Please don't let me be misunderstood

“Do you like Hummers?” Beth asked.

“Well, they’re a bit too big for me and I’m not really a fan of four-wheel drive vehicles but . . .”

“No. Do you like humus? With pitta bread - to have as a starter before your pizza?” she asked with the patience you reserve for children who just don’t quite understand.

It’s the language you see. I knew there were going to be difficulties - just didn’t expect them within an hour or so of arriving. As for the waitress, she kept saying things to me and all I could do was smile at her and nod. I didn’t understand one word. Mind you, I was handicapped because the night of my arrival was a big night for American Football. I mean a VERY BIG night.

It seems that if you want to be an American Football player you have to go to college and play for their team. It’s not like your sports lessons at school, thirty minutes a week to run around, shout a little, sweat a lot and graze your knees. No - American Football would be their graduation course if you like. I’m assuming they do learn other stuff whilst they are there, the periodic tables, how to prove Pythagorus’s theory, how to make the perfect crême brulée, how to avoid unwanted pregnancies but they are there to major in the game. And have no doubt, College Football is a massive thing in the States. Massive.

Now - every year when these fellows graduate what happens is the pro football teams decide who they are going to sign up from the college teams to join their squads. Did I say these games are massive in this country. The pro teams picking their players is televised. Live. For three consecutive nights. The players who get chosen are signing up to become millionaires virtually overnight.

So whilst I’m trying to find my way around the most incomprehensible menu that is written in English, a pizza parlour menu, and wondering whether I fancy a four-by-four on pitta bread the television is getting louder and louder as they build up to announcing the next “jock” to be one of the chosen ones. With wonderful timing it’s a man from Jacksonville’s college team, Beth’s home town. And not just any old player from the Jaguars. Oh no - this is their Quarterback. In American Football teams the big cheese, the main man is the Quarterback. A bit like a silverback among gorillas. Only slightly less hairy. And not so silver.

Him being picked was the cause of whoops of joy, cheers and phone calls to friends and family. So all I could do was keep smiling and nodding at the waitress. And pointing to the menu. That works everywhere in the world. Even countries that speak English!

Earlier in the day as I boarded my flight I got into conversation with one of the stewardesses. She was, I discovered, just turned fifty but so attractive I was seriously worried that some of the things I was thinking about her were probably illegal in some of the states here. I unashamedly turned the schmooze factor up to maximum until she dropped the word husband into the frame. I can’t say that it entirely dampened my ardour but I guess there was a light sprinkling of cold water. My seat was preventing a group of three travelling together so I offered to move. Give me an attractive woman to talk to and I’d sell my soul to the devil, I know I would.

A breakdown in communications - too complicated to go into now - meant that I was then obliged to change seats yet again, all overseen by my dream girl. Ten minutes since I had boarded, less than half the passengers on the plane and I was now on my third seat. Once we were fully loaded the lovely lady came to me, smiled, apologised and said she was going to have to move me yet one more time. And that was how I came to be upgraded. There’s nowt wrong with schmoozing, you know, not when it achieves those results.