On Friday, 2 days ago, I went to the U.S.Embassy in London for my Visa Interview. What a day! I do not remember being so bored for a very long time. But the application was at least granted, so the trip is on. Some details follow later, as the event should definitely be regarded as part of the trip.
After my last entry, I received today, a wonderful e-mail from Son and New Daughter. They have sparked me up again, and although I was still determined to go, I admit that I was somewhat confused as to why I am going. They sent me a “Motivational PowerPoint presentation”, but what do you expect from a teaching Army Officer and a Secondary School teacher. It did bring some lacrimal secretions to the eyes, but this hard biker is hardly likely to admit that again, so we’ll forget that bit. They ended their message with two quotes:-
1) You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. ~Alan Alda
2) You'll never be complete if you don't have a go. If you take the bike and it's crap, then it's crap, but you tried. You can always get on a plane home. It's not a war zone. If it's brill - then perfect!
The second quote is Son and New Daughter’s, but although the language is definitely not as poetic as Alan Alda’s, and shows more than a hint of their Yorkshire common sense, it seems to me to have as much impact!
I also received a comment, my first, from Nancy. Obviously she empathized with my feelings, but clearly she must also be my generation and brought her kids up playing like we did! Thanks so much for bothering Nancy…you must be a teacher or work for Social Services! Encouragement much appreciated.
Now, Friday should have been simple. Appointment at 1330hrs, paperwork all in order, passport available, $100-00 pre-paid, pop in for chat, explain why I wanted to visit and that I am a very English, conservative, well behaved chap (except for the 3 speeding points on my driving licence), and then go home. But the first complication was that I had to go to Twickenham to collect a rotting motor scooter from the front garden of the flat that Daughter has just vacated. Daughter moved closer to her work in the City(London, England) last weekend, to Clapham, which she had previously assured me was “The New Kensington”. That was just before the sad shooting, three days later, of a 15 year old boy there, a fact which rather increased parental concern rather than confirmed the aspirations towards its SW1 neighbour. I had to take a trailer on the car, but my motor cycle trailer has a strong thief proof lock on the hitch, and of course, on Thursday night, when I was about to set off, I couldn’t find the thief proof key, because I had put it in a safe place. So, I had to take the farm trailer, a slightly difficult problem, because the wiring was just a bit wrong, in that indicating left in the car, flashed the right side indicator on the trailer and vice versa. This meant of course that as one drove, one had to remember to indicate the opposite way to the way you wanted to turn, in order to notify following traffic. Of course, if you wanted to notify oncoming traffic, while waiting in the middle of the road, you still had to use the correct indicator position, but it told the cars behind that I was turning left. After about 2 hours of this, you get the hang of it as your cerebral hemispheres become schizophrenic, which is only really a bit difficult when you then get out of the car for a wee at a service station and turn left into the ladies instead of right into the gents. With "Spike" ready at hand, the sudden confrontation by a bilateral row of cubicles with no urinal in sight, and two ladies washing their hands, convinced me that the trailer lighting needed disconnecting, so, after beating a hasty retreat into the men's room opposite, I returned to the vehicles and attached the trailer board which I had in my boot instead and spent the next half hour re-setting my cerebral settings to default mode.
