America, land of contradictions

The United States is full of contradictions, but it is a big country with room for inconsistency.

America is a God-fearing country where the God Bless America signs abound; yet it also boasts a multi-million dollar porn industry.

In Cocoa Beach, Florida, one of these God Bless signs stood alongside an advert for colonic irrigation. It wasn't clear why the Almighty appeared to be lending his blessing to the process of flushing out the guts, but He does get everywhere in America.

One of the sharpest contradictions in the States seems to be between the puritan-minded descendants of the original settlers and the have-it-all, eat-it-all, anything-goes America, a choice-crazed place of giant cokes, fries with everything and giant pizzas to go.

Here's another contradiction: American coffee. It looks like coffee but it sure doesn't taste like it. This is a drink, much like mainstream American beer, that is designed not to alarm the tastebuds. Coffee for people who don't like coffee; beer for people who don't like beer.

Budweiser even sells itself this way, boasting on the side of the can that the beer stays fresh to the last sip. This is another way of saying that it doesn't have that nasty beer taste.

American cars have enormous engines, many running to four or five litres; petrol is dirt cheap, a third of what we pay here; yet most of the time you can only drive slowly, often restricted to 55mph. The fastest we managed was 65mph on a motorway - and that was an enforced limit.

The cars are cheaper too, perhaps half what we pay. Houses mostly cost much less as well, suggesting that Americans are sitting more comfortably than we are. Mind you, quite a few of them do have something comfortable to sit upon, obesity being the thing for many.

American television is wonderful - if you watch it in England. In its native setting, it verges on the impossible. The adverts are incessant. They interrupt all the time, often without any indication that a programme has stopped for now. Most annoyingly, the adverts intrude a minute or so from the end of a show; they even pop up in the closing credit sequence.

Also, there is so much on - and nothing to watch.

The newspapers range from the incredibly weighty to the brash and bruising. I took to reading USA Today, which has a circulation of two million and sits handsomely somewhere in the middle. A good paper, and I don't just say that because it is owned by Gannett, which also owns this newspaper.

We may think Americans love to travel, but most don't even have a passport. The rest of the world offers little by way of temptation, because, well, it isn't America. To summarise a little abruptly: America is the world, so why bother with all those other places?

Besides, there is no need when you can explore the globe from the safety of Disney World, in which you can "visit" Great Britain, Morocco, Italy or Canada, and other countries. White-water rafting in India is no problem, while a safari in Africa, complete with real animals, is easily arranged.

But there is one thing Americans do brilliantly well and without contradiction: organise fun on a grand scale.

Disney World in Orlando was the main reason for our trip and what a head-spinning place it is. Tremendous, endless fun spread across four huge sites, all green and pleasant.

Armies of Disney folk keep the sites gleaming. And you are left to roller-coast upside-down, rocket skywards, plunge down make-believe waterfalls, fall to earth in plummeting lifts, shoot round tracks in test cars, whiz through space in the dark or take off for Mars. There are countless other attractions, too many arranged joys to mention.

As to America itself - big and small, friendly and terrifying; open and shut, sharp and muddled - it is certainly enticing.

As the novelist John Updike once put it, "America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy." Well, it certainly conspired to make me happy for two weeks, for all the contradictions.

Updated: 10:12 Thursday, April 22, 2004