that there was nothing to do but go to sleep. In our separate beds.

Political Penguins

Iowa’s state capital is in Des Moines, a large and busy town around one hundred miles from Iowa City. Before Des Moines became state capital of Iowa, Iowa City had the responsibility of being the state’s central seat of government. Today the old State House is still in use as a museum and part of the University of Iowa. It is an impressive structure, visible across the town and standing proudly in the middle of a number of road junctions. American university students like to pedaconference their way around campus and so find themselves orientating their position to important landmarks. The old State House is one such building, constructed in a deliberate Greco-Roman style to mimic both the pomp and ceremony of ancient kingdoms, and the enforced colonnade vision of the structures that were created in Chicago, Illinois, to facilitate and commemorate the 1893 World’s Fair Exhibition.

Inside the old State House is an excellent museum, setting our helpful information and exhibits on life in Iowa City and the wider state. The area in which the building now stands is dominated by the University of Iowa’s School of Law and the old State House museum includes a section dedicated to legal developments in the region. Particularly illuminating was the description of the 1964 to 1969 fight by three University of Iowa students against their District School Board to overturn their expulsion for wearing black armbands on campus in support of peace in

Vietnam

. In the 1960s, on college campuses across

America

, the modern nation was truly born, arising out of academic and pro-social intellectual development, as young Americans began to question the previous order. Civil rights, gender equality and pacifism found new voices and causes in a melting pot of emotion and resentment against the very strongest powers of ownership and control.

In Iowa, the three students expelled for daring to suggest that President Johnson should not have agreed to

America

’s involvement in

Vietnam

were supported by fellow students and families and appealed their case to the Supreme Court, the highest judicial body and arbiter in the land. By 1969, some five years after their original expulsion, the Supreme Court found in favour of the students and against the School Board, enshrining via legal precedent a student’s right to freedom of expression, itself the first recorded legal decision that linked the First Amendment to the US Constitution to the specific liberties that a student could expect within an academic institution. This was a time of developing legalese, an incremental process of reform and review, appeal and counter, which glacially began to form the foundation of a more tolerant society.

The beauty of the museum in Iowa City’s old State House was that it was able to illustrate such moments of local and national significance in an arena that also contained a bizarre exhibit of stuffed penguins. Unfolding before our eyes in just a few square feet was the utter absurdity of

America

POTUS

Five blocks down Iowa City’s low-rise roads and sidewalks, themselves home to independent book stores and clothes shops, Hawkeye memorabilia outlets and family-run groceries, you will find the Hamburg Inn. To the naked eye this is a standard college town diner, with plastic leather booths and an obligatory juke box, enclosed by walls lined with photographs of old patrons and punters. However, and as set out at the start of this article, Iowa can be deceiving. The reality is that the Hamburg Inn, whilst serving up an ample and excellent breakfast, also doubles as a critical staging post in the election of the President of the

United States

Look again at the creased, lined, black and white photos adorning the walls. Watch carefully for the signs, the autographs, the arrows. The seat in the far left corner was used by President Clinton. The counter in the centre was waited on by President Reagan. The stall at the back pictures a reclining, and sadly fictional, President Bartlet. The Hamburg Inn is no ordinary diner; it is a destination that helps shape a national identity and the course of American history.

American democracy is real and tangible. You can taste it, smell it. It works its way in to homes and schoolyards, restaurants and churches. No candidate can win the approval of his or her own party until he or she has shaken the hands of ordinary citizens in regular towns. To win the right to be the President you have to first become your party’s nominee, and to do that – as we are seeing right now with the Republican Party in 2012 – you have to win delegate votes from members of your own party. Yet this is no standard ballot-based affair. Winning the right to represent the party in a Presidential election involves influencing, cajoling, convincing ordinary men and women the length and breadth of the country. They do not cast their votes by an ‘x’ in a box, but by a straw in a hat, a hand in the air, or a coffee bean in a jar.

In towns and cities these hopeful souls plead with their own body politic for support, by attending town hall meetings, coffee catch-ups, question and answer sessions in high school gyms and fire stations. It means hand shakes and milk shakes. What is at stake for the candidates is often decided by their rapport with customers while eating steak. To win the White House is to win the hearts and minds of Middle America, shaking every hand, kissing every baby, throwing every dart and sinking every ball.

In the Hamburg Inn, Iowa City, candidates return year after year to vie for votes in the Iowa caucus, itself the first such event on the road to the Presidential election. In this way, while Iowa may seem unassuming and irrelevant, it actually marks the first crucial staging post in electing the most powerful and important man or woman on the planet. Iowans take this responsibility very seriously, and scrutinise their respective parties’ candidates with rigour.

The Hamburg Inn hosts just one of many events that combine together to indicate what candidate will take that state’s delegates through to the next stage in the contest. Voters arrive at the Hamburg and listen to the candidates talking and debating, answering and asking questions of themselves and their audience, all the while sipping coffee. At the end of the session the voters throw coffee beans in to glass jars that bear the names of each of the attending candidates. The candidate with the most coffee beans wins, and carries with them the number of delegates that turned up to the Hamburg Inn on that particular day.

Dean and I arrived just a few weeks after both parties had rolled in to town to hold their coffee bean event. For the Democrats it was something of a fait-acompli, given that President Obama will obviously be the nominee for his party. For the Republicans it is far less simple, and the full suit of candidates arrived to battle it out over lattes and cappuccinos. As it happens, Michelle Bachmann won the most votes in the Hamburg Inn but has since pulled out of the running. Mitt Romney, who (at the time of typing this) currently enjoys a narrow lead for the Republican nomination, came in second place.

In November 2012 Americans will vote to reinstate Obama or return the Republicans to office for the first time since President George W Bush. While we will no doubt evaluate the candidates’ respective positions when the time comes, Dean and I were happy to – for now at least – enjoy sitting in a room that has become so important in deciding its nation’s future. Men may bring out the worst in politics, but politics can sometimes bring out the best in men. Whether the right decision is made in November or not, whether the polarisation stalking America’s streets and communities ever takes a step closer to constructive bipartisanship, it cannot be denied that this country of such stringent ideals, of both emotional and practical idealism, takes immensely seriously its democratic principles. It is a story as old as the American revolution itself; that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from this land.

In God We Trust

Comprehending

America

’s democratic process is crucial in understanding why it behaves the way it does. Equally important is a familiarisation with this country’s burning religiosity. From the Puritan Founding Fathers, seeking a better life in the New World, to today’s Tea Party Evangelicals,

America

and what it tries to stand for itself has become a religion. For a constitution that deliberately bans the entrenchment of the church within the organs of the state, this nation’s past, present and future has been, is and always will be perennially embedded to religious belief. “In God We Trust” roars American currency, and politicians, despite the separation of church and state, live and die by their theological outlook.

The Armana Colony, located just outside of Iowa City, is a helpful example of this very American of inconsistencies. Similar to the more famous Amish community, the Armana settled in the

United States

from

Germany

. This is a community of deep-rooted faith, of a strong moral conviction based on God and country; not necessarily Republican in a political sense, but ostensibly pro family: conservative with a small ‘c’.

Political and religious beliefs aside (which is perhaps sensible for two Jewish boys from London), the Armana are polite and welcoming, offering up their community to outsiders keen to learn more about their history and culture. Their Puritan work ethic remains even amidst the bustle of the modern world. Dean and I were able to witness hand-made furniture carpentry, wine and chocolate making, and a genuine affection and warmth from the Armana protagonists to each other and to their visitors. This was classic American service with a smile: polite, good natured, softly spoken.

Indeed, as Dean and I prepared to leave the community and continue our drive towards Des Moines and, later, Nebraska, an Armana member who had previously welcomed us to his furniture store drove past in his van, slowing slightly as he went by. He rolled down his window and, with a beaming smile and courteous nod, bellowed to his two British guests the following words: “Welcome to the

United States

”. It is hard to imagine that happening in many other countries.

By the People. Of the People. For the People.

By the time we reached the state capital of Iowa, Des Moines, the temperature had dropped considerably and it was getting dark. Snow flakes began to fall on to roads and fields that had already recently received a heavy shower of powder. Driving through it, across the cosmic hinterlands of farms and pastures, brooks and copses, helped reinforce just how large this nation is and reinvigorate a genuine sense of admiration for how it manages to cling so steadfastly to its original ideals despite its gargantuan mass.

Ending our stay in Iowa by visiting Des Moines, then, made perfect sense. The

United States

sustains its political and ideological culture by holding resolute and unfaltering to the notion that out of many, comes one. Iowa is but a single state out of fifty, and yet forms a decisive part of the American historical subplot. The State Capital, with golden dome and carved eagles, bronzed doors and polished floors, rises up to the side of the city’s glass downtown, and serves as a reminder of these self-evident truths: that even in the rural, rustic Midwest it is possible to be reminded of larger macrocosmic themes amidst the minutiae of local life.

American politics, like its justice system, is designed to be open. It may not always work, it may suffer from prejudice or intolerance, but at the least it can be seen to be believed. The machinations of the state are not hidden: they are deliberately accessible. In Des Moines, as in Baton Rouge in 2009, Dean and I were able to walk right in to the State Capital Building, mixing with politicians and their advisors, photographing the State Senate and House of Representatives, rubbishing shoulders with individuals who may one day move from the State capital to the nation’s capital, from the grey engraved stone of Des Moines, to the White House in Washington DC.