I had decided to stay overnight in Evesham at my old working house, as it has not yet sold. I had a good night’s sleep and set out at 9.00 o’clock to go via Oxford to arrive at Twickenham about 11.00. I have not mentioned that it was my intention last weekend to take my 17 year old Rover 827i to have its MOT test. The previous week it had been serviced and almost as soon as I got home afterwards, whilst doing some filing, I found the old MOT certificate which was four months out of date, although obviously it is properly taxed and insured. Somehow, these things have got out of sync over the years. In addition, within a day of getting back from its service, the electrical connection underneath from the engine to the speedometer had become disconnected so the speedo was defunct. However, in fourth gear the revs ratio is 2:1, so at 3,500 revs the vehicle is doing 70m.p.h. and that is easy. Trailers however are only allowed to travel at 50, so I reckoned that 2,500 revs would be the right level to keep her at on the motorway. Nice day, going well through the hills of the Cotswolds, through beautiful Moreton in Marsh,(Gloucestershire, England), Chipping Norton,(likewise) and on to Woodstock(definitely the original,Oxfordshire, England, not New York State, U.S.A.) Now on the main road through Woodstock, as one has past Blenheim Palace gates, on the right, there is a very obvious speed camera, which everyone who passes through there knows about well. I slowed down to ensure I was at the 30m.p.h. limit, 1500rpm, should be 30, but as I passed the cameras, there were two flashes as first the car and then the trailer, like a pair of “moonies” had photographs taken of their rear ends. I was horrified! I couldn’t believe that that I had been caught in this damned trap; I was even following a car at the same speed and I didn’t see any flash on his rear. Then I realized, I was in FIFTH gear, and the ratio is 2.4:1, so my speed was probably almost 36m.p.h.! B--locks! I have just got my brand new photo driving licence with my piffley 3 points on it and now I have got another 3, almost certainly, and another £60-00 donation into Tony Blair’s “Build a bronze of me bigger than Maggie’s, at public expense” fund. Worse than that, I also now realize that the hunt for me on the Registration mark files will probably also check my Road Tax is paid and MOT in date, because last year all MOT’s became computerized on a central record computer. Double B—locks! That’s probably another 3 points and another £60-00 fine. Almost a full house of points and £90-00! That’s almost enough to pay for one of Tony’s tiny eyes! Well, if it is, I bagsy push the pencil in to make the statues pupil! Shaken, but not overly stirred, I pushed on, and arrived in Twickenham about 11.15, which was actually getting a bit late, so I could not go to Daughter’s ex-flat to load the scooter now, and would have to go straight to the station to get the train into London centre. I passed three garages on the way and wasted another 25 minutes asking in vain at each one whether I could leave the car with them for the afternoon to get an M.O.T. done. All had a waiting time of at least a week before they could fit me in, so this bale-out plan of “I was on my way to get an M.O.T.” failed miserably. Resigned to purchasing Tony’s eyeball, I parked on the virtually empty top floor of a multi-storey car park near the station, lateralizing the car and trailer across three empty bays. I had intended to dump all the prohibited stuff with Daughter who works in Queen Victoria Street in the City, but time was moving on too fast now, and at 12.15, I hastily switched off my mobile phone and put it in the glove box, together with my SatNav, bunches of keys, pens, credit cards, and every other item I could think of that might prevent my access to the important interview with Uncle Sam. It was raining, but I couldn’t take the umbrella,(remember the poison pellet tip is not allowed,) and so I proceeded with haste downstairs to the station. It’s a long time since I bought a train ticket, and when I last did so, I went to a desk with a bridge shaped speaking hole in it and bought it from the cashier at the desk. Now I was faced with a touch screen cash machine, which I am pleased to say was very user friendly and spewed me out four pieces of thin card rapidly with 30P change from a £5 note. I passed one of them through the entry gate only to find that this one and one of the others were actually only receipts and the other two were the outbound and return tickets. On the platform, the sign indicated a train to Waterloo in 3 minutes, and I was able to get a sandwich at the snack bar as by this time I was very hungry and would also have liked a coffee, but there wasn’t time. Arriving in Waterloo station some 25 minutes later with sandwich now inside,rather than outside me, I went down the steps to the Underground. Another touch screen cash machine, but this time, so many options of which Zone and what time and where, that I was quite confused. A man approached and asked me if I wanted to buy an “Oyster”, and I thought for a second he was selling counterfeit watches, but it turned out to be an alternative cheap ticket entitling several rides on the underground from a re-chargeable swipe card. One trip would have been £3-70 and the “Oyster was £5, so I handed over the cash , grabbed the card and set off down the tunnels and stairs to travel to Oxford Circus Station. It crossed my mind as I pushed and shoved and went down the grubby staircase what a poor impression some of the London Underground would make on visitors, but then I was delighted by the clean, modern trains that I traveled on, even though they were pretty full.
