The land of the free and the home of the.......

I like America. I don't always particularly believe in what they do as a nation, or ther way they go about things but on the whole, I like the place. There are though, a few things I would change. The first would be to make them all learn the highway code and take a real driving test. Not that I consider myself to be the best driver in the world, but the standard of driving in the US is absolutly fukin' apalling! For any of our former collonial cousins who read this, can you tell me this...

On a three lane highway [i.e three lanes going one way, and three going the other] is it permissable to pootle along in any lane or is it, as in the UK, the one is for pootling along, the left hand lane or in the US, the extreme right hand lane], the middle is for over-taking those who are pootling along and the [in the UK] right hand lane is for those trying to break the sound barrier.

I've driven in the US before, about 10 years ago, and I dont remember things being so bad. In saying that, it was in Orlando and full of Brits so that could explain things......[joke].

But this time..... Christ!!!! Tiny, little 150 year old women driving around in the most enormous 4x4 monsters. Not only that but not moving ay faster than about 35mph!

I dont think that it helped that the car we were driving was a heap of crap [Ford Taurus] or that it had an automatic [good] column change [rubbish].

I'm quite patriotic. Not to the extent of wraping myself in the Union Flag and crying at the first strains of Land of Hope and Glory, but I do like to see the old flag a-fluttering from time to time. Well the spams have it off to a fine art. Their jolly little number is everywhere, like shit in a field so to speak.

I may have mentioned this befor [If I haven't, oops, the cat is now out of the bag] but I have a bit of a facination for all things piss. I realy thought my luck was in when I spotted this little device attached to a urinal flush thingy. "Wow! Piss TV / web-cam. I wonder what the www address is?" My hopes were dashed [pissed on?] when I was told it's a flush sensor. Pity.

above: David and Myself in some mosquito infested swamp.

You've seen it in the red-neck movies..... well, so have I and this trip was the perfect oportunity to have a ride in an are boat. Very good and worth every penny of the $18 it cost.

above: Where's my Zantac?

I can see why some Americans grow somewhat larger than the norm. I dont recall any other time or trip when I have suffeed so much from indigestion. Abstenance is not a word I understand.