USA 1998 - Day 1

Ohhhh, the sun has got his hat on, Hip Hip Hip Hooray, the sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today. Oh, now we'll all be happy, Hip Hip Hip Hooray, the sun has got his hat on and he's coming out to play. He's been tanning Negroes down in Timbuktu. Now he's coming back to do the same to you. So jump into your sun suit, Hip Hip Hip Hooray, the sun has got his hat on and he's coming out today. Never saw the grass so greener. Never saw the sky so leaner. What a lot of fun for everyone, sleeping in the sun all day. All the little birds are singing. Canterbury Bells are ringing. Pussy on the tiles is wreathed in smiles, sleeping in the sun all day. Hip Hip Hooray!

Ohhhhhh, the sun has.........that's enough of that.

I think we're in the holiday spirit now don't you?

Well it's off to Gatwick we go to catch a flight to Orlando and the start of our three weeks in the sun. Two weeks to be spent around Orlando, visiting as many of the theme parks and beaches as we can fit in, followed by a one-week Caribbean cruise to hopefully recover from the first two weeks.

We'd already decided not to hire a car for our two weeks, preferring instead to use our hotel shuttle service to the Disney parks and to take taxis if we wanted to visit anywhere else. We will however be hiring a car to drive from Orlando to Tampa to pick up the cruise ship and at the end of the cruise, driving back from Tampa to Orlando airport to pick up the flight home.

The flight left on time and arrived on time, the bit in between was made much more bearable due to the fact that all passengers have their own personal entertainment unit. This consists of a small TV screen in the back of your seat and a remote control unit to access the various options on offer. For example there were 7 audio channels to listen to and 6 TV channels to watch. The first 4 TV channels were showing eight different films, two on each channel. Each channel repeating its films throughout the flight so that if you timed it right you could watch 3 different films quite comfortably for the duration of the flight. All films were very current, Tomorrow Never Dies, The Devil's Advocate, The Rainmaker and the overall selection appealed to all age groups. The other two TV channels showed things like BBC comedy, drama and children's TV.

Mind you, with the screen in the back of your seat it was bloody inconvenient. I spent most of the flight kneeling on the arm rests and craning my neck over the head rest to watch anything. You would have thought they must have thought it through at the design stage wouldn't you? Obviously not.

The other thing is, with everyone wearing personal headphones it's difficult to have normal conversations with people or to even get their attention. The stewardesses have resolved this quite well though. If they want to attract someone's attention they whack them on the head with a big mallet. They don't do this randomly though. They wait until the film you're watching has reached a crucial point which needs all your attention before knocking you almost senseless and sweetly asking, "Would you like a drink Sir?"

We swiftly got through Customs and headed for the Virgin Holiday rep at the airport who would direct us to our bus to take us to our hotel. By the way, I don't know what it is about walking through Customs but even though I know I'm not carrying anything illegal I start to walk funny. I can't seem to walk naturally anymore. It's almost like being drunk. I start to meander and that natural rhythm of walking from one end of the Customs hall to the other becomes a nightmare. I walk into the back of the luggage trolley I'm pushing, I bump into Emma and tread on her foot. I'm like a silver ball in a pinball machine careening down the hall and all the time there are these irrational thoughts whirring through my head. Don't walk too fast, they'll think you want a quick getaway, slow down, take it easy. Speed up a bit, you're walking too damn slow now you idiot, they'll think you've got something smuggled in your trousers that's suddenly making you walk like a deformed monkey. Whatever you do, don't start hopping. Just relax, smile at the officers   No don't smile they'll think you've got something to hide. Look serious but happy. Look responsible.

By the time I got to the end, Pauline and Emma were there waiting for me. "What took you so long?" they asked, "Do you need the lavatory? We were watching you come through on this security monitor and we thought you'd lost all control of your bodily functions."

"Let's just go shall we?" I said as I made a mental note to dry my right leg at the earliest opportunity.

The hotel is fine, seems to be a family orientated hotel with lots of things set up for children to do. We are given various brochures and vouchers entitling us to hotel discounts and a 'Buy one   Get one free' ice cream voucher. We're all feeling tired after the journey and it's getting quite late now, around ten p.m. but before we go to bed I decided to take Emma to the hotel shop and get the free ice cream.

Now I'm not a prejudiced man but....

Serving behind the counter was a black woman with eyes like Marty Feldman, each one pointing in a different direction but never at the person she's talking to. I placed my order three times before it was really my turn to be served and when it was my turn, I stood there silently waiting while she asked me four times what it was that I wanted. Once I'd established it was me she was talking to, I asked her what flavours of ice cream she had and she stood there for all of a minute on auto pilot reciting her well rehearsed litany of different varieties. I couldn't understand a bloody word of what she'd said so I just pointed to some ice cream that looked interesting. The business with her eyes wasn't made any easier by the fact that she was constantly talking jive with all the other blacks in the shop whether they were in front or behind the counter, making it doubly difficult to gauge exactly who she was addressing at any given time.