We were emboldened by this clear sense of civic pride and purpose, responsibility and respect, motifs that warmed the heart if not the external temperature. With heavier snow, but lighter hearts, the car headlights focussed on westerly ways: Omaha, Nebraska, beckoned.

~~~

"Fields"

Fog and ice and fields,Of a harvest and the yield,
From a snow plough and a shield,Protecting Liberty and the Land.

Or, to put it another way,This vista will never change,
From generations to another day,Protecting time from the sands.

Fields of opportunity stretching out ahead,
Straight lined, toll-fined,Uncompromising. Dead.
Iowa said.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

Iowa City, Iowa - 7 February 2012.

Chicago, Illinois: Chandeliers

2012-02-08T06:44:00.001Z

In Dallas, Texas, in November 2009 I noted that Dean and I would continue to live the American dream, despite being at the end of our road trip. Since that time we have independently returned to this vast land on numerous occasions, on trips to see friends, to visit family, to battle nostalgia. Now, twenty-seven months later, we return as the dynamic duo, a brazen double-act of new media fame, blogging, tweeting, instagraming our way across cities and statelines, in search once again for the real America, the substance to these States, to form a closer opinion of an imperfect union, to strive to comprehend the notion that, out of many, there was, is and always will be one United States of America.

Where to begin a new odyssey? How to strive on without repetition? Fly to Chicago, Illinois, and take it from there.

Stakes on a plane

The story begins in London, England, and sub-zero temperatures as a middle-aged father of two’s Jaguar snakes its way around the capital’s arterial support road and in to the noise and confusion of London Heathrow International Airport. Clutching suitcase, hold-alls, guitars and camera cases, Dean and I navigated our way through Terminal 5 – a rare success story of modern British civil engineering, architecture and planning policy – and sought out touch-screen comfort on a British Airways Boeing 777.

Travellers are hardened souls, adaptable to changing circumstances, wary but not necessarily weary of the thickets and pitfalls of contemporary international tripping. Embarrassingly such experience stood for little when a woman of what can legitimately, if not a little rudely, be called a rotund body mass decided to sit herself down in the aisle seat beside a laughing Dean and an incandescent me. The woman, who would not have been made to pay an excess baggage fee despite her gargantuan size (an inconsistency that British Airways should address given my lean frame and now financially damaging suitcase weight), came complete with a one month old baby on her considerably sized lap. This baby, this spawn of the underworld, this Caliban of economy class, emitted cries of hysteria and Satanism not heard of or seen since John Proctor took one for the team. What started as a deep, rumbling, gurgling growl of desperation formed in to a piercing, shrieking, screaming, howling, yelping curse of evil. It was going to be a long eight hours.

Except it was not. Fortuitously, a clever Kosovan noticed, from a few rows back, that the Faustian-pacted mother and child were separated from other members of their cult (family). With the quick-witted decision-making skills of the very best eastern European dictators, Kosovan Woman leapt forward, suggesting that her seat be taken by the terrible twosome. It was a Deadline Day swap deal like manna from heaven and the rest of the flight passed without incident.

Come on feel the Illinoise

One never tires of arriving in a city like Chicago. At its best, it is a bustling, bursting metropolis of hard-working, friendly people, enjoying the city’s vantage point at the near tip of the central

United States

. Its architecture, all haphazard angles and gothic skyscrapers that genuinely rival Manhattan, and its history combine to great effect to make Chicago welcoming and heart-warming in equal measure. It is also a cleverly designed metropolis, easy to navigate through wide boulevards and avenues, resplendent in bright lights and separated by the city’s famed architectural anomalies at every turn. Nestling adjacent to modern glass towers are stone baroque-parody cathedrals and Greco-Roman inspired political buildings, all juxtaposing with randomly situated statues and sculptures that cut across the Loop and aptly named Magnificent Mile (Michigan Avenue), which in turn are surrounded south and north by Navy Pier and both Grant and Millennium parks.

After checking in to our hotel, then, it was helpful to re-familiarise ourselves with the pedestrian nirvana that is Chicago, Illinois, stepping out on to Michigan Avenue to find caffeinated refreshments and fight off any lasting remnants of navigational amnesia.

This was followed by a relaxing use of the Hilton Garden Inn’s spa facilities. On our previous roadtrip our student selves cared little for such amenities. Now, hardened and chiselled by the dual responsibilities of work and precariously placed feet on slippery property ladders, such pleasures as a swimming pool and jacuzzi are not to be remissed and much of the physiological affects of a long flight were dealt with by some quick lengths and a long soak respectively.

Deep Pan Deep Thoughts

Chicago, of-course, is famed for its deep pan pizza and Dean and I had been reliably informed that Giordano’s was a suitable joint to sample the city’s famed and acclaimed take on the Italian classic. Giordano’s is as you would expect any regular American food bar to be: widescreen sport-fuelled neon-hazed temples of calorific foodstuffs and Americana guitars. This particular version of the modern American outlet specialised in ‘stuffed pizza’, essentially a type of pie that takes the idea of a ‘stuffed crust’ and spreads it across the entire pizza base. It is not for the faint-hearted and certainly not the sort of pizza you can eat easily with your hands. No, this is a cutlery affair, necessitated all the more by the gargantuan size of the pizza itself. My original order of two medium-sized dishes for three people was laughed at by the waiter. In this city, in this country, small means large and medium means sickeningly big.

We were met in Giordano’s by Mike Ibrahim, a friend of both Dean and I from our previous travelling experiences in

America

. A former student of the University of Illinois, in Urbana-Champagne (see previous roadtrip), Mike is now at law school in Chicago. He is also a knowledgeable and passionate supporter of the correct form of football. There are positive and negative conclusions to reach from the generally good news that sound decision-making in what sport to follow has not completely vanished from the soul of

America

. Mike’s love of the beautiful game, and his in-depth understanding of its history, culture and values, are to be applauded. A student of soccer, Mike enjoys playing and talking about the game he loves. It was, and is, a real pleasure to go in to such footballing depth and debate with an American citizen. The problem, then, the negative conceit of this otherwise positive situation, comes from Mike’s stubborn supporting of the wrong North London team. To be fair, Mike’s is a genuine and affectionate relationship with the rabble from down the Seven Sisters Road, but one cannot help but imagine just how improved the situation would have been if Mike’s horizon was shaded in blue and white, and without any hint of red.

Premier League rivalries aside, it was good to catch up with such an engaging, intelligent and polite individual and we looked forward to the night ahead, even if the jet lag began stalking our collective levels of sentiency.

Chandeliers

From Giordano’s, Dean, Mike and I took a cab south of central Chicago to visit another mutual friend, Matt Smart, at his apartment. When Dean and I visited Champaign, Illinois, in 2009 we stayed for one night at Matt and Mike’s apartment. Now, in Chicago, Matt was as hospitable as ever, inviting us in to his home to enjoy some drinks and meet a few more of Matt and Mike’s social scene. TJ, Ben, Kelsey and Ian were as courteous, friendly and welcoming as Matt and Mike and invited us to join them in a drinking game called ‘Chandeliers’ before we prepared to head to the Lincoln Park area of the city for a few more drinks.

Chandeliers takes some of the skills of Beer Pong and updates them in to a more collective setting, requiring genuine quarter-flicking skills and a decent dose of luck to avoid having to down reasonably significant quantities of beer or, worse still, a central cup of continually refilled liquid poison. Warmed by the game and the increasing amount of alcohol in our blood, we prepared to move the party on to Lincoln Park and hopefully liaise with Emily Leary, another of Dean’s friends. Before doing so, however, Matt kindly showed Dean and I the view from the roof of his apartment block.

What a wonderful moment this was, as we gazed out across the cityscape before us, under a cloudless starlit sky. Stretching out for miles in to the distance were the concentric lines of roads and streetlights, criss-crossed with countryside and train tracks, each leading inexorably away in one direction to the horizon and the plains of America beyond, and in the other towards the heart of the city itself, its towering mass of teeming life, light and opportunity: the metropolis, the land, the great beyond; the mystique of America crystallised on one suburban rooftop.

Eight in a taxi

There was no real reason why it transpired, but it did. It could have been avoided, but it was not. It should have been prevented, but it continued unabashed, unprotected, underhand. Eight adult human beings can not, should not, fit in to one standard sized taxi cab and yet somehow we found ourselves crammed, cramped and cajoled en mass in to a feat worthy of Houdini.

While ostensibly meant to speed up our progress to the Lincoln Park district of Chicago, the ‘eight in a cab’ magic trick brought Dean and I far closer to our hosts than perhaps any of us had wilfully anticipated or desired. It was not pretty, nor clever, and it did little to aid Dean’s ankle ligament injury, but there we were like sardines in a tin can as our oblivious taxi driver ignored his passengers’ collective deep vein thromboses and sped away in to the night.

Mad River

We fell out of the cab in Lincoln Park, a bohemian suburb of downtown Chi-town, famed for its bars and restaurants and ambient vibe. Alighting at Mad River, a bar frequented by locals and college students, it was clear that a number of us, myself included, needed a few moments to realign our spines before gathering our thoughts and heading in to the sweaty, boozy mayhem of Mad River.

The bar was like many Dean and I have witnessed in our travels across

America

, albeit this time more colossally packed with people than many other similar variants. Mad River was the best and worst of American nightlife, with cheap drinks, talkative natives and a musical playlist that seemed to come straight from the disc-jockey booth at esteemed establishments such as Nottingham’s Ocean or Watford’s Destiny.

We made our home at the bar, sinking shots and mixers, talking and occasionally moving to the beat, while Dean made a bee-line for his friend, Emily Leary, who herself was in Mad River for a friend’s birthday. Dean and Emily chatted while the rest of us enjoyed the friendly atmosphere inside the bar. By this point we were past 2.00am and, when adding in the time difference, had been awake for over twenty-four hours. Dean, to his credit, was still going (reasonably) strong. I, on the other hand, was struggling and the concoction of noise and alcohol became a noxious mix of lethargy and confusion. Bed was calling at the end of a long, but enjoyable, day and night.

Breakfast in

America

You can adopt a laissez-fait attitude to the

United States

. If you are so inclined you can even detest its culture of excess. Surely, however, we can at the least agree that, while it may struggle with its polarised electorate, its confused religiosity, its internal conflict on the merits of external intervention,

America

knows how to breakfast. After the dual onslaughts of jet lag and severe alcohol consumption, Dean and I awoke on Super Bowl Sunday with headaches and appetites.

Taking to the streets of Chicago, we walked off the worst affects of the previous evening’s excesses and headed for a Magnificent Mile diner for brunch. The

United States

really came in to its own with the creation of the concept of brunch. Many will point to

America

’s entertainment industry, its pioneering spirit, its trade and industry, its commerce and free market liberalism as its most important and iconic exports to the waiting world. The reality is that, while such items and philosophies have seeped their way in to the popular and political consciousness of the West, few bonafide American inventions can rank so highly as the deliberate manipulation and combination of two popular mealtimes in to one new and almighty session of consumption. Brunch is as American as cowboys, cheerleaders, red cups and big trouble in Dodge City. The ensuing Eggs Benedict, Salt Beef sandwiches, Tater Tots, coffees, Texas toast and fried vegetables went down a treat.

Some Like it Hot

Armed with such sustenance, Dean and I enjoyed Chicago in the cold February wind and sun. We ventured down Michigan Avenue towards Millennium Park, pausing for pictures of the sights, including a giant model of Marilyn Monroe in her infamous ‘breeze up the skirt’ pose. This huge structure towered over the assembled tourists and locals alike, allowing two young gentlemen from Radlett, Hertfordshire, the closest look they will ever get of Marilyn Monroe’s inner thigh. Less My Week With Marilyn and more a peak of Marilyn, the statue works well in downtown Chicago, which is famous for its zany approach to architecture and urban planning.

It is also, of course, an iconic American image of the twentieth century, recognisable the world over, and serving as a reminder of this vast country’s ability to continually invent and reinvent, to amaze and surprise, and to consistently offer to the world at large such memorable icons and pursuits. Lovers of brunch and Marilyn Monroe, not necessarily in that order or independent of each other, will doubtless agree. I remain a supporter of both, but would be particularly interested in brunch with Marilyn Monroe. If wishing made it so.

My Kind of Town

The day was rounded off with a fascinating visit to the Art Institute of Chicago, which reminded me of everything that is good about the American museum system. Well supported and invested in by both organisations and private citizens alike, American museums and galleries are well funded, focussed, organised and informative. Chicago is home to many excellent public arenas, and the Art Institute is perhaps its crowning achievement, featuring a stunning array of works from the likes of Monet, Picasso, Van Gogh, Turner and Wood. Currently the Institute also includes an American Folk exhibit and a mesmeric photography and film feature, involving silent cinema, black and white stills, and stop-motion projections, to display images and movies of key areas and moments in American history and culture. If you find yourself in the Windy City – and I hope this blog helps inspires you to go – do take the time to visit this excellent landmark.

Equally worthy of your time is Millennium Park itself. The Art Institute is situated on the south end of the park, but the middle of the area involves a number of modern attractions, including the legendary Bean, a literally bean-shaped glass structure that reflects everything and everyone in its path and now something of a Chicago institution. Down some steps and away from the Bean and the park’s other modern, atonal architectural feats brings you to Chicago’s winter ice-skating ring. Dean and I, perhaps unfairly, provided a running commentary to accompany participating skaters’ seemingly inevitable falls from grace.

Super Bowl Snooze

To describe Dean and I as being supporters of

America

would be somewhat of an understatement. To be in this country during the Super Bowl, then, would no doubt strike many of you as a fantastic opportunity to sample this most quintessential of American traditions. The Super Bowl is a bizarre and brilliant affair, as much about critiquing the accompanying television adverts as it is about the gridiron sport at hand. The Super Bowl also involves the now legendary half-time entertainment section. This is, of course, an understated affair, with little or no choreography, pyrotechnics, stage management or budget. A-listers are usually left to brave the elements from a bare stage, armed and protected only with and by their own talent. This was certainly the case for Madonna, who – and it was clear for all to see and hear – in no way mimed her way through a set that contained almost no backing dancers, support singers or costume changes. At least the production did not end with a plea for ‘world peace’. That would have stretched the credulity of the watching millions beyond repair.

The Super Bowl is, irony and sarcasm aside, both utterly ridiculous and completely wonderful in equal measure, arising as it does out of this nation and it’s peoples’ steadfast refusal to contemplate the fact that the rest of the world does not play American Football. For all its stop-start nature, American Football is full of colour and pageantry and verve. It encapsulates this nation and its spirit in one pursuit: vibrant, all or nothing hedonistic order amongst chaos. Throw in some cheerleaders, a marching band and a profound sense of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and you get some way to understanding these crazy

United States

Alas, with mounting jet lag and the ending of another busy day, we collectively snoozed through the Super Bowl and prepared for Monday and the start of a long journey that would meander through the Midwest and beyond to the magical South.

The Chevy

Finally getting the affects of our long-haul journey under control, Dean and I walked a few blocks to pick up our hire care that would take us through another exciting collection of states on our second American roadtrip. We had ordered what we thought would be a Ford Escape, a reasonably-sized SUV that would fit our luggage and guitar. Instead we were given what can only be described as the mother of all gas guzzlers, a towering bison of vehicular clout: the Chevrolet Tahoe.

Resplendent in its white gloss, with tyres the size of broncos, this beast of a car was entrusted in to our care. Forget our

three-door town cars, or our Jeep Patriot of 2009 fame; no, this was an altogether different proposition. This new colossus was (and remains as I type this) obscene and perfect. A road trip in a Chevy. All we need now is a dry levy and we have the makings of musical classic.

Teach First

Our final task before bidding farewell to the always welcoming and friendly Illinois was to pay a visit to the small town of Naperville. Here, Dean’s friend Emily Eyers teaches Spanish at a local high school. Luckily for us, Emily was on her day off and met us at a conveniently located Starbucks for a chat and a coffee. Emily was passionate in her discussion about her work and the school where she teaches. It occurred to me that the traditional American sentiment of respect, of geniality and cordiality is alive and well amidst the raucous modern age. Emily is one of a number of bright, engaging and pro-social young Americans that I have met over the past few years and the United States school system must be all the better for individuals like her giving up their time to teach those who are the future of America, instilling in them the same values and considerations that their young and impressionable teachers so vibrantly illustrate today.

With that in mind, we made our way across the great plains that divide Illinois with our next state, Iowa, with a renewed sense of optimism and inspiration. Across and in front of us stretched out miles of interstate and corn fields, lines of lights and crops, hopes and dreams: enough room to plough, to sow, to reap.

~~~

“Trader Joe's”

Grey spires reflect rolling tyres,

A steely mire of old,

Shiny metal from a used kettle,

And hotel stories told.

Welcome to this: the red, white and blue,
Welcome to the start of the trip,
I'll search every face here in case it is you,
In case the distance is still just a blip.

Robert 'Sammy' Samuelson

Chicago, Illinois - 4 February 2012.

FIFA and the Poppy: We Will Remember This

2011-11-05T19:53:00.000Z

Talking points. Debate. Differences of opinion. When it comes to football, our national pastime, our mutual obsession, our modern-age opiate, discourse complements our thirst for knowledge, for intrigue, for opinion. Disagreements are common and rightly so. Not only do they help sustain a level of excitement and develop the storylines of a season; no, our passion for discussing the beautiful game extends beyond hyperbole. It marks a defining aspect of contemporary British society. In a world of unease, of tension, of uncertainty, our days and weeks can be framed by conversational jocularity and enthusiasm for sporting dialogue, a world away from the moribund minutiae of real working life.

In the past week we have debated, consciously or otherwise, the rights and wrongs of new academy systems, potentially weighted in favour of the affluent few, the positive benefits of a Great Britain Olympic football team against the potential chilling effect this might have on the kingdom entities of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and whether the England captain, John Terry, is or is not a racist, and did or did not show a demonstrable lack of foresight, dignity and intelligence in employing language of a disgusting nature – whether deliberately racist or not – during a live television broadcast of a Premier League football match.

Each of these issues deserves proper constructive debate, and opinion rages for all. It seems, with our ever-developing communication mediums of instant news and views, that contrasting opinions have never been more polarised; that, in making the world smaller than it has ever been, our technological advances have illustrated just how opposed, and how vociferous in that opposition, we can be to each other. Is there then, in the midst of the in-fighting and quarrelling, a cause we can all rally around, all agree on? Is there an issue that can unite football fans of all persuasions and judgments?

Yes, there is. Unsurprisingly, the erstwhile governing body of the beautiful game, FIFA, has managed in its infinite wisdom to raise the ire of a plurality of English football fans. On Saturday 12 November 2011, the England national team takes on World and European champions Spain at Wembley Stadium in London. Ostensibly a ‘friendly’, this match is interesting for a number of reasons. It gives Fabio Capello the chance to see how some of his young starlets compare with one of the best national sides in recent generations. It allows us to determine our prospects for next summer’s European Championships. It provides an opportunity to look at a tactical system that deals with the absence of Wayne Rooney. It brings the most exciting national side in world football to the cultural home of the country that created the sport.

Take a look again at that date. 12 November 2011. One day after Remembrance Day. On the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day of the eleventh month this entire nation stops in silent memorial, in soundless vigil, in order to remember. We will remember them. Remembrance Day was originally conceived to commemorate the heroism and sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers, many of them just teenagers, during the Great War of 1914 to 1918. In dying for their country on the fields of Flanders, in the mud of the Somme, the fog of Ypres, they held off the onslaught of a dangerous imperialism, protecting not just the interests, but the territory, of both our own sceptered isle and our allies’ sovereignty. Twenty-one years later, our military forces went in to battle again, defending not just our right to live, our very existence, but fighting against totalitarianist fascism, an evil stalking not just Europe but our entire planet and prepared to battle to the death to exterminate those they hated. We will remember them.

When we look back on the work of the British army throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries we may flinch and recoil at the political decisions that sent these brave servicemen and women in to harms way. We may argue, as we do about everything from the economy to politicians’ expenses, that the British Army has been used for less than altruistic purposes in recent times, that our dedicated military has become a pawn in the frivolity of geopolitical subterfuge. Surely, however, when we look past party political grandstanding, we can at the least agree that beneath the special interests of the suits lies the professionalism, the history, the dedication and the honour of the uniform.

Every November, then, we donate small change to the Poppy Appeal, wearing the red flowers of Flanders fields on our blazers and suits and lapels. As we go about our busy lives the red of the poppy stands out: its bold, striking colour contrasting with our grey office modernity. Across towns and cities, teeming with peripatetic humanity, red dots entrench themselves on our horizons, through our peripheral vision, in our hearts. We see the poppy and know instantly what it means, why it is there. We will remember them.

The Poppy Appeal is more than just Remembrance Sunday, each year falling on the Sunday closest to 11 November. It is more than just our political leaders laying wreaths and hearing the muted trumpet of the Last Post. Wearing poppies in November is as much about being British as employing a stiff upper lip in adversity, bemoaning inadequate public transport, using the weather as a default topic of conversation, and enjoying cups of tea. The First World War is nearly a century old. Few living in Britain today have any memory of it: the noise, the smoke, the piles of bodies, the lives wasted for so few metres of territory gained. It is said, perhaps with a rueful, folkloric nostalgia, that Londoners enjoying a Sunday lunchtime stroll in Regents Park could hear the guns of the Somme. The years between 1914 and 1918 were marked by young cheerful men leaving their homes, their families, their communities, and returning harrowed and old, shell-shocked and infirm, if they even returned at all. It is as much a story of ordinary local people, of a lost soul of England slowly burnt away, as it is about the high politics of the era, of empire, of power.

We wear poppies as a mark of respect, of grateful thanks, of remembrance. As the nights draw in, as fireworks whirl in commemoration of another of England’s seminal moments of history, poppies continue to exist as a comforting prelapsarianism in this oftentimes confused nation. Unsure of our place in the modern world, caught between memory and ambition, wearing a poppy is one of the last acts of British unity still visible in contemporary society. It represents what Abraham Lincoln once described as “the last full measure of devotion”: that their acts of gallantry and heroism, at that time and in that place, shall not perish from this earth. We will remember them.

Poppies do not just grow in the fields of northern France and Belgium. They do not just appear on our suits in paper form. We see them in other areas of modern life. In football it is now common for professional teams to play their early November matches with the poppy marked on to the shirt. Stadia hold silences as close to Remembrance Day as possible. Players, officials and fans bow their heads in tribute. In 2011 Remembrance Day falls on a Friday. A day later, our national team plays a key match in the capital city of the country that created the world’s most popular sport. This author was astounded and angry to learn that the England side has been prevented from adorning the poppy on its kit on 12 November in the match against Spain. Why? Because FIFA has banned it.

How dare they? How dare these grey-suited, grey-haired, mindless millionaires decide whether this nation’s football team can or can not wear the red poppy of Flanders on its famous white shirt? The Anglophobic machinations of FIFA are well documented but in banning the FA from using the poppy for the game against Spain they have demonstrated themselves to be beyond reproach. This is about remembering fallen soldiers fighting for freedom. It is not about journalistic investigations into FIFA corruption. It is not an excuse for payback for English self-righteousness in the wake of giving the World Cup to a nation that bans a significant proportion of their population from voting in elections, let alone even attend a football match. It is not about marking a deliberate shift from Old World dominance. No. This is beyond point scoring. This is beyond policy. This is scandalous. I have no hesitation in suggesting that if Russians or the French wore poppies in November, and wanted to on the closest fixture to their national memorial day, FIFA would say and do absolutely nothing. If Qataris, currently engaged in a brutal struggle against their oppressive political masters, adopted a symbol of resistance and of dedication to those who have already lost their lives in such a struggle, and then decided to use it on their national football kit, I am sure that FIFA’s executives would happily collect their bounty and keep quiet. FIFA’s decision to ban England from using the poppy is borne purely and simply out of a hatred of this country, an anger and resentment arising out of consternation at our free press and their investigations in to FIFA corruption, of our executive committee members having the temerity to suggest sound and open governance, of daring to speak out against a cabal of oppressors. We will remember this.

FIFA, of-course, have created a reason for their ruling. They argue that no national side should use or wear political paraphernalia. I am not aware of the poppy being an instrument, an image, an icon of political division. You can vote for any party and support the Poppy Appeal. It is not a device of the Far Right, or an icon of the Left. It is neither Labour nor Tory. It is neither Conservative nor Liberal. It is, has been, and always will be, a symbol of respect for those who have died fighting for the very political freedoms that we enjoy in this country today and which allow us to argue against our leaders, to enjoy a free press that investigates corruption, and that allows a young lawyer like myself to lend voice to thought in the form of this article.

