Naples | The Green Flash

The one thing, perhaps one of many things Floridians have over Londoners, is their indefatigable sense of optimism. I put that largely down to the sun, outdoor eating all year
round, and their buoyant uplifting road names. Just reading them transports you to a window in a future life where you can see yourself retired and living down such places. Fishing with guys in chartered boats off Sand Dollar Island. (Someone else's naturally). Steak Sundays with the guys down some Michelin star-ignored Smokehouse Grill on Mimosa Drive. Monday night football with the guys in a sports bar off Utopia Road. Although Utopia Road does feel like they're just rubbing it in a little. What's next, 'No Strings Sex Street' or 'The Wife Wants to Watch Tango and Cash too Boulevard'?.

We landed at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers, a historic 20-acre site which showcased the winter homes, laboratories, and botanical gardens of inventors Thomas Edison and Henry Ford. I'm not sure I really consumed anything life-altering wandering around the museum learning about the innovations of the phonograph or how rubber came into being. The

fact the two wealthiest men in America at the time were neighbours, generated a little 'huh what do ya know?' from me, but outside of that I can only give it the most tepid of recommendations. I can imagine my crestfallen heart weeping a little if anyone were to leave a review of this book saying, 'well it passed the time between breakfast and lunch.'

A gentle walk in the cool sun. Having been momentarily separated from the wife I took a listless walk through the gardens, noting down the names of some interesting plants for my archives of interesting names. As a writer you never know when you might have a surreal interesting name in a bind to square away a project. Albeit a book, an album or if your slutty friend decided she wants to become a stripper and needs an alias. (Never happened to me before, but one certainly does not want to be caught empty handed should this occasion arise). Lots of great writers use tricks. The song Born Slippy by Underworld was taken from the name of a greyhound. A taxi driver once greeted Noel Gallagher with "What's the story morning glory?" In the film Rocky, Rocky Balboa says he came up with The Italian Stallion when he was making spaghetti. Not sure that fits into my point here, but I like the reference so I'll leave it in for now. After an extended period, having done multiple laps with still no sign of the wife, I mentally assigned names to hypothetical projects.

Weeping Hibiscus: A film about Native Indians and the brutality of whatever war took them to the brink of extinction. Josh Brolin plays a General Custer type figure who has fallen in love with an absolute ten, but just so happens to be the daughter of the Chief whose land Brolin's character is trying to claim. The Chief's daughter is called Hibiscus, or Hibby as Brolin will eventually call her after consummating their relationship. Eventually Brolin switches sides, joins the Natives in the war, and dies in Hibby's arms on the battlefield).

Perrywinkle Drift Roses: I'm going to have to cheat slightly on this one. Perrywinkle Drift is a blind master perfumer by day and a vigilante low-level crime fighter by night. (Not sure if vigilantes dabble in low-level crime. But they always have to be fought at night. If I were a vigilante I would just stick to daylight robberies, and negate all those pesky Batman wannabes. Roses in the name of the first episode, coined after his new signature scent ROSES which is having its inaugural launch party at the Rockefeller. Only everybody has suddenly gotten ill from the Voulevants and have come down with a mild case of food poisoning. The queue for the toilets are all backed up and it's certainly not smelling of roses now. Perrywinkle Drift is forced to investigate. Etc

Finally the wife finds me, and asks what I'm writing down. "Oh you know, these plants are just so divine we really must source them for the garden when we get back to London." I'm not sure if the wife ever falls for these lines, but she likes to talk about the garden more so than anything else, and I enjoy her passion and relentless pursuit to hire and fire every freelance gardener in Hounslow. (We are up to 4 already).

You can have a go yourself if you like with the rest of the names, Asian Snow, Cape Honeysuckle, Song of India, and personal favourite; Walking Iris.

A short walk around the lip of the lake from Edison and Ford Winter Estates to Pinchers Restaurant was further filled with pipe dreams of installing a gaudi-esque mosaic at the bottom

of our garden to commemorate all the dead pets, the ashes of whom are encroaching on my James Bond car collection neatly appointed on the shelves in the basement. Whilst I winced a little at the thought of having a potential Stephen King horror story played out in my own backyard, I did enjoy the fantasy of freeing up some space for further collectibles from the Roger Moore era. I would also go Bond-adjacent as they say and introduce the white Volvo P1800 from The Saint, the Bahama Yellow 1970 Aston Martin DBS from The Persuaders and a silver birch 1964 Aston Martin DB5. Purely so I can entrap any would- be self-proclaimed Bondologist when they pointedly say Roger Moore's Bond never drove a DB5 as Bond, by rebuking with the utmost smugness, yes but he did in Cannonball Run.