After standing there in total silence ignoring her frequent requests for one dollar 60 for the ice cream. Emma finally said, "Dad, I think she wants the money." Jolted into action, I thanked the woman and handed over the money still wondering whether I'd just paid for the stuff that the person next to me had just walked off with or whether I was in the clear and could walk away.

I didn't want to upset her but I wasn't sure if she was really still talking to me. She was looking at me, no doubt about that, well one eye was anyway, but the man next to me was beginning to respond to her inane chat as well as me. Of course he may only have thought she was talking to him when in fact she was really talking to me so we could have both been as confused as a fly on a joke plastic dog turd. I was beginning to wonder if she really knew who she was talking to.

The only way out of this as far as I could see, was to wait until everybody stopped talking for a few seconds, smile and get the hell out of there.

Which I did.

I think I got away with it.

USA 1998 - Day 2

We've spent the morning wasting our time at a Virgin Holiday Orientation Session. The idea is to let all first time holidaymakers know what's on offer in Florida and how Virgin can help you organise your holiday by booking attractions, trips etc. on your behalf. As we already knew what we wanted to visit and had tickets for most of the parks anyway it didn't really offer us

anything and we could really have spent our time more productively had we known what it was going to be like beforehand. The meeting finally finished at about midday and we decided to spend the rest of the day at Sea World. We ordered a cab and off we went.

We arrived at Sea World and decided to ignore the sign at the ticket office which said, "Do it all in a day? No way!". Pauline ignored it because we already had our tickets and was confident that you could see all of Sea World in half a day. I ignored it because it just got on my flipping nerves!

We passed through the ticket barrier, walked on past the Automatic Teller Machine, anyone know what the hell that is? I stood in front of it and asked it a few questions but Pauline dragged me away telling me not to be stupid. We carried on walking, past the Nursing Area For Mothers then past the Pet Care Facility until we were finally in the main area of the park. By the way, can you imagine someone bringing their pet with them to visit a theme park? You just wouldn't would you? But if nobody did, whatever do they do in Pet Care Facility? Perhaps there's someone in there to give advice on pet care. Perhaps every now and then somebody gets a bit bored and wants to know the best way to bring up a baby iguana or just wants to chat to someone about the problems with teenage stick insects. Who knows? Who cares? I certainly don't.

Once the full vista of the park had opened up to me I just stood there transfixed and gazed at the awe inspiring view around me.

Now I'm not a prejudiced man but.....

I've never seen so many grossly overweight people gathered together in one place before. I can't believe what I'm seeing, and here's even more of them. Hang on, it's the walrus pool, sorry, I've only been here for 30 minutes and they're all looking the same already.

As soon as the fattest woman in the world heaves into view, you look around and there, lumbering into view is another fattest woman in the world, beating the last fattest woman in the world by at least 5 stone. Well, obviously they can't both be the fattest woman in the world so I've got to be a bit more objective and less impulsive here with my descriptions.......hang on, I've just seen another fattest woman in the world..........again..........no, she can't be.........she must be the fattest woman in the universe, she's enormous! Surely she can't really be alive can she? It's probably just one of those larger than life cartoon characters dressed in a fat suit and dress....but.....it's not. Wait a minute, look over there, it must be the fattest woman in......oh this is getting ridiculous, it just goes on and on. Each one you see gains an extra 6 inches of rolling fat on the previous person. Just when you think you've seen the biggest and fattest a human being can get, another one rolls by whose skin is about to explode all over you. Maybe the whole of Sea World is just one fat woman and I'm walking across her upper thigh right at this minute, or maybe I'm walking across her   oh never mind let's concentrate on the Sea World attractions.

I touched a dolphin, I touched a dolphin! I really, really, really touched a dolphin! There's a pool with about half a dozen of them swimming and gliding through the water and they make a special point of swimming up to the edge so that if you're lucky you can reach down and stroke them. It's reasonably easy for an adult but quite difficult for children as the side of the pool is quite high and awkward to reach over. Emma can't quite reach and she wants to touch the animal so much it's heartbreaking when she can't. I try to lift her up and over the top of the side of the pool but it's no use, she can't quite do it. The look of disappointment on her face when she realises she isn't going to do it makes me want to say, "Don't worry I'll buy you one and you can stroke it when ever you want", but of course I don't.

Time to move on.

It's quite an art to see all the attractions and time your visits to various locations within the park in order to see all the live shows that are going on. The live shows are presented throughout the day at different times so it's often a case of fitting those in first and then trying to see the attractions close by. We're off to see a show called 'Cirque de la Mer', a 30 minute circus of "comedy, skill and special effects"......really looking forward to this....especially as there seems to be a lot of potential for audience/performer interaction and Emma has decided to sit us in the front row centre!

Here we are   Cirque de la Mer.

Master of ceremonies and in control of the show and the audience is a mute clown, dressed in a sort of Charlie Chaplin outfit and whose only means of communication is by blowing a whistle placed permanently in his mouth accompanied by a lot of arm waving.