Indeed, FIFA’s reasoning for the ban is wrong for three reasons. Firstly, the Poppy is not ‘political paraphernalia’. Those that run the Poppy Appeal have no specific political affiliation. It enjoys a broad spectrum of support across politics and society. It is possible to donate to the appeal, wear a poppy on your jacket, and conscientiously abstain from voting in any election. The poppy itself contains no wording of a political nature and, while similar to the Labour Party’s red rose emblem in that it shares a colour and is also a flower, has no iconographic basis for anyone to argue that it is in any way linked to any specific political party, pressure group or movement. It is that rarest of modern beasts: altogether wholly altruistic and philanthropic; no agenda here, Mr. Blatter. No agenda except your own.

Secondly, the use of the poppy should transcend football governance. If Sepp Blatter and his cronies want to pick a fight with the English FA (if they have not already), then there are genuine ways they can do this. FIFA can open a frank discussion about the dissemination of Premier League television money or discuss the old powers’ free executive committee voting powers. They can offer a detailed response to claims that the 2018 World Cup bidding process was far from a clean contest and can publish why the executive committee deemed England’s bid to be worthy of just two votes (including one from our own representative) despite suggesting publicly that it was “the best technical bid”. Mr. Blatter and his supporters can articulate a proper defence against English newspaper investigations into corruption and malpractice and fiduciary breaches; not through incredulous retorts and retreating in to its inner sanctum of self-congratulation and Anglo antipathy, but by working hard to iron out its failings, by explaining itself openly and honestly, by reforming and setting clear and understandable policies for the future. All such examples are within the realms of debate, of the sort of discourse mentioned at the start of this article. Wearing a poppy is not an act of controversy: it is a fundamental right, it is a commonly accepted November practice, and it is for a wholly good purpose.

For ultimately, when we strip away all of FIFA’s legalese, this decision is the very definition of hypocrisy. It is not just that it is highly disrespectful and mean spirited. It is galling because an organisation that has been shown to be entirely based on corruption, palpably living off and enjoying undeclared contributions and donations from organisations and government entities, now has the audacity to ban the use of poppies on the England kit because it supposedly amounts to political grandstanding. This, from an organisation that included an executive committee member who attempted to horde English money in exchange for voting preferences. This, from an organisation that included on its executive committee individuals seeking to swap votes and favours to ensure favourable election outcomes. We will remember this.

Poppies may pass you by. They are so common, so part of our daily life every autumn, that it perhaps matters little to you to hear that England will not wear poppies in the match against Spain. Stop for just one moment and analyse why. The poppies will be absent not because anybody involved with the England set-up refused to wear them, or because the kit manufacturers forgot. It is because the sport’s governing body, which suggests that its decisions are “for the good of the game” and which argues that football can be used to build bridges between communities, to break down walls and barriers, to restore our faith in humanity, in beauty and art, in a brighter future for all, has decided to ban this blossom of English heritage, this flower of the fallen, this Last Post of a heroic yesterday. When Sepp Blatter looks back at his career in football politics he, and the chroniclers of our time, may point to great efforts to involve as many nations as possible in the World Cup, to bring football workshops and events to third world countries, to new schemes that have seen household names help pressure governments in deprived areas to invest in better infrastructure, improved aids projects and political reform. Yet amidst the positive patronage, amidst the development of football as a global phenomenon, we will remember the scandal, the outrage, the inconsistency, the hypocrisy, the meddling, the gifting of hosting rights, the accepting of bribes and now, Blatter’s souring denouement, the banning of the poppy.

When we take to the field against Spain on 12 November 2011, my sincerest hope is that the English FA puts poppies on the shirts anyway, and turns around to FIFA and asks them to do their worst, to bring on the committees and the hearings and the comments. Sometimes football politics brings out the worst in football, but football can bring out the best in people, in humanity. At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, and on our blazers and on our jackets, in our homes and on our streets, in our hearts and in our minds, through our silences and amidst our discourse and, yes, on our football kits: we will remember them.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Jewish Supporters and Why Baddiel Is Wrong

2011-04-15T23:12:00.002+01:00

Apparently I’m being racially abused. Yes, it’s true. Ask David Baddiel. He’s Jewish and he likes football so he should know. Don’t worry about asking any other Jewish football fans; just adopt the default setting of the persecuted outcast and complain. It’s the only way to make the bigots see sense on the terraces of White Hart Lane and beyond.

Or is it? David Baddiel is a smart man. He went to Haberdashers’. So it was with some surprise that I discovered he is fronting a new campaign to raise awareness of anti-Semitism in football. Of-course, there is absolutely nothing wrong with conducting a public exercise in informing people of the problems of racism. Such a display of philanthropic morality is to be applauded. In modern day Britain we live in a world of both vocal and silent oppression. The days of Brick Lane riots may be long gone, but the sinister guise of homophobia, xenophobia, hatred and idiocy still lurks on our street corners and estates, in our places of work and, sadly, through the dogma of some extremist political parties. In many ways David Baddiel is being perfectly avant-garde in his decision to lend voice to thought and publicity to propriety.

Unfortunately this is the right campaign carried out in the wrong way; the correct sentiment utterly confused with incorrect methodology. Anti-semitism exists in football; this much is true. We’ve all heard opposition fans hissing in evil reproduction of the noise of gas chambers. Some of us may have even been subjected to direct chants of real racial venom, songs and phrases that go way beyond what can be publically understood as ‘banter’ and well across the line into blatant abuse. A campaign to raise awareness of such incidences is important. It brings the problem to the forefront of national debate, concentrating the minds of our policing and political authorities towards tackling the problem, and hopefully encouraging the silent majority to stand up and shout down the racially prejudiced. Baddiel’s campaign would be fine if that appeared to be its overriding objective and, for all I know, perhaps it is. Perhaps the ultimate aim is to achieve just that: a new wave of citizens fighting back against the appalling behaviour of a small minority of extremists. If that is the case, then I applaud and lend my support to a scheme that, if it was intending such an end, is as nuanced as it is principled.

Sadly I am afraid Baddiel has completely missed the point. It is startling that so much of the dialogue that this campaign has created has been about the use of the word ‘yid’ at places like Tottenham Hotspur FC. On its own, or out of the context of a football match at White Hart Lane or another Spurs-related event elsewhere, this word would undoubtedly cause offence. It is steeped in a history of persecution, arising etymologically from Eastern European ‘Yiddish’ language, which mixed German, Polish and Russian with Hebrew into a vernacular of specific peculiarity to Ashkenazi Judaism. The Nazis would abbreviate Yiddish speakers to ‘Yids’. It became a by-word for segregation, for misinterpretation, for the ghetto, the concentration camps. Even earlier than Hitler, the term ‘Yid’ had been used to separate Jews from locals in Russian villages during the Pogroms of the late nineteenth century. Go back through annals of Jewish history, and the word ‘Yid’ has been used not so much by Jews themselves, but by those who have sought to isolate them, to control them, to destroy them.

Imagine the following scenario: a businessman is chairing a meeting and introducing each participant. Round the table he goes, using first names, last names, nicknames, informally and affably combining the professional with the casual as he takes control of the session ahead. Reaching a Jewish man at the table, the chairman describes him as a ‘yid’. Is this socially unacceptable, humiliating, degrading, inappropriate and offensive? Yes, absolutely.

Now imagine the next scenario: it is 1973 and English football is rife with racism, dominated by white masters in boardrooms and white supremacists in the stands. Tottenham Hotspur are playing a home game and the visiting supporters start singing a song about Auschwitz. Knowing that Spurs have more Jewish supporters than any other team (although Arsenal are a very close second), these visiting supporters immediately latch on to the fact that, somewhere near them in the stadium, will be a Jew. Is the song as equally disgusting and illegal as the businessman in the scenario above? Yes, absolutely.

If Baddiel was trying to fight against instances akin to those described above, we’d be discussing a campaign of genuine altruism. Racism of any form should not be tolerated anywhere, but in the UK in 2011 it is a downright disgrace that its menace still stalks our streets. We live in the age of information, where knowledge is but a click, a touch screen, away. With the dissemination of ideas and opinions comes an opportunity to educate. This should be a time of ever-increasing harmony, not through a new closeness in our coalition politics, but simply out of pure understanding of each other, of why and how we are they way we are. I feel proud to live in a free country like the UK, where any and all religions are tolerated, where our right to protest is celebrated and encouraged, where our troops fight for similar freedoms around the world, where we can be as bright a beacon of hope for humanity as the great revolutionaries that have gone before in America, in France and, yes, in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet still our progress is hampered by a moronic few, the sub-intelligent detriments to development. We can all see how the British National Party feeds on basic social fears and political vacuums, feeding worried communities with propaganda and vitriol, anger and resentment. Violence begets violence, misunderstanding begets misunderstanding. Across generations such sentiment breeds and festers, a cancerous molecule redoubling with every passing year in isolated localities under siege from extremists. Their racism needs documenting. Our freedom depends on it.

You do not need to be Jewish, or a football fan, to know that the two illustrations I set out above are not, or were not, beyond the realms of possibility. In the 1970s, anti-semitism really was rife, not just in football but throughout society. Football, with its already laddish culture of booze and banter, was an easy breeding ground for such acerbic extremist behaviour. Tottenham supporters were easy targets and something had to be done. In the way that only football fans can, supporters of Spurs turned the anti-Semitic chants and songs on to the racists themselves. It was, and is, a display of sheer genius from the terraces of N17; reserve psychology so impressive that for forty years or so Tottenham Hotspur has imbued a sense of defiance in the face of anti-Semites, taking on the label of ‘yids’ not as a crest of abuse but a badge of honour. Racists cannot sing songs about ‘yids’ if the Jews themselves are referring to their team and their fellow fans as ‘yiddos’.

David Baddiel should understand context and shame on him for miscomprehending it or, worse still, ignoring it. Tottenham Hotspur supporters define themselves as the ‘yid army’ to shut the racists up. While it is no doubt true that some Spurs fans themselves will be idiotic bigots and unaware of why we do this, the vast majority know that this is a club that has spent many years fighting against oppressive supremacists. It might have started as gallows humour or simply psychosomatic mockery and repartee between rival sets of supporters, but Tottenham’s identification with Jewish terminology and paraphernalia was borne out of a sense of injustice and of needing to find a way to stop the hatred.

The real racists are the ones hissing about gas chambers, or mocking those in turbans, or beating up black people. They are not 36,000 Spurs fans lifting blue-and-white Israeli flags with ‘THFC’ on them, or telling Jermain Defoe he is a ‘yiddo’ because he plays for their beloved team. It may not be to everyone’s taste, but it helps create a community, a history, a togetherness. The irony is that such features, if adopted throughout mainstream society, would help lock the door on racists forever. Bigotry breeds during moments of uncertainty and fear, when the walls of society start to break down, when cracks appear in our socio-economic cohesion. David Cameron may not be explaining ‘the Big Society’ very well, but the underlying motif is right: only through creating a real sense of community on our streets will we be able to treat each other with the understanding, respect and freedom that we all deserve.

Let me be clear. On its own, out of context and away from the stadium, calling someone a ‘yid’ is insulting and offensive. Spurs fans refer to each other by the use of this term not to offend others, but out of a sense of uniqueness through togetherness. It is a complex concept, merging together a small religion’s sense of persecution into a large societal movement, acknowledging our isolation by letting a larger association take on our struggle with us. This is not about shouting the word ‘yid’ randomly on the street. It is about understanding why Spurs fans use the term, where it comes from and what it means. When you go to the trouble of learning the situation’s nuance, intricacy and history it puts the onus back on David Baddiel to refocus his efforts more appropriately to the situation.

On Wednesday 20 April 2011, Spurs will play Arsenal at White Hart Lane: the North London Derby between the two sides in England with the most Jewish supporters. Baddiel’s video will be shown on the big screens. His virtuous ambition should be applauded. Sadly for all concerned, the strategy and logic to achieve such lofty and respected aims is simplistic. Important issues deserve intelligent solutions, not lowest-common-denominator philosophy. Jewish football fans deserve better than that; after all, we’ve been fighting this battle for decades. Without David Baddiel, and in our own peculiar way, we seem to be getting somewhere. Gareth Bale will still be a ‘yiddo’ when he runs over towards the Shelf Side to take a corner. Spurs will still be the ‘yid army’, not just as a battle cry to fight the opposition on the pitch, but to take on the racists at their own game in the stands.

2010: On A Whim And A Prayer

2010-12-31T14:16:00.004Z

Nick Carraway, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s erstwhile narrative conscience in ‘The Great Gatsby’, remarks that he is “the most honest man”. In the context of that novel, that remarkable study of intimate personal feelings and unfathomably large, continental ideologies, he might well be right. J. D. Salinger, however, can surely lay claim to the most truthful remark in modern literature. Again uttered through the author’s choric voice, Holden Caulfield, in ‘The Catcher In The Rye’, tells us to “never tell anybody anything. If you do you only start missing everyone.”

This is significant, I feel, as we fast approach another new year. The world is smaller than it has ever been, split into manageable pieces by modern technology and communications, allowing us near-constant links to every corner of the globe from any far-flung destination. We live in exciting times, a social media revolution that means we are never more than one click, one touch-screen, away from a multitude of communication forms. Of-course, to say that we communicate does not mean the same as saying we connect.

It is interesting how relevant Salinger’s viewpoint is in the final moments of 2010 and the embryonic stages of 2011. We can now “tell anybody anything” across a number of platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, Skype to Foursquare, Blackberry Messenger to Whatsapp. As information disseminates at an increasingly rapid pace, we find ourselves opining, narrating, articulating and displaying our lives to all and sundry, even if that is not the sole intention of our various publications. Go back through your Facebook posts from the past twelve months. You have, whether you wanted to or not, kept a diary. Despite this, it may be that you are able to enter into a dialogue with our modernity without becoming embroiled in the psychosomatic elements of it. I have never been quite so stoic. No. For me, Salinger is correct. The more I tell people, the more I miss them. Yet still I tell and still I miss.

This poses a problem. Does one shut up shop in 2011 and retreat to an earlier, perhaps a more innocent and simpler time? Do we compartmentalise our conscious and subconscious communiqués into the general and random on the one hand, and the specific on the other – Facebook status updates and 147-character Tweets that say very little to many or so much to someone? I’m minded to adopt the stance of Alfieri from Miller’s ‘A View From The Bridge’ and settle for half. Will I like that better?

Would I do it differently if offered the chance? Ultimately that is the wrong question. Could I do it differently? That would be more appropriate. And no, I could not. I like that this year I have taken chances, run risks, stared fate in the face. My decisions and, indeed, indecisions may not have all worked out perfectly. There is, however, in the midst of the paranoia of another year passed and potentially wasted, comfort in our certain uncertains: that everything changes and nothing changes. Nick Hornby had it right in ‘Fever Pitch’: “If you lose the FA Cup Final in May, there’s always the third round to look forward to in January. And what’s wrong with that? It’s sort of comforting when you think about it.”

So how was 2010 for you? Was it everything you wished for? Did the feeling you had this time last year turn in to an impressive premonition of what was to come, or were your hopes and fears misguided and unfounded, arising as they did out of the inevitable emotional firestorm of alcohol and an acute awareness of the rapid passing of time? I’ll look back on 2010 as a year of utter chaos, of dizzying highs and sadly predictable lows. In the space of twelve bizarre months, I’ve started a job of at times oppressing intensity, travelled to the southern United States on what can only be described as a whim and a prayer, watched my sister get married, observed a political revolution in the UK and searched in earnest for an apartment to call my own. The above list, of-course, is hardly indicative of the entirety of a twelve months. You get the general idea. I could delve further here, could provide you with unique personal insights. Without wanting to sound either esoteric or deliberately annoying, what I can tell you is that while the world around us has changed immeasurably in the past twelve months, I remain as I ever was and doubtless ever will be. There is something both monumentally frightening and consoling about that in equal measure.

If Salinger is right, if it is true that opening up to people you care about only results in missing them terribly, is it best to remain closed off and private, despite the near impossibility of this in our world of omnipresent communications? ‘The Catcher In The Rye’ has often reared its head this year, both in terms of its last-line conundrum, but also in its overriding motif: that there are some of us who are lost in the world, not entirely certain of which way we are going or which way we have come, and at times merely wanting, for want of a better thing to do, to stand in a field and catch people coming out of the rye and heading for a fall.

John Lennon, in probably his finest lyric, remarked that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. So, in all honesty, I have not been able to be the catcher in the rye for all that long. Moreover, and perhaps here is the only way that the idea of Holden Caulfield being a catcher in the rye matches up with his epitaph of missing everyone, it seems that to catch people in the way Salinger describes it, the people in question have to want to be caught.

