Back from the US of A, where the price of gas really made my day

With respectful apologies to the Beatles, as I write this I really did just fly in from Miami Beach. But rather than travelling with B.O.A.C., I trod a well-worn path with V.I.R.G.I.N. And while the paper bag stayed mercifully in the back of the seat in front of me, it was – like most of them – a dreadful flight. Mind you, the incessant turbulence and hatchet-faced sourness of one or two of the cabin crew at least made it easy for me to mentally distance myself and drift off into recollection of our 12 days in south Florida... and how they impacted on our finances.

It’s a tricky time to go to America, Thanksgiving. Not that we paid particular attention to Black Friday, that unholy cluster-purchase which makes our January sales look like a fruit scone festival in Bicester. Actually, and thankfully, the retail worms have very much turned in the US this year.

Right across television commercials and chat shows, there is a definite mood of determination to reclaim Thanksgiving from the avaricious clutches of Big Retail; of returning to a time when this most American of holidays meant nothing more than real and pleasant isolation from the world; a few days when it is very much the fashion for families to batten down the hatches and spend the weekend playing games and eating leftover turkey and hearing again how Uncle Frank really could have been a contender, had he not taken a Viet Cong bullet in the “upper thigh” during the Tet offensive in ’68.

And while we did venture out once or twice, we never saw the expected queues of people camped out in front of the big electrical stores, a tableau of purchase-power desperation that makes everyone sadder than if they hadn’t viewed it. The only remnant of past consumer nuttiness we saw was on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, outside Best Buy (like Currys or Dixons). There were four people – clearly a family – plonked on rickety folding chairs, ready a good 72 hours before they would get their chance to secure 80 per cent off the price of a hand blender. Madness.

Still in the realm of the crazy, do you have any idea how much you are being overcharged for your petrol? We decided to hire a car for our second week and had to fill the tank when we returned it. Our Mazda’s tank was pretty much dry and so I put a little over 50 litres of gas in, filling it to the brim. The cost? 23 dollars. That’s about £15. Fifteen quid for 50 litres of petrol!! I think the last time we filled our car to the brim for a trip to Scotland, the bill was pushing £60. And we have North Sea oil! What the WHAT?!

My final bleat today is about the roaming charges which O2 hit us with when we had the insolence to use our phones’ GPS functions to navigate our way around the Florida Keys. For the two of us, it’s looking like well over £200. Brilliant. Be more dog, my arse. I think I’d rather be lost and astray.