You know you’ve arrived when they do that for you, believe me.
And that is exactly what they did when I visited DC as a guest of the American Travel Fair, IPW.
The 47th President of America: In Washington DC
The National Mall, for those of you watching the inauguration of President Joe Biden today, is the grassy stretch of land from the Washington Monument to the domed US Capitol.
The White House is to the north.
And flanked by all of this are the magnificent Smithsonian museums.
King for a day
US Capitol and Reflecting Pool, Washington DC
Out on that balmy May evening in Washington we were given the run of the place.
And we were treated to Aloe Blacc singing for us on stage, we were given a reception in the National Air and Space Museum.
Honest Jim and Honest Abe in Washington
The Reflecting Pool which many of you will know from Forrest Gump is the artery from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial.
I have a dream: The unfinished Martin Luther King statue in Washington DC
And the climax to the Civil Rights March on Washington in 1963 when he delivered his I Have A Dream speech.
Today Joe Biden spoke of unity from a platform in front of the heavily fortified US Capitol.
It is the very same seat of government that was besieged two weeks before.
Civil War memories
Ne-Yo in Washington
Only this year was different.
With Covid and the security threat since the Storming of the Capitol meaning it was a completely different audience.
Only dignitaries, soldiers and the symbolic flags of the 400,000 casualties of the virus in the eye line.
Much has been said about America and the times we are living through.
And President Biden is an eloquent man in his own right and has a team of speech writers to finesse his sentiments.
American hero: In Washington DC
The circumstances of this inauguration and the militarised zone have been likened to the Civil War.
And that naturally conjures up the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.
With malice toward none
View of Washington from Arlington
Lincoln has been channeled regularly by his successors who wish to establish their line to the Great Man.
Few have done him credit.
Only time will tell if President Biden will be able to fulfil the lasting mission of Lincoln.
But the challenge for him and any President is to honour the pledge given on Saturday, March 4, 1865…
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds,
All joking aside about Zlatan ‘The Ego’ Ibramovich being cut down to size.
But is it right that the Sweden soccer superstar should befall the same fate as Edward Colston in Bristol, Lord Nelson in Dublin and Saddam Hussein in Baghdad?
A little big woman: Fannie Lou Hamer in Mississippi
Sometimes it’s the design that catches you and stops you in your tracks.
And so it is with this remarkable little woman,
The President of the USA, Lydon Baines, Johnson took extraordinary measures in stopping her saying her piece at the Democratic Convention by having television change its schedule.
Fannie Lou Hamer’s life was extraordinary, born into a sharecropping family and picking cotton from the age of six, she was later forced out of her home, threatened with her very life and beaten.
All because she wanted to sign on on the voting register.
She summed up her struggle in the Civil Rights Movement thus, and of course nobody could say it better: ‘I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.’
Us journalists like to think of ourselves as hard-bitten but I had to choke back the tears walking through the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam…. http://www.annefrank.org.
The audio narrative dwelt on a passage in her diary where she mentions that she wants to become a journalist when she’s older.
And what a journalist she would have been… ethical (yes, some of us are), prying and fearless.
Amsterdam is one of the world’s great cities and Anne one of history’s greatest figures… http://www.iamsterdam.com.
Statues should be provocative and the Czechs have this one down to a T.
‘Piss’ is the good people of Prague’s commentary on the politicians who have urinated all over their country.
You’ll not see it here but once the water gets flowing they pee all over the map of the country.
The Czechs as well as being the world’s biggest lager drinkers, per population, with some of the world’s best beers, are wonderfully anti-establishmentarian.
There are statues to musical giants all over the world but while former Thin Lizzy lead singer Phil Lynott isn’t the best or most famous singer of them all, try telling that to Dubliners.
It is a tradition now for visitors to Dublin to have their photo taken outside Philo’s statue off the main Grafton Street shopping thoroughfare.
That other statue, the Tart with the Cart, Molly Malone? Well you can leave that to the uninitiated.
Martin Luther stood as a defiant symbol of Dresdeners refusal to see their city disappear after the Allies’ firebombing at the end of the Second World War.
Dresden was known as the Florence of the Elbe and it is one of the great architectural stories of our age, or any age, to see how the Dresdeners have rebuilt their city to the same grandeur of its renaissance days.
Yes, the Little Mermaid is more visited, but personally I prefer the top-hatted Hans in the heart of Copenhagen.
Hans was an eccentric all right and once decamped on Charles Dickens, walked around the house in the starkers, and made it difficult for Charlie to show him the door.
Nelson Mandela Voting Line, Port Elizabeth, South Africa
March to Freedom: In Port Elizabeth
Statues shouldn’t just stand there. No, really. And this is a moving symbolic Voting Line which sums up South African democracy.
