"We are flying down to RIOOOOOOO!!!!!!!" exclaimed esteemed football writer John Richardson in his best Bryan Ferry voice as we headed for Gate 26 at Miami Airport.
Much better reference than any of that 'Route One' Duran Duran nonsense.
Our last morning in Miami and precious little to report.
The England squad landed in Rio around the time I was surfacing to speak to Sunday Scoreboard presenters Geoff Peters & Alvin Martin, so us journos with the specific task of following the Three Lions will be 24 hours behind them by the time we land in Brasil first thing Monday morning - and there'll be no slacking off once we've grabbed our luggage off the carousels (hopefully), as it'll be pretty much straight to England's training session and an opportunity to speak with one or two players at a special event in the afternoon.
*Yes I've shortened the title - hoped it would make a snappy acronym...I was wrong!!!*
Well that was...different.
Golf tournaments regularly get suspended for electrical storms, but not usually football matches. At least not until today anyway.
Barry University sits in an unremarkable part of suburban Miami, flanked on all sides by one story condos and corrugated iron. But it looked pleasant enough in the strong morning sunshine as we arrived on campus to see a full England training session, rather than the 15-minute vignettes we've been allowed up to this point.
The sun is out.
I repeat - the sun is out and not obscured by any of those cloud thingies.
I could easily pass for a meteorologist in South Florida, actually. It appears to be almost impossible to give a fully accurate forecast for 12 hours ahead, never mind a 3 or 5 day summary. Sunshine wasn't on the menu necessarily, but I'm not complaining - really I'm not.
It's said that the cost of building & renovating the stadia in Brazil for the upcoming jamboree was an estimated *adopts Dr Evil voice*....$3bn.
Funnily enough, that figure was trotted out again last night as Jim, Laurie and myself stood outside the sprawling Marlins Arena, home to the Miami Marlins baseball team which, I discovered, because of bond schemes and the like have apparently resulted in a similar bottom line to the one quoted above. Frightening really, especially as the 2-time MLB champs (last time 2003) rarely sell out the 36,000 capacity indoor arena.
The rain finally abated late Monday afternoon - I'm sure you're thrilled skinny for me on that one.
And in even better news, the Comrex broadcast equipment which was still steadfastly on 'everybody out' mode for me was fixed in a matter of minutes by talkSPORT's freshly-arrived engineer Adam Reed - a miracle worker if ever there was one! That meant my interviews on Extra Time and Breakfast were finally in broadcast quality and my mind can focus on things other than...faulty dongles.
Stop sniggering at the back.
We're officially in 'Hurricane Season' here in Florida.
Adverts from Walgreens, K-Mart and countless others are pushing a 'Hurricane Sale' of items such as flashlights, generators and batteries; news stations cheerfully remind you of how to best protect your home from 120mph winds - it's all done with a cheery bonhomie that both startles and comforts you at the same time. The calm before a possible storm. Suddenly, being on the 23rd floor seems disturbingly high up.
"The loneliness of the long distance reporter..."
Suddenly this feels very very big. I've bid a tearful farewell to my girlfriend and for 6 weeks or so, there's no going back.
There are few bands of any real note these days that are still to reform and ride the nostalgia train one more time.
Weller won't countenance taking The Jam round the world; Morrissey would never cheer up enough to consider a fresh alliance with Johnny Marr et al; Rick Davies hates Rodger Hodgson more than enough to rule out Supertramp bothering again.
Whether that last example bothers anyone else is open to question.