At Pinchers we got to sit on the balcony overlooking the harbour. I can't tell you how liberating it all feels eating outdoors overlooking a body of water. Yes you have many London restaurants overlooking the Thames, but quite honestly looking at that sewer-slew whilst freezing my nipples off, eating non-locally sourced fish with more batter than meat, does enhance my dining experience.

What's even better about American dining are the unexpected deals you encounter when you have already ordered what you want. I asked for the Black Grouper which the young waitress told me was considered the filet mignon of the sea, and then was in turn asked what extra sides I would like. "I'm fine," I replied.

"No," she insisted. "When you order the grouper you get two free sides.”
How wonderful, but it didn't stop there. Because I had a wristband saying I visited the Edison and Ford museum, I got an extra pint of beer for free and a slice of their signature key lime pie. What a touch I said. Where else but America will they give you twice the food and twice the amount of beer without even asking for it.

We checked into a hotel in Naples, a short walk from the main strip which led us to the beach, and a two minute walk from Tin City. No sooner had we finished lunch, than the wife was already on the case for booking dinner. The last thing you want to imagine after ploughing through a king size black grouper, a side of conch fritters, fries, coleslaw, oh and another course of fries and two full pints of IPA, is what you fancy eating in 5 hours time. But then she is the living incarnation of David Van Pattern, and when dinner rolls around, as previously mentioned, a reservation is always key.

Fifth Avenue is thronged with art galleries, Italian restaurants, Real Estate Agents (that are open on Sundays. I guess no one wants to miss out on a £10 million sale no matter the day of the week) and ladies of all ages squeezing their stomachs into some form of Lululemon athleisure. It's hot so there is a lot of cleavage on display and it's so ubiquitously abundant that it becomes hard to divert one's eyes. Due to my small frame, I'd invariably find that breasts come at me head on. This does come with its benefits however because they are often in my natural eyeline, I can see them coming a mile away. And in the case of some of these ladies, a couple of miles away. Whilst this might sound like every red blooded man's fantasy, I assure you when you're with your other, averting your eyes becomes a default-voluntary reaction. The only downside with employing this tactic on 5th Avenue in Naples, is that your gaze gets pin-balled around between cleavages operating on both sides of the sidewalk. When I attempt to look at the cars in the road, there magically appears a pair of breasts hanging out the side of a convertible. If I look to the sky there is a pair of breasts paragliding above me. If I look to the

floor, a pair of breasts at any opportune time appears from a manhole. (Slight exaggeration on the last two but you get my point). Every now and then, a man must admit defeat and lock in on a single pair of breasts for a socially unacceptable amount of time. Naturally I tell the wife of my troublesome plight, and she has complete empathy, "me too." She says. As for the men, it occurred to me that all but a few uniformly knot the arms of their sweaters around their shoulders like the elitist friends of Louis Winthorpe III. Nothing screams Harvard Yale and 'I nearly turned pro' at fill in the blank, than wearing your sweater around your shoulders. Note to self, I should wear my sweater the same when next out with the wife and her work associates.

At the beach end of 5th we plonked our shoes underneath a Banyan tree and took an aimless walk up down the shore. The cormorants sunned themselves on the groynes, striped mullets jumped out the water as if they were putting on a show exclusively for us. A tall snowy egret stood unfazed under the pier as a young child dared to get close. Closer, closer, before wiser heads prevailed and the parents ushered the child away. Shame, I wanted to see how that one would play itself out.

Back at Tin City we hopped on a sunset cruiser that took us out through Naples Bay and around Port Royal for another nosey parker tour of the rich and famous. Every now and then my head would jar when a name was mentioned that I recognised. 'Oh that house belongs to the CEO of Pfizer. That one belongs to the Founder of Play-Doh, over there is the owner of Hugo Boss, and that's Tom Selleck's house on the end, only he moved to Malibu because the port is not gated, and he was getting tired of people just knocking on his door and asking if he was Tom Selleck."