Perhaps that is the greatest lesson of 2010. You can tell people everything in the hope of absolution, of common ground, of love, life and the pursuit of happiness. Such displays of affection, honesty and attempts at the substance of what is hoped for will not always result in mutual understanding, warmth or candour. Neither will they stop you missing those who you communicate such messages to. And they certainly do not turn us into catchers in the rye.

Yet the alternative is not in my philosophy, and so I beat on, boat against an at times bewildering current, continually laying myself open to the dual onslaughts of sentiment and posterity, honesty and nostalgia. After all, you have to try. If you haven’t tried you haven’t lived.

You only live once. Doesn’t it go by in a blink?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now I am quietly waiting for
the catastrophe of my personality
to seem beautiful again,
and interesting, and modern.

The country is grey and
brown and white in trees;
snows and skies of laughter
always diminishing, less funny
not just darker, not just grey.

It may be the coldest day of the year.
What does he think of that?
I mean, what do I?
And if I do, perhaps I am myself again.

Frank O’Hara, ‘Meditations In An Emergency’.

Social Networking: Liable for Libel?

2010-09-22T21:39:00.004+01:00

Living in the midst of a social networking revolution is not without its legal consequences. The rapid advance of our current communications options has made the world smaller than ever before. Communities are linked by electronic immediacy in a new one-click culture of all-consuming information. Facebook, Twitter and Skype are not just internet platforms for cyber fiends; they are populist portals, available for free on computers, phones and e-tablets. They consolidate and disseminate our thoughts and our movements; our lives. Amidst this tsunami of data lurks a new form of litigation. Social media libel may not be at the forefront of an average microblogger's mind, but for media lawyers in the twenty-first century it is fast becoming the defining defamation battlefield. Radio, television and the print media may still be the subject of last-minute super-injunctions and traditional conflicts over libel and privacy actions, but as social networking pulses through the fabric of modern society, so too does the possibility of internet libel on an increasing scale.

Litigation based on social networking has advanced dramatically in the past ten years, creating a number of considerations for legal teams. Issues of publication, jurisdiction and meaning, alongside limitation period reform, are regular themes. This article surmises these key trends and offers a commentary on legal developments.

Traditional libel actions tend to involve conventional media where it is reasonably simple to locate, and bring a claim against, the publisher of the statement. Social media affords publishers a cloak of anonymity, allowing users of networking sites to veil themselves under the guise of usernames and pseudonyms, operating out of web pages run by internet service providers (ISPs) that have little or no connection with the individual. The landmark case of Godfrey v Demon Internet (Godfrey v Demon Internet [2000] 3 WLR 1020) held that an ISP cannot argue a defence of innocent dissemination if it is given due notification that a defamatory statement has been published by a user of its site. It is clear that an ISP can only avoid becoming a party to litigation if it can prove to have no knowledge of the defamatory material, or a reasonable belief that the material was not defamatory, or if reasonable efforts were made to remove the statement as soon as possible upon notification.

While such methods may remove an ISP's potential liability, they remain intrinsic players in identifying the ultimate wrongdoer. Many internet libel actions require the originally anonymous publisher of the statement to be identified through a Norwich Pharmacal disclosure order (Norwich Pharmacal Co v Customs & Excise Commissioners [1973] 3 WLR 164). Such an order compels an ISP to provide details of the potentially offending publisher, including the IP address of the specific computer used to make the statement.

Norwich Pharmacal's relevance is helpfully illustrated by the July 2010 settlement between Orlando Figes (the defendant), an historian and writer, and two rival academics (the claimants), after the defendant posted fake reviews of the claimants' books on Amazon. The defendant originally argued that he had not published the comments. A subsequent Norwich Pharmacal order, obtained by the claimants against Amazon's ISP, traced the statements back to the defendant.

Obtaining a Norwich Pharmacal order can, however, be a lengthy process, and may involve considerable expense. This is particularly the case in relation to the world's most popular social networking sites, often with headquarters in the USA. In October 2009 the High Court gave permission for an injunction to be served via Twitter on an unknown user who had been masquerading as the right-wing political commentator Donal Blaney. Beyond obtaining a disclosure order against Twitter's ISP, this was the only way to make contact with the individual. This followed an Australian case where a court order was served through Facebook. Lawyers now have recourse to both the Norwich Pharmacal approach to identify publishers of potential social media libels, and new opportunities to use the same networking platforms where the statements are made to bring an immediate action.

Social networking is an international phenomenon, crossing borders and continents instantaneously. Identifying the ultimate wrongdoer and enforcing a claim is complicated further by jurisdictional issues. A libellous statement posted on a social networking site could be the catalyst for libel actions in a number of countries simultaneously. The case of Gutnick v Dow Jones (Gutnick v Dow Jones [2001] www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VSC/2001/305.html), in the Supreme Court of Australia, held that the Australian claimant could sue the American defendant company in Australia for comments about the claimant published on the defendant's website. The internationalisation of internet defamation has created a myriad of jurisdictional issues for lawyers and potential expenses for clients. Some jurisdictions do not recognise judgments formed in the courts of others. This is most notable in the USA, where UK libel judgments are prevented from being enforced. An interesting development, then, has been the use of the social networks themselves, almost as their own quasi-jurisdictions, as the recent service of claim forms and injunctions on Facebook and Twitter has demonstrated, circumventing the need for multiple service (and excessive legal fees) across a number of courts.

While issues of publication and jurisdiction have posed problems for litigators, successful actions still require the basic elements of defamation to be successfully made out. Courts have been quick to point out a difference between networking frivolity, as evidenced by casual and informal statements on message boards and chat rooms, and more serious statements that 'lower the estimation of the claimant in the eyes of right thinking members of society' (Section 1, Defamation Act 1996). The cases of Islam Expo Ltd v The Spectator (Islam Expo Ltd v The Spectator (1828) and another [2010] EWHC 2011 (QB)) and Sheffield Wednesday v Hargreaves (Sheffield Wednesday Football Club and seven others v Neil Hargreaves [2007] EWHC 2375 (QB)) demonstrate this. In Islam Expo the Court felt that, while words about the claimant were published on the defendant's website over a period of seven months and formed part of general message board discussions, it was important to put potentially defamatory words and statements into their proper context and meaning, and for their seriousness to be judged accordingly. The claimant company helped organise a bi-annual Islamic exhibition, which went by the same name as the company. While some internet message board posts were deemed to be casual and without malice, and hyperlinks in the text of the complained-of statements did not infer anything libellous on their own, the Court felt it perverse not to infer that the complained-of statements were defamatory of the claimant company rather than just the event being organised. The statements were of sufficient seriousness to bring a successful claim precisely because of the context and mode within which they were made.

Message board posts were also critically evaluated in the Sheffield Wednesday case. The claimant football club, who wanted a Norwich Pharmacal order against a fansite's ISP in order to disclose the identity of its posters, were concerned by statements on the site that were allegedly defamatory of the claimant's board of directors. The Court distinguished between informal football colloquialisms and more serious suggestions as to the alleged greed, untrustworthiness and dishonesty of the claimant's board. The order was thus granted only against the ISP for users of the site whose messages were deemed serious enough within the context of the overall manner of the other posts.

In the case of Bryce v Barber (Bryce v Barber [2010] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/7912731/Law-student-wins-10000-after-being-branded-a-paedophile-on-Facebook.html) Tugendhat J pointed out that at the heart of the case was the defamatory material, rather than it happening to be on Facebook. Here, the defendant inferred the claimant was homosexual and a paedophile by posting child pornography on Facebook with an accompanying picture of the claimant alongside a comment. The claimant was ultimately awarded £10,000 in damages after it was shown that, despite the relatively short period of time that the material was published for in comparison with conventional media forms, there had been over eleven links to the post, two independent comments and that more than 800 users could have viewed the material. The Court held that the defendant had acted with intent and malice, and ruled that arguments raised by the defence regarding the temporal nature of the material due to it being on Facebook were irrelevant. The material had clearly defamed the claimant, regardless of its form.

Bryce affirmed the landmark decision in Firsht v Raphael (Firsht (Applause Store Productions Limited) v Raphael [2008] EWHC 1781 (QB)), which was the first libel and privacy case to reach trial concerning Facebook. It demonstrated that the level of damages for defamatory material posted online can be substantial, even if the material only remains available to the public for a limited period. The defendant argued damages should be low because the material had only been available for 16 days, but the Court did not accept this. Instead, the Court held that an action could be brought for libellous material in the social media arena and that existing libel and privacy law would be applied. The fact that the material was only available for 16 days was countered by the specific issues caused by it being published on Facebook. While only temporarily available, the nature of Facebook meant the material could be viewed many times over, particularly as the fake profile that formed the crux of the libellous material was signed up to Facebook's London network, and was thus searchable by over 700,000 people at the time.

It is clear that Courts are assessing alleged libels through traditional applications of defamation law whilst acknowledging the complexities of social media: multiple cross-border publications, intra-jurisdictional challenges, and instantaneous electronic reproductions.

The Firsht case encapsulated all such issues into one legal landmark, involving a Norwich Pharmacal order to trace the creation of the fake profile to the defendant's computer, a discussion over publication and damages, and conventional application of the law of intent and malice. Since that decision in 2008, internet defamation has gone from being an unusual precedent to a legal certainty. Looking ahead, debate is likely to centre on limitation period reform. In an era of re-tweets, shared links and virals, a greater degree of regulation is needed when managing the time in which a claimant can bring an action. As social media networks develop apace on personal computers and phones globally, lawyers now find themselves representing clients in libel actions across a multitude of media forms and must strive to keep a step ahead of our socio-technological revolution's rapid advance.

Britain On The Brink: The 2010 Election

2010-05-06T00:26:00.001+01:00

A world financial crisis. The constant threat of foreign and domestic terrorism. Controversial immigration. A battle between traditional and modern sources of energy. Troops engaged in battle in far-flung corners of the world. Social and familial breakdowns. This is no ordinary British election.

Every so often the populations of world democracies find themselves standing at a pivotal precipice. In the United Kingdom, on Thursday 6 May 2010, the British public will take part in the most important general election in a generation. Never has politics and democracy been so pertinently relevant to the people of Britain. Rarely has a campaign been so unpredictable, so controversial. For the first time in recent memory, a genuine third choice has emerged in the form of Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats. Inspiring in his articulate debating style, Clegg’s rise to fame has been as aspirational as it was unlikely, and with it the political landscape as we know it has been permanently altered.

In 1997, Tony Blair famously uttered that ‘there is a third way’. He referred, of course, to internal Labour party struggles, the divisions between his vision for the future of the party, and the old unionist version that he wanted to consign to the scrapheap of history. Today, in an unpredictable and fragile twenty-first century, the third way is not internalised within a particular party structure, but instead presents itself on the ballot paper; a referendum, if you will, not just on who should become our governing party, but on the future of our politics, of our society. While this writer is not necessarily convinced by Liberal Democrat policies, it is clear that politics has renewed itself, that our ability to choose and be inspired has dramatically increased, that there is cause for optimism amidst the gloom and despair of recent times.

It is of vital importance, then, that each of us takes part on Thursday. Over the course of many centuries, this country has paved a road towards universal suffrage, a world leader in fighting for each person’s right to have their say, to raise their voice, to make a difference. To walk to your polling station, to strike an ‘x’ next to your preferred candidate, is the very definition of a display of individual liberty. At a time when our trust in politicians is at a nadir, it is still important to maintain faith in the overriding values of our democracy, and indeed of our country; ideals of free markets and free people, social cohesion and responsibility, duty and fairness. There is, after all, much to be optimistic about. Despite our financial and social troubles, this is still a wonderful place to live. The political commentator Andrew Marr once said that to be born British is in fact a remarkable stroke of luck. We may have a budget deficit, but this is still a nation with a welfare state, with magnificent cities, famous cultural icons, free access to healthcare, a military to be proud of, and a multicultural haven for people from all over the world seeking opportunity and freedom, strong civic and legal justice and tolerance.

Despite the ideological flavour of the prose, this is not an American-style election, despite David Cameron and Nick Clegg repeatedly using the Obama mantra of ‘change’. In my mind, no candidate in this election is seriously bending the arc of history once more toward the hope of a better day. There is no grassroots movement shaking down the traditionalist walls of the political establishment, despite our obvious annoyance at the behaviour of many politicians. No. This is a very British election. We debate with a civilised politeness. We resist political subterfuge. We travel across half the country to apologise to pensioners. The candidate who preaches most about change, about establishing a new order, is in fact a public schoolboy from the upper middle class. His name is Nick Clegg.

What this campaign has really demonstrated, has really illustrated to our nation, is that in 2010 we are not certain of our place in the world and how we want to be perceived. Should we look solely to Europe? Should we preserve our special relationship with America? Should we retreat completely, bruised and battered by our forays into global politics over many decades of engagement under leaders like Thatcher and Blair? It seems to this author that Britain must somehow strike a balance between all these issues. We are stronger when we engage with Europe, but not to the extent that we pander to its beaurocratic web of confusion. We are more relevant when we work closely with America, though never again should we let the White House dominate Downing Street over where we send our troops without so much as an iota of support when we have our own foreign issues to deal with. We are more stable when we concentrate on home affairs, knowing that we can only really offer a voice of progress in the world at large when we have cohesion and social advancement at home.

Given that these are the issues which both unite and divide us, which party seems most aligned to the obvious solutions? While the partisan amongst you will cling steadfastly to your views and decisions, many of us remain unsure, cautious of pinning our political colours to the mast, preferring to wait until the last possible moment before making our date with electoral destiny. The polls reflect our uncertainty. The make up of our parliament hangs in the balance. Quite literally.

Not every aspect of the Labour party’s thirteen years in power has been bad for this country. Though success has been limited more specifically to the Blair years, the new Labour experiment has, for the most part, been positive. Boom and bust may now be the catch-phrase of our catch-22 economic downturn, but at the least it helped establish the City of London’s Square Mile as the preeminent financial and legal district of the world. Labour liberated the Bank of England, legalised civil partnerships, abolished cruel and archaic fox-hunting, engaged in wars of ethics in Kosovo, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan, brought Northern Ireland towards peace and modern political acquiescence, cut NHS waiting times (just) and got more young people into universities (perhaps too many). Tony Blair, rightly or wrongly, managed to cement Britain’s role in the contemporary arena of international affairs. The Blair-Brown years coincided with a revolution in British cultural sensibilities. ‘Cool Britannia’ dominated the worlds of fashion and cuisine, film and theatre, music and architecture. London grew not just as an economic powerhouse, but equally attracted a global significance last seen at the height of the British Empire, on par with New York as a true city of the modern age.

Whether Gordon Brown clings on to the keys of 10 Downing Street after Thursday or not, it is hard for even staunch critics of New Labour to forcibly argue that the United Kingdom is, at least on a societal level, worse off than it was at the end of John Major’s premiership in 1997. However, a closer look beyond the PR and the spin indicates that Labour have not properly capitalised on three terms of impressive parliamentary majorities. Socially our communities remain divided, caught in a crossfire of claims and counterclaims, mutual suspicion and distrust, waylaid by council beurocracy and paperwork, underfunded or overpaid, too readily interfered with by the meddling hands of the neurotic central government and incapable of reaching out to those in society most in need of help. As a result we have, as Bobby Kennedy once warned, a number of cities that are not communities, of counties that are not locally connected, of ethnic, national and class groups who have been allowed to wallow in their resentment for too long.

No part of this Labour government’s election campaign has inspired any confidence that another five years of Gordon Brown will enhance ordinary life on the streets of our towns and cities. While the big institutions and offices of state may well find themselves basking in the glow of short-term public spending, little will filter through to local councils and youth workers and community activists, the sparks in the engine of our country. Over the past thirteen years, Britain has consolidated and enhanced its position as a world power, yet at the same time has become incapable of mending its own broken society. Gordon Brown’s current politics of fear will not save his party, and nor should it. We need a strong Opposition, a solid and dependable critic to bring the government consistently and appropriately to account. Only Labour’s defeat will achieve this, offering a movement with high ideals and poor execution the chance to undergo its first leadership election since 1994, replacing the static, stoic, stolid and stunted Gordon Brown with a better, younger, idealistic alternative. Labour could become the party for the masses once again if it undergoes an intensive reboot during a much-needed period of time on the other side of the House of Commons aisle. David Milliband would be an exciting and attractive prospect leading Labour into the general election of 2015.