Now, I used to live in Maida Vale, and just off Russell Square, for nine years when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and I walked most of central London and knew it like the back of my hand. Grosvenor Square, off Upper Grosvenor Street lies between Regent Street and Park Lane, at the end of Maddox Street. It is about half a mile walk, south west from Oxford Circus, so why, when I arrived at the latter, did I come out and walk East down Oxford Street, and arrive almost at Tottenham Court Road before I realized that I was walking in the wrong direction? Seriously, with my 9 year knowledge of London, this does not bode at all well for a 9000mile Wild West Road Trip on a motor cycle. The time was now 1.25p.m. I had 5 minutes to reach the Embassy. “There will be no refunds for missed appointment times”; “No responsibility will be taken for your non admittance to the building”. A taxi!….it now had to be a taxi. Damn. £6-80 lighter for my 800 yard journey, I arrived outside the Embassy at 1.40 and was confronted by a queue of about 40 people held back by a girl in a yellow fluorescent vest with a clipboard and sided by two policemen in flak jackets, one with a sub-machine gun and the other with a closed pistol holster strapped, with the butt facing forwards, alongside his left knee. Now, the sub-machine gunner, definitely looked the biz, but really, what self respecting gun-slinger would carry his revolver back to front in a closed holster at a level that only a right handed anthropoid could draw in a hurry? Wyatt would have had his star of him straight away, but I’m not sure that he would have emerged so well at the O.K. Corral against the other chap. I went up to the front of the queue, and very apologetically said that I was a bit late for my 1.30 appointment and would it still be possible for me to be seen. She just said, “join the back of the queue”, which I did. At 2.10, I reached the front, and could then see that, 50 metres in front of this, there was a much bigger queue about 4 or 5 people wide. The girl ticked off my name and said that they were running a bit late. She told me to join the new queue second on the left. This was the 1.30 queue with about 50 people in front of me. The 1.00 o’clock queue was on my left with about 20 people remaining in it, and the 2.00 and 2.30 queues were on my right building up well. We were stood in the road, which had been blocked off to a single file one way traffic by massive concrete blocks, and the Embassy was surrounded by high security fencing, so that, for some time, I could not actually see where we were heading. I was quite astonished as everybody around me seemed to be talking to someone on their mobile phones. One or two were listening vacantly to ear phones from hidden music generators under their coats. Several business men were carrying laptops, Families of non- British were holding carrier bags and knapsacks. I could have phoned Daughter to tell her what had happened. I could have phoned anybody on my contact list just to while away the time. I could have written most of this, had I had my laptop, but I had been good and obeyed the rules to the letter. I had expected to be ushered through a security check at the front door to a plush reception room and ushered into an interview room. These people clearly knew something I didn’t. Periodically, the fluorescent waiters and waitresses, passed amongst us with polythene bags for our electronics and prohibited items, all of which could be deposited at the security control point, on arrival there, and collected afterwards. WHY DON’T THEY TELL YOU THAT BEFORE! And yet, I know, that had I turned up with my mobile, I would have been the only one and would not have been allowed in! After about and hour, as people vanished from the front of the queues, it became obvious that they were entering what seemed from 100yards back to be a square concrete public lavatory, and I only saw some occasional few coming out at the back. Was this some sort of bunker? Was there perhaps an underground entrance to the Embassy through the toilets? Were the undesirables actually being transferred by some direct underground rail network to a waiting CIA flight from the middle of Oxfordshire? Waiting around for so long with no book, paper, phone, or companion, (or urine bottle) and already having counted the number of windows on the South side of the Embassy twice, one’s mind begins to play tricks, especially the slightly pre-senile mind. As I saw the front of this block, I could see that this was only a screening unit; pass your bags through an X-Ray machine, take off your belt, grab your trousers and shuffle through the body scanner. Beep beep! Of course, I bleeped even with my trousers round my knees. The guard asked to see the bottom of my shoes. Were they going to try to open the heel? No, no further checks, passed fit. I was hustled out of the back of the toilet and found myself inside the Embassy compound. People pass through slowly and in single units, so actually it is not surprising that I had not realized that there was a constant traffic of individuals. Walking back the way we had come along the front of the building and into a door the other side, but now inside the ring of steel, here we were given a number, and progressed to another room up some stairs. I asked the number lady how long it would take now. It was 2.55p.m. She told me that it was “heaving” upstairs and it would be another couple of hours, but if I couldn’t wait I would have to make another application. The upstairs room was not uncomfortable, there were plenty of comfortable chairs, but then neither was it the plush reception room, reflecting the World’s largest, wealthiest, capitalist democracy. It was really rather like a luxurious station foyer with a row of shielded counters down one side and two large computer displays like train departure boards hanging from the roof. My number was 508. The room was indeed heaving, but I was pleased to hear the constant calling of numbers and