Monday, November 17, 2008

Without wishing to tempt fate

On the eve of my spending the next two weeks pretty much MOVING in some form or another, here's what happens when I go to the US.

I land.
I go to customs.
I wait.
I get escorted to the little room.
They realise that I'm not who they're looking for.
The security guy tells me that he's not *MEANT* to tell me, but that there's someone with the same name they're looking for. They tell me this every time. All of them.
I get to go into the US.

This is an enormous pain in the ass. Sometimes I meet one with an ounce of common sense who realises that being that I'm a different nationality, a different age, and have lots of US passport control stamps for the last decade, I might not be the man they're looking for. But the majority of the time I get the jobsworth dumbass who acts like he's just singlehandled captured Bin Laden and saved the universe. Or just likes to fuck with tired, midly sarcastic British tourists who know what's coming next.

I hate security theatre. I particularly hate security theatre at airports. Has anyone ever been saved by the 50ml liquid rule? I should confess now that I accidentally took 100ml (one hundred whole mililitres) of toothpaste on a flight to Ireland. I forgot to take it out, they didn't notice, and - who knew? - the world didn't end. On that same trip, however, they took my mother's hand cream. The woman is sixty five years old. It was hand cream. The world was not saved by this act. No terrorism was prevented.

Anyway, for those of you who might care, I shall be moving pretty much constantly for the next two weeks, to wit:

Tomorrow - Manchester > London
Wednesday - London > Miami
Thursday - Miami > Fort Lauderdale > Eleuthera
Friday - Eleuthera > the general direction of St Thomas
Saturday - the general direction of St Thomas
Sunday - St Thomas (Scuba Diving)
Monday - St Kitts (Sailing, Snorkeling)
Tuesday - Barbados (Swim with Turtles)
Wednesday - Dominica (River Tubing)
Thursday - Antigua (Sailing, Snorkeling)
Friday - General direction of Ft Lauderdale
Saturday - General direction of Ft Lauderdale
Sunday - Ft Lauderdale > Sawgrass Mills > Miami > London
Monday - London > Manchester

On Tuesday I think I might have a little sleep, then try and work out my average speed over the preceeding fortnight...

If you're good there'll be photos on my return. If you're bad, there'll be LOADS of them. I shall be entirely without interwebs, although the ship itself has a webcam you can watch here

See you in a fortnight, then... wish me luck with immigration!