Things to do in London when you’re dead…

So one week on, where are we? After I arrived back dazed and confused and VERY tired last Saturday morning my Mum and Sister were having a barbecue with all of their friends so I got to be a local celebrity as the only deportee everyone there knew, but as the week went on and I spoke to more people, I realised increasingly that I am not alone in my predicament. Everyone I spoke to seemed to have a Department of Homeland Security horror story that had happened to someone they know, including the guy who was pulled into the immigration interview room and told to stare at the US flag while their case officer left the room for a couple of hours. They didn’t try that one with me thank gawd. Think that may have been the thing that pushed me over the edge! Also found out that every time someone is refused admission to the US, the airline that took them in has to pay the DOHS a £2000 fine, and that BA paid out c. £15,000,000 in these fines last year. Let me help you with the maths; that’s 7,500 people refused admission just on BA. Multiply that number by the number of airlines going in to the US and you soon get the picture that not only are they turning back a real large number of people but they are on to a nice little earner. Glad to be helping out that trade deficit.

So through a friend I now have an immigration lawyer. Even if I don’t want to immigrate. I decided that if I have a case, as they kept telling me in Detroit, it was best to get a grownup on my side. When I tried to work out what my options were sans legal representation, I discovered that I should wait 8 weeks before even contacting the embassy, and then they would take another 16 weeks to make a decision on my visa. More maths help for you, that’s a 5 month wait at the end of which you may still be refused a visa. Excellently, even if you do get the go ahead from the embassy, you can still be turned back on arrival in the US if you meet a friend of Officer Shithead, and, if you get turned away for a second time, you are NEVER allowed to enter the US again. Even though you have done nothing wrong. Hilarious.

On the headline ticker on the BBC news website today it said “LATEST: Tests suggest the US has a case of mad cow disease, or BSE.” he he. The whole country? That’d be an explanation…

Look how fat I got!

Err not really

So anyway, rant over for now, I’’ll keep you all up to date. That last post about my being turned back is the most popular post that I’’ve ever put up here with nearly 200 individual readers of it. That’s loads more people than I actually know so I’’m guessing that some of you have forwarded the link on to other people that I don’’t know. Look at me mum, I’m famous. I really want to say thanks to all the people that emailed or called making sympathetic noises. What a bunch of very kind people I know. OK sincerity over.

So what have I actually done? Seen some friends, watched the new Star Wars movie (stinking), spent a gorgeous afternoon on Wednesday wandering around the Docklands area and then on a tube up to the South Bank to wander along the Thames in the sun. Nipped into the Tate Modern for a couple of hours of culture. Took lots of illicit pictures and video’s in there of amazing things and then managed to delete them all by accident, doh! Highlights were the “Open Systems: Rethinking Art c.1970” exhibition especially “Going Around the Corner Piece” by Bruce Nauman where you are in a room walking around a large cube which has a TV on the floor of every corner in which you can see yourself from behind walking around the corner. Madness. (I took a great video of this that I was going to put on here but hey that’s technology for you.) and all of the Warhol stuff in the Society gallery.

After all that culture it was important to get drunk, which I did in the Red Lion, very successfully with very nice people.

Next plan? France for a bit, I think, while all this visa nonsense is getting worked out.