directions to one or other of the counters. When I arrived it was number 458 being called, and within 10 minutes this had increased to 470. I felt encouraged, but there were a lot of lower numbers being called as well, which I did not understand, and very few people seemed to be getting up from their chairs. There was no refreshment area, and by now I really was gasping for a drink and a pee. The numbers were climbing however and I didn’t want to miss my appointment. So I hung on. After half an hour, my number came up. Fantastic, desk 6. Very pleasant English black lady, chatty and welcoming. Passed over my documents, duly put my fingers of each hand and then my thumbs on the fingerprint reading screen and answered one or two brief questions. “You’re biking over there then”, she said, “how wonderful. Have a great time” She stuck a bar code on my passport and stamped the papers. She gave me another paper and told me to fill it out and take a seat. Well, that was easy, passed! Very simple, and now almost done. Fill out form and off. I sat down and looked at the paper. My heart sank. It stated that my documents are now being processed in readiness for my interview. I should wait until called to desks 14 to 24 in due course and that the numbers may not be called out in order depending on how long the interviews take. The obverse was to fill in my name and address for delivery of my documents in due course. I sat down again and returned to read, for the third time, the only magazines in the room, a US Tour guide, which is actually 70% advertising and general travel information, and 30% a bit of information from the Tourist offices of each of the States. A further hour passed. It was now 4.20p.m. “508 to counter 23 please.” I got up, my back was stiff, my knees grumbled, and went to counter 23. A pleasant young man in his 30s with a soft US accent greeted me. He asked me what was the purpose of my visit, was my wife traveling too, what was my job, and then when did I retire and where was I going in the States. I gave him a brief itinerary, and he was seemingly interested. He was polite, courteous, welcoming, and then excused himself a minute or two while he checked something on his computer screen, presumably some sort of security scanning about me. Obviously clear! “I am pleased to be able to grant you a visa” he said. “It will arrive by secure messenger in a week or two. Take your blue form to the courier desk”. “Thank you” I said, “a long wait but worth it”. “Have a nice trip” he replied. Thank God he didn’t say “Have a nice day”. I think I might have screamed and undone all the good impressions. Another half hour at the secure courier service desk. Charge? Yes, of course! £13-50, but an added £20-00 for a delivery before 8.00a.m, which let’s face it, is almost obligatory if you don’t have the luxury of being able to wait in at home for an unknown number of hours and unknown number of days to sign for a packet delivered at extraordinary expense. Why can’t they use Registered post? So, the delivery actually cost 2/3rds again the cost of the whole visa process. Good work if you can get it! I finally left the Embassy at 4.45, and had to rush on the tube to Bank to see Daughter to get the keys to unlock the scooter , return to Waterloo, get the train to Twickenham in the middle of the rush hour, get the car and trailer and go to Daughters old flat. Hug with Daughter revived my strength. It is so wonderful to see your kids grown up, happy and doing well. Chuffed with job, ambitious and enthused with new start after move to new flat, flatmates and “Neo-Kensington”. I arrived at old flat about 6.15, and fortunately easily loaded the scooter into the back of the trailer and away. Now I had hoped to be away from the Embassy about 2.15 after my personal interview in the smoking lounge over a Miller Lite, but now I was almost 4 hours behind my imaginary schedule. At 6.30 however, I left Twickenham quickly and easily on the M3, but of course, I hit the M25 at Friday night rush hour. The upshot of this being that the first 20 miles took an hour and a half, and then the remaining 80 another two hours. I arrived back at Evesham exhausted and dehydrated at 9.45p.m Had a quick “Admiral’s Pie” and fell into bed just barely undressed. Have to say that overall, it was a cr-p day, with one or two highlights!
On Saturday morning I woke with migraine at 5.00 and that, combined with the desparate need for a pee after the couple of pints of squash and decaf I had to rehydrate before bed, necessitated getting up. I had an Imigran and a coffee and a fag and hung about in the conservatory and garden for an hour while the headache subsided. At 7.30 I set off back to Yorkshire. It was wet and misty, and progress was slow with the M6 under its usual extensive two lane closure road works. (In retrospect now,I wouldn’t mind my £60-00 fine going towards 24hr, around the clock, rapid roadwork repairs, rather than to the pencil point in Tony Blair’s bronze eye.) When I arrived home, I told Wife that the farm trailer lights were a problem and she said that she had noticed that too, but it did not seem to have made any difference to her driving it around for weeks on the back of the Pajero, although what chaos and signal confusion she left in her wake God only knows. (She has no points on her licence of course! Also, she seldom actually signals, so perhaps not much harm was done!) It transpires that she had rolled on the electric plug and cracked the casing so had bought a new casing and put it on. The plug unit is circular, as many of you will know, with a cut out slot that goes at the bottom. Wife had put new cover on upside down, so left was right and right was left! Brilliant. As if I haven’t got enough of a battle on my own against imminent senility, she just had to help! I think Alan Alda’s quotation needs some amendment in my case. It should read “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your institution. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is somebody else.”