What of Clegg’s Liberal Democrats, the surprise contenders punching above their weight as we head to the polls? No doubt he is a deeply intelligent political player, adept at feeding on populist sensibilities and providing neat soundbites for the media. Skilled at public relations and slick electioneering, Clegg has drilled the Lib Dems into a campaigning machine, full of the slights of hand and subtleties of Tony Blair in his pomp, positioning his party as a new option to replace the old guard of tired policies representing antiquated politicians. These are the natural reactions to Clegg’s outstanding performances in the Prime Ministerial debates, as he neatly sidestepped real scrutiny over a number of dangerous and poorly explained policies by sounding and looking modern and relevant, and by continually articulating a message of difference to his two opponents. The reality, much as it pains this author to admit it, is that Nick Clegg resembles a rather earnest sixth form student, anxious to impress at a Model United Nations conference and to tell us what he would do if he was a Prefect. This writer would love to be a Clegg supporter, and would enjoy his rise to prominence a lot more, if he could match substantive and intelligent policies with his already obviously impressive style of politicking.

However, his positions on Europe, on our nuclear deterrent, on a frankly bizarre system of geographically positioning immigrants into specific skill-set locations, are beyond the acceptable limit of pandering populism. These are the manifesto hallmarks of a group of politicians who simply had not considered seriously the fact that they might be genuine players in this election. Their own wealthy benefactors must be shuddering at the thought of a 50% tax hike. Investors in the City of London who had previously appeared to be supporters of Clegg must be anxiously looking at mainland Europe’s inability to aid Greece, itself a member of the Euro currency club, at a time when the Liberal Democrats continue to make positive noises about the UK joining the single coinage. Moreover, while Clegg’s desire to see a nuclear free Britain taking an active role in a nuclear free world should be lauded, his idealism is dangerous. The complete removal from planet Earth of all nuclear weapons would be wonderful. Never again would mankind stare into the abyss of annihilation at the behest of our warheads. Every serious political player who wants to be the Prime Minister of Great Britain should be forthright and immediate in working hard to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to gradually reduce the stockpiles of the nuclear club. There are, however, safe ways to do this, and Nick Clegg’s policy of unilaterally not renewing Trident, our own nuclear deterrent, is not only reactionary; it is counter-productive. The sight of a British Prime Minister signing away the UK’s nuclear capabilities at a time when rogue states are continuing to develop their technology of terror and terrorists themselves are closer to getting their warped minds and hands on a dirty bomb will not cause other nations to follow suit. Instead we will be reduced to bit-part players in the vital global struggle to reduce our arms, no longer relevant or significant or even sure of our UN Security Council position and influence to shape the world in the way that we would like to see it become for generations to follow us. Nick Clegg may be the most earnest and hazardous man in Britain.

Which leaves us with David Cameron and the Conservatives. Does anybody want to actually vote Conservative? It seems that every time an ‘x’ is marked next to a Tory candidate it is etched with a heavy heart, a resignation to settle for it in this election. Hardly a ringing mandate. Yet it was never trendy to vote Conservative, and perhaps Cameron has done more than most Conservative politicians to make his party acceptable and relevant and electable once again. Michael Howard, the former leader of the party, ran a campaign in 2005 that played on fear and social divisions and pandered to a hardcore Tory base of right-wing snobs. Thank goodness for the Conservatives and the country at large that Cameron has brought the party kicking and screaming into the modern age, callously cajoling its traditionalist powerbase into abandoning age-old entrenched ideologies and policies that were rooted in aristocratic entitlement and an indifference to change. He may be an Eton toff, but at least Cameron understands modern Britain, how our society has changed so indelibly in the past ten years, and why the voting public are more discerning than ever before. His decision to begin public spending cuts immediately upon winning an election, rather than Gordon Brown’s policy of continued public spending for another year to secure our financial recovery, is the key policy issue and difference at this election, even if other philosophies and national moods dominate headlines. Whether he is right remains to be seen, but there is something persuasive in Cameron’s steadfast commitment to starting the process of managing our budget deficit rather than leaving it for another year. It means, of course, potentially unimaginable hardship for many of us, including rising unemployment and the failure of many businesses. Yet it may be our only hope, and at the very least gets the unfortunate process started faster and sooner than Gordon Brown’s options.

It is also clear that Cameron has forged a new wing of his party, one of social modernity and liberalism, where traditional free-market values are maintained, but this time played out against a more concerted attempt from the party machine to understand the sensibilities of the modern British citizen: compassionate, pluralist, forward-thinking. Cameron’s economic policy seems drastic, but he has skilfully portrayed it as optimistic, as the best option to make the economy, and thus our country, better. At a time of uncertainty, of momentous sea-changes of emotion and practicality, as our city streets reverberate to fearful messages of hard times to come, it is no bad thing, in this election and at this pivotal time, to vote for the candidate and party that has campaigned on optimism and positivity and faith in how great our nation is and can be.

These are but one ordinary voting citizen’s musings. The real beauty in our democracy is that the ultimate decision is down to you. This really is the most important British general election in a generation, and the voting sensibilities of the great British public will secure either a decisive victory for one party above any other, or alternatively deliver a verdict of minority uncertainty, of a parliament balanced in its seat proportions but unbalanced in how it can ever get anything done. Should we be concerned by a hung parliament, by the people delivering a verdict in keeping with the prevalent feeling of simply not being sure? I believe not. Democracy, in its infinite wisdom, will find a way.

Across the world many national populations will be envious of the opportunity before us, of the chance to walk into a polling station and cast a vote, the thrill and honour of taking part in having a say, making a difference, being counted. Politics may bring out the worst in people, but our engagement in the process can still bring out the best in politics, and while so much of the world covets what we take for granted, and while our own future is so delicately poised, it is a near categorical imperative to go out and vote.

We will soon discover what Britain we will live in for the next few years in an already tumultuous century. Have your say. Casting a vote in an election is a gift: it is our present and affects our future. The UK must awake, arise and decide.

“You have a decision to make. Don't vote for us because you think we're perfect. Don't vote for us because of what we might be able to do for you only. Vote for the person who shares your ideals. Your hopes. Your dreams. Vote for the person who most embodies what you believe we need to keep our nation strong and free. And when you have done that you can go back home with your head held high and say, 'I voted.’” Matt Santos in ‘The West Wing’.

"Until Then I'll Spend My Money, Right On Down To My Last Dime..."

2010-02-22T15:24:00.007Z

There are few sensations more unnerving than flying through the middle of a Gulf of Mexico thunderstorm. Battered and buffeted by storm clouds and pressure systems, swept to and fro by high winds, dodging lightning bolts and encroaching thunder claps, you cannot help but be awkwardly aware of your own mortality. Modern aircraft are designed to survive turbulence of apocalyptic proportions, including even being struck by lightning itself, but this fact, however well-meaningfully articulated by those in the travel industry, fails to strike a chord when ten and a half hours into a flight you are face to face with gathering clouds of rumbling, roaring significance.
I have, you may remember, blogged before about fun and frolics at 36,000 feet. Being not the most confident flyer in the world, I was obviously a little concerned that the thunderstorm landing into Houston, Texas, was laced with both a literal and metaphorical symbolism, an ominous, portentous harbinger of troubles brewing. On reflection, and leaning heavily on my ability to recite the Desiderata by heart, I am now confident that such fears were borne of fatigue and/or loneliness (delete where applicable). It can be disheartening to spend the duration of a long-haul flight on a half-empty plane with nobody to talk to, while the time-lapse and journey duration were obviously contributing factors to a high dosage of fatigue. Such rumblings of negative emotional thunder dissipated as swiftly as the real storm and, once customs had been dealt with the standard clash of cultures that inevitably emerge when the least subtle security nation in the world collides with weary and sarcastic British folk, soon it was time to enjoy the ultimate in travelling experiences, the airport reunion.
Richard Curtis has made many mistakes during his career as sit-com writer, rom-com creator and charity commissioner for the entire continent of Africa. The Boat That Rocked, for example, really sucked. He is, however, responsible for a wonderful little speech at the beginning of Love Actually, a film so perfectly simple in its scope and ambition that it is bewildering as to how it engenders such vociferous debate between film fans as to its merits (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view). I am firmly in the ‘pro’ camp, seeing it not only as a perfect Christmas treat, but a love song to my home city, not to mention the fact that the film was released during a particular moment and time in my young life that seemed to align cleverly with how I was thinking and feeling at that precise moment. With that in mind, the opening speech, delivered against a backdrop of real CCTV footage of genuine travelers greeting each other at the arrival gates at London Heathrow, has always struck a chord. However, beyond the obviously happy instances of greeting family members at the airport, and one or two other occasions that I have no need to go into detail about here, I had not enjoyed the happy circumstance of my own Love Actually moment until I landed in Houston. While not the arrival gates at Heathrow Airport, they were still arrival gates, and being face to face with someone that you have spent so much time talking to, and so much emotion thinking about, helps affirm those beautiful Curtis words: ‘It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s there.’
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is itself an interesting place to spend some time. It has all the quintessential Southern values and charm that I mentioned when previously blogging on my travels through the Deep South of America, but, as a college town, there is also a sense of urban Bohemia, a point enhanced at this particular moment by my current typing location in an independent-run coffee shop, populated by students with laptops and Ipods and time. There is, therefore, a pleasant juxtaposition between the general feel of student openness and acceptance, and old-fashioned traditions synonymous with this region, from the food to the politics. Here in America, this weekend sees the main celebrations for Mardi Gras, a pageant of huge proportions in this part of the world, with food, drink, carnivals, dancing, music, and a general celebratory spirit that may now be some way from the original religious sensibilities behind the festival, but nonetheless entrenching a positive feel of community. New Orleans is the world centre for Mardi Gras. It is already a city that lends itself well to street parties, with its roadside music culture already deeply ingrained, and during a holiday where much emphasis is placed on colour and vibrancy and a love of life, the entire region dials up this sense of spirit even more. This year, Louisiana is also celebrating their first ever Superbowl triumph after last Sunday’s win for the New Orleans Saints, a victory which has already prompted a huge ticker-tape parade through the French Quarter before Mardi Gras even properly started. After the travesty of Katrina and the damage done to the whole region both socially and economically, it was not just an ordinary Superbowl win for the Saints. More than just a sporting victory, it helped symbolize the recovery of the city of New Orleans and Louisiana in general, a sentiment enhanced going into this weekend’s frivolities also.
The UK does not celebrate Mardi Gras in the same way, save for a few of us belatedly flipping a few pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. I suspect that a New Orleans-style carnival atmosphere through the streets of London would be sensational, but no doubt the rigid powers that be would place such stringent health and safety embargoes on the entire event that it would be pointless. London has never been that sort of city, and probably never will be, save for the impromptu street parties that greet momentous national events like coronations, jubilees and English footballing success. Regardless of the UK’s own standpoint, as a Londoner of Jewish ethnicity it would not be unfair to argue that attending the once Pagan, now Christian celebration of Mardi Gras in New Orleans will place me a considerable way out of my comfort zone, but so far I am on the right side of excited.

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A few days later

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Mardi Gras has now been and gone, and I sit and type this back home in London, amidst swirling sleet and snow, that perennial illustration of the bleakest winter in recent memory. Dark, portentous clouds loom overhead as February closes out with its usual dismal fare, a fitting epitaph to a gloomy meteorological season. It is without question that I love London - my city, my home, my people. Recently, and perhaps connected to seeing more of the world than I could have anticipated, the feeling of excitement at returning to one of the world's great cities has lessened. Cynicism, complacency, tedium, perhaps all contribute to this. More likely is the great lifestyle change I am about to undergo, taking place in the heart of the capital, as I begin the daily commute and the weekly grind. In a few days time, I will be swapping a Fred Perry polo for a well-tailored suit, leather shoes in place of Puma canvas. Like the millions around me, I will take the train into work, praying I do not need an umbrella for the walking part of the journey, subconsciously hoping the gentle sounds of my Ipod can last just a few moments longer before I walk in through curved, glass doors into a curved, glass building. The times they are a-changing.

All the more important, then, that I have been lucky enough to enjoy my time off after finishing Law School. In this time I have learnt much about myself, and the world around me. I have travelled extensively, adventuring across a great continent, meeting new people, expanding my horizons and challenging my previous preconceptions. Had there not been a recession, a credit-crunch that caused major businesses and companies to hold back their intakes of new employees, I would not have enjoyed my American sojourn, and consequently not had the recent opportunity to return there.

Mardi Gras, then, became symbolic to me, not just as a holiday and series of festivals in the South of America, but because of its position at the start of the Lenting season, a time when those of Christian faith are compelled to give something up, or make some kind of positive change for the better. In many ways, I will be giving up a lifestyle, a way of being that I have grown accustomed to, but which ultimately, and like so much of our formative years, must come to pass. With this in mind, I was determined to enjoy my final moments of freedom.

New Orleans was a perfect place to start, with its one-of-a-kind community spirit, intense musical culture and intricate ethnic history, combining in a kaleidoscope of noise and colour and vibrancy. The Endymion parade through St. Charles was a real sight, with marching bands and floats, flying beads and decorations, not to mention the continued celebratory chanting of New Orleans Saints football fans. Spending the first day of Mardi Gras there alongside close friends was a unique and enjoyable experience, and a million miles from what I am used to back home.

This feeling of difference was heightened in the following two days, firstly in a town called Thibedaux, Louisiana, and then the even more remote Mamou, Louisiana, home to a Mardi Grass street-dance that has to be seen to be believed. Thibedaux is close to what I picture to be old-school America, with neat town squares and houses with railings, shutter-windows and ornate gables, peering over the streets below with decorative balconies. The Thibedaux parade featured some fairly hostile throwing of Mardi Gras beads from the travelling floats, causing yours truly to have to duck for cover on a number of occasions, but the spirit of this part of Louisiana, and the celebrations they put on, were far from hostile. Instead, I found a welcoming, community-driven locality, and was overwhelmed by the generosity of our hosts for the parade, with an endless supply of food, drink, music, sunshine and unparalleled balcony views courtesy of Kyle to enjoy the proceedings.

Similarly, the Mamou street dance opened up my eyes to an entirely new level of appreciation for Southern values. Here, in the midst of rural Louisiana, a small town takes to the streets to enjoy real Cajun music (guitar, accordion, snare, vocals), beer and three-step dancing. I arrived in polo t-shirt and skinny jeans, looking more Shoreditch than shoreline, and found myself deeply out of place from a sartorial point of view. Most of the men in Mamou take to the street-dance in hunting garb, with large army-style jackets, combat trousers and boots, often with traditional baseball-cap as a complimentary addition. Nonetheless, although a clear out-of-towner, I was once again welcomed to this fiercely local tradition with warmth and friendliness. My good friend Ashli's family were kind and polite, hospitably making me eat fresh catfish (delicious, I might add) and seeing to it that Sam and I were well looked after. In Mamou, we met all kinds of interesting folk, from the old high-school sweethearts dancing arm in arm in the exact same style that they must have perfected decades earlier, to the single wedding planner, drinking his troubles away in the bar, and happy to talk to me about The Beatles and to Sam about the Louisiana State University dance programme. Many suggest that rural Deep South backwaters are set in their ways and suspicious of outsiders. I found, both in Thibedaux and Mamou, communities deeply committed to their ideals and traditions, but proud of them in a positive and engaging way, with the overwhelming majority of the people I met eager to show me a good time and welcome me into their world. In a city as vast and disconnected as London, we could learn a lot from these displays of local and regional solidarity.

Back in Baton Rouge, I began to mentally prepare for the long drive into Texas, towards Houston, the airport and home. Is there anything harder than an airport farewell? If meeting someone special at the Arrival Gates is an uplifting experience, the complete opposite is true of parting at a Departure Lounge. What can I tell you about this particular Departure Lounge experience without resorting to sycophancy and hyperbole? Well, let's say that the world can move in mysterious ways. I have been, for a while now, a cynical sort, one who questions those who place emphasis on the whims of serendipity. Even now I am not certain if the series of events that led me to Baton Rouge, and subsequently back to this wonderful part of the world just a couple of months later, can be attributed to fate or some sort of masterplan, or if indeed we are, as John Lennon once put it, merely 'molecules bouncing around', and thus purely part of a random circumstance, a happy accident. I am, however, less cynical than I was, illuminated as I am by a new adventure, exciting and scary in equal measure, but offering a sense of hope, of idealism, of faith, amidst uncertainty and intrigue.

It is, at the last, a quiet thing, hard to surmise in cold language on a screen, yet eloquent enough in more silent parts of my heart. For many months now I have noticed two roads stretching out before me. I could have, as Robert Frost put it, saved one for another day, 'but knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back'...

"I shall be telling this with a smile,

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood,

And I...

I took the one less travelled by,

And that has made all the difference."

Robert Frost, 'The Road Not Taken'.

iPad. Therefore I am.

2010-01-28T14:14:00.004Z

Truly we live in exciting times. Forget, for a moment, the doomsday economic downturn, threatening the very fabric of our financial services industry and ultimately the entirety of western capitalism as we know it, and consider this brave new world in which we inhabit, a society constantly changing and progressing to an entrepreneurial, enterprising beat. We may have a weaker pound, rising inflation and worrying levels of unemployment, but as of yesterday afternoon we also have the iPad.