As we all wander into the auditorium looking for a place to sit, he's wandering around embarrassing people by forcing them to sit where they didn't seem to want to, splitting couples up and making them sit at either end of a row, walking behind people and imitating their walks and mannerisms without their knowledge and throughout it all he's constantly blowing on that damn whistle of his generally upsetting as many people as he can before the show starts. It's all very funny and quite clever and of course keeps us all amused while we wait for the theatre to fill to it's capacity.

It does not, however, bode well for the future I'm thinking. Audience participation and humiliation is wonderful to see if you're not the one participating and being humiliated, and do you remember where Emma has made us sit? Come on, you can't have forgotten already. I'll give you a clue, it's not right at the back in a dark corner........

Well the show is starting at last. I must admit that clown with the whistle was beginning to get on my nerves after a while   bloody idiot.

Oh great, the first act is a fire eater. Some ugly pox marked Polynesian weighing about 20 stone, thumping around the stage in a loin cloth, spraying out paraffin every time he breathes heavily and performing most of the fire eating stuff right at the front of the stage and who's right at the front of the stage? Yup, me Pauline and Emma. The heat from the fire torches is so intense it's burning my face and it's raining paraffin all over the first 3 rows. The act is tacky and yet when it's over I'm applauding as if it's the best act in the world. There's so much paraffin around that when I clap my hands I spray the stuff back on stage again. That's given him a taste of his own medicine I think as I wait until he's bowing low so that I can get him with it right in the eye.

Next on is an acrobatic act, the usual stuff, all very clever but boring. Two muscle bound poofs balancing on one another's heads, hands, feet in various artistic posing combinations. Obviously can't keep their hands off each other, bloody perverts.

Uh oh! That bloody clown's back on and he's coming down into the auditorium. He's running backwards and forwards in front of the first row and darting into the audience every now and again to drag some unsuspecting man up onto the stage.

This is hell on earth. Don't make eye contact, keep your head down, look the other way, slide down into your seat, try and look mad and dangerous   anything to keep him away! How many men are up there now? Five? Surely he can't be looking for more, can he? He's still racing up and down like a lunatic blowing that bloody whistle, please you bastard, please choose someone else soon who isn't me....please...........

Thank you God, he's got his last victim. All six of them are up there now. Jesus, what a relief. He's back on stage again now, thank Christ for that. He's still blowing that damn whistle all over the place but that's OK, he's getting on with the next phase of the act with the poor bastards on stage. Time to relax and enjoy the utter embarrassment of those six people up there in the spotlight.

All of a sudden he decides to walk to the edge of the stage again and, Jesus, he's looking straight at me! I look back. He's still looking at me! Now he's locked eye contact and starting to blow short sharp whistle noises while pointing at the foot of the stage. Oh no, he wants me to stand up, to actually stand up and walk to the edge of the stage. He's made me stand in front of him and there I am, back to the audience, looking up at him while he looks down on me still blowing that bloody whistle. Emma and Pauline are enjoying every minute. I'm on my second pair of underpants.

I manage to interpret his insane whistle blowing, arm waving and foot stomping as a request to stand to attention and now I think he wants me to raise my right arm in the air. Difficult to know for sure as all he does is blow that damn whistle, wave his arms and raise his eyebrows. It's more difficult communicating with this bugger than it was with the ice cream lady with the funny eyes. What is it about this country? Is everyone afflicted in some way? Anyway, he's now got me standing there, right arm raised straight in the air....and now what? I see.....I have to raise two fingers of my right hand. He pauses for dramatic effect and slowly hangs his sweaty coat and hat on my fingers like a coat stand. The crowd laugh, I'm cringing and he turns his back on me and walks slowly away to centre stage. Thinking that was the end of the gag I lower my arm to get rid of the hat and coat, they really were stinking of sweat but he turns around, rushes to the edge of the stage and repeats all the bloody arm waving, whistle shit again making me stand there arm up straight again.

This is fun isn't it? By this time the performer in me is beginning to emerge and I'm ad libbing like the best of them. Each time he turns away I lower my arm slowly but quickly shoot it back up whenever he turns and looks at me. The crowd laugh even more and I'm all set to climb up on that stage and start doing my funny dance followed by a few jokes when he tells me to sit down.........it's all over, I get a clap from the audience and it's on to the next act.

Back outside in the non air conditioned real world, it's in the 80s and hot! The rest of Sea World is very good and in addition to being able to observe creatures like penguins, otters, seals, sea lions, dolphins, manatees and all other forms of marine life there are various animal shows in which one can see a wide selection of animals "performing" for the crowds. I must admit I don't enjoy the spectacle of animals being put on show and going through their tricks for an audience. I think it's humiliating for the animals and not something that should be encouraged, however, try telling that to the thousands of kids who come here and enjoy every minute of it.