Thank you to the U.S. Embassy for certifying me
Next week, I will now really be planning a bit more of the trip in a new “little black book”. Keep in touch.
Best wishes, Doc
After my last entry, I received today, a wonderful e-mail from Son and New Daughter. They have sparked me up again, and although I was still determined to go, I admit that I was somewhat confused as to why I am going. They sent me a “Motivational PowerPoint presentation”, but what do you expect from a teaching Army Officer and a Secondary School teacher. It did bring some lacrimal secretions to the eyes, but this hard biker is hardly likely to admit that again, so we’ll forget that bit. They ended their message with two quotes:-
1) You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. ~Alan Alda
2) You'll never be complete if you don't have a go. If you take the bike and it's crap, then it's crap, but you tried. You can always get on a plane home. It's not a war zone. If it's brill - then perfect!
The second quote is Son and New Daughter’s, but although the language is definitely not as poetic as Alan Alda’s, and shows more than a hint of their Yorkshire common sense, it seems to me to have as much impact!
I also received a comment, my first, from Nancy. Obviously she empathized with my feelings, but clearly she must also be my generation and brought her kids up playing like we did! Thanks so much for bothering Nancy…you must be a teacher or work for Social Services! Encouragement much appreciated.
Now, Friday should have been simple. Appointment at 1330hrs, paperwork all in order, passport available, $100-00 pre-paid, pop in for chat, explain why I wanted to visit and that I am a very English, conservative, well behaved chap (except for the 3 speeding points on my driving licence), and then go home. But the first complication was that I had to go to Twickenham to collect a rotting motor scooter from the front garden of the flat that Daughter has just vacated. Daughter moved closer to her work in the City(London, England) last weekend, to Clapham, which she had previously assured me was “The New Kensington”. That was just before the sad shooting, three days later, of a 15 year old boy there, a fact which rather increased parental concern rather than confirmed the aspirations towards its SW1 neighbour. I had to take a trailer on the car, but my motor cycle trailer has a strong thief proof lock on the hitch, and of course, on Thursday night, when I was about to set off, I couldn’t find the thief proof key, because I had put it in a safe place. So, I had to take the farm trailer, a slightly difficult problem, because the wiring was just a bit wrong, in that indicating left in the car, flashed the right side indicator on the trailer and vice versa. This meant of course that as one drove, one had to remember to indicate the opposite way to the way you wanted to turn, in order to notify following traffic. Of course, if you wanted to notify oncoming traffic, while waiting in the middle of the road, you still had to use the correct indicator position, but it told the cars behind that I was turning left. After about 2 hours of this, you get the hang of it as your cerebral hemispheres become schizophrenic, which is only really a bit difficult when you then get out of the car for a wee at a service station and turn left into the ladies instead of right into the gents. With "Spike" ready at hand, the sudden confrontation by a bilateral row of cubicles with no urinal in sight, and two ladies washing their hands, convinced me that the trailer lighting needed disconnecting, so, after beating a hasty retreat into the men's room opposite, I returned to the vehicles and attached the trailer board which I had in my boot instead and spent the next half hour re-setting my cerebral settings to default mode.
I had decided to stay overnight in Evesham at my old working house, as it has not yet sold. I had a good night’s sleep and set out at 9.00 o’clock to go via Oxford to arrive at Twickenham about 11.00. I have not mentioned that it was my intention last weekend to take my 17 year old Rover 827i to have its MOT test. The previous week it had been serviced and almost as soon as I got home afterwards, whilst doing some filing, I found the old MOT certificate which was four months out of date, although obviously it is properly taxed and insured. Somehow, these things have got out of sync over the years. In addition, within a day of getting back from its service, the electrical connection underneath from the engine to the speedometer had become disconnected so the speedo was defunct. However, in fourth gear the revs ratio is 2:1, so at 3,500 revs the vehicle is doing 70m.p.h. and that is easy. Trailers however are only allowed to travel at 50, so I