Granted, I am not overwhelmed with certainty as to exactly what purpose the iPad serves. Is it a gigantic phone, created to make us all feel like we are in a new series of The Borrowers? Is it a lighter, more efficient laptop, designed to liberate us from the shackles of office tedium, prompting a revolution of pedestrianism, letting us work not just from home, not just in the office, but in fact practically anywhere at any time? Not that the iPad is limited to business-related tasks. This is a model designed to improve gaming experiences, open up a whole industry of e-books, and collate together an already burgeoning world of iPhone applications into one portable tablet. It's the technological form of NurofenPlus, minus the layered codeine.

The emergence of the iPad is both a tangible, physical stage in the technological revolution happening right now across the world. It is also deeply symbolic. With Apple's computerised tablet, the internet is closer, more accessible, faster and easier than ever before. Knowledge, information, progress is just a touchscreen away. Compartmentalising every single aspect of world-wide social networking, entertainment and communications into one movable device may seem, at first glance, to be a great opportunity to collate what we feel, think and know, what we do and how we act, into a singular entity. The reality, however, is that while the iPad can bring these literal and metaphorical elements together, we are in essence still working through an immeasurably large pool of detail. It may be all on one machine, but modern man still has himself (or herself) spread thinly over vast expanses.

We Facebook, Tweet, and blog. We surf, game, read and listen. At the moment, many of us do all these acts many times a day, through a variety of sources. I may play Football Manager on my laptop, reply to emails via Blackberry, and tweet about how mind-numbingly boring/fascinating (delete where appropriate) these actions are on my Nokia NSeries. The iPad would let me do all of this on one device, wherever I may be in the world, but my specific actions are still broad. It calls into question what levels of knowledge we really have in a new decade, and whether it is a help or a hindrance to our future careers.

Which is better: to have an in-depth level of knowledge regarding a specific subject or industry or, alternatively, reasonable information over a wider area? Modern business seems unsure of itself, unable to confirm whether focused study of a singular area is more beneficial than nuggets of knowledge spread thin. In the legal profession, for example, City law firms are adapting to the credit crunch by having to focus more on corporate restructuring, rather than the mergers and acquisitions of yore. Should solicitors, and their firms, focus on training staff to deal stoically with the challenges of commercial law in a recession, and therefore limiting skills and training to very specific corporate recoveries, or should trainees have a broad spectrum of knowledge in a number of fields, ready to adapt to a changing economic landscape and the varying needs of their clients. On the one hand, very specific knowledge will be invaluable to clients in desperate need of certain advice in absolute situations. Alternatively, some firms may profit from their lawyers being able to respond with merely a modicum of ability to a range of issues.

Technology is driving the second of these possibilities, by providing us with mechanisms and devices through which we can find information, but not necessarily knowledge. Our technological revolution aids communication, but perhaps not ability, intellect and expertise. Ben Macintyre, writing in today's edition of The Times, illustrates this most modern of conundrums by focusing on the differences in intellectual thought as set out by the 1950s philosopher Isaiah Berlin: some thinkers are foxes; some are hedgehogs.

Which are you? A fox, knowing many things, or a hedgehog, knowing one big thing? Macintyre argues that today, 'feasting on the anarchic, ubiquitous, limitless and uncontrolled information cornucopia that is the web, we are all foxes'. The vast, unfathomable torrents of information that are now, thanks to devices like the iPad, just a touchscreen swipe away, have changed the way we think, act, communicate and, ultimately, do our jobs. As the world gets smaller than it has ever been, our ability, almost by osmosis, to seep in information gets larger. As Macintyre states, 'we can go on instant mind-journeys that once would have taken years'.

I feel a little bit like Arthur Miller's choric character Alfieri, in his sublime 'A View From The Bridge'. Alfieri argues that we now 'settle for half'. The vast societal changes in his world, he feels, can be bridged by a sensible complimenting of what we knew and what we will go on to know. In the rapid currents of an at times unstable and ever-changing world in 2010, it is no bad thing to find a via-media between the foxes and hedgehogs. Indeed, there is no reason why both cannot cohabit the same iPad. We need the foxes to streak ahead, scavenging their way through the multitude of possibilities and applications that a work of art such as the iPad can both provide and collate. We also need the hedgehogs, the big thinkers in microcosmic areas. Without the symbiosis of these two, our technological revolution will crumble and with it modern society as we know it. There would be no iPad without the hedgehogs at Apple. There would be no use of an iPad without the foxes of modern society.

We go about our business, our day-to-day lives, with little thought or concern for the vast happenings around us. I will most probably purchase an iPad. I like its sleek design, its modern urgency. However, stopping for just a moment, pausing and reflecting over our societal sea-change, I am inclined to be feel both excited and a little apprehensive, caught as I am (and amongst many who are in similar positions) between being a fox and being a hedgehog.

Houston, Austin and Dallas: For One Brief Shining Moment...

2009-12-20T23:48:00.003Z

USA - Houston, Austin and Dallas, Texas.

I feel bad that Texas was not given a fair crack of the whip. After the emotional peaks of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, lingering doubts remained in the minds of Dean and I, as we hit the I-35W towards the Lone Star State. Texas is a large state, full of impressive metropolises and interstates, rolling in oil-based money and proud of its heritage as one of the last bastions of the frontier west, a pioneering land that today acts as one of America’s most significant political and economic republics. Much to be excited about, then, not to mention the fact that Texas is famous for good steaks, excellent music and cowboy hats. Nevertheless, as we left Louisiana behind, Dean and I questioned whether we should have moved on from Baton Rouge at all. It was trying and dare I say even emotional coming to the decision to leave, and then to stick with it, but after sound advice from old friends, the road trip remained. Westwards we travelled. A rendezvous with Dallas would be our ultimate target, but before that we had two other major urban zones in Houston and Austin to look forward to.

Houston:

Due to our indecisiveness in Baton Rouge, we did not set out for Houston until later than we would have originally anticipated. Driving through the night and across the border into Texas, we arrived at our downtown hotel dazed and tired, both in need of a good night’s rest that would, we hoped, set us in more positive spirits for a full day’s sightseeing in America’s fourth-largest city. Houston, perhaps unsurprisingly, is rather big, surrounded by freeway mergers that loop around each other in increasingly tall flyovers in a multitude of directions: more Spaghetti Western than Spaghetti Junction, but certainly confusing to navigate through, particularly with six lanes of traffic in either direction. Our trusted GPS helped us through many a tricky situation, but while satellite navigation did its job with aplomb, the weather sadly let the side down. For the first time on our trip to America we were met with genuinely poor weather. Low clouds descended over the city, a wind came in from the Gulf, and patchy rain drizzled down in a very London-esque manner, as if completely decided to be awful weather, but not totally committed to a torrential downpour. The foggy haze cut off the views of many of Houston’s skyscrapers, and prevented us mooching through the streets as had been our tradition until that point. There is, nevertheless, much to recommend about Houston, Texas. Its space heritage will be discussed later, but it also remains a major cosmopolitan conurbation, bringing together peoples of all races under the American and Texan flags. In particular, Dean and I noticed a definite rise in the Hispanic population when compared to where we had travelled to previously. This was also obvious through the main Houston cuisine, which merged meat-based Texan comfort food with traditional Mexican offerings. No surprise, then, that ‘Tex-Mex’ was created in Houston.

Determined not to let the weather get the better of us, and putting to good use our stiff British upper lips that we have naturally grown up with in London, Dean and I headed towards the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. Here, inside this sprawling building, we found countless exhibits that were genuinely informative. The Native American collection was particularly impressive, telling the story of the original settlers in this vast land, and their creeds and practices of many thousands of years. It is an area of history and society that I sadly no little about, and I was therefore pleased to be able to take the time to learn a little more. After all, the first people in America were the native races that today, in some areas, struggle to find either political acceptance or an alternative way to sustain their age-old ideology within their own communities and the nation at large. It is a sad tale, and one which must not be forgotten, lest America completely divests herself from her heritage, a vital and cogent link with the land that stretches back way beyond Britain’s role in America’s story.

Another dazzling exhibit in the Museum of Fine Arts was in the corridor of lights. This mesmerising rectangular space, with a door at either end, and shafts of laser-beamed lights criss-crossing each other at different angles, created optical illusions that made us hesitant underfoot and curious to explore further. Out came the cameras, unsurprisingly, as we took full advantage of this light show. Facebook profile pictures will no doubt follow. At the other end of the vast museum building, Dean and I were fascinated by scale models of housing developments that had been deliberately smashed to pieces on one side, and left untouched and undiminished on the other. There are, I am sure, numerous socio-political points to be made from the creation of scale-model conurbations, perhaps enforcing upon the viewer the fact that America remains fiercely divided, particularly in terms of governmental housing policy, but as a mere bystander, and indeed a foreigner, it would perhaps be out of place of me to lend too much of a critical eye to our viewing experience. Nonetheless, if you find yourself in Houston, Texas, and you fancy doing something a little different for a few hours, this museum is a must. Well spaced and signposted, it certainly helped while away the time as it rained outside.

“Houston, we have a problem.” There was no need for Dean and I to utter these words during our sojourn in this sprawling city, but it is a phrase known the world ever after immortalisation in the film ‘Apollo 13’ – the cinema account of the true story of NASA’s ill-fated 1970 lunar mission. Houston will always be synonymous with America’s space programme, and while the rockets may blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, mission control is most definitely in Texas. With boyish hopes of letting slip the surly bonds of earth, dancing across and above light-splintered clouds and touching, with outstretched hands through the stratospheres and the great beyond, the very face of God, Dean and I went boldly where no Radlett citizen has gone before, to the very heart, the epicentre itself, of America’s heralded space centre. Some criticise NASA for wasting money that could be spent on schools and hospitals and troops, while others simply argue that space travel is an irreverent irrelevance. Yet beyond the political infighting there remains something romantic and magical about exploring beyond the known world. President Kennedy summed it up when he explained that America would choose to go to the Moon “not because it is easy, but because it is hard” and because “the Moon is there, and the planets and the stars are there, and with them new hopes for mankind.” With these inspiring words in mind, the windscreen wipers in the Jeep moving at full speed, and the satellite navigation aimed at NASA HQ, it was one small step for man, and one giant leap for Dean and Sammy.

Which is why I am a little concerned to report that, having spent a good few hours at NASA, I am now reasonably convinced that there is more to the conspiracy theories regarding lunar fakery than meets the eye. Supposedly the main headquarters for NASA, the Space Centre seemed to lack any form of control, security, organisation, and basic management. We were waved into the $10 car-park, told we could leave the Jeep for free, and then somehow worked our way in to the centre itself without having to part with any money for a ticket. This culminated in getting aboard a monorail train that would take us through the many NASA sights, again supposedly for a nominal fee, but, in a neat twist of fate, completely free for Dean and I, ignored as we were by almost everybody in a position of authority. Our tour guides seemed bewildered, tired, haphazard, lacking much information about, for example, the mission control room, apart from to point out which seat the Queen had used when she once visited the centre. Questions on how the space shuttle works (and, to be fair, the exact replica size practice shuttle is an impressive specimen to view) were waved away with mere shrugs, and one supposedly senior NASA scientist appeared to drop his accreditation and security cards on the floor, in the middle of the viewing public, with the sort of carelessness that one would expect from a schoolboy, and not a salaried member of the world’s most pre-eminent space programme.

When it reached six o’clock, a janitor whose face resembled a skull emerged from the shadows and started shouting alarmingly loudly at small children to vacate the area and go home. It appeared to Dean and I that when this place closes for business, they mean it. “Get out!” shouted the man at Dean, who was enjoying playing with an exhibit where you can pretend to power up the lunar module all by yourself. Dean and I responded with a series of pranks and gestures across the main lobby floor of the centre, finding as much slapstick comedy out of the exhibits as possible while the janitor, always a few steps behind, desperately tried to make us, and the many screaming, shouting, crying children, leave the centre so that all the miserable employees could similarly go home and forget that they have to work there. What an odd place it was. Part awe-inspiring, part ridiculous; occasionally fascinating, often bewildering, and most definitely, for Dean and I at any rate, completely free of charge.

Please do not let this put you off visiting Houston, a city with real cultural appeal, big steaks and a cosmopolitan mix of interesting people. It’s just that for some reason the people at NASA had obviously not heard Kennedy’s speech, or familiarised themselves with why space exploration is important and exciting and wonderful, and why Houston is lucky to have the space centre in its environs. Perhaps Sam Seaborn from the television series ‘The West Wing’ sums that up better than I can:

“Because we came out of a cave and we made fire. We put wheels on the ground, ships on the sea, and planes in the sky; we gazed up at the heavens. The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration. And this is what’s next.”

Austin:

We drove through the night from Houston to Austin, the state capital of Texas, and noticed the weather stat to clear as we made our way west. Arriving late at the motel, a decent sleep was in order before exploring this beautiful town over the course of the next day.

The next morning was bright and sunny, a return to form after the singular aberration of the previous day’s rain and gales. Throughout our trip to the United States, neither of us were particularly homesick. I had been concerned about missing Spurs matches, but thanks to the wonders of Fox Soccer Channel had actually managed to see more of my beloved side than I would have done in London. However, that Sunday morning in Austin made me miss home more than at any point on our trip thusfar. Why? Because Spurs had decided to wait for me to go to America before scoring a sensational nine goals in one game. Yes, I watched it. Yes, I was beyond elated. Nonetheless, when your team wins 9-1 you really do want to be there in person.

Still, if there is a way to put English football to the back of one’s mind it is to travel around a new city, and Austin duly obliged, with its tree-lined roads, impressive civic buildings, well-kept parklands and squares, and imposing state structures, including the state Capitol Building. Texas is, of-course, a large and important state, both politically and economically, and duly has an administrative and governmental building befitting the state’s role within the nation. With a domed roof and columned front, at the end of a long boulevard that itself is lined with statues and sculptures, flowers and well-spaced oak trees, the Capital Building can be seen for some distance around. The dome roof itself is particularly attractive, and inside a painted mural across the ceiling helps cement the fact that Texans are proud of their state and heritage, and are happy to display the state’s history in its central building. Large scale prints and paintings adorn the walls, featuring battle scenes, local politicians and frontiersmen at work: the men and moments that helped sculpt and form the republic of Texas, from Native Americans to the Spanish, the French, the British and then the revolutionaries, the pioneers, the oil men. Politically, we may be far removed from the sensibilities of Texan attitudes (though perhaps not so much in the major city centres), but there is no denying that they are proud of their ideals and culture, and the state’s standing as a key electoral battleground. We may rudely and disproportionately scoff at the politicking of Texas’s most famous son, President George W. Bush, a former Governor of Texas also, but he and his father (not to mention President Lyndon B. Johnson also) illustrate the power this state can have if you achieve high office here first.

Across from the state governmental buildings is the University of Texas campus – beautifully crafted and laid out, with its own mock Roman buildings and centres, glorious palm trees and finely cut grass quadrants, around which book stores and coffee shops lend a sense of organised bohemia to the otherwise Deep South sensibilities of the rest of the citizenry. Feeling at home amongst the scenery and the sunshine, Dean and I relaxed in a roadside café, dipping in and out of the New York Times Sunday supplement, planning the evening ahead, and enjoying a short interlude to our walking tour of the town.

By nightfall we were ready to head downtown. After our Halloween experience in New York, the word ‘downtown’ will forever be associated with our good friend Dylan Viner’s atonal rendition of the song of the same name, and taxi cab drivers across many states will no doubt have been bemused by the jocularity which Dean and I frequently linked to it when we asked them to take us there. In Austin’s case, downtown means the famous 9th Street, and the roads off of it, where live music and food outlets line the boulevards, complete with neon lights and hard-working tradesmen attempting to escort us into their establishment above any other. Although a Sunday evening, there was still a decent vibe and Dean and I enjoyed burgers, drinks and live music in an iconic setting before the fatigue of so many weeks travelling began to catch up with us. Inevitably our attentions turned to the past few fabulous weeks, and how much we had managed to achieve during that time. We still had Dallas to come, of-course, but as Sunday night turned into the early hours of Monday morning in Austin, Texas, we could not help but feel the first pangs of emotion at the prospect of returning to London. Determined to enjoy our final couple of days, we headed back to the hotel, aware of a long drive the next day towards a city famous the world over: Dallas, Texas. Forget who shot JR, a far more important murder mystery occurred here, in November 1963 – a moment and time in history that will live in infamy.

Dallas:

Like Houston, Dallas sprawls for miles around, encroaching into nearby Fort Worth and gobbling up the surrounding countryside with its miles of interstate and flyover systems. In the city centre, skyscrapers abound, but with architectural differences in style and structure that are synonymous with Chicago. These impressive buildings were not only tall; they looked fabulous, with varying angles, materials, and designs sitting close together in the financial district. The lack of uniformity, beyond their obvious height, made walking and driving around Dallas a pleasant experience, particular as the central roads and avenues are wide and pedestrian-friendly, inviting tourists to take a look around as they go about their business.

