Voice of America

Further to my previous post I am reminded of a brief but topical encounter that took place five years ago.

In Halifax, Nova Scotia, I got talking to an American from Indiana who was on another ship. He seemed certain the US was about to go to war with North Korea but praised Trump for standing up to the "little fat man" as he called Kim Jong-un.

Indiana, I was led to believe, has plenty of underground bunkers in case of a nuclear strike. Whether this is true I've no idea, but when he asked me where I was from, and I replied “the UK", he was quizzical.

“UK? Is that Ukraine?"

Trust me, he wasn’t joking.

See ‘New York: summer in the city’ (August 2017).