Friday, July 8, 2016

Signing Off

Today is my last post. Tomorrow, I will no longer be a Brit Abroad. After near 17 years living in Japan, Thailand, China and Mexico, six and a half of those writing this blog, I will be back 'home' in Britain, dragging my family back with me. 
It's been fun, documenting our adventures and sharing experiences of other cultures, while at the same time writing about music and books and stuff. I've been incredibly fortunate having had this opportunity to live in four amazing countries - the last three captured in this blog. 
I didn't think I'd keep it up, let alone write so much (some 1,750 posts!), but living in different cultures has meant there's always been stuff to write about. Not sure that'll apply when being back in Britain. Although thanks to last month's referendum it hardly seems the same country as the one we left, so maybe there will!  But that will be for another blog, maybe.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Everglades


A daytrip to the Everglades National Park, west of Miami - the last tropical wilderness in the US. My first trip in an airboat (very fast, very noisy) and the first time I've ever held a crocodile - even if it was only a baby one. There were big ones a plenty elsewhere. 

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Americana

Miami Beach, particularly South Beach (or SoBe as it's called locally) is famous for its Art-Deco architecture. Our hotel is a fairly typical example, a couple of blocks back from the beach. It's been beautifully renovated, as have most buildings in the neighbourhood. It has a pristine feeling, or even that we're in a theme park, but that's a minor gripe: it really is beautiful. Interestingly, the hotel doesn't have a restaurant. Its reception area simply has a help-yourself assortment of croissants, fruit & coffee in the morning and cheese & wine in the early evening. Civilised.
Outside is a small but decent pool and glass table tennis table.
Across the road is a classic 50s diner, converted from one of those wonderful aluminum (did I get the spelling right?) rocket caravans. Fantastic brunches, burgers, pastrami-on-rye, and apple pie milkshakes (they just cut a big slice from an apple pie and throw it in the liquidiser along with some milk & ice-cream). Heaven.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Happy 4 July

Drove 240 miles down the Florida Turnpike from Orlando to Miami Beach. It's Independence Day so plenty of stars & stripes everywhere. But what really grabs our attention are the cool, lo-rise art-deco buildings, the steel diner across the road from our hotel (where we will eat pretty much the whole time) and the crystal clear sea. Perfect. Check out the temperature: it's off the scale.

Sunday, July 3, 2016

Kennedy Space Center

Today we got educational and drove east across Florida's pancake-flat landscape to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Fascinating place where they launch most of NASA's rockets and which these days has an impressive visitors centre. Got to see the control rooms, space shuttle, lunar modules, launch gantries and a 'terrifying' ride in a space shuttle simulator (which was laughable compared with the Harry Potter rides yesterday). It was a relief to be indoors for the most part; outside must have been 40 degrees.      

Shoot 'Em Up

In our Orlando hotel, we spotted this tempting leaflet. Three weeks ago a guy walked into a nearby club and killed 49 people and wounded 53 others. The word 'inappropriate' comes to mind.  

Saturday, July 2, 2016

The Wizzarding World of Harry Potter

Hogsmeade & Hogwarts
All day spent at the Wizzarding World of Harry Potter in Universal theme park. It's actually two separate places: Hogsmeade in one part of the theme park, and Diagon Alley in another - the two linked by a short train ride (the Hogwarts Express).
It was fantastic and of course the girls loved it. Architecturally, it looked exactly like the films, down to the last detail. The vertiginous Hogwarts, the village with its wand shop, wonky Diagon Alley and Gringots Bank, butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron, the triple-decker bus and so on. The rides were amazing - somewhat terrifying for a 50something adult, but the girls kept going back for more. 
I particularly liked the Hogwarts Express with its very realistic Kings Cross and Platform 9¾, including clever 'push-the-trolley-through-the-wall' trick using mirrors. The train interior took me back to grimey but comforting 1970s British Rail carriages, and we loved the video and visual effects as the train compressed London-to-Hogwarts in 5 mins.
We didn't spend much time in the rest of the park - Jurassic Park ride, Dr Seuss. It was all about Potter. Worth the money.

Friday, July 1, 2016

Farewell 4

Farewell Mexico!  It was fun while it lasted. Only 2 years - would have happily stayed longer but job done and it's time to return 'home'. We really enjoyed it here: the culture, the climate, the job (for all its occasional, mostly recent, stresses & strains), our home in Polanco, the friends we made, exploring the country. The girls liked their school, and Liz especially got a lot out of our time here: speaking Spanish, silversmithing, cooking classes, the international (particularly) Japanese contingent at school, Mexican culture generally. 
It seems like only yesterday that Eduardo collected us from the airport, yet now he's depositing us back at Benito Juarez Terminal 1, for the last time. The things I put my family through!  Still, it's not directly home - we're breaking the journey in Florida for some much-needed R&R. 