Dallas is an important city, and is the home to many international organisations, predominantly oil-based and with far-reaching economic capabilities. Like Houston, it is proud of its heritage, and deferent to the tragedy of November 1963 and the assassination of President Kennedy. Dallas is a real southern city, with cowboy hats, knee-high boots, and silver-buckled belts, all around. Politically to the right of centre, it still boasts rich cultural traditions and ethnic mixes, and is clearly an affluent urban zone, complete with large, gas-guzzling cars, giant portions in restaurants, and imposing buildings. Sam, who you will remember from Baton Rouge, told me that “everything is bigger in Texas.” She was right, certainly with regards to Dallas. On our first evening in the city, Dean and I ordered two of the largest steaks you are likely to see, complete with a side-order of potato-skins that would have been enough for five or six people. This was after enjoying our hotel’s complimentary milk and cookies reception.

Earlier we had travelled out of the centre to the largest shopping mall in Dallas, in order to finish off buying gifts for our families and perform a final, futile search for some Major League Soccer jerseys. Amidst American Eagle, Abercrombie, Hollister and Dean’s beloved Urban Outfitters (I believe Dean made at least one Urban purchase in every city we travelled to), we found a bonafide cowboy shop, similar to the beautifully crafted independent store that we popped into in Dexter, Michigan, with Adam Jacobs, some weeks previously. Amidst the belts, the spurs (!), the checked shirts and boots, the gunslingers and holsters, we found a bewilderingly large display of real cowboy hats. Jacking up my own jeans as high as they could go, and placing my thumbs into my pockets, I paced up and down the store in different cowboy hats, perfecting a southern drawl of an accent, and preparing to draw my pistol at the slightest interference. Dallas is the start point of the age-old Wild West, and I was determined to look the part with a cowboy hat of my own. It was a battle between my financial budget and my fashion sense. The town wasn’t big enough for the two of them. I bought the cowboy hat and presented it to my Dad at Heathrow Airport, having insisted on wearing it on the plane. It makes saying “Howdy ya’ll” all the more rewarding.

That night Dean and I found a specialist steak joint and toasted our adventures. We’d come a long way: literally and metaphorically. As the vodka flowed, and we delivered talking heads to the camera about our feelings on what we’d seen and experienced, and the people we had met, it dawned on both of us that returning to London was going to be difficult. In order to stave off the blues we moved to a number of different bars and, true to form, found the locals to be friendly and accommodating, so much so that a waitress in one bar came over and informed us that a businesswoman at the other side of the bar wanted to buy us a drink. Dean chased up her name and number. What came of it? You’ll have to ask Dean.

Dallas has a congenial air about it, friendly and engaging, where the people (true of Texas in general actually) are pleased to talk and listen, and keen to often their opinions on a multitude of subjects. Particularly interesting was to hear political opinion that goes against the grain of British views on US politics, without resorting to the sort of bigotry or ignorance that we in the UK like to pretend characterises much of the south. The reality of course is much different, and Dean and I found intelligent and informed Republicans who offered a diverging view with clarity and insight.

The social transparency of Dallas was maintained the following morning as we made our way to the Texas Book Store Depository, just a few blocks from our hotel, in beautiful Texas sunshine. To the naked eye this rather uniform building may seem irrelevant, but within its confines, in the corner room on the sixth floor, Lee Harvey Oswald loaded a gun and fired numerous shots towards President John F Kennedy’s presidential motorcade as it travelled through the centre of Dallas. Kennedy, and his wife Jacqui, were in the car, with Vice President Johnson, native of Dallas, in the car just behind. Waving to the crowds in his open-top Cadillac, Kennedy exuded optimism and hope in a new America, a shining new era of Camelot. In the ensuing confusion and fear, the anguish and terror, part of America’s soul was taken, lost on that fateful day as a young president in his prime was gunned down by a crazed assassin. Whether conspiracy or the actions of a singular mad man, the impact of this event resonated across the world. Big Ben, in the heart of London town, chimed once every minute of Kennedy’s funeral while the Queen’s guards stood in silent salute. The attention of the planet was on Dallas, Texas.

Forty-six years later, and outside the building on the road that passes it, a simple ‘x’ can be found: the exact spot where the bullets hit. Across the street is a memorial to JFK, a permanent plaque, statue, water feature and walkway leading towards the fated road and the infamous grass knoll alongside. Inside the building a museum and exhibit goes through, in minutiae detail, the events of 22 November 1963 and what it meant to America and the world at large. After coming through a revolutionary battle, a civil war, two world wars, and in the midst of civil rights struggles, the murder of JFK changed the United States of America indelibly. It scarred a nation, knocked its confidence and focussed minds on healing what Kennedy’s brother Robert later called the ‘mindless menace of violence’ that stalked the streets. Decades later this work is not finished, despite the political therapy of President Johnson’s social reform bills, or President Reagan’s inspiring oratory, or President Obama’s historic election.

People refer to the Kennedy administration wistfully, using the phrase ‘for one brief, shining moment’ to illustrate its beauty, its ambition and its tragic temporary status. Is Camelot back in America today? From what Dean and I saw and experienced there is certainly a new sense of civic pride and hope and enthusiasm in a more tolerant and socially inclusive land, despite its still evident polarisation. Kennedy would argue that the work of America is never finished, that the pyramid on a $1 bill is deliberately not completed because the point of this nation, and the real sentiment behind America’s fervent ideals, is that the American dream is continuous. It is not an end goal or a place or a specific: it is a state of mind, and one encapsulated by John F Kennedy and his own era of Camelot. Yet look at what has happened here since Kennedy’s epoch was halted all too early by the bullet rather than the ballot: the end of segregation, man on the moon, economic upturns, the election of Obama.

It may be perplexing that Dean and I found this part of Dallas, Texas, to be a fitting end point for our trip: a place of carnage and chaos, of bloodshed and disaster, yet the beauty of America is how this nation deals with its challenges, as the fictional President Bartlett reminds us: “Every time we feel we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we are reminded that this capacity may well be limitless.” Everywhere we travelled we saw hopefulness and friendliness and great pride, so to be taken to the scene of a great American tragedy having just witnessed America’s present confidence and positivity was an important and rewarding experience, filling both of us with an immense sense of pride, hope, happiness and our own spoken and private ambitions: emotions that made a long journey back to London seem a little less trying, a little less difficult.

From Boston to Dallas, with everything that came in between, Dean and I lived America: from the skyscrapers of New York and Chicago, to the plains of Louisville, Nashville and Memphis; from the stunning campuses and people of Ann Arbor and Baton Rouge, to the dividing lines of Birmingham, the colour and vibrancy of New Orleans, the sprawl and confidence of Houston, colourfulness of Austin, and importance of Dallas.

For a few spectacular weeks, Dean and I were in America. We’ll be back, of course, but for both of us the American dream is no foreign and imagined concept: for one brief shining moment we lapped up this magnificent country, yet we will live the American dream forever.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbour that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, ‘The New Colossus’, New York City, 1883, now adorning the Statue Of Liberty.

US Road Trip - Video Diary: Baton Rouge

2009-11-24T18:00:00.000Z

Baton Rouge: What Is Happening Now?

2009-11-24T17:58:00.001Z

USA - Baton Rouge, Louisiana

I envisaged the big cities posing me the most problems. Fitting New York, Chicago, New Orleans, et al, into manageable blogs would be tough tasks, given their size and attractions, not to mention our close friends who live there. Yet now, as I type this in the Jeep heading away from this wonderful town, I feel no words I choose can do justice to our four-day sojourn here, a stay that saw us arrive and meet new people, and leave having made good friends. It was exciting, it was funny, it was emotional, it had a million-dollar tiger. We planned to stay one night; we went home four days later. Baton Rouge, you are in my heart now and always.

Before I explain the emotional effect of this Mississippi river town on both Dean and I, perhaps it would help to describe how we ended up there in the first place. Rewind two years or so, and Dean is searching Facebook for the popular actress Katie Holmes. It will come as no surprise to you to learn that Dean was not successful in befriending Tom Cruise’s wife. What Dean did manage, however, was to become friends with a girl from Louisiana called, wait for it, Katie Holmes. Studying at Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, Katie and Dean’s friendship was integral to the two of us visiting this town. This is the beauty of the revolution we live in today. The world is smaller than it ever has been, broken into manageable pieces by new media and technology that allows a boy from London and a girl from the Deep South to become good friends, chatting most days, without ever meeting each other. If Dean had not decided to find a Scientology celebrity on Facebook, we may never have wound up in Baton Rouge and, in turn, I may not have had an amazing week there, a week which included one of the best days and nights of my life.

Returning to the present, Dean was excited about meeting Katie face to face for the first time, while I was simply interested in sampling a new city in America. As we drove up to Baton Rouge, in pleasant sunshine, we had the car stereo turned up high and became increasingly excited about a stay in a University town. I could never have guessed that I would be feeling so utterly dejected about leaving, just a few days later. Reading this, you may find it hard to understand why this is the case. Baton Rouge is not exactly famous, or commercially important to anybody from Britain. They say that the people make a place. For Baton Rouge, this is especially true. So, Sam, Katie, Ashli, Katelyn, Megan, Emily and Dominique (and everyone else we met), thank you making our trip to America that little bit better.

Before explaining what Dean and I actually did in Baton Rouge, and why that contributed to the amazing time we had, a word or two is due about the cityscape. With palm trees and oak-lined avenues, beautiful lakeside walks and impressive colonial mansions, Baton Rouge looks fabulous, particularly on a sunny day. The State House (Baton Rouge is the state capital of Louisiana) was particularly grand, with a towering structure supported by the State Senate and State House of Representatives on either side of it, reached by a walk up step that bare the name of every state in America. Built by a rather narcissistic and egotistical Governor, it bestrides the town, visible from a fair distance, and yet strangely fits perfectly despite its gargantuan size (the tallest State Capital building in America).

The Mississippi River is also prominent in Baton Rouge, which also enjoys the position of being America’s fifth largest inland port. A key moment in our stay was on the banks of the river during the early evening of our second day in the city. Sam was keen for Dean and I to watch the sun set over the opposite bank of the river, and Katie and Dean, and Sam and I, standing at slightly different viewpoints, were not disappointed by a glorious Magic Hour, with red lights sparkling over the water, and a crescent moon slowly emerging from the darkening sky like a half-finished halo high above our heads. Drawn in by the peaceful sounds of the lapping water and Sam’s engaging conversation, the dramatic vista and her passionate explanation of her life, interests and future plans, there was no other place I would have wanted to be.

Louisiana State University (LSU) is the dominant infrastructure in Baton Rouge, and adds to its aesthetic appeal. Sorority Row, for example, with its colonnade style houses looking out on to the lake, and marked by well-grown oak trees and the flights of local pelicans, was a particularly attractive part of town, both for the view and, of-course, the lovely Sorority girls who lived there. Looming large over the university campus is the main football stadium, home of the LSU Tigers, and housing over 90,000 people. Next to the stadium is a one-million dollar dwelling for the Tigers official mascot: Michael the Tiger, a fearsome beast who stalked his cage and regarded his British photographers with initial resentment and subsequent indifference. It is certainly a million miles from the University of Nottingham, who have no stadium, let alone a tiger. We knew already that college sport is huge in America, and LSU was no exception. The colours of purple and yellow were everywhere to be seen, and students and alumni alike take pride in their institution’s sporting success.

The campus itself is staggering, with impressive columned buildings (particularly the union building, plus the Music and Dramatic Arts department and the Law building), bustling quadrants, neat coffee shops and retail outlets, and expansive parkland where students relax, sunbathe or play pick-up games of Frisbee, football (ours and theirs), or baseball. It was hard, when walking around, not to feel like studying here would have been inspiring and a lot of fun, and consequently be jealous of those that do have that opportunity. Certainly there was something about LSU that Dean and I feel very much at ease with and at home. No doubt the girls we became close friends with aided that, but the campus itself had a feel of familiarity: Nottingham uni-park, with beautiful women and palm trees. And a tiger.

Comfortable in our surroundings, then, Dean and I already forewarned our hotel reception that we may be extending our stay from the initially booked one night. Our first few hours in Baton Rouge helped us come to this understanding. We were picked up by Katie and her friend Ashli, who has such an enthusiastic attitude about her, constantly energetic and interested, keen to learn and chat, with an impressive turn in comedy, that we were already laughing and enjoying ourselves within just a few minutes. Less funny was Ashli’s driving ability, which was frankly terrifying. We visited the State Capital building, posed for photos in the Senate and House of Representatives, and then headed for the girls’ Sorority, Chi Omega. Dean had visited a Sorority before, but this was my first experience. Obviously there is something appealing about going into a beautiful house, full of wood-panels, lush sofas, grand pianos and, well, women. Within a few moments of being inside Chi Omega, we had completed two girls’ crossword puzzle for them, and befriended two new girls in Emily and Dominique, before then being introduced to Megan, whose soccer shirt was obviously the subject of some interest for Dean and I. A huge fan of both ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Friends’, Megan and I went round-for-round on key trivia from both of these cultural institutions.

Reluctantly leaving the house (admittedly, we had not eaten all day), the girls took us to a bar-restaurant called Chimes. This was a busy bistro, with sports on television, loud music, and good food. It was here that I tried my first po’boy, with the famed local catfish inside. Ashli impressed us by ordering alcohol with the frequency and tenacity of the very best British chavs (in-joke), Sam became the first American I have ever seen order a salad, and Dean and I settled in to our first night in the city. Excited by what lay in store, our hotel room turned into a rock concert as we prepared ourselves for the evening plans. There may be, somewhere in the vast entity of digital technology, a video of me dancing around the room to ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ by Busted, but sadly this is restricted viewing.

Katie and Ashli picked us up again from our hotel. Mercifully, Katie was driving. We were taken to a trendy bar called Tsunami, situated on the top floor of the Baton Rouge Art Museum, and featuring a balcony looking out over the Mississippi. Tsunami would fit in well with any fashionable London nightspot, with its ambient lighting and music. Made to feel so welcome by the girls, we enjoyed debating the finer points of modern music, art, film, television, cultural and political differences between the UK and the USA, and observations of the awkward first date taking place between the cigar-smoking man and high-heeled woman at the table next to us. Following on from Tsunami, Sam, Katie, Ashley, Dean and I headed on to Happy’s. This was a rather different bar, with a digital juke box, sticky floors, and one drunk man with a dog. Feeling the warmth of both the company and the drinks, conversation flowed freely, videos were captured, photos taken, and music enjoyed (provided by Sam’s $15 dollar coup d’état of the juke box).

Even later, as the night turned into early morning, we were taken to the Baton Rouge institution that is Louie’s café, a joint that served full portions of food into the small hours, including a supersize portion of burger and chips for Dean and one of the larger plates of hash-browns in culinary history for me. The girls bemoaned their early starts the next morning; Dean and I toasted our lack of any need to set an alarm (despite a brief flirtation with attempting to organise a morning coffee meet-up). Perhaps it was because we were back in a student environment, slipping into our university ways like old friends greeting each other at an airport arrivals gate, but Dean and I were more relaxed than at any other part of our trip, safe in the knowledge that we had good friends to show us around, and a picturesque town within which to get to know them all better.

Wednesday, then, and with a blazing hot sun shining down on Baton Rouge, we emerged bleary-eyed in our Jeep, heading towards the central campus area to meet Katie, Sam and Ashli and look at a giant tiger. Michael, the tiger in question, is housed in an enclosure that took millions of dollars to build, and is brought out on to the field alongside the cheerleaders at every Louisiana football game. Once, we were told, Michael managed to remove himself from his bindings and run with glee through the stadium, while cheerleaders, marching band members and spectators alike, panic-stricken and bemused, raced for the comparative safety of the exits. The image, of a rampaging tiger and screaming American sports fan, still makes me chuckle days later.

Katie, Ashli and Sam were enthusiastic tour-guides, showing us where they live and work, taking us into their world in a friendly and personal way, allowing us glimpses of real life in this part of the world, introducing us to their friends and teachers, their classrooms, coffee joints and quadrants. After much working, we returned with them to the Chi-O house, where we lounged on sofas or at the piano, planning the night ahead and getting to know this lovely group of girls even better. Our progress from strangers to close friends was interrupted only by Dean and I heading out to the front lawn, looking glorious in the late afternoon sunshine by the tranquil lake, to kick a real, proper, British football around. If I had one criticism of America, it would be their complete lack of understanding of the beautiful game, that steadfast grip they refuse to yield up for stop-start sporting pursuits like American Football and basketball. It felt good to wrap my foot round a bonafide ‘soccer-ball’ once again, even if it did delay our trip to the riverside to watch the aforementioned sunset by just a few minutes. Eventually, however, and after Sam stepped in to stop us bending it like Beckham any further, we headed for the river’s edge. In one’s life, there may only be a few moments of near-perfection, where the place you are in and what you are feeling merge together in unison and harmony, where everything and everyone fuse together in a symbiosis of symmetry and synchronization. That’s how it felt on the outpost overlooking the river, with the sun slowly setting.

