Around
the States in Eighty Days
Being an irregular and erratic account by the
Greedy Bastard himself as he sets out to traverse America on
a comedy tour.
Day
Forty One. Niagara Falls.
Sunday,
November 9, 2003
I
wake up to a sunny day by the shores of Lake Erie which looks
like a big blue ocean. I'm heading for the Bus and a live
match - Man United v Liverpool, and a great game it is too.
Glyn "Lish" is up and ready, warming up the icy
interior for this classic encounter. Tonight we play The University
of Buffalo Center and then on to Ann Arbor, whoever she is.
It's a freezing morning here in Buffalo. There's ice on the
water of the fountain in front of this strangely named Hotel.
It's called Adam's Mark. It doesn't say who Adam's
Mark is. I never knew Adam was bi-sexual but with all the
rumors swirling around about poor Prince Charles you never
know who they're going to claim next. Geraldo was positively
out of the closet with joy last night, as he stirred up the
rumor mill with the usual rent-a-comment Britsperts. Gerry,
who looks more and more like a refugee from the Village People
was squirming with barely suppressed joy. Listen, take it
from me, a man who believes that the Royals should be let
go for their own safety, Prince Charles is about as gay as
a minesweeper. He's about as bisexual as a buffalo. He's a
son of a Queen, not a queen of a son. Now if anyone's bent
it's that nasty little shit of a Butler Burrell. I don't think
he has quite the correct amount of change in his jeans,
with his fluttering concern for speaking out and telling the
truth every time he can get paid for it. I've met Charlie
boy on a few occasions socially and he strikes me as a very
nice, interesting, decent man, trapped in hell. That's why
I think all the Royals should be let go, for their own
mental health. Fox hunting has been replaced in the UK
by Royal hunting. Everything is fair game for the tabloids.
No one's reputation is safe. Envy, the great English engine,
is the daily bread of the down market papers. Pub gossip is
being used for personal vendettas. Laying the mighty low is
a rewarding market. Paparazzi Nazis stalk the famous. The
quality of public life suffers. Now if I was to reveal every
(Yes, we got it, thanks. Ed)… I was once in a night club
where two very attractive young girls were making out in the
lobby of the Gents. As each man passed they looked up invitingly.
I was with my pal Gary Lineker who was at the time the England
skipper.
"Did
you see that" I said?
"Yes,
he said "and watch it, they're working for Max Clifford."
This notorious gossip pimp is a famous UK PR person who makes
a fortune from entrapping footballers and selling the revelations
to the newspapers. I was in Barbados during a disastrous English
cricket tour and witnessed Ian Botham entrapped by a Sunday
newspaper. He was suing this tabloid at the time and they
made sure his case collapsed by trolling not one but two girls
armed with cocaine and available sex across his bows. Sadly
he fell into the trap, but I was shocked, and eventually wrote
a musical about it, called The Back Page, or Sticky
Wicket. I wrote this with John Du Prez and it was produced
on Radio Four. I played a sleazy tabloid reporter called Desmond
Boyle and the subject matter was Sex, Royalty and Cricket,
the three things the English care most about.
 Yesterday
Peter, John, Skip and I took a trip to Niagara Falls. It's
about a thirty minute drive from the shores of Lake Erie where
our hotel sits, athwart a constantly Doplering freeway that
sounds like a 24 hour Grand Prix. You can see the smoke of
the falls several miles away, a cloud of white water gas rising
higher than the skyscrapers of downtown Niagara. The plumes
reach up so high they turn into clouds. We drove right on
to the island that separates the two branches of the falls.
The cold water from Lake Erie is tumbling down the Niagara
river towards Lake Ontario, on its way to the sea. We crossed
a low bridge spanning the river which churned beneath us in
strong skeins of white water. The water was moving very fast,
occasionally interrupted by big black rocks, until it suddenly
became ominously smooth, rushed forward and then plunged into
nothing. The river simply disappears. As we leave the car
and walk towards the thunderous noise the ice-cold water droplets
in the air dampen and then chill us. It's freezing, about
22 degrees here. We reach the viewpoint where we get a first
glimpse of the dizzying white feathery falls. It's a breathtaking
sight, powerful and impressive and unforgettable. The constant
sound of the rushing water, the strong updraft of the water
clouds, the ever present rainbow and the faint echoing shadow
of a double rainbow just beyond it, leave us speechless.  Excited
Japanese tourists race past us, snapping away. Although you
don't get the full wide-angled panoply of the Canadian view,
on this the American side you are much closer to the water's
edge and when we walk over to the larger Horseshoe falls,
the prospect is extraordinary. The sun is shining through
the rising mist, making the river gleam as it races to its
doom. On the tiny islands that divide the stream the ferns
are etched with white frost. At this point we are within five
yards of the water as it ceases to become a river, and suddenly
becomes a shower. You can hardly see the Canadian edge for
mist, but way below on a rocky promontory tiny tourists in
yellow raingear are strutting about like Lilliputians. At
the base of the falls, the river turns sharp right into a
steeply etched channel, where it is joined by the bubbling
froth from the secondary falls and sets off bravely for Canada.
Can you believe someone went over this last week? It's madness
to even step into the river it's so cold. But to voluntarily
go over the edge? Yet they survived! We step into the Gift
Shop to get warm. The cold has gone into my bones, and my
ears are frozen. It's like being twelve again. They are selling
daredevil videos of the people who make a living from going
over Niagara. It makes comedy look a very soft option.
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