I CAN SORT THE WALL, MR PRESIDENT!

OMG! I am a political genius. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? I’m getting straight on the phone to the White House as I think I’ve found the solution to the whole wall problem. Within hours, I could bring to a halt the shutdown that is crippling America. I could be next year’s Time Magazine Person of the Year. I might get freedom of the City of Washington. I could become President Trump’s New Best Friend.

  

I think he’d like me. Not least because I predicted he would be President the second he said he was standing. I suspect he’s probably got a wicked sense of humor (hey, come on – I can be as sycophantic as the next soon-to-be-sacked official). I certainly think I have something to resolve the current crisis engulfing the country, which I think would endear me to the President greatly. And I can say it in 10 characters, thereby leaving him a whole lot of others to bang on about whatever else he chooses on Twitter (apologies; I know that’s no way to talk about my NBF).

   

Until I got my Green Card last year (legally, since you ask), I’d never thought of a career in politics, much less American politics. But now I’m gripped by the daily soap opera it appears to have become. I’m so gripped, I’m taking Russian language classes (even though I’m already fluent after a bottle of Chianti). In the category in which I was applying for the Green Card, I had to state, under the “National Interest Waiver” (i.e. not having a job), what I was going to contribute as a legal immigrant - financial, social, artistic et al – and now I have it. I’m going to contribute to the political health of this great country.

   

True, I can’t stand for President, as I wasn’t born here, but maybe I could get all that changed. You see? I am already well into this narrative. But would I want to live in Washington DC? They go to bed before 2am there! How old am I? Four? 

And what if the Oval Office is too oval for me? How oval is it? American football oval, or Kiwi fruit oval? Can you hang paintings with rectangles in an oval office? Would I have to have an oval husband? I have a bit of an OCD thing going on with shapes, so this might prove something of an issue. I think I’d prefer a rectangular office. Or a hectagon. Is that allowed under the Constitution?

   

While we’re at it, I’m not too fond of the color white, either. Would I be allowed to paint the White House blue? How is anyone even supposed to find it in an East Coast snowstorm?

  

Sometimes, I think I over-think things. 

And maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

   

So, back to the main point and my solution for solving America’s current problems. Brace yourselves.

   

Here goes.

   

Forget the wall.

   

Build a moat!

   

Yes, a moat.

   

As an island, the UK has natural borders. Yes, I know you can fly in and bypass all that stuff, but if the President banned all flights from Mexico and the only way into the US was by water, how difficult would it be for people to get here?

   

Unless they had a Moses among them, doing his parting of the Red Sea party trick, it would be pretty much foolproof. No bricks, no steel: just a whacking great river with hyped-up rates for the dinghies so that only people earning upwards of a million dollars a year can afford them.

   

I’ve looked at a map of the world. Here’s how the moat’s going to work. You start digging at the Pacific Ocean and don’t stop until you reach the Gulf of Mexico. True, it’ll be expensive, but with a few men in hard hats and a couple of shovels, I think it could easily be accomplished. And Voila! Problem solved.

   

Britain’s prowess in ancient wartimes was the protection its geographic placement as an island offered it. Quite simply, they could see the enemy coming. They’d get up in the morning and, over bacon and eggs, look out of the window and ask “Hey, what’s that whacking great lump of metal coming towards us, bobbing along?" “What, that whacking great thing that’s not going to reach us before Christmas next year?”

   

Then they had ample time to finish their breakfast (several), gather their weaponry, lie in wait, and before you could say “Hello, sailor”, everyone on said great piece of metal would be dead.

   

Water is by far the superior material for keeping the enemy at bay (in this case, literally and metaphorically) than any bricks, mortar or steel are ever going to manage, and I don’t know why anyone has not thought of it.

   

So, President Trump, I am putting myself forward as Head of Wall Planning (water division), and it’s going to work like this.

1.     Look at map. Slice land from left to right.

2.     Dig deep. Water will eventually appear.

3.     Ban all Mexicans from taking swimming lessons.

4.     Ban all flights in and out of Mexico.

5.     Tickets for boat trips to be bought in advance and only with ID (no swimmers allowed. Olympian medallists banned for life).

6.     Ban all men with the Christian name Moses from boarding said boats. Men with names Noah and Jonah subject to additional scrutiny. Look carefully into their working background regarding ark building and whale-hiding.

7.     Strictly no fishing in the moat (non-swimmers might hook themselves to a rod and goodness how many illegal immigrants that might bring in).

