Florida 3

When we reached Miami it was still raining, so we caught a taxi to take us to the next hotel.  The streets, by this time were more like raging rivers, and we swooshed through the streets while our Pakistani driver talked to me about cricket (he had played at Headingly before family committments back home had forced him to chuck it in so he could support his brothers.)  Caro wondered how he would get on in the next few weeks with his "Allah is the best provider" stickers in his cab.  I hope he does okay, because he seemed like a very nice chap.  (To their credit, the Americans started running adverts to reinforce the message that Muslims are Americans Too.)
 
Miami, at first sight, didn't really distinguish itself.  It looked vaguely run-down, vaguely tacky.  I suppose the rain didn’t help – candy-coloured buildings against a grey-black sky just doesn’t work.

I remember in Peter Ustinov's biography "Dear Me" how he told the story of his mother's first arrival in London from Germany.  Apparently on her first train ride from Dover to King's Cross she was welcomed by her husband at the train station.  The first thing she said to him was, "I don't understand.  Why are all the towns in England called 'Bovril'?"
 
You could make a similar point about America.  Most of the cities we had visited has something distinctive about them, but on that first ride into Miami I couldn’t see anything to distinguish it from any of those other Kentuckyfriedchickentowns.  I was wrong, of course.  More on that later.
 
Our hotel, by contrast, was distinctly individual.  It was called The Brigham Gardens Guest House and allowed pets which meant there were lots of little animals running about the place including a cute little grey kitten and a rather amusing sausage dog.  There were also a couple of red parrots in a cage that enjoyed having squawky conversations with Caro every time she walked past.  This being Miami, it naturally had a whole motif theme thingy going on, best described as really bad taste.  We stayed in two rooms at the Brigham, the first was the "Parrot" themed room which featured lots of lovely porcelain parrots, some hanging from the ceiling on perches, some stuck to the walls as if in mid-flight.  It also had some very striking lamps which were actually large pottery fish with a lamp bulb stuck on top.  Add to that, the sea-coral pattern on our turquoise bed and I think you'll agree that we were staying in a veritable "octopus's garden" of taste.  Our next room was naturally The Flamingo Room which, as its most striking feature, had a particularly scary picture of a Conquistador on the wall.  I wasn’t sure what he had to do  with flamingoes.  However, the most exciting thing about BOTH rooms is that they contained wooden beds which let out alarming noises whenever either of us shifted our weight.  This led to a lot of conversations like this:
 
CAROLINE:      Did you just fart then?
SYMON:           Ooh, I never did!  It was just the bed making a noise!
CAROLINE:      Very bloody likely you stinky bastard.
SYMON:           I've never BEEN so insulted!
                          (whoooo-oooooo-onk!)
CAROLINE:      I suppose you're going to blame THAT on the bed as well!
SYMON:           That wasn't me - it was YOU - you stinky sod!
CAROLINE:      It was NOT!!
                          (BLAT!!!)
CAROLINE:      Oh for god's sake, what's wrong with this bed???
SYMON:           Oh no, actually, that WAS me.  Sorry.
CAROLINE:      Jesus F*CKING Christ!  
 
The other thing about The Brigham Gardens is that was very cheap, especially for the quality of the room we got.  The room was actually bigger than the whole of our flat in Edinburgh and included a kitchen and a large fridge.  

Do you realise the implications of this?  It meant I coud COOK again!  Hurrah!  I rushed straight out to buy loads of rice 'n' pasta and had fun playing with food in the kitchen.  Caroline didn't seem to mind.  Mainly because it keeps the budget down, which means she got more presents, by which I mean that she got to shop.  We must have visited half a dozen different malls around Miami, reducing Caro to a level of shopping-exhaustion..  Americans malls are enormous and often require a whole day put aside to visit them.  Caroline plans the whole thing like an SAS-type operation.  She obtains maps of the malls well in advance – does extensive internet and girl-magazine research and then circles all her primary targets – often circled in order so we know the exact shopping route we will take in order to maximise shopping while minimising walking and hitting all the coffee shops along the way.  It’s a breathtaking exercise in shopping logistics.  I came to believe that if Osama Bin Laden had decided to take refuge in a the food court of a shopping mall, Caro would take him out within fifteen minutes.  One night, I even caught her reading her way through the local Yellow Pages so that she knew exactly which malls she needed to target like a smart missile.  Only a smart missile with really good taste in clothes and accessories.
 
Oh, but I should tell you about the exciting thing that happened to me while on the toilet in Aventura Mall, because it's been far too long since we had an exciting episode of:
 
Toilets of the World Part VII:  Aventura Mall, Miami
Yes!  I had an exciting toilet experience in Miami!  Not of the "George Michael" kind, I hasten to add.  I had decided to leave Caroline at Starbucks, brandishing the mall map and planning her assault on the clothes shops.  This is because caffeine, even just the slightest whiff of it, generally makes my bowel go, "Whoooa!  Time to jettison that excess ballast!"  So there I was, having a bit of a relax in the cubicle when these two guys came in speaking Spanish, who sat themselves down in the adjoining cubicles.
 
All very normal you might say.  Well, ho ho ho - you don't know what comes next matey.
 
I started to hear the sound of singing.  This struck me as slightly bizarre.  Then laughter.  It was like they were having some sort of bizarre toilet-party in there.  This is not normal behaviour.  Quite frankly, it made my bowel movement shoot back up again like a salmon swimming upstream, which is not the most enjoyable of experiences, believe you me.  So after a bit of poop-persuasion (shoving and grunting) on my part, I managed to reverse the flow.  But you know, it spoilt my crapping fun – I don’t know about you but shoving ruins the whole pooing experience, plus it gives you piles.  So I finished up, rather grumpily, and left in something in a hurry because these people (who by now were singing some Cuban mambo thing) were obviously freak and god knows what they were going to get up to next.
 
I mean - who sings in a toilet?  I dislike it when people even talk , because when people speak to you, you have to look at them to reply and might catch a glimpse of something you really would prefer you hadn't.  But singing?  I s this just something men of Spanish descent do?  Is this how Julio Inglesias got started?  I would just now like to say I think it's disgusting.  I'll bet you'd never catch Neil singing in a toilet.
 
BARBRA:    You don't bring me flowers
                      You don't sing me love songs
NEIL:            You (grunt) hardly talk to me anymore
                      When you (oof) come through the door
                      At the end of the (SPLASH) day