Edd's Travels: Washington, DC

In 2014 I visited Yellowstone National Park. I couldn't help feeling that it would be kind of cool if the supervolcano went off when I was there. It's not that I positively wanted to see Armageddon envelop the earth; but I reasoned that if it was going to happen, I might as well be there watching when it did. A similar feeling arises now, arriving in the nation's capital for my second visit (see here for my first), at the prospect of Donald Trump getting his unnaturally small hands on the nuclear button. There's something strangely thrilling about it all.

I've had quite a bit of sporting action here in DC. First I saw local Major League Soccer team DC United dish out a 3-1 whipping to the big-money glamour boys of New York City FC. NYC have three World Cup winners - players David Villa and Andrea Pirlo, and manager Patrick Vieira - but they were comprehensively outclassed on this particular occasion. DC United replica shirts are $120, by the way.

Second, I got my first-ever taste of ice hockey: Washington Capitals 3 Colorado Avalanche 0. It wasn't bad actually: the action is fairly constant, and it's reasonably simple to figure out what's going on, which is more than can be said for either baseball or American football. There were of course the obligatory unconvincing 'fights', too. And replica hockey shirts start at $135.

At the hockey it was $11 a beer, so I was surprised to hear whiny trashy American girls in front of me talk excitedly about getting 'free shots' in the concourse. However, on listening further, I realised they were in fact whiny posh English girls who'd been given free shirts, not shots. It's funny how accents fly right past you when you're not expecting them. Three years ago I met a Scouse lass in St Louis and for the first couple of minutes I assumed she was Dutch or something.

On Monday lunchtime, heading back to my digs on foot after a morning spent taking photographs on the National Mall, I was very disgruntled to find that 9th Street was temporarily closed off to both traffic and pedestrians. The police weren't even letting people cross the road. Bah, I thought, probably we're all being held up for some jumped-up newly-elected tin-pot Congress-dork...yes, here comes the motorcade...for God's sake, how much security do they need, is it somebody I've heard of? Oh blimey hi Barack hi Michelle. See photo below.

By the way, do you know what the first vehicle in the presidential motorcade is? It's not the Secret Service, or even the police. It's a tow truck. If you're in the way, then they're going to move you out of the way, one way or another. When Trump gets in, no doubt he'll use a tank instead. And then the rest of us will just have to relocate to Yellowstone, and put our faith in volcanoes.