We made our way to the Sea Lion and Otter Stadium to catch one of the shows and sat two or three rows back from the front. It wasn't until the show had started that I realised exactly what they meant by designating the first half a dozen or so rows as the 'Soak Zone'. It seems that part of the fun at these events is to get as many people as possible, as wet as possible and if you're sitting in one of the 'Soak Zones' then you WILL get wet. You have no choice in the matter. But being prepared to get wet is not the same as experiencing the wettest you could ever get without actually jumping head first into the ocean. When it happened, and we knew it was going to happen, all three of us just sat there looking like three Oliver Hardys on the receiving end of fifty buckets of water from Stan Laurel.

The afternoon seemed to fly by and before we knew it, it was time to catch the final show of the day   'Shamu Rocks America'. This was a high voltage arena show starring a killer whale called Shamu. It was slowly getting dark as we settled ourselves in our seats well away from the Soak Zones this time. (If a couple of sea lions could almost wash us out to sea, Christ knows what a huge killer whale could do to you.) The build up to the show was almost as ood as the show itself. Heavy rock music blasted continuously from a massive sound system while a huge TV screen transmitted live video pictures of the audience. There were popcorn sellers roaming the stadium, there were bagel sellers roaming the stadium, there were people selling souvenirs roaming the stadium, there were people selling drinks roaming the stadium, the audience

were singing along to the rock tracks, waving, shouting, laughing and dancing in the aisles. Everybody is having a good time and the show hasn't even started yet.

And then it starts.

With a final blast of Springsteen this enormous killer whale streaks through the water at a phenomenal speed, leaps out of the water and lands, coming to rest with it's head and half of it's body resting on the edge of the massive water tank and stays there for all of 10 seconds while appearing to look at the audience, waiting for the applause, which when it comes is absolutely deafening. As we now know the sole purpose of these types of shows is to saturate as many people as possible and because of this the first fourteen rows of seats are designated the 'Soak Zone'. Can you believe that? Imagine fourteen rows of theatre seats rising in tiers with at least another 20 or 30 feet between the first row and the tank of water. It doesn't seem possible to push so much water over the steep sides of the tank for such a distance.......does it?

Shamu continues to glide through the water at a remarkable rate, leaping high in the air and landing head first back into the water before diving deep and pushing out and up into the air once more. The audience are cheering like there's no tomorrow when Shamu rises from the tank once more and this time, instead of re entering the water in the most aerodynamically way, head first, it flips over onto it's side in mid air and lands with an almighty crash on the surface of the water sending hundreds of gallons of salt water over the people in the Soak Zone. There's immediate panic from most of them as they realise that if they stay in their seats they could well end up floating along the aisles on their backs and time is running out because Shamu is already on his second pass of the pool. People are literally scrambling over each other to reach the higher tiers of seats, some make it, some don't, but Shamu certainly does and with the final pass of the pool and another small ocean of water tipped over the spectators.........the show is over.

USA 1998 - Day 3

Up early to catch the shuttle bus to The Magic Kingdom.

While waiting for the lift in the hotel I was idly watching the TV (there's a TV on every landing) when I found myself watching some sort of contest taking place in what looked like the outdoor pool area of a hotel.

There were lots of men, wider than they were tall, stacking about 6 folded towels on top of their heads. They then picked up a long, thin, flat iron bar and proceeded to rupture themselves while trying to bend the bar over their heads. None of them seemed to manage to bend their bar out of alignment by anything more than a few centimetres but this was by no means a pathetic failure judging from the ecstatic responses from the moronic looking crowd.

While all this was going on, there was a man who was obviously some sort of official encourager shouting things like "Way to go" and "Get it on" and "Yeah baby". I knew he was an official because he had a folded towel on his head as well. Only one towel though, but what he lacked in towels he made up for by wearing a hat on top of the one towel he had on his head.

After the men with lots of folded towels on their heads had ruptured themselves, the iron bars were measured on a peculiar looking piece of equipment that would look more at home in the Science Museum. The number of degrees of deviation in the length of the bar was confirmed and the winner was the last one in the ambulance. I made that last bit up, the real winner seemed to be the man with the towel and the hat who ends up so excited with all his "Way to go's" and "Get it on's" that he ends up in a crumpled heap on the floor looking as if he's just spent seven days in bed with Vanessa Feltz.

The Magic Kingdom is being renovated.

Some attractions are closed and others, like Cinderella's Castle are being re painted. Whenever you see evidence of some work in progress, it's usually behind hoardings and hidden from view with a sign outside that says "Pardon our stardust". Cute eh?

The whole place is clean, tidy, pleasant and thoroughly enjoyable. It does, however, remind me a bit of the TV series 'The Prisoner'. All the Disney employees are displaying their fixed smiles and wonderfully tolerant attitudes to every visitor they come across. The only thing missing is that big bouncy transparent ball that came bouncing along the beach. That would come in very handy here. It could bounce along Main Street every few hours and knock over all the fat bastards clogging up the walkways so the rest of us could walk through at a normal pace.

Joke: How many really fat gross people can you fit into The Magic Kingdom?

All of them, apparently.

