2005-09-11 - 2:16 p.m.

Jeez, get a load of captain comedown on that last entry. I�ve perked up a bit, partly as I�m on the last leg of the trip, but mostly as I spent the whole of yesterday interviewing mermaids.

I can heartily recommend it. Feeling out of sorts? Spend some time in the company of hott half-fish women (or men). Of course, they weren�t real live mermaids, but they were the next best thing � real live fake mermaids, which was good enough for me.

Anyway, they all work in America�s smallest city, Weeki W@chi (population: nine) at this weird, retro water park. They do a thematically weak but nevertheless rousing performance in the underwater theatre that has been there since the 50s, when it was apparently cool enough to have Elvis visit.

Nowadays they perform to slack-jawed white trash and bewildered but enchanted journalists. They do some pretty impressive moves � have you ever tried lip-synching to the score from The Little Mermaid 17 feet down in a big tank? I thought not. And they stay under for half an hour, pausing only to draw slightly un-mermaid-y breath from their air pipes. I can�t do it justice, but take it from me it�s one of the most surreal things ever offered up in the name of popular culture.

Apparently they get quite ardent fans sometimes. One guy jumped in the tank one time and tried to have his watery way with one of them. I�m not sure how sex with a mermaid would work, though. Surely the business end is all fish? But then you would hardly want to have aquatic rumpo with a half-fish woman with her parts the other way round (i.e. huge piscine head with trouty lips flapping in the breeze)

I was allowed into their sea-lair-cum-changing room, a privilege extended to very few mortals, especially male men of the opposite gender. One of them was still in costume, which was at once both disturbing yet strangely alluring.

Of course, there isn�t much else going on in town, so once the mermaid action was over, the only other entertainment on offer were local comedians at the hotel�s comedy club (�Giggles�), and I figured that, say, staying in and ingesting the miniature soaps might provide more in the way of laughs. I had a couple of drinks at the bar in the hope that some of the mermaids would stop by after work, but I guess they had better things to do � combing their hair with seas shells, luring unwary sailors onto the rocks, etc. Or is that sirens?

This morning, the last stop before Miami, a two hour drive to Orlando. I bypassed all the exciting, impressive, well-put-together theme parks for G@torland, which is essentially a big park full of alligators, and there isn�t too much else to say about that.

I�ve spent the rest of the day driving around (I am totally at home on your American roads, now � I even have the swearing down) trying to find something to do that didn�t involve Disney, but there really isn�t much else here. Apart from more food outlets than you could shake a badly-prepared pepper steak at. Bore-lando, I call it.

Tomorrow � a four hour drive to the airport (I have played all my CDs to death, but hopefully I can find a good 80s or classic rock radio station�my favourite so far is 104.9FM The Bone�they are always called stuff like that�The Bay�The Point�The Dirge, etc) and then home. I�m readily inviting any attempted carjackings at this stage, if only to liven up the journey.