Sunday 30th August 2009 - Uptown Girl

Preparing for my return contest with the government has to be taken seriously. Last time it was at their place, and they took me down in the first. This time it will be on my territory, so I have to be in peak condition.

I have discovered, I must say rather to my surprise, that documents can be transmitted across the world in original form in the flicker of an electronic eyelash. None of your rotten old faxes these days. I've decided that that's the way I will transmit documents in future.

But it is a terrible fag having to sit about collating it all, and chasing up sources, when I could be out having fun.

One day, I dream, I will have the US Government at my mercy. I will, of course, do the right thing, but, my goodness, will they have a lot of inconvenient hoops to jump through.

Later that evening, I had dinner with an 'Uptown Girl'. I've been humming Billy Joel to myself ever since. No matter that she had her very own Uptown Boy with her. My imagination can surmount trivial obstacles like that.

Uptown is one of the 'posh' bits of Minneapolis, where the best choice of restaurants and entertainment is. We found a restaurant which served the inimitable SNPA (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale) on tap. And she listened attentively to my stories and laughed in all the right places. Who cares about the government, eh?

Even later, I sneaked off to the local Irish bar specially to sample the local brew, Summit. And it's surprisingly good, up there with SNPA. So it's not "inimitable", after all.

Saturday 29th August 2009 - Meet Me at the Fair

I am now busy assembling my case to prove to the US Government that I am who I am, and  I'm doing what I'm doing.  I can see why I failed last time: one, it's all rather undignified, and a blow to one's pride and self-esteem (a bit like the famous old Goon Show joke "What are you doing in the bath, Henry?"  "I'm not doing anything in the bath, Min"); and two, it's all more trouble than is necessary.

For example, the lawyers think I ought to have a budget, to show I can afford to do this.  Didn't need a budget to prove I could do it for six months, need one to prove I can do it for a year.

I did, of course, being me, have a budget.  It was this: I'm going to spend much the same in the US as I spend in the UK, except for hotels.  I've let my apartment, so I only have to try to keep the hotel costs the same as the apartment rental, and I can go on forever.  I can check once a month, and judge whether I'm within budget, or have to consider a correction, or putting the excess down to an actual 'holiday' cost.  Any kit I buy I can separate into acquisitions, as assets I would have bought anyway, and will bring home with me.

Because I'm doing this once a month, and I am using only a UK credit and debit card, I can do the sums almost in my head in sterling.  Certainly back-of-an-envelope stuff; couldn't be simpler.

Now, of course, I'm in spreadsheet country.  So I'm pulling figures out of bank statements, to the exact penny, setting up columns to add up by themselves, putting in a conversion factor to convert it all to dollars.  And making sure the cells all have the correct formulas (no, dear, in English you make a plural by putting an 's' at the end) in them, so that when I try to drive myself mad by getting it to look 'pretty', at least I won't have to do all the sums again.

And all this information will tell me less than the original process.  Come to think of it, I suppose that proves every cloud does have a silver lining: perhaps it will tell the government less.  (Maybe that's why governments never seem to know what they're doing, or whether they've done it or not.)

 

I just had to escape to the wonderful  Minnesota State Fair, to re-establish contact with reality: farmers polishing pigs and sheep and cows, and corn and potatoes and beans, and and and and and and.  Real people doing real things; with tens of thousands of spectators; and food on a stick.

There were a couple of black spots. 

The beer actually cost more than I was prepared to pay.  There is a point where even the softest consumer has to show price resistance.  And this was well beyond it.

            The other black spot was a huge catapult-like device, fashioned from two of those telescopic cranes, which fired people about two hundred feet in the air.  Clearly, now the CIA has got it in the neck for waterboarding, etc., they are experimenting with new devices to instill fear into the heart of suspects.  Or perhaps the immigration service is trying out new ways of sending unwanted immigrants home.  I'd better get back to the budget.

Friday 28th August 2009 - The Root of All Evil

          It is unfair to tar all of government with the same brush. Even the Immigration Service are only trying to do their job. It's not their fault the legislators gave them an impossible job to do. Although it is worth noting that some do it well, and some do it badly.