I've discovered in my short time in this country that you can't refer to anyone as 'fat'. I think the term is 'alternatively body imaged' but it doesn't have the same ring to it somehow, does it? Mind you I think all this political correctness is turning the Yanks into a laughing stock across the

world, I mean you can't say 'specific', you have to say 'differently diverse', you can't say 'bad', you have to say 'differently good', 'good' is 'differently differently good' and 'very bad' is 'differently differently differently good'.

Even our bus driver was called a Mass Transit Executive Guidance Operative.

I mean it just goes on and on, some bloke was describing his wife to me as sexually insatiable with frenetic erotic responses.

"Oh", I said, "You mean she goes like a train?"

But enough of this for now, more later...

We've only been in the U.S. for 3 days and I've already seen someone who was the spitting image of Muddy Waters (it wasn't him, he's dead, Muddy Waters is, not the man I saw), our bus driver was Chuck Berry on his day off, half the women have been Roseanne look-alikes and the other half look like their father is their mother's brother.

Everybody really does keep bloody well saying "You have a nice day now" and I keep saying back "Why, thank you". Why do I keep saying it? I don't want to. I hate it. But I keep saying it. I've only been here 3 days and I'm turning into one of them already. I am not a number! I am a free man!

Americans are not as rude as I thought, well not the ones on holiday at any rate. If anything, they're overly polite to the point of being ridiculous. I stopped to let someone pass by me and he said, "Thank you sir". Normal polite gestures like "After you" or holding a door open are received with an almost gushing politeness in return, something like, "Oh thank you sir so very much, thanks, thanks".

The hotel room keys are like credit cards. We were issued with two. Pauline carried around one while I kept the other.

Today I lost mine in The Magic Kingdom.

I must say Mickey Mouse was a dead loss in trying to find it. He can only see a few inches in front of his face and couldn't even see me standing in front of him let alone a credit card sized piece of plastic on the floor. I hope there's not a hotel penalty for lost room keys, think I'll say I was mugged in The Magic Kingdom by one of the seven dwarves, didn't get a good look at him but I think it might have been Grumpy having a bad day.

That should do the trick.

Did a couple of the main attractions today.

Space Mountain   a roller coaster ride in the dark. Totally enclosed in a mammoth futuristic structure, the theme of the ride is a space flight through the dark recesses of the galaxy. The effects are superb and the ride is very fast.

Alien Encounter   a supposedly scary experience that takes place in total darkness. You all sit in a small circular auditorium while in front of you a short dramatic storyline unfolds inviting us to witness a demonstration of interplanetary teleportation, a technique that breaks down the traveller into electrons for transmission a la Star Trek. But surprise surprise, the demonstration goes wrong and an alien escapes and runs amok through the darkness in the auditorium. This is all achieved by lots of noise and various sudden assaults on your senses. The seats move and judder, you can feel it's breath on the back of your neck and it's saliva on your face (just short

sharp water sprays). At last it's re captured and everything is tidy again in time for the next audience to be admitted.

Walking around the Magic Kingdom you come across various cafes, restaurants and snack stalls selling things like 'Subs', 'Gyros' and 'Beef Jerky'. I managed to find out what Subs and Gyros were but didn't have the courage to ask for a Beef Jerky. I'm sure it's a Chinese sexual practise, in fact now I come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that woman serving in the East Peckham takeaway once said to me, "You wanna beef jerky saucy boy?" A Gyro by the way is a pitta bread kebab and a Sub is a baguette.

After my first day's bad experience at getting an ice cream for Emma I decided to have another go and headed for one of the many ice cream/soda kiosks. Posted by the counter was a list of what they sold and it took the three of us all of ten minutes to decide on what type of ice cream to have, the choice was endless   sundaes, mondaes, tuesdaes, cold tubs, freezy kools, kooly freezes, freezy freezes or kooly koolies .

But that was just the start...........it carried on something like this........

Me: I'd like three ice cream sundaes please.

Girl: Yes sir, three ice cream sundaes. What flavour?

Me: What flavours are there? (I couldn't believe I'd said that. I was regretting it already)

Girl: Vanilla, chocolate, vanilla chocolate swirl, strawberry, raspberry, pecan, butterscotch, mint chip, raspberry butterscotch swirl....

Me: Er, one vanilla and two chocolate.

Girl: Yes sir and what topping would that be?

Me: What toppings are there? (I couldn't believe I'd said that either)

Girl: Strawberry, caramel, hot fudge......

Me: Er, Pauline, Emma, what topping do you want?

What do you mean on what?

Emma, you're chocolate and Pauline, you're vanilla.

OK. Emma, you want strawberry, Pauline you want caramel?

I'll have strawberry too.

Girl: Yes sir?

Me: Right, it's strawberry on the vanilla and strawberry on the... no, hang on, it's caramel on the choco....no, er, what are you having again Pauline? Chocolate? I thought that was Emma. Oh it's Emma as well. No, Emma's chocolate and you're vanilla? OK. Right. It's strawberry on the chocolate and caramel on the vanilla.

