Getting In

"Do you have, or have you ever had, a father who is a member of the Communist Party? And do you by any chance write a blog with the word Communist in the title?"

No, the big bearded man at American Immigration didn't ask me that. But what he did ask me was "What is your job?"

The flight over to Orlando was fine - I had never been on such a big plane before, and liked the larger space. But there were many, many children on board, presumably heading for Disneyland. Fine for the older ones, perhaps, but I did wonder why many parents seemed to think it was a good idea to take a two-year-old on a nine-and-a-half hour flight. Two- year-olds like to run around a lot. And if they get tired they get very grizzly. And finally they yell a lot. Dozens of them. Lovely.

Anyway, back to Big Bearded Immigration Man.

I wasn't sure what to reply to his enquiry about my job, because sometimes when you say the words "Actors' agent" it frightens people and they think you spend all your time with hell-raising Oliver Reed types, which is really not the case. And since Bearded Man had the power to send me straight back to the UK, I didn't want to annoy him.

So I bought a bit of time by saying "Well, I have two jobs. I help to teach communication skills to medical students - - "

"In a university?"

"Exactly."

I could see that he liked this so I pressed home my advantage.

"And I have another job as an actors' agent."

"So what's that?"

"I try to get actors work."

Showbiz! I could tell he really, REALLY liked this. But for some reason he couldn't understand the difference between actors and singers.

"Elton John?" he asked.

"Well, no, he's a singer. I work with actors who work in theatre and television."

Good answer, Daphne, I ccould tell. And now he was really on a roll and wanted to show me his knowledge of British Famous People.

"Could you put all four fingers on this machine for fingerprints? How about Take That?"

"No, I don't know them but they're very famous."

"Okay, well how about Cliff Richard then? Both your thumbs please."

"Yes, I don't know him but he's really famous too."

"I'm taking your photo now. Tom Jones? He must be really old by now."

"Well he is quite old but he's still making records. His son looks old too now."

"Still making records? That's amazing! He's been around for years, hasn't he? Thank you very much, I'm all done now."

Of all the possible conversations I had thought I might have with American Immigration, I wasn't expecting to have this one.

"Welcome to America."

And there we were, in Florida. We collected our hire car - a stylish but rather impractical red Ford Mustang - and then drove off into the night to our happy rendezvous with Silverback and his friends.