Indian or Native American.

There are lots of things you, or we, don't know about America. We lived there for seventeen years and there are still things I don't know. One of the things I learned on the way back to London, the last time I was there, was on the in flight radio, and this is when I had been back in London for about three years: I found that the American horse racing industry dope their horses as a matter of course. 

In the UK it is treated the same as with human athletes - cheating.

In America they wouldn't dream of letting horses race without medication, i.e. doping. They reckon the poor horses will burst their lungs if they raced without being treated.

Now if I was going to write a song or a poem about this I could rhyme treated with cheated – but I digress!!

I don't know what they have to do when they enter horses in Britain like The Grand National or The Derby – or as Jimmy Cagney sang the English Derby Cup.

Another thing I noticed when I first moved there was they don't use Frisco as slang for San Francisco. They call it 'The Bay Area' – all of it San Francisco, Berkley and other smaller places near there.

One person I knew in the UK described someone as coming from the 'Bay Area of San Francisco' which is really like saying the England part of London – back ways around.

One of the first auditions I did there for a movie was to play some kind of white man missionary in a film about the old west and the fella auditioning with me was an Indian.

I can't remember his tribe or nation but he was quite intellegant, tall and proud but wouldn't accept being called a 'Native American.' 

He said that came from some white professor or some government body. He didn't mind being called a Native but not American and in any case preferred Indian.

I was talking to a Navajo one time, and wrote on here about it, and he too didn't like the term Native American but then the name Navajo was given to his tribe by the Spanish. The Navajo (with the J pronounced as aitch) are called Diné or Naabeehó but they settle for Navajo. 

Their language is almost impossible to learn unless you learn it from birth which is why it was used in the second world war as a code – only the Navajo could speak and understand it – they were the code talkers and there is a feature film about them.

Of course when the speakers and heroes returned to America they went back to their usually alcohol fuelled squalor.

The Indians are an amazing race and have come on a lot since then.

The other thing about America is when people refer to it as 'The States' – I don't mind the US but it's America.

In fact I think it's a bit non-U to call the place the states which I won't bore you with here.

What else bugs me about the two nations separated by a common language?

Oh yes – when I first went there I met a lot of English people who would refer to America as one of the colonies – I kid you not – but I must say it was only within the first few months and mainly in Missouri where I heard it.

There was a time when a friend of mine was doing business with an Englishman. When she introduced me to him, and before he even opened his mouth, I knew he was putting on a public schoolboy act.

He too was referring to the place as one of the colonies and would refer to Sri Lanka as Ceylon. Straight away I spotted a phony – I don't want to confuse my American friends here as public schools in the UK are a unique selection of the private schools such as Eton and Harrow. Winston Churchill went to Harrow and the current incumbent at Number 10, Johnson, went to Eton. These people aren't the aristocracy, in fact most of them are the sons and daughters of rich people and they aren't the upper classes either and never will be. Johnson father was in trade – heaven forbid!

This phony I got to know, used his accent and his way of walking and standing to try and con the friend.

He was going to supply money and backing for a project and disappeared.

Like I'm going to do now.

Toodle Loo.

Today March 9^th would have been my dad's 107^th Birthday; RIP.