Girl: Yes sir. That's one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping.

Me: I think so. Is that right Pauline? Pauline? Pauline? Wake up Pauline.

Girl: Do ya want sprinkles with that?

Me: Who said that?

Girl: I did sir. Do ya want sprinkles with that?

Me: With what?

Girl: With one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping

Me: Um, er, why not?

Girl: We have chocolate sprinkles, strawberry sprinkles, caramel sprinkles, multi sprinkles and dog shit sprinkles sir.

Me: Emma? Pauline? What sprinkles do you want?

What do you mean what are they?

I don't bloody know do I? Do you want them or not?

You do.

Well come on then, what sort do you want?

What do you mean what sort do they have?

Aaaaarrrrgh!!!!!

Girl: Ohhhh Kaaay. That's one super kool freeze sundae vanilla caramel topping with multi sprinkles, one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping with caramel sprinkles and one super kool freeze sundae chocolate strawberry topping with dog shit sprinkles. Sprinkles are 5 cents extra on each order sir. OK?

The queue behind us which is now winding around the Magic Kingdom and into the overflow car parking areas shouts with one voice:

H E ' L L T A K E I T ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

We walk away with our ice cream to thunderous applause.

USA 1998 - Day 4

Back to The Magic Kingdom again today to finish off everything we didn't do yesterday.

Many of the attractions are built around animatronic/robotic displays and one of the most impressive was 'The Hall Of Presidents'. Trouble is you have to sit through a potted history of the United States beforehand and it gets to be just too much to take after a while. The patriotism is puke making but the audience, mainly Americans, lapped it up, the patriotism not the puke....(I'm sorry, that was uncalled for wasn't it?)

At the end, the stage curtains part to reveal a robotic life size replica of every president of the US to date and there follows a series of short speeches from a select few of these characters, including Clinton. The models are incredibly life like and they have all been given a life of their own, reacting and responding to what's going on around them. During his speech, Clinton's trousers fall down around his ankles in a very realistic fashion.

It all finishes with a rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic and all that stuff about being a free country and there's not a dry eye in the house.

On this second day I realise that the whole of the Magic Kingdom area is a lot smaller than you think once you've got your bearings and you find yourself drifting in and out of the various themed lands without realising it. Everywhere I go Disney people wave, smile and say innocuous things to me and as a large proportion of the male Disney employees are so obviously queer, it's a bit of an effort to reciprocate in the same friendly way back. Not having had much experience as an old queen, all I can do is force a weak smile and shout, "Keep away from me you pervert or I'll punch you in the head". I think that helps establish our relationship in a subtle yet forceful way.

Emma's favourite ride was The Haunted Mansion. A slow ride through various spooky tableaux, all created with remarkably clever hi tech special effects. As the ride is coming to an end you're warned about hitch hiking ghosts and as you pass slowly by a long expanse of mirrored glass you see a ghostly creature sitting in the car with you as you travel along.

Very clever stuff.

At the end of the day in the Magic kingdom, the evening carnival parade is breathtakingly spectacular. It takes place after dark and hits all your senses at once. It's a masterpiece of sound and vision and is a marvellous way to end the day.

Once the parade is over, the fireworks start. Unfortunately Emma and Pauline were in the toilets when the firework display started and they were still in there when it finished so they missed the whole thing. I told them how terrific it had been and tried to describe how it was one of those once in a lifetime not to be missed experiences that I was really glad that I'd had....so I don't think they were too disappointed.

They wouldn't talk to me for a good hour afterwards, so choked up with emotion at my description of the fireworks were they. Even months later after the holiday they still ignore me for hours when I describe the beauty of the display they missed, so evocative is my description   but, hell, if you can't share the good times with your family, what can you share?

USA 1998 - Day 5

Spent a relaxing day by the hotel pool and took the opportunity to do some laundry. Spent ages trying to find the laundry room and in the end gave up and decided to ask one of the hotel staff. I saw one of the black kitchen employees groovin' his way down the corridor so I stopped him and asked, "Excuse me, could you tell me where the laundry room is please?"

He looked at me and said, "Whoah baby, why they tell you somethin', hey boy eh? You wanna no shit down the hall yessir. Gotta go, sluggah, buggah, hey whassat shit rocker?"

When I thought he'd finished speaking I gave him an inane grin, thanked him and wandered off to find sluggah, buggah shit rocker. I found it eventually just down the corridor on the right just past the ookie cooler kickass noshit bop.

By the way the breakfast and evening meal in the hotel is a self serve buffet or bu FFEH as they insist on calling it. All you can eat for a set price but the cost does not include your choice of beverage. Why they don't just say drinks extra beats me. All the waiters have to do is ask you if you want a drink with your meal and clear the table after you've gone and you're expected to tip them for good service at the end of a meal which you've collected and served yourself.

Crikey, money for old rope if you ask me.

