Freezer jolly bad fellow (allegedly)

Even as it struggles to pick up the pieces after Hurricane Katrina, this is a wonderful, vibrant city. But it has a dark side too, in which a long history of poverty and economic weakness has spawned a culture of widespread corruption.

New Orleans made international headlines today with the indictment of local Democrat congressman William Jefferson on charges of bribery, obstruction and racketeering. If found guilty on all counts, he faces up to 235 years in jail.

Jefferson, and more specifically one of his household appliances, have been the butt of endless jokes here ever since I first visited last year.

In August 2005, FBI agents raided his Washington home and found $90,000 in his freezer, wrapped in aluminium foil and stuffed inside plastic boxes. They allege that the numbers on the notes match those on a $100,000 bribe paid to him by an informant.

As an outsider to American politics, there were two things about this story that I've never understood. One was relatively trivial, and easily clarified; the other is much more important, but remains a mystery to me.

One of the charges of which Jefferson stands accused is wire fraud, an odd-sounding concept that doesn't exist in English law and which I've never understood. So I asked my resident legal expert, and Pam told me that it simply means any form of fraud in which electronic communications were used.

So, for example, if I advertised something on eBay, you sent me money, and I didn't deliver the goods, that would be wire fraud. Likewise, if I advertised a non-existent item in a newspaper and you put a cheque in the post, that's mail fraud.

Both carry substantially heavier penalties than ordinary fraud, and both are essentially legal pretences. Most fraud involves some kind of communication by one or other means, but the concepts of wire and mail fraud turn local offences into ones that cross state lines, allowing the federal authorities to grab power from local and state investigators.

So I learned something today. But what I still don't understand, and maybe there's someone out there who can enlighten me, is this.

The facts of the case have been in the public domain for a long time, and two former aides of 'Cold Cash Jefferson', as he's widely known, have already pleaded guilty. Rolling Stone magazine nicknamed him 'Bribe Taker'. And yet in a runoff election in December, he romped home with a 57% share of the vote.

I just wonder what that says about the 35,000 people who cast their ballots for him, and about their tolerance of politicians who betray their oaths of office.

Jungle warfare

For years, I used to share my fantasy with anyone who'd listen.

I wanted to win the rollover in the lottery (not the easiest of undertakings, since I never bought a ticket), wave adieu to my ho-hum, humdrum life as a freelance translator, and build a vast avant-garde conservatory over my back garden in London, a tower of Babel so dizzying it would make the palm house at Kew look like a garden shed.












Then I'd run up sky-high heating bills creating my own dripping rainforest of waterfalls, exotic fruit, and sinister-looking carnivorous plants. I'd make Alan Titchmarsh an offer he couldn't refuse: give up his job as Britain's foremost TV gardener and be my full-time horticultural adviser. No, on second thoughts, not Alan Titchmarsh: that one who never wears a bra.

At first, the curtain-twitching neighbours would mutter behind my back about this blot on the landscape, but gradually they'd succumb to the heady fragrance of oleander, wet decomposing leaves, and the hundreds of beers on tap in my free 24-hour bar.

Well, that particular ambition may have come to naught, but I've got the next best thing: a garden in steamy, sticky, stifling, sweaty, sultry, sweltering New Orleans. As a bonus, I have a wonderful woman who shares my obsession with all things green and pleasant, and a fridge full of Sam Adams.


The yard beside our house is about a hundred feet by fifteen, and when we arrived there was nothing very much in it. Months later, it's fast becoming full to overflowing, and if we don't kick our addiction to plant acquisition soon we're going to need medical detox.

I call it guerrilla gardening, because much of it involves outright theft.

The house next door is empty, lost in a Dickensian legal limbo, slowly going to rack and ruin. So the other day we hopped over the fence with a spade each and helped ourselves to half the garden. There was so much of it, a tangled riot of ginger, bananas and huge-leafed elephant ears (that's one in the picture at the top) that the owners will never notice it's gone.

We also go for a daily walk which, since the Pacific Ocean got in the way of my hiking ambitions, I've vowed to do for the rest of my life. And we always make sure we have at least one pair of scissors with which to purloin cuttings.

Once, we passed a tract of waste ground which was being dug up by a trio of exhausted-looking Hispanic labourers. Strewn abandoned in a pile were dozens of sunflowers and rudbeckia - everything blooms much earlier here than in London - so we came home triumphantly clutching armfuls of these. And on the way back, we helped ourselves to the abandoned, rusting supermarket trolley (or should I say shopping cart?) that now houses Pam's herb garden.

I have a feeling that plants and planting are going to play an important part in this blog, so better get used to it.

Pam and I are off to England and France on Tuesday for five weeks. I may do some more posts while we're away, but I'm currently engaged in the thoroughly pleasant task of deciding where to go with someone who's never visited my home country before. And the one place that's top of the list: Kew Gardens.