This is our host Sisseko and beside him a kid as he would have been back in 1995 when South Africa had its historic vote.
It is also immersive and you don’t have to climb up a plinth to get next to it as they do in Glasgow when they put police cones on the Duke of Wellington.
It is the way I should imagine that Nelson, a native of the Eastern Cape, would have wanted it.
Ban-ban-ban-Bandanaman, Ban-ban-ban-Bandanaman, Take my hand, You got me rockin’ and a rollin’. Rockin’ and a rollin’. Bandanaman.
One of the most seminal pop bands in history, a California travel convention and the reunion of my Scottish poetry group and Edinburgh Festival faves.
It’s great when a Bandana plan comes together which is what happened when I channeled my alter ego for a Zoom meeting with my old poetry grouo.
And showcased my Beach Boys pastiche of their hit Barbara-Anne.
Because it was nearly a year ago that the Beach Boys https://www.thebeachboys.com gave me and my Travel friends a private concert at the American Travel Fair in Anaheim, California www.ipw.com.
When Ne-Yo threw his towel into the crowd and I stretched out to garner it to my chest.
Killer tunes
Cathy Keefe Reynolds, who looks after all the Travel journalists with the care you would would your own children (and we often behaved as such), marked the moment.
On video.
This year in Las Vegas we were promised another cracker.
I am, of course, self-censoring here and won’t be bringing you pictures of myself sticking dollar bills into the male dancer’s trunks on the podiums.
Frockie and Jocky in the Rockies
But I like the girls:With the Bandanettes at Denver’s Mile High Stadium
I climbed on to the pedestal myself when they were off on my break but with my body… all I got were nickels and dimes.
I was back for more in Denver http://www.denver.orghttp://Go West where myself and the multi award-winning and shots-drinking Isabel Conway and Portland’s finest Laura Guilmond formed the rock trio to beat all trios.
With rubber mics and guitars. And a warning here… there was sax too.
And then Anaheim where at last my man has come along… the jazz and old standards singer in the side bar to the main dance floor.
Lying with Mari
And I also managed to fit in a European Pride too in Barcelona before I went cruising… Steady I was a guest of Royal Caribbean and hopped on their ship for a bit of surfing.
That’s why it’s called the Strip
With Cami in Vegas
Now my friends in America where I should be now, Las Vegas to be more precise http://www.lvcva.comStrip… the light fantastic and already have Florida from just after the lockdown under my belt have been in touch.
And they have put more flesh on the bones of Virtual Pride from these great American cities.
Dogs in Drag, you say
Denver PrideFest, June 20-21 – Colorado: It is recognised as one of the top ten Pride events in the US, and I can believe that of Denver PrideFest.
It is a free, two-day festival that (usually) takes place in Denver’s Civic Center Park with the pick-out the Dogs in Drag Parade.
While there is also a Gay Pride Parade and a Big Gay 5K.
This year’s virtual event will include digital versions of the parade, 5Ks, concerts, dance parties and more. www.colorado.com
Say it big
Frothy Seattle
Flag day
2020 Seattle Pride Parade and Trans Pride Celebrations, 26-28 June – Washington: Seattle Pride is working with PrideFest and Trans Pride to put on the best show they can in late summer. Keep up-to-date here for the June Virtual spectacular. www.visitseattle.org
Man Diego
The bras and stripes
San Diego Pride, 11-18 Juy – California: And this way your Pride fun can go on and on.
San Diego Pride runs across a week in July with a burst of activities. Using the #TogetherWeRise, She Fest launches it all off recognising the talents and contributions of women, followed by Light Up the Cathedral with a ceremonial rainbow lighting.
As CSW Executive Director Madonna Cacciatore said: ‘Pride is not just about a specific month or weekend in June. Los Angeles’ LGBTQ+ community lives and breathes Pride every day’ and therefore, celebrations will span through to 2021. www.visitwesthollywood.com
Nobody likes their passport pic, particularly now we can’t even smile.
Mine’s looks like it could have been taken more than 100 years ago when they were first introduced.
But we don’t even flinch at being asked now for it and I suspect we’ll quickly get used to the technology being rolled out by the Canary Islands to get us back travelling.
The Canary Islands (Spain) and the World Tourism Organisation have agreed a flight in July for the world’s first ‘safe’ flight using the Digital Health Passport, developed by Canarian firm Hi + Card
I can just taste that Tenerife Shakespearean wine Malvasia.
If your family is driving you up the wall you may be taking sanctuary in a TV family… me, I’ve been a fly on the wall at the Pritchards and the Dunphys in LA.