USA 1998 - Day 6

Blizzard Beach. A themed water park. Lots of opportunities for swimming, splashing about and sunbathing.

Emma loved it.

Noticed a sign posted up for that night's attraction. It said  

The Hoop Dee Doo Revue.

All you can eat home style vittals.

Chow down on buckets of fried chicken & smoked pork ribs

Plenty of side fixin's & Ma's famous desserts

Wet your whistle with beer, wine or sodas

Includes show, dinner & beverage

They're all on drugs if you ask me.

USA 1998 - Day 7

They didn't tell us that the clocks went forward one hour last night so we missed our 9.30 am bus to River Country completely and had to get one at around 11 am instead.

I thought they might have issued a bulletin to all guests in the hotel at the very least, after all they have a telephone message system in place.

It works like this:

If you have any messages a red light on the telephone flashes. To get your messages you have to switch the TV on and, with the remote control, select a menu option which will then display your messages.

Now, call me old fashioned but if I have any telephone messages then I don't expect to have to turn the television on. I expect, in my own simple way, to get the telephone message by lifting up the telephone, but no, I have to go to the TV to see what the telephone has to say for me. I've tried watching TV on the telephone but that doesn't seem to be an option open to me.

Must remember to suggest that though on my hotel survey form.

This isn't the end of it though. Once you've checked your messages, to stop the damn light on the telephone from flashing, you have to dial a special number which then cancels the light but it all seems to have a mind of it's own. I've lost count of the times we've seen the light flashing, gone and switched on the TV which has then told us that we don't have any messages.

I think it's because the telephone doesn't like the TV very much, after all the TV gets most of the attention in the room so the telephone does it's best to be as awkward as possible and to annoy the TV whenever it can.

Either that or the telephone operator is on drugs.

Where was I? Oh yes, River Country. The whole area is a Disney park consisting of two distinct entities. There's Discovery Island, while the rest of the park is a sort of beach resort built around a man made beach and lagoon with various water attractions. Discovery Island was a quite impressive wild life park and it was nice to see animals and birds in their own tropical environment with space to roam.

Even on the beach, as with all Disney parks, music plays continuously from carefully camouflaged speakers, Disney characters roam the beach and the whole atmosphere is one of fun, fun, fun. I saw one woman asleep on her sun lounger being approached by Goofy who sat on the sand beside her and began to pat her head.

Now the people inside these suits can't see anything worth shit at the best of times and I would think that Goofy thought that the woman was awake. She opened one sleepy eye, saw this big thing sitting next to her, screamed blue murder and sat up with a start. She calmed down eventually but I'm sure her eye kept twitching for the rest of the day.

There is a new Disney park, The Animal Kingdom, opening here on April 22nd and by all accounts it's going to be the jewel in Disney's crown. The only trouble is, April 22nd is after we return home. Pauline, however, has noticed that people staying in Disney hotels are being given the opportunity to visit The Animal Kingdom before it's official opening date under a special preview arrangement.

Now just think how empty a Disney park could be if, instead of it being open to everybody in the world, it was only open to guests of Disney hotels in Florida. It seemed a terrible shame for us to have come all this way and not be able to see the latest and newest Disney park so Pauline decided and I agreed, that we should try and book into a Disney hotel for one night, take up the Animal Kingdom visit option and then return to our existing hotel the next night and for the rest of our holiday.

Let's do it!

While at River Country, Pauline booked us into Disney's All Star Music Resort Hotel for one night. We returned from River Country during the late afternoon/early evening, packed our toothbrushes and a change of clothes and ordered a taxi.

We were tired from our day out on the beach and were looking forward to a quick ride to our one night hotel, an early night and Animal Kingdom the next day.

What could go wrong?

We waited and waited.....and waited for the taxi to arrive. Ten minutes, twenty, thirty minutes went by when all of a sudden a man in the hotel foyer said to us, "Taxi?".

We said, "Yes, to the All Star Music Resort Hotel?"

He said, "OK".

We followed him outside to his cab, an unmarked car, and listened as he spoke to us in broken English with a Spanish accent. Once inside the car I thought things were not quite right as he got onto his radio and said, "Made the pickup. I'm at the hotel. Do I turn right or left out of the hotel?" After repeating this non stop for all of five minutes with no response, a crackling voice suddenly replied, "Turn left".

The driver turned left and immediately got back onto his radio and said, "Where do I head for now?"

Turning to us he said with a grin, "I've only been in the job for three days and without this (gesturing to the radio) we won't get anywhere".

"That's nice", I said smiling back at him and giving Pauline a worried look.

"OK", crackled the radio, "Follow the signs to Disney World but don't go to The Magic Kingdom, take the right turnoff before then."

"Ten four", said the driver as he ignored the right turnoff and headed straight for The Magic Kingdom.

"I think you should have gone right there", said Pauline.

"Oh, you know where we're going?" said the driver hopefully.

"No, we just saw the sign", we said.

The driver got back onto the radio.

"I'm heading for The Magic Kingdom".

"You shouldn't be", crackled the radio back, "Where are you now?"