reckoned that 2,500 revs would be the right level to keep her at on the motorway. Nice day, going well through the hills of the Cotswolds, through beautiful Moreton in Marsh,(Gloucestershire, England), Chipping Norton,(likewise) and on to Woodstock(definitely the original,Oxfordshire, England, not New York State, U.S.A.) Now on the main road through Woodstock, as one has past Blenheim Palace gates, on the right, there is a very obvious speed camera, which everyone who passes through there knows about well. I slowed down to ensure I was at the 30m.p.h. limit, 1500rpm, should be 30, but as I passed the cameras, there were two flashes as first the car and then the trailer, like a pair of “moonies” had photographs taken of their rear ends. I was horrified! I couldn’t believe that that I had been caught in this damned trap; I was even following a car at the same speed and I didn’t see any flash on his rear. Then I realized, I was in FIFTH gear, and the ratio is 2.4:1, so my speed was probably almost 36m.p.h.! B--locks! I have just got my brand new photo driving licence with my piffley 3 points on it and now I have got another 3, almost certainly, and another £60-00 donation into Tony Blair’s “Build a bronze of me bigger than Maggie’s, at public expense” fund. Worse than that, I also now realize that the hunt for me on the Registration mark files will probably also check my Road Tax is paid and MOT in date, because last year all MOT’s became computerized on a central record computer. Double B—locks! That’s probably another 3 points and another £60-00 fine. Almost a full house of points and £90-00! That’s almost enough to pay for one of Tony’s tiny eyes! Well, if it is, I bagsy push the pencil in to make the statues pupil! Shaken, but not overly stirred, I pushed on, and arrived in Twickenham about 11.15, which was actually getting a bit late, so I could not go to Daughter’s ex-flat to load the scooter now, and would have to go straight to the station to get the train into London centre. I passed three garages on the way and wasted another 25 minutes asking in vain at each one whether I could leave the car with them for the afternoon to get an M.O.T. done. All had a waiting time of at least a week before they could fit me in, so this bale-out plan of “I was on my way to get an M.O.T.” failed miserably. Resigned to purchasing Tony’s eyeball, I parked on the virtually empty top floor of a multi-storey car park near the station, lateralizing the car and trailer across three empty bays. I had intended to dump all the prohibited stuff with Daughter who works in Queen Victoria Street in the City, but time was moving on too fast now, and at 12.15, I hastily switched off my mobile phone and put it in the glove box, together with my SatNav, bunches of keys, pens, credit cards, and every other item I could think of that might prevent my access to the important interview with Uncle Sam. It was raining, but I couldn’t take the umbrella,(remember the poison pellet tip is not allowed,) and so I proceeded with haste downstairs to the station. It’s a long time since I bought a train ticket, and when I last did so, I went to a desk with a bridge shaped speaking hole in it and bought it from the cashier at the desk. Now I was faced with a touch screen cash machine, which I am pleased to say was very user friendly and spewed me out four pieces of thin card rapidly with 30P change from a £5 note. I passed one of them through the entry gate only to find that this one and one of the others were actually only receipts and the other two were the outbound and return tickets. On the platform, the sign indicated a train to Waterloo in 3 minutes, and I was able to get a sandwich at the snack bar as by this time I was very hungry and would also have liked a coffee, but there wasn’t time. Arriving in Waterloo station some 25 minutes later with sandwich now inside,rather than outside me, I went down the steps to the Underground. Another touch screen cash machine, but this time, so many options of which Zone and what time and where, that I was quite confused. A man approached and asked me if I wanted to buy an “Oyster”, and I thought for a second he was selling counterfeit watches, but it turned out to be an alternative cheap ticket entitling several rides on the underground from a re-chargeable swipe card. One trip would have been £3-70 and the “Oyster was £5, so I handed over the cash , grabbed the card and set off down the tunnels and stairs to travel to Oxford Circus Station. It crossed my mind as I pushed and shoved and went down the grubby staircase what a poor impression some of the London Underground would make on visitors, but then I was delighted by the clean, modern trains that I traveled on, even though they were pretty full.
