Desert Springs Diary

Saturday: Gatwick for orders. American Airlines to Palm Springs. Via Dallas. Breakfast as we get on board. Snack eight hours later. Nothing in between. Did crew go out and leave us on our own? If so, where did they go? Seventy-minute wait for luggage at Dallas makes changeover go quickly. Hot chicken sandwich and bag of Mexican crisps on plane to Palm Springs. Revolting. Deplane (American term I have picked up). Trip over Michael Marks Cohen in airport arrivals. Omnipresent. Fail to qualify for ten per cent taxi fare reduction when fail to locate Mirage Taxis. Aptly named. Go with Ray's Cars instead. Worth the extra ten per cent. Arrive at Marriott's Desert Springs Resort and Spa. Decline help with luggage. Room a mere seventeen-minute walk from reception. Lovely.

Sunday: Get bearings. Get barked at for asking for smoking table at breakfast. Full monty, including hash browns. Stroll in grounds and smoke. Buy paper. English soccer results. Southampton 3 Spurs 2. Possibly misprint. Wait for English papers. Siesta. Walk in desert. Bump into Tony Funnell in reception. With wife. What are you doing here? He says it first. Then me. Di Funnell lovely lady. What does she see in him? Agree to meet for dinner. Eight o'clock boat from hotel reception to Italian restaurant. Restaurant also in hotel. Only in California, and perhaps other parts of America and Australia. Lovely evening. Coffee and cigarettes on the terrace. Funnells don't smoke. Eighty degrees in shade. Fifty-foot flames roaring into pink night sky from blazing coals in enormous upturned pith helmet on terrace. Bed.

Monday: Full monty for breakfast. MLA registration. Easily worst conference bag since IUMI meeting in Corfu in early 80s. Register for two-mile fun run on Thursday. Buy The Sun. Southampton result confirmed, but could be early edition before final scores were in. Possibility of last-minute equaliser. Decide to wait until tomorrow before accepting result as pukka. Learn that Americans have won mini Ryder Cup against rest of world lawyers at PGA West. Roll on ludo season. Seafood dinner. Early night.

Tuesday: Healthy start buffet breakfast. Two cigarettes on terrace. Attend arbitration committee meeting. Feel overdressed compared to other attendees. (I am wearing trousers). Get lost looking for MLA long-term planning committee meeting. Made welcome by other committee members. Air-conditioning full up. Colder than hinges of hell. Lively debate. Go looking for mug of hot cocoa. Light lunch instead with copy of Daily Mail. Beginning to accept possibility that Southampton result could be true. Francis must go. Tennis tournament in afternoon. Four hours. Hard courts. Delightful dinner at Wally's Desert Orchid with assorted friends and judges. Where's Wally?

Wednesday: Healthy start again. Wife shopping with editor of Maritime Advocate at legendary retail outlet. Could be expensive. Go for walk. Coffee and cookies for lunch. Return of prodigal shopper, looking like extra from The Sea Shall Not Have Them. Shopping can be tiring. And expensive. May sell car. Hers, not mine. Own arrangements in afternoon. Theme Dinner in evening. Nobody knows theme. Some come as Mexicans, some as cowboys. Rest come as lawyers. Synergy? Pudding runs out before I get to it. Beasts. Smoke at table for first time since Saturday.

Thursday: Fun-run in morning. Not last. Least, though. Lapped by eighty-year-old lawyer. Breakfast. Tennis tournament in afternoon. Clay courts. Evening reception on lawn in front of tennis pavilion. Small man from Germany appears from nowhere and says single European currency is like oncoming train. This passes for small talk in Elbe basin. Move away. He follows. Dinner in hotel's Japanese restaurant with friends. Man from Germany can be seen in distance on tennis club lawn, talking to lady who appears to have fallen asleep. Japanese chef flips prawns from spatula through air. I catch in mouth. Three times. Not luck. Learn that some people are allergic to their own hair. Absorbing. Single European currency like oncoming train in bar now. Late-night cocktails. Late night.

Friday: MLA general meeting in morning. Lunch with Lloyd Nelson. Tennis tournament in afternoon. Wife promises to come but goes shopping instead. Smell of burning plastic. Tennis on grass. MLA black-tie dinner in evening. Congratulate Di Funnell on winning golf. Nice table. Nice people too. Band playing. I have inadvertently come out with Lloyd Nelson's knees. Retire to bar. Lawyer from New Orleans singing and playing guitar. Brilliant. City of New Orleans. Carolina in my Mind. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. Know all the words. Sign of age. Lawyer doesn't know Puff the Magic Dragon. Ask me sir. Ask me. Late night.

Saturday: Browse in pro shop at tennis club. Pretend I am serious about buying $180 bat, but will have to leave it as taxi for airport arrives in twenty minutes and not time to get racket strung. Pro shop produces man who can string racket in fourteen minutes. Costs me. Enplane (word I have learnt in America). Home via Los Angeles. World's most hideous airport. American Airlines has reduced leg room since last week. Crew stay on board this time in order to serve revolting food.

Sunday: Arrive Heathrow. Thick fog. Enbus. Arrive Brighton. Debus. Even thicker fog. Taxi. Home. No credit card stubs on mat. Roll on Orlando 99. Ask me sir.

Chris Hewer