Work trip to Philadelphia, USA - 21st to 25th October 2007

Not too long since the last time, I was back in the US, and back in Philadelphia, for a week's work. This time, I flew out there on a Sunday, and arrived at a near-deserted Philadelphia airport. It was so deserted, in fact, that ours was the only flight full of people in the immigration hall when we got there, so I got through in under 10 minutes - which is totally unheard-of. The immigration officer I saw had a book on his desk called the "Al-Qaeda Reader", which no doubt was helping him to spot terrorists. Beard, yes. Dark skin, yes. Funny name, yes. Speaks Arabic, yes. Big rucksack, yes. Hopefully every immigration officer has one, that'll help keep the nation safe!

Very soon after arriving in the country, in fact the first time that I tried to buy some food, I was re introduced to the inescapable fact of customisation in the US. Americans are used to having everything exactly the way they want it, down to the most trivial detail. Do you want your salad "chopped", or not? Well, if I'm honest, I don't really care, and the 10th such similar question gets a bit tedious. I just want a sandwich, on some kind of bread - I don't care which of the 10 varieties of bread it comes on. At one point, just after midnight one evening, I went to a "convenience store", and walked past the coffee counter. Even at that hour, there were at least a dozen different types of coffee available (even more than are captured in the photo here) - why would anybody need that much choice in coffee at midnight on a Tuesday night? During the trip, I also visted a (normal) "Pharmacy", which sold cigarettes, and lots of other bad things, but that's another story entirely!

One of the highlights of my first day in the office, was getting to play with my geeky IT colleague's new iPhone, which obviously isn't available in Europe yet. They really are quite fantastic toys - I wasn't all that excited when I first heard about them, but having played with one now, I have to say that I really want one. The way you control everything from a touch screen (including zooming in and out on stuff, with some very cool finger movements), and the general intelligence of the thing, is amazing. After playing with the iPhone, I went to buy an iPod touch for somebody back home - this is pretty much the same thing, just without the phone - and it took a lot of willpower to resist the urge to get it out of the box and start playing with it!

Whilst I was away, I was gutted to miss the magnificent Arsenal's 7-0 win over Slavia Prague - by the look of it, an absolute textbook display of how to play football, which had everybody purring. Annoyingly, I didn't even get to watch the game as I was stuck in a meeting, so I had to rely on Sky Sports website for updates. Isn't that sod's law, that the game I missed was so spectacular.

Again this time, I couldn't help noticing that there are lots of mental people on the streets of American cities. At night in the centre of Philadelphia (which is pretty normal for America), you can't walk more than a couple of blocks without being approached by people that want something from you. It is a bit threatening because lots of them look and sound a bit mad, and I am generally more comfortable with the street weirdos that you get in England - maybe because I am more used to them. The street nutters always really strike me when I go to the US - partly because of the number of them, the frequency with which they approach you, and how they are an integral part of most cities, yet a million miles away from the mainstream people walking past them.

Many "regular" (white) Americans are "assholes", and treat lots of people in their country, service industry workers in particular, like shit. But then, their whole culture is geared up to do exactly that - pay certain people a pathetic "minimum wage", then put them through the indignity of serving other people, and practically begging to earn the tips that make them able to scratch a decent pay packet. In return, "normal" Americans are allowed to expect the earth from these people, they treat them badly when they don't get it, then they wonder why there are huge class divisions, and massive resentment in the country.

Alongside all this, you have the fact that lots of migrants to the USA are very hard working, grateful for the opportunities that come their way, and believe that their destiny is in their own hands through hard work (rather than being owed something by everybody else) - and the country is therefore a total magnet for skilful, ambitious people from literally all over the world. Sadly, many of the people that were born with US passports as their "right", are nowhere near as hardworking or self-reliant, and perhaps the place would be better if its "citizens" needed to re-earn the right to stay there every year. The UK faces the same problem I feel, that many of the immigrants that the Daily Mail complains so bitterly about, actually have more of the qualities that the country needs, than many of the locals.

And it is this strange mix in America, that makes it so fascinating. On one hand, the country creates the ultimate environment where people can advance themselves (if they can be bothered), and for many people it really is the land of opportunity - which is definitely something great about the place. But on the other, there are swathes of people, many of whom keep the country running by providing service industries, who are treated like dirt by the rest of the population, and that seems to be OK - which is definitely something I hate about the place. Very weird, and rather worrying that this rather unhealthy mix of things seems to be the way the world is being led.