Now, I used to live in Maida Vale, and just off Russell Square, for nine years when I was in my late teens and early 20s, and I walked most of central London and knew it like the back of my hand. Grosvenor Square, off Upper Grosvenor Street lies between Regent Street and Park Lane, at the end of Maddox Street. It is about half a mile walk, south west from Oxford Circus, so why, when I arrived at the latter, did I come out and walk East down Oxford Street, and arrive almost at Tottenham Court Road before I realized that I was walking in the wrong direction? Seriously, with my 9 year knowledge of London, this does not bode at all well for a 9000mile Wild West Road Trip on a motor cycle. The time was now 1.25p.m. I had 5 minutes to reach the Embassy. “There will be no refunds for missed appointment times”; “No responsibility will be taken for your non admittance to the building”. A taxi!….it now had to be a taxi. Damn. £6-80 lighter for my 800 yard journey, I arrived outside the Embassy at 1.40 and was confronted by a queue of about 40 people held back by a girl in a yellow fluorescent vest with a clipboard and sided by two policemen in flak jackets, one with a sub-machine gun and the other with a closed pistol holster strapped, with the butt facing forwards, alongside his left knee. Now, the sub-machine gunner, definitely looked the biz, but really, what self respecting gun-slinger would carry his revolver back to front in a closed holster at a level that only a right handed anthropoid could draw in a hurry? Wyatt would have had his star of him straight away, but I’m not sure that he would have emerged so well at the O.K. Corral against the other chap. I went up to the front of the queue, and very apologetically said that I was a bit late for my 1.30 appointment and would it still be possible for me to be seen. She just said, “join the back of the queue”, which I did. At 2.10, I reached the front, and could then see that, 50 metres in front of this, there was a much bigger queue about 4 or 5 people wide. The girl ticked off my name and said that they were running a bit late. She told me to join the new queue second on the left. This was the 1.30 queue with about 50 people in front of me. The 1.00 o’clock queue was on my left with about 20 people remaining in it, and the 2.00 and 2.30 queues were on my right building up well. We were stood in the road, which had been blocked off to a single file one way traffic by massive concrete blocks, and the Embassy was surrounded by high security fencing, so that, for some time, I could not actually see where we were heading. I was quite astonished as everybody around me seemed to be talking to someone on their mobile phones. One or two were listening vacantly to ear phones from hidden music generators under their coats. Several business men were carrying laptops, Families of non- British were holding carrier bags and knapsacks. I could have phoned Daughter to tell her what had happened. I could have phoned anybody on my contact list just to while away the time. I could have written most of this, had I had my laptop, but I had been good and obeyed the rules to the letter. I had expected to be ushered through a security check at the front door to a plush reception room and ushered into an interview room. These people clearly knew something I didn’t. Periodically, the fluorescent waiters and waitresses, passed amongst us with polythene bags for our electronics and prohibited items, all of which could be deposited at the security control point, on arrival there, and collected afterwards. WHY DON’T THEY TELL YOU THAT BEFORE! And yet, I know, that had I turned up with my mobile, I would have been the only one and would not have been allowed in! After about and hour, as people vanished from the front of the queues, it became obvious that they were entering what seemed from 100yards back to be a square concrete public lavatory, and I only saw some occasional few coming out at the back. Was this some sort of bunker? Was there perhaps an underground entrance to the Embassy through the toilets? Were the undesirables actually being transferred by some direct underground rail network to a waiting CIA flight from the middle of Oxfordshire? Waiting around for so long with no book, paper, phone, or companion, (or urine bottle) and already having counted the number of windows on the South side of the Embassy twice, one’s mind begins to play tricks, especially the slightly pre-senile mind. As I saw the front of this block, I could see that this was only a screening unit; pass your bags through an X-Ray machine, take off your belt, grab your trousers and shuffle through the body scanner. Beep beep! Of course, I bleeped even with my trousers round my knees. The guard asked to see the bottom of my shoes. Were they going to try to open the heel? No, no further checks, passed fit. I was hustled out of the back of the toilet and found myself inside the Embassy compound. People pass through slowly and in single units, so actually it is not surprising that I had not realized that there was a constant traffic of individuals. Walking back the way we had come along the front of the building and into a door the other side, but now inside the ring of steel, here we were given a number, and progressed to another room up some stairs. I asked the number lady how long it would take now. It was 2.55p.m. She told me that it was “heaving” upstairs and it would be another couple of hours, but if I couldn’t wait I would have to make another application. The upstairs room was not uncomfortable, there were plenty of comfortable chairs, but then neither was it the plush reception room, reflecting the World’s largest, wealthiest, capitalist democracy. It was really rather like a luxurious station foyer with a row of shielded counters down one side and two large computer displays like train departure boards hanging from the roof. My number was 508. The room was indeed heaving, but I was pleased to hear the constant calling of numbers and directions to one or other of the counters. When I arrived it was number 458 being called, and within 10 minutes this had