"Still heading for Magic Kingdom".

Jesus Christ, I thought, what the hell is going on.

"OK", crackled the radio again, "Look out for a sign that says, 'What the fuck are you playing at you dozy simpleton', and follow that.

It didn't really but I wished it had.

Suddenly there was a choice between a right or left turn. The driver had no idea and back at base they're getting no constructive information from this driver from hell except for, " Is it right or left?"

Meanwhile, Pauline and I are in the back of the car screaming at the radio, "We're at the intersection of two roads, one goes right to Disney Resort Hotels, the other goes left to the edge of the world where we'll all fall off! Bearing in mind that we wanted to get to The Disney Resort Hotels, we think we should go right"

"Go right", crackles the radio.

"Ten four", said the cretin at the wheel.

We eventually arrived at the hotel, got ripped off for a fare of $18.00 and scrambled out of the cab as fast as we could only to be presented with a queue of people snaking backwards and forwards in front of the check in desk. The time was now 8.30 pm and we still had to check in, arrange the Animal Kingdom trip and try to get to bed for an early start the following day. It took over an hour to check in.

Thirty minutes queuing and thirty minutes being registered on a computer system with a response time as slow as our bloody taxi driver's brain.

USA 1998 - Day 8

This is the way to visit a Disney park. There's hardly anyone about. There are no queues for anything, the rides and attractions are half empty and you can stroll around in a totally relaxing manner. If you fancy going on a ride again, all you do is walk out of the exit, walk back round to the entrance and get on it again. The reason for giving people this sneak preview of the park is obviously so that the park can go through a few weeks of rehearsal with real visitors before the world descends on it. There were so few of us in the park that the Disney employees were looking quite bored and had difficulty in keeping themselves occupied.

The Animal Kingdom consists of various different areas of parkland designed to look and feel like Disney's idea of the animal's natural habitat. Consequently there is an area called Africa, one called Asia (not open yet), one called Safari Village and one called The Oasis. In addition to this and I'm sure it's to keep the Americans interested, is Dinoland USA and Camp Minnie Mickey (no comment).

We headed straight for Africa to ride the African Safari. The publicity suggested that the visitor would be taken on safari in a land rover to observe the African wildlife at close quarters in it's natural surroundings. This was true up to a point but the Yanks are obviously incapable of just looking at animals.

They need something more.

They need some form of entertainment.

They need drama.

They need excitement.

On arriving at the safari entrance we were greeted by the sight of a continuous shuttle of custom built vehicles made to look like enormous land rovers each one capable of holding about forty people. The vehicle would stop, allow people to board and drive on while immediately behind another vehicle drove up and would do the same thing. It was a conveyor belt of vehicles and if there were no people to get on any particular vehicle then that vehicle drove off around the safari circuit completely empty.

Now, as I've said, because the Americans seem incapable of just appreciating the beauty of wildlife, the whole safari journey takes the form of a sort of drama acted out by the driver. So in addition to keeping up a running commentary on what we were seeing we had to believe that there were poachers in the vicinity and that they were armed and dangerous so, "Keep a look out guys!".

Pathetic really.

As well as acting out his script, "We're about to enter bandit country guys!", and trying to whip the passengers into some form of excitement at the prospect of helping to capture the poachers, the driver makes sure he stops the vehicle on a rickety bridge which on cue starts to shake and wobble about a bit.

Eventually we are driven past evidence of camp fires and animal bones (the poachers can't be far away, see?) when all of a sudden the driver starts to act out a scenario on his walkie talkie which tells us the bandits have killed Big Red the elephant and have captured Little Red the baby elephant.

Oh no! What's going to happen?

After a lot of shouting and gunfire on the radio we drive past two land rovers. One has Little Red in the back and the other has a couple of tailor's dummies sitting in the front pretending to look like bandits. Standing by the side of the vehicle and training a rifle on the two pretend bandits is a Disney employee dressed in a police uniform.

"Hey, did they get Little Red?", shouts our driver.

"Little Red's OK", shouts back the policeman.

Can you believe this?

Remember, this Disney employee, dressed as a policeman has to stand there gun in hand and shout, "Little Red's OK" to every land rover that passes by but what an actor that boy was.

Brilliant I thought.

There was another thing about this safari experience which was even more mind boggling than Little Red's rescue and that was something that happened on our second safari ride. Because we did the ride early in the morning we thought we'd do it again later in the afternoon in the hope of seeing some different animals so off we went. This time though, we were the only ones in the land rover and although we told the driver that we had been on the safari earlier, we still got the whole dramatic play acting bit all over again. It was somewhat surreal because the driver would be having a normal conversation with us, discussing this and that, when all of a sudden he would go into the rehearsed script and start shouting things like, "We're entering bandit

country guys!" and "Hold on this might be dangerous!", generally over acting like mad and then resuming our conversation afterwards as if nothing had happened.

We even got the policeman again saying, "Little Red's OK".

Blimey, what a job eh?