          Nor should we forget the likes of the Park Rangers out in the Mohave, who were devoted to their job, and went out of their way to help me with my stupid little project.

There is no getting away from the fact, however, that the government has got me in a corner, and is about to bundle me out of the ring, if I don't do something about it.

 

          Which brings me to the subject of money. Funny stuff, money: there are quite a lot of definitions of it. What I mean is the common-sense definition, what I've got in my pocket, and in the bank: what economists call "M0". Or is it M1?

          I had to get myself an American bank account to pay for Rozzie. I had to make an arrangement with currency brokers to transfer that much into dollars.

But I've settled into using my Nationwide credit and debit cards, which is by far the most efficient way to convert my pounds into dollars. And it's also the best exchange rate I can get, by a long way.

          Imagine my disappointment, then, when I find out my lawyers are too posh for plastic. They want to be paid in good old-fashioned paper. I am, in turn, too posh to thrust wedges of cash at them(maybe cash is 'M0'?), although I'm sure they would manage to stiffle their embarrassment and accept it.  After all, they specialise in US Immigrations problems: there must be a fair bit of that business conducted in the cash economy.

          So I have to go back to topping-up my American bank account. And it turns out that my currency broker is too posh to deal in the piddling sums that my lawyers want (I hope my lawyers aren't reading this).

          In the end, in this electronic, computer era, I'm reduced to toddling down to the ATM, extracting as much cash as it will give me in a day, then slipping nervously into the bank and putting it in my other bank account.

          Funny old world, init?

Thursday 27th August 2009 - High Powered Meetings Concerning the Direction of Government

          I have a gift for timing: or so I like to think. Nothing to do with me, really, some kind of gift of nature or nurture. I can sometimes turn up to pick someone up, not just at the appointed hour, but when the last of the Greenwich pips is issuing from the car radio; without having made any particular effort to do that. I expect if I tried I would be markedly less successful.

          I had set up my meeting with my legal advisors to give me plenty of time to rehearse and get there. Needless to say I was late. My advisers were most understanding, but I was very cross with myself. It's just another example of nothing going right this trip; I hope it is not an omen.

          I had parked at the Mall of America (that's quite a name, isn't it) to get the tram (Metro Transit) up to town. The on-board map gave an estimate of the time between the stations. A quick sum told me I had to phone and admit my error.

         

          Recent experiences in huge car parks, particularly in Las Vegas, ensued that I wrote down where I had left Rozzie. Otherwise I might never see him again.

          The point of the meeting was to persuade me that this course of action was worth taking. I was predisposed to do it anyway, since government telling me I can't do something which is manifestly reasonable just bring out the anarchist in me. There were definitely cheaper solutions, but none that might be this much fun (of course, there's a subjunctive there: I've never tried to take on the newest branch of the richest government before).

          I started by asking about why I shouldn't just take the cheap option. Well, they said, this is the age of the database, and you've already marked your card (an unkind and unnecessary reference to my earlier failure to achieve what I was hiring them to do.) They might now notice the object of your cheap solution.

          Anyway, I said, as you've just so ungraciously pointed out, you're only going to do what I've already done. Ah, they said, but we'll try to do it right this time.

         Don't hold back, I thought, don't try to spare my feelings. So they asked me for a retainer. And all done, as the late Kenny Everett used to say, in the best possible taste.

         The outcome was that I had a whole lot of things to do, as quickly as possible. If I want to stay, I have to provide the most concrete proof that I want to leave.

         Ah, the paradox. Suddenly, it makes sense. As I left the fine Lumber Exchange building in downtown Minneapolis, I felt that I might manage this.

         Then I had to get Dulcie out to tell me which way to the tram: and then my notes to tell me which way to Rozzie.

Wednesday 26th August 2009 – Back to Square One

         Before television, which was not so long ago, sports fans had to rely on radio to follow their team's fortunes.  I have it on good authority (I do!) that the BBC divided the football field into a number of squares, square one being the one where play restarted.  But none of the references so readily available online these days accepts that as the origin of the phrase, although they accept the BBC did indeed divide up the filed like that.  They offer Snakes and Ladders, and Hop Scotch as alternative sources.