increased to 470. I felt encouraged, but there were a lot of lower numbers being called as well, which I did not understand, and very few people seemed to be getting up from their chairs. There was no refreshment area, and by now I really was gasping for a drink and a pee. The numbers were climbing however and I didn’t want to miss my appointment. So I hung on. After half an hour, my number came up. Fantastic, desk 6. Very pleasant English black lady, chatty and welcoming. Passed over my documents, duly put my fingers of each hand and then my thumbs on the fingerprint reading screen and answered one or two brief questions. “You’re biking over there then”, she said, “how wonderful. Have a great time” She stuck a bar code on my passport and stamped the papers. She gave me another paper and told me to fill it out and take a seat. Well, that was easy, passed! Very simple, and now almost done. Fill out form and off. I sat down and looked at the paper. My heart sank. It stated that my documents are now being processed in readiness for my interview. I should wait until called to desks 14 to 24 in due course and that the numbers may not be called out in order depending on how long the interviews take. The obverse was to fill in my name and address for delivery of my documents in due course. I sat down again and returned to read, for the third time, the only magazines in the room, a US Tour guide, which is actually 70% advertising and general travel information, and 30% a bit of information from the Tourist offices of each of the States. A further hour passed. It was now 4.20p.m. “508 to counter 23 please.” I got up, my back was stiff, my knees grumbled, and went to counter 23. A pleasant young man in his 30s with a soft US accent greeted me. He asked me what was the purpose of my visit, was my wife traveling too, what was my job, and then when did I retire and where was I going in the States. I gave him a brief itinerary, and he was seemingly interested. He was polite, courteous, welcoming, and then excused himself a minute or two while he checked something on his computer screen, presumably some sort of security scanning about me. Obviously clear! “I am pleased to be able to grant you a visa” he said. “It will arrive by secure messenger in a week or two. Take your blue form to the courier desk”. “Thank you” I said, “a long wait but worth it”. “Have a nice trip” he replied. Thank God he didn’t say “Have a nice day”. I think I might have screamed and undone all the good impressions. Another half hour at the secure courier service desk. Charge? Yes, of course! £13-50, but an added £20-00 for a delivery before 8.00a.m, which let’s face it, is almost obligatory if you don’t have the luxury of being able to wait in at home for an unknown number of hours and unknown number of days to sign for a packet delivered at extraordinary expense. Why can’t they use Registered post? So, the delivery actually cost 2/3rds again the cost of the whole visa process. Good work if you can get it! I finally left the Embassy at 4.45, and had to rush on the tube to Bank to see Daughter to get the keys to unlock the scooter , return to Waterloo, get the train to Twickenham in the middle of the rush hour, get the car and trailer and go to Daughters old flat. Hug with Daughter revived my strength. It is so wonderful to see your kids grown up, happy and doing well. Chuffed with job, ambitious and enthused with new start after move to new flat, flatmates and “Neo-Kensington”. I arrived at old flat about 6.15, and fortunately easily loaded the scooter into the back of the trailer and away. Now I had hoped to be away from the Embassy about 2.15 after my personal interview in the smoking lounge over a Miller Lite, but now I was almost 4 hours behind my imaginary schedule. At 6.30 however, I left Twickenham quickly and easily on the M3, but of course, I hit the M25 at Friday night rush hour. The upshot of this being that the first 20 miles took an hour and a half, and then the remaining 80 another two hours. I arrived back at Evesham exhausted and dehydrated at 9.45p.m Had a quick “Admiral’s Pie” and fell into bed just barely undressed. Have to say that overall, it was a cr-p day, with one or two highlights!
On Saturday morning I woke with migraine at 5.00 and that, combined with the desparate need for a pee after the couple of pints of squash and decaf I had to rehydrate before bed, necessitated getting up. I had an Imigran and a coffee and a fag and hung about in the conservatory and garden for an hour while the headache subsided. At 7.30 I set off back to Yorkshire. It was wet and misty, and progress was slow with the M6 under its usual extensive two lane closure road works. (In retrospect now,I wouldn’t mind my £60-00 fine going towards 24hr, around the clock, rapid roadwork repairs, rather than to the pencil point in Tony Blair’s bronze eye.) When I arrived home, I told Wife that the farm trailer lights were a problem and she said that she had noticed that too, but it did not seem to have made any difference to her driving it around for weeks on the back of the Pajero, although what chaos and signal confusion she left in her wake God only knows. (She has no points on her licence of course! Also, she seldom actually signals, so perhaps not much harm was done!) It transpires that she had rolled on the electric plug and cracked the casing so had bought a new casing and put it on. The plug unit is circular, as many of you will know, with a cut out slot that goes at the bottom. Wife had put new cover on upside down, so left was right and right was left! Brilliant. As if I haven’t got enough of a battle on my own against imminent senility, she just had to help! I think Alan Alda’s quotation needs some amendment in my case. It should read “You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your institution. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is somebody else.”
Thank you to the U.S. Embassy for certifying me
Next week, I will now really be planning a bit more of the trip in a new “little black book”. Keep in touch.
Best wishes, Doc
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