Boston

To counter the lack of intellectual stimulation, by which I mean reality tv shows, Caro bought me a book called "Black Mass" which was the alarming true story of Boston crime figure Whitey Bulger.  He was the kingpin of the Irish mob who was recruited as an informant by the FBI in order to take out the local Mafia. The scary part is that the FBI turned a blind eye to everything the man did, including extortion, murder and collection of profits from drug dealers (although he rather cynically claimed that he never sold drugs himself and was therefore something of a local hero).  Even after Mafia folded in Boston, Whitey had so ingratiated himself with local FBI agents via gifts that they sabotaged DEA and Massachusetts police attempts to bring him to justice.  After twenty odd years of murder and intimidation (from 1980 to 1999) one judge finally forced the FBI to acknowledge what they'd done, but the main agent in charge tipped Whitey off and he hasn't been seen since. Shocking stuff.

But this has little to do with the Boston of today (they tell me).  Certainly as we left our room to explore Newberry, it seemed like the most unthreatening of places.  Caro’s Starbucks-radar was on full alert and we found one straight away.  I swear she has some sort of sixth sense or something when it comes to lattes.  We poked around the interesting little shops of Newberry and marvelled at the pretty little brownstone buildings and had a jolly good time.  Caro also managed to book herself in for a hair appointment.  

Some of you may recall that she went blonde in Singapore, with the result that seven months later she was complaining of "straw-head" a condition which the rest of you bottle blondes will appreciate.  So she went to have some brown put back in while I went to see "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within".  Now I have to say that this was not a particularly good film, but it was still a damn sight better than what the hairdresser had done to Caro.

I met up with her at a coffee shop three hours later, only to be faced with the scenario that all boyfriends dread: The Horrible Hairdo.  Caro asked the inevitable, "So what do you think?" 

All I could reply was, "MmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmm..." trying to drag out the mmm noise so that it sounded more favourable, and also trying to bite back the words, "What the F*CK is THAT??!!!!"  It wasn’t good – I’m not kidding.  Even Donald Trump would have laughed.

Anyway, I wasn't telling Caroline anything she didn't already know. For the next two days in Boston, she ranted and combed, and applied product, and blow-dried and spat and damned all hair-stylists to Hades, but it did no good, she was stuck with pudding-bowl hair, tinted mousesh*t brown and had to make do with it.

"As soon as we f*cking well get to f*cking Chicago I'm f*cking well getting my hair f*cking done again!" was a phrase I heard repeatedly.  

I swear, her language and mood were so bad, it was as if she had been possessed by The Exorcist demon or something. ("You mother sucks c*cks in Hell and look what they've done to my F*CKING hair!")