Another period of hotel-based reflection and preparation followed before Sam and Katie took us to meet Katelyn and Ashli at The Bulldog, a pub-bar close to the university that had cheap beer and shots, combining flowing booze with genial company and a bustling trade. It was here that the girls taught us a secret Chi-O chant regarding the drinking of shots, which alas I cannot commit to paper as to do so would break an impressive dedication to preserving the secret sacraments of Sorority life. Sororities, for all their Hollywood-ised sexual motifs, actually exist as important traditional communities, where girls can enjoy university safely and securely, where they can more easily make close friends and partake in both academic and charity work. They are like large, residential societies, and as such come with their own rituals, conventions and initiations, alongside philanthropic efforts that UK colleges could certainly learn from. Many of these traditions are secret, protecting a bond between members of the Sorority that, in some cases, stretch back many years. In this way, there is a code, a sense of honour, duty and companionship that is admirable and should be noted. Certainly, the Chi-O girls we met were well-mannered, interesting, intelligent, kind and fun. The girls we became such good friends with illustrate all these attributes and demonstrate why Sororities (and Fraternities, I suppose) work.

We lost track of time in The Bulldog, and eventually only myself, Dean, Katie and Sam remained out of the initial group. From the campus walk to the Chi-O lounge chat, from the Mississippi sunset to the subsequent Best Western Hotel sunrise: it was a perfect twenty-four hours.

Our travels in America have provided us with so many wonderful moments and places and people. We have slept little and partied much, driven far and walked extensively. Consuming food and alcohol and culture and new sights as much as Dean and I have, it is not surprising to learn that in an epic adventure there will inevitably be moments of epic fatigue. The sheer wall of tiredness that hit us later the following day, after an almost unbroken twenty-four hours, was immense, and it was only with a supreme effort that we made it back on to campus by the early afternoon, for a few hours of football and guitar playing, not to mention snoozing, on the main parkland of the University. That night, the majority of the girls had booked tickets to see British star Robert Pattinson pout his way through the latest ‘Twilight’ film, leaving Dean and I in the capable hands of the beautiful Sam, who took us to Bogie’s. I can only describe Bogie’s as the most ‘college bar’-looking college bar in the entire United States of America. Think ‘American Pie’, think red cups and short skirts, think loud music and strange fashions. Dean, of course, was in his element, and began speeding down a road to all-out intoxication, working his way through a number of introductions set up by Sam, even managing to find coordination within his inebriation to dance with complete strangers. Sam and I enjoyed Dean’s descent into utter ridiculousness, observing his antics from the relative safety of general sobriety (give or take a vodka-water with extra lime or two). How much Dean remembered the next day is a question for the great man himself. I can only tell you that, during the course of the evening, Dean made near perfect strangers shout famous quotes from the London Underground at our camera, posed for photos wearing a tiara, and convinced two sets of girls that he and I really were the Jonas Brothers.

You will have noted that I have described three nights in Baton Rouge. It was initially only meant to be one. I cannot explain how pleased I am that we stayed for longer. Indeed, we even considered driving back to this safe haven of laughter, friendship, romance and sunsets after just one night in neighbouring Texas. In hindsight, however, it is better to leave wanting more. Certainly, I know that Dean and I will spend time with all the lovely people we met in Baton Rouge once again. A European travelling trip is in the offing for many of these girls, and we will be counting the months until we can join them in Paris and welcome them in London.

From a personal point of view, I was able to get to know someone’s lifestyle, geography, culture, their hopes and fears in the town where they live, and remain excited to reciprocate in a few months time. It is hard to meet people and leave them, to say goodbyes that mean ‘see you soon’, to drive away (at 7pm the next day, rather than the intended 1.30pm) with so much unspoken and yet so much experienced. We kept hearing the song ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City throughout our few days in Baton Rouge, but it was only after leaving that I fully understood the lyrics. These girls were our fireflies, and our trip to America has been enhanced in so many ways by being with them. We’ll be ‘calling Baton Rouge’ forever. Trust me.

“I’d like to make myself believe that Planet Earth turns slowly,
It’s hard to say but I’d like to stay awake when I’m asleep,
Coz everything is never as it seems.

To ten million fireflies I’m weird coz I hate goodbyes,
Got misty-eyed as they said farewell…”
Owl City, ‘Fireflies’.

US Road Trip - Video Diary: New Orleans

2009-11-24T02:50:00.000Z

US Road Trip - Photos: New Orleans

2009-11-22T17:55:00.000Z

Click here to see photos from New Orleans.

New Orleans: See You Later, Alligator

2009-11-22T17:52:00.002Z

USA - New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans: there is no place like it. Not in America. Not on the planet. Tennessee Williams set his stage play ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ in this city, and drew constant attention to the ethnic history of the region, a story of French, Spanish and British control and American expansion, of post-war immigration, of Bauhaus, Caribbean, Latin American and European architecture, language, culture and energy, combining together at the Mississippi’s end. Williams was right. This is a city of the world, cut off from the rest of mainland America by a series of rivers, canals, lakes, levees, marshes and swamps, and allowed to grow and ferment into the vibrant, verdant New Orleans of the twenty-first century. Crucially, despite the melting-pot of nations and influences, there remains a fierce local identity, crystallised in the aftermath of the devastating Hurricane Katrina, but subsisting already before then.

We arrived from the temperate climes of Birmingham, Alabama, to a warm, sultry evening in the French Quarter. Palm trees lined the avenues, crickets bleated their nocturnal notes, and the air was thick with noise and music and excitement and a million scents, from cypress and slow cooking meat, to the musky Mississippi river and alcohol. Boutique hotels and independent art galleries lined the narrow, cobbled streets, where colourful houses with beautiful shutters and pot plants stood side by side with bustling bars and Catholic churches. Feeling like we were in a European market town, but with the Stars and Stripes waving merrily, Dean and I agreed within just a few moments of arriving that New Orleans was our kind of town. Perhaps it was the European-esque mood of the city, the meanderings of people down pedestrianised streets and the warm breeze rushing in from the Gulf of Mexico, that helped us speed through the usual process of familiarisation, but on that first Saturday night in the heart of the French Quarter, down Bourbon and Chartres Streets, we both felt a million miles from the modern America we had thusfar encountered. With little energy, however, after a long drive from Alabama, and a strong desire to soak up this wonderful place afresh in the morning, we settled on a quick meal and drink before returning to our bed & breakfast joint on Esplanade Avenue, which itself was inside a beautiful colonial style building, family run with a genuine sense of care and attention.

Sunday, then, was a busy day, and our cameras were out in force, snapping away at every enviable vista inside the French Quarter. It is hard to explain it in words, or do it justice in pictures, but the French Quarter looks, sounds and smells amazing. People mooch around at a pleasant pace, taking in the incredible architecture and scenery, noting the French road names and Spanish villas, enjoying the live music on every street corner, or just sitting on the roadside reading or smoking, or lying in the sun in the exquisite gardens by St. Louis Cathedral. Dean and I gulped it all in, almost overwhelmed by it all. Never before have so many photos of so many buildings been taken by so few. In New Orleans, it is possible to experience the city without even going into any of the fabulous buildings. It is enough just to criss-cross through the grid of the Quarter and observe what is happening. Particularly appealing to us was the cuisine. A blend of Creole soul food, Southern slow-cooking, and French seafood delicacies, the menus in New Orleans eating establishments feature bizarre concoctions that somehow seem to work, alongside the usual staples of American dining. A number of options are synonymous with the region, however, and Dean and I were keen to sample them. They include jambalaya, which is a rice dish served with vegetables and chicken pieces, alongside shrimp and sausage, mixed together in a hot sauce and left to brew for as long as possible. Another favourite is catfish po’boys, a sort of sandwich-cum-burger that includes fried catfish in batter as its central feature, while a variation on this theme is the mufaletta, where a variety of cured meats are piled high between bread that also has olives and melted French cheese on top. Finally, New Orleans is probably the best place in the world to eat alligator. You may recoil at thought of eating the meat of a dinosaur-era reptile, but if you get the opportunity to sample some gator, do not hesitate: eat it with reckless abandon. Alligator tastes good. Particularly as a filler for sausages.

Buoyed on by the incredible weather, we ambled the streets like the good tourists we are, stopping only a few times to rest our weary legs. One area of great beauty, with places to relax, can be found in the main gardens outside the front of St. Louis cathedral, and just behind the streetcar track that sits next to the Mississippi delta upon which New Orleans developed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. St. Louis Cathedral is the oldest cathedral in the United States and, while it may not compare to some of the great (and older) European versions across Spain, France and Italy, is still worth viewing from inside as well as its obviously impressive exterior. Interestingly, a British flags hangs proudly inside the main lobby. New Orleans is keen to preserve its mixed heritage, and so places the iconography of its history in central and prominent positions. As a result, while the American flag is obviously visible, at every turn there is a French, Spanish or British flag waving merrily in the humid breeze. It added to the cosmopolitan feel of the city. It may be called the French Quarter, and obviously France has influenced New Orleans more than any other outside source (bearing in mind that France owned the whole state of Louisiana until the mid-nineteenth century), but in reality it could have been justifiably named the ‘European Quarter’. After all, many of the buildings are in a Spanish classical style after a fire in the late eighteenth century tore down many of the original French dwellings. Later, when the French seized the territory back (before America purchased it from them and then fought off the British who patrolled the Gulf of Mexico beyond), it was too heavily populated to recreate a Parisian cityscape, leaving New Orleans with the odd but welcoming distinction of enjoying British civic organisation, French cuisine and language, and Spanish architecture, all in the wonderful American state of Louisiana.

Back in the cathedral gardens, Dean and I marvelled at our good fortune, escaping any major tropical storms and waltzing through the town in eighty degrees of warm, cloud-less sunshine. Palm trees and hot air just a few weeks before Christmas in London is certainly an alienating, but liberating, experience. At the tip of the gardens, by the steps to the cathedral, dozens of artists, musicians and palm-readers set up stall and wait for passing trade. It was like Covent Garden, only warmer, with palm trees. The quality of the street music was a joy to behold, particularly from the trumpet and saxophone players, who have helped give New Orleans music its distinctive jazzy, soulful tone. This is the city of Louis Armstrong, after all, and his legacy remains in the skilful and talented musicians who now line the roads of the French Quarter, playing for the love of the music and the odd tip from tourists, rather than any loftier ambition. It is music from the heart and the soul, like so much of the folkloric South of America.

The next morning, after another enjoyable meal sampling the local cuisine and some French wine (rather than our usual drinks so far on our trip of beer or vodka mixers), Dean and I woke up a little early for our liking. Somewhat surprised at our total inability to function properly at half past seven in the morning, despite both beginning jobs early next year, we immediately sought out the caffeine boost that would get us up and running. A busy and exciting day was in store, and this was no time to be sleepy. Coffee obtained, we waited outside our hotel in seventy-five degrees (at eight in the morning) of heat for a coach to pick us up. We were off on a tour of the Plantation and Swamp land that lies outside New Orleans itself, an excursion that would include riding on an air-boat, the sort of famed water vehicle from ‘The Waterboy’, Indiana Jones films, and the memorable Martin Sheen cameo in ‘Hot Shots Part Deux’, where a fan-assisted motor helps the craft glide over the water and marshes of the Mississippi delta at impressive, and occasionally scary, speeds.

Our first stop was the plantation, knows as Laura Plantation after the first owner of the land, who helped farm and produce sugar cane and turned the plantation into a family business in the early nineteenth centuries. Plantations are important aspects of America’s economic and social development during the pioneering years, helping to manufacture and export goods across all the states and beyond, while engineering new techniques in building and farming. They also played a significant social role in the history of America. Slaves were bought and sold by plantation owners, herded around like cattle to work the land, often in abysmal conditions compared to the wealth and affluence of the owners and their large Creole mansions. Our photos will no doubt demonstrate this, but only by visiting a plantation can you gain a sense of the great hardship that slaves endured, and the inspiring job they did. Even after the abolition of slavery at the end of the American Civil War, former slaves were forced into employment contracts that essentially formalised the conditions of slavery into contractual form, thus maintaining the resentment between white land-owners and slave descendents for decades to come. It is easy, as you walk around the grounds of a plantation such as Laura, to enjoy the beautiful scenery, the lush grass and colourful flowers, the ancient oak trees and swopping butterflies, but a darker history also unfolded here. Nevertheless, the plantation we visited still functions as a cane producer today, and the tour guides were helpful in pointing out, with full disclosure, just what life was like for both the owners and the slaves during the plantation era’s heyday. The story of the owners of Laura Plantation is particularly illuminating, and potentially has the making of a major motion picture, with its controversial family dynamics and internal politics, of strong female leaders picking their successors ad hoc, of a sense of familial duty passed down through many generations without necessarily following the primogeniture of English land owning. At Laura Plantation, now as then, the family was the business and the business was the family.

The opportunity to explore inside the main plantation house, where the owning family would live and work together, was interesting not only in terms of learning about the history of the plantation, but also how the family made great strides in practical areas, from having the kitchen in an out-building away from the main house to prevent fires, to lifting the house onto brick stilts in order to prevent flooding during hurricane season. The lessons they learnt were repeated all over the region and into New Orleans itself.

After a quick lunch, we moved on to the swampland to begin our airboat tour. This proved to be one of the highlights of our entire trip to America. Our guide was an entertaining and energetic host, we were joined by some Canadian siblings, and were in the mood to have fun and learn at the same time. What a lesson was in store! We covered everything from the biology and ecology of alligators, to the civic failures behind the Katrina disaster, with information on the water type (salt, fresh and brackish), the vegetation, the other animals of the region, and the colloquial history of the swamps thrown in for good measure. Particularly illuminating was our guide’s description of the events of Katrina, and the role the government is now playing in protecting this area of incredible natural beauty, not just for people like Dean and I to enjoy, but predominantly for an altogether more serious reason. The swamps and marshes, we learned, essentially act as speed bumps when there is a hurricane, slowing down the onrushing water from the various sources around New Orleans, including the Gulf of Mexico itself, the Mississippi river, and the numerous other brackish lakes. As oil companies have chopped away at the swamps, however, many of these so-called speed bumps have been reduced in size. Our guide felt it was no surprise that the levees were breached in the aftermath of Katrina: there was nothing to stop the flood, nothing to slow down its treacherous advance. A lack of understanding of this basic ecological point, and a desire of successive governments to profit from oil, caused this malaise in responsible organisation, yet the irony exists in the fact that Louisiana exports and imports much of America’s oil, and needs the swamps to remain healthy in order for this to continue. Now, therefore, state and federal agencies are taking better care to preserve the region. It is a double bonus for us, as the swamps are truly magnificent spectacles to behold, as well as providing all-important cover to the towns and cities of Louisiana should another category five hurricane strike the locality.

Like the French Quarter, the swampland is unspeakably beautiful, rich in colour and texture and bending, varying lights and shadows, full of narrow lanes of shallow water, where vegetation and evergreen willow trees hang over the waterways, and then larger stretches surrounded by bigger shrubbery and trees (now sadly damaged post-Katrina) that allowed the air-boat to run at full throttle, aquaplaning between each stunning point of interest. We will both remember the thrill and sheer exhilaration of being buffeted around on the air-boat at top speed, with the high sun’s light bouncing off cool blue water and the refreshing wind in our hair and across our faces. Later, during one of our stop points on the excursion, our host presented (in a hilariously dramatic fashion and much to the sheer terror of the Canadian sisters) a baby alligator to observe and even hold. I was amazed at how cold she was, despite being obviously cold-blooded. Trying not to get my face too close, we posed for photos and tried not to think about how tasty alligator sausages are. It was an added bonus to an already exciting trip out of town.

That night Dean and I returned to New Orleans for our last night in the city, after a well-earned rest by the pool at our hotel. Walking around the Quarter for a final time, I was struck by how impressively upbeat and proud the residents were, despite the ravages of Katrina and the initial feeling of isolation after it. Shame on those politicians back in 2005: New Orleans is one of the world’s most unique cities, a place unlikely any other in America, and adds to the integrity of Louisiana as a jewel in the American crown. Our love affair with Louisiana was about to continue in Baton Rouge, just an hour or so from New Orleans up the Mississippi river. Famed for its sunsets, we set off in the Jeep Patriot for the next stage in our adventure. As we drove, I could not help but think of Blanche Dubois, the central character in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, who constantly reminds us of her upbringing in Baton Rouge. Later, as the emotions of New Orleans life take their heady toll, she exclaims: “Sometimes there is God so quickly!” Natural beauty, friendly people, stunning weather: divine inspiration in the state of Louisiana is alive and well.

US Road Trip - Photos: Birmingham

2009-11-18T09:21:00.002Z

Click here to see photos from Birmingham.

US Road Trip - Video Diary: Birmingham

2009-11-18T09:21:00.001Z