8.     No one knowing the words to River Deep Mountain High, Cry Me a River or, especially, Last Boat to America allowed in the moat at any time (check to see if in possession of a David Gray CD in relation to the latter – definitely a No No).

9.     No taco vendors allowed at water’s edge on Mexican side.

10.  No towels offered at water’s edge on American side.

I am America’s savior. Just floating it as a solution, Mr President.

  

GHOSTS OF CHRISTMASES PAST

Every Christmas, I miss my dad. This year, it is especially painful because last month I hit 60, which was the age he was when he died in January 1990. 

   

I had the best birthday, surrounded by family and friends, and I am so blessed in having a life rich in friendship, kindness and incredible love. In my numerous celebrations, it was as if all my Christmases had come at once, and the fun and laughter on both sides of the Atlantic (the Pacific end is yet to come) moved me to many tears - of immense joy.

   

But for me, Christmas is now always tinged with sadness, remembering the people who are no longer here to enjoy it. On Friday, my best friend from school, Shelley, would also have been celebrating her 60th birthday. I imagine what reminiscences we might have shared, as we did so often, even though time and continents separated us. She died in August 2017 and I regularly read our Facebook exchanges and the many diary entries I made throughout our school years. 

   

I had the most joyous childhood Christmases. I can still smell the Play-Doh and see the marble necklaces I made by mixing the colours from different pots together. I remember the thrill in the transfer of ink to page in my John Bull printing set; the flow of lines on Etch-a-Sketch and Spirograph; the excitement of the cage coming down and the cry of “Mouse Trap!” in the helter-skelter of red and yellow plastic that was the best board game ever.

   

I remember Dad’s socks - one each for my brother Nigel and me - and the tangerine and walnuts hidden in the toes; the saucer of milk we put out for the reindeer on Christmas Eve, when, before going to bed, we were allowed to choose just one present to open from our stash. And the dark, slow, quiet night. Oh, that awful, interminable darkness and silence of Christmas morning, when my Nigel and I would cough loudly outside our parents’ bedroom door, willing them to wake. 

   

You knew you were getting older when the presents began to change in nature - that sorry day when you started to get clothes instead of shiny plastic; the three lemon-shaped soaps that turned up every year and never got used; the wands of coloured bath oils that were always the last thing to be opened, their jewelled exterior never managing to hide the fact that the Scalextric you really wanted hadn’t materialised yet again (just me, then?).

   

Dinner was always a spectacular affair. Mum made her own pudding and cake, and apart from the year she left the tea-cloth used to wipe out the turkey actually in its belly during cooking, everything always went off without a hitch (actually, I think I recall a time when Dad, whose task it was to turn the oven on, forgot). 

   

Of course, one can never recapture the joys of a childhood Christmas, but I am lucky to have had so many of them. It’s a time of the year that inevitably changes with age; most of my friends have children and are now enjoying grand-children, thereby getting to re-experience the delight in their excited faces. With the exception of buying for my mother and her for me, there are no presents anymore, which is just as well, as I wouldn’t have any room for them. I prefer to spend money on meals and drinks and enjoying good company. 

   

A few days ago, my comments about wanting Christmas to be over attracted considerable antagonism on Facebook. It felt like Brexit Revisited - no one being allowed to voice an opinion without the risk of entering into full scale battle. 

   

I don’t enjoy Christmas anymore. It’s the busiest time of year for me with work. in 2016, I was hospitalised in December and had a 48 hour nose bleed - a burst blood vessel owing to stress. Last year, following my mother’s fall, I also went flying when running to her house. I cracked two ribs and was incapacitated the entire holiday, although provided with ample food and drink sustenance from the very generous Debbie and Theo Paphitis (I’m thinking of breaking another couple of ribs over the weekend).

   

I find Christmas songs infinitely depressing, and if Bing Crosby’s White Christmas, a razor blade and I happen to be in the same room together at any point, start ordering wreaths for my funeral. 

   

I can’t bear the loud music, balloons and drunkenness in bars; the overcrowded roads and trains; the really bad TV, because all the companies are saving up their best stuff for the New Year.

   

And don’t even get me started on New Year’s Eve, easily my most hated day of the year. 

   

I’m actually very happy to be spending a quiet time at home and ignoring it all. I don’t even have a tree. What’s the point? You only have to take it down again.

   

Now, where’s that corkscrew?