But wherever it came from, we all know what it means: coming back to the beginning and starting over.  Which is what I am doing now in Minneapolis.

So I've had a day of getting documents ready for the lawyers, and making sure I've thought through as much as I can to get the most out of the initial meeting.

 

The last part of the journey up from Cedar Falls was uneventful.  Except that Cedar Falls is in Iowa, so it was raining heavily.  I stopped a lot, 'cos I didn't want to get here.  I even stopped in Chester, right on the Minnesota border, to post a letter.  If I'd had a library book, I would have stopped to change that.

 

The brewery at Cedar Falls sold large jugs, which they called "growlers", over the bar.  They were rather fine jugs, made of glass, with aluminium handles and spring tops, like old pop bottles.  They hold 64 ounces.  I bought one full of Pale Ale, and we consumed it later that evening.  It travelled very well.

 

As I mentioned before, the Glasgows after whom the Missouri one and the St Louis Village one were named came originally from Delaware.  The information at St Louis Public Library said they were from Christiana, Delaware.

         Google claims to alert me every time the word "Glasgow" is mentioned on the web.  (There is, of course, no way I can check this claim, although I've no doubt experiments could be devised.)  Anyway, yesterday it told me that a motorcyclist was injured in Glasgow Delaware, and that he was taken to Christiana Hospital.  So I looked it up, and they are very close together.

Tuesday 25th August 2009 – North to Organise the Troops

It is time to sort out the Immigration Service, so I have to head back to Minnesota and get the lawyers briefed.  It is not what I want to do, but it has to be done.  I shall try to be brave and grown-up, and face the problem, and not just avoid it by keeping going till I get to Canada.

This involves passing the two Glasgows in Iowa.  I can't help feeling I could have planned this better.  But I didn't.

I'm travelling the road I used leaving Iowa a few weeks back.  I can't say I recognise it, since last time it seemed to be underwater.

I stop for a break at Hannibal MO, home of Mark Twain.  I get to stroll down by the Mississippi, and look across at the beaches and islands, and imagine Tom and Huck running away from home on their raft.  I reflect on the fact that I ran away from home on the Queen Mary 2, a far more civilised thing to do.

 

         I decided to stay overnight at Cedar Rapids, since I hadn't been there before.  When I get checked in, I come out later that night to find a brewery next door.  And very good beer it was too.

Monday 24th August 2009 – It’s That Man Again

St Louis, it has to be said, is a remarkably spacious city. Downtown provides very little shade for the sun-shy like me. It has a recent addition, "the Arch", which is a remarkable piece of engineering. When I was in Columbia, at the U of Mizz, looking for old documents about the man for whom Glasgow MO was named, they had a photo exhibition showing how the Arch was constructed, which held me fascinated for hours. It dominates downtown St Louis, and there is a city ordinance that nothing will be taller than it, a bit like Washington, dc, and the Washington Monument.

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All men are, in some way or other, jealous of their father. William Glasgow, jr., seems to have been jealous of the fact that his father (James) had a town named after him. When they all came back to St Louis, the family seems to have become a considerable influence in the town. William married the mayor's daughter. He set up a research farm and called it "Glasgow Place". When he sold it off (it's known as the "Glasgow Addition" to St Louis, one of the streets became "Glasgow Place". That's now part of a park, but Glasgow Avenue survives.

He seems to have bought land at the very northern tip of the city

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(if you can make out the name nearest the bend of the river)

Around 1930, the family, William presumably being long dead, platted this, and named the new street "Glasgow Drive" (you saw a picture of it yesterday). The plat for that reveals that the area was known as "Glasgow Woods". There can be little doubt that the rest of the original plot, outside the city in St Louis County, when it was developed around 1950, got to be called "Glasgow Village" after him.

So it wasn't named after the same Glasgow as the one on the Missouri River, it was named after his son. They were both born in Delaware. And there is a Glasgow in Delaware too. Do you think it might be possible that that one was named after the Grandfather? That would be quite remarkable, wouldn't it?

Later that night, having previously vacuumed up all the beer in the house, I tried to do penance by replacing some. But then I vacuumed that up too.