A lot of the information is the kind of stuff you take in for two minutes and forget entirely once you're ashore. Things like who built this, who built that. What millionaire had to build his mansion 30 feet away from the waters edge due to some Mangrove protection act. I did enjoy noting down that nine out of ten times a Billionaire would buy a mansion, he would invariably flatten the existing one, only to put a new one to build a mansion with his preferred designs on top. And after all that. On average these single family homes would only spend six weeks of year in these luxury homes.

On the boat I had a revelation, that Corona beer is not the worst beer in the world, but it certainly is not worth 10 dollars a bottle, plus tip. And without a slice of lime to apologise for its most blandest of flavours, one should always just abstain rather than drink with sullen regret. That maxim lasted all of 20 minutes before I went back down to buy another. Still no limes. (Why did I bother asking twice? Oh I know, to make a fucking point that should they choose to extort

me ten bucks plus tip for a bottle of Corona, they should have the common decency to have fucking limes in stock).

Still, in the grand scheme of it all, it's little trouble in big paradise. As the sun was beginning to set over the Gulf of Americo, I witnessed something quite upsetting. A father with a biker's ponytail asked me to take his photo with a young teenager who had of course been totally consumed with her phone the entire trip. Only the daughter protested saying she didn't want one.

"But sweetie the view doesn't get any better than this?" He sighed. Giving me a nod of defeat, he sheathed the phone and cursed under his breath.

There is a phenomenon in these parts known as the Green Flash, when something extremely scientific happens, and the sun is shrouded in a flash of green for all of 1-2 seconds as it dips below the horizon. I eavesdrop on a man with a MAGA hat telling ponytail dad that he's seen the flash before. Ponytail dad replies saying he's lived here all his life and never seen one.

The MAGA hat man replies, 'I've only been to Naples twice, this being my second time. The wife and I went to Key West once ten years back. We saw it then. Amazing it was.'

There really is no winning for Ponytail Dad today, I thought. I would have bought him a beer had it not cost ten dollars plus tip.

Back on dry land, and just over the bridge from Tin City is the most remarkable Sea Shell shop I've ever encountered. In truth I didn't even know such shops existed. But Kelly's Shell Shack stocks almost all of them. Once more I was completely besotted with all the intricate and imaginative names such as the Lion's Paw Scallop, White Knobby Starfish, The Polished Magpie, The Florida lightning whelk and so on. They even had fossilized Megalodon Teeth fashioned into necklaces or set on plinths made from the bones of Great White sharks. How many times do I have to say 'Only in Florida' under my breath?

We finished the night eating outside an Italian restaurant on 5th Avenue. Despite skipping the appetizers, two dishes of ravioli and two lychee martinis came to a jawbreaking 130 bucks plus tip. We both agreed that dessert was overkill and without even looking at the menu, overpriced.

At the hotel we settled in for the night with some more local news.

One lady was hospitalized with third degree burns after she caught fire during a choir rendition of Silent Night at a church in Michigan. The video showed her standing too close to a lit candelabra, and the screams from the home video footage were really quite horrible.

'Sticking with fire,' the newscaster said, moving on swiftly and rather too casually for my money, 'A rookie cop saves a man trapped inside a burning building by literally kicking down a steel door.'

The bodycam footage shows the kind of courage and pluck that this nation prides itself on. The rookie cop, Officer Samuel, explains in a perfunctory manner how anyone else who wasn't built like a brick shit house, would have done the same.

'I guess the adrenaline must have kicked in when I heard voices inside, because I grabbed that door and it just came clean off. God gave me that extra strength.'

Sat next to Officer Samuel was the gentleman he rescued. A small Hispanic still charred round the face, and I could with thin streaky plumes of smoke still coming out his ears.

He spoke and Spanish and the translator off camera said, 'I thank the Lord for Officer Samuel. The first thing I asked of him was to leave me and save my dogs.'

The news then moved crankily on to a country singer who had a hit sometime ago in the seventies with a song called 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.' Which left me two thoughts as I decided to turn it in for the night; How have Americans latched on to this looney tune, but not Driving Home Christmas? And, since they didn't show proof of life, I'm guessing the dogs didn't make it out. But why ruin a feel good story with a coda of an inconvenient truth.