>Owning up to reading “The Spectator” probably outs me as the right wing, foaming-at-the-mouth conservative that I’m actually not.

My (perhaps weak) excuse is that it’s comforting to read about other peoples’ similar experiences in an increasingly frustratingly politically correct world, over proportionally populated by people who either don’t (or can’t) think or can think and employ their grey matter to piss one off.

Dom Joly wrote recently

“I’m off to the ‘Empty Quarter’ on the borders of Oman and the Yemen.
It should be fabulous – my wife gets to dry out our house and I get to play at being Wilfred Thesiger.

Sadly it’s not going to impress anyone at the US embassy next time I need a visa.
Not only was I horn in Beirut but I already have potentially offensive (to the US) stamps in my passport from Syria, Iran, Libya, Morocco, China, Egypt, Russia, Vietnam and India ~among many others.
Last time I had an interview, the woman looked at my (thick) file and saw that I spoke French and Arabic.

She actually asked me the question, ‘Why do you speak these languages?’

It was so much like a scene that Bill Hicks, the much missed US comedian, described in a waffle house somewhere in the southern United States. He’s sitting in there reading a book and the waitress approaches him in some confusion. He looks up and she asks hint – ‘What you readin’ for?’ He muses that he’s often been asked what is he reading, but never what for. His answer is perfect and to the point – ‘Well. I guess it’s so I don’t ever become a waffle house waitress.’

I’ve never dared try a similar approach with the US authorities.”

Me neither, but I’ve often been sorely tempted at times.

In Los Angeles, for example.

Get off the plane to be confronted by a cordon of police, arms akimbo and looking about as menacing as they intend to be.

Look at the immigration form (which I’ve filled in, saying that I’m travelling on to New Zealand on the same day) and ask “Why are in the United States?”
“Because the fucking plane can’t fly there non-stop”
Actually, I said something along the lines that I’m in transit and flying out later that night.

This repeated itself FOUR TIMES.

At one stage and in a serious state of frustration, I said ” I’m in transit – just like it says on the form” and got a “Don’t-get-smart-with-me-or-I’ll-declare-you-to-be-an-enemy-combatant” look for my troubles.

I mean – how much of a danger is there that a middle-aged airline executive is going to go to ground and start picking lettuces in the San Joaquin Valley with the rest of the illegals….?