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Farewell 3

This time to the office, who threw a party. I was a bit nervous, given the recent HR issues, but it was very nice and I felt a lot of warmth from colleagues. So goodbye - or hopefully hasta luego - lovely colleagues! 

Monday, June 27, 2016

Brexit Thoughts

Pondering on the referendum as it begins to sink in. Without fear of blowing things out of proportion, to me it's... well, it's a catastrophe. 
I grew up loving the idea of 'Europe'. Grimms, Tintin and Asterix; Belle and SebastianJeux Sans Frontieres and European footie on the telly; camping holidays; the first album I ever bought being Dutch (Focus 3), followed by Krautrock, Heldon, Magma and a fixation with all things Eurorock; Bowie's 'Berlin' period; getting into films by Herzog, Fassbender, Truffaut, Goddard etc; living in Strasbourg for a year; an Italian girlfriend; the food; the edginess & mystery of the Iron Curtain... 
When we joined the EU in 1973, it somehow brought all the above closer to home. Sure, the institutions of Brussels and Strasbourg were (still are) kind of impenetrable and aloof, and some of the directives, the Common Agricultural Policy etc aren't perfect. But anything that brings countries together is a good thing in my book. And of course there's never been a war between EU countries (the Balkans was pre those countries joining, right?). 
But the thing that really depresses me is what the vote signifies. Basically, it says We don't like you. We don't want to be part of Europe, we're proud Little Englanders, we don;t want you coming into our country and taking our jobs, we can't be bothered to speak other languages and who won the war anyway? 


Thursday, June 23, 2016

Farewell 2

Unbelievable. The people have voted and... we're out of the EU. We were saying goodbye to some friends over dinner in a restaurant in Roma, confident that by the end of it (we're 7hrs behind UK time), we'd still be in the EU. Our friends were Mexican, Japanese, Dutch, and American. Furtive glances at smartphones as the meal progressed. "Don't worry, it'll be like the Scottish referendum". But by the time we'd said our goodbyes it didn't look promising. "Well, good luck" said our Dutch friends. By the time we got home we were out. I can't quite believe it. Is it a bad dream?

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Farewell

This morning I took part in a small but moving ceremony to commemorate Jo Cox, the MP who was senselessly murdered last week and whose 42nd birthday it would have been today. There were about 40 of us gathered in the garden of the British Embassy. There were similar events in Trafalgar Square, Batley and Spen (her constituency), New York, Nairobi, Beirut and many other cities around the world. I read a poem. It was good to do.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

Puebla

Puebla may have a population of over 3 million but it feels a lot smaller. Nice cathedral, lovely squares, but the two most striking things about the city are the colour of its houses and the gorgeous tiles everywhere. We bought a boxful, though it was tempting to get crates of the stuff. And why not paint our house in Chichester pink while we're about it? Works here, but in overcast England, perhaps not.  

Saturday, June 18, 2016

Round the Volcanos

This morning we drove south-east from Mexico City, taking a circuitous route around the two volcanoes, Iztaccihuatl and Popcatapetl, both over 5,000m, and descending to Puebla via Cholula. Cholula is the site of an enormous Mesoamerican pryamid which gives Giza a run for its money. Much of it now looks like a hill, but bits have been restored and there's a tunnel which goes deep inside. When the Spanish came in the 16th Century they massacred a lot of people and plonked a church on top of it.
Our hotel in the centre of Puebla is one of the nicest we've stayed in in Mexico.  

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Alfa 91.3

It would be fair to say that the in-car soundtrack of our time here has been Toño Esquinca's show on Alfa 91.3.  Donde Todo Nace!  So here are 15 songs that Alyssa has picked out which will always remind me of Mexico, even if none of them are Mexican. 

1. Stitches by Shawn Mendes
2. Hello, by Adele
3. Shit Up & Dance With Me, by Walk The Moon
4. Hotline Bling, by Drake
5. Stressed Out, by Twenty One Pilots
6. Cake by the Ocean, by ONCE
7. Can't Stop the Feeling, by Justin Timberlake
8. 7 Years, by Lukus Graham
9. Photograph, by Ed Sheeran
10. Fast Car, by James Blue
11. Adventures of a Lifetime, by Coldplay
12. Love Me Like You Do, by Ellie Golding
13. Geronimo, by Sheppard
14. Don't Let Me Down, by Chainsmokers
15. Sorry, by Justin Timberlake

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Sizzling Hermosillo

Today I find myself in Hermosillo, state capital of Sonora in the north-west of Mexico, 200 miles from the US border. It's in the middle of nowhere, arid and incredibly hot. Yesterday was a jaw-dropping 46C. Today, a mere 42C but still, I think, the highest temperature I've experienced anywhere in the world. I'm here to sign an MoU with their Minister of Culture, as part of a broader series of events which include trade and education. The formality of the occasion means I have to wear a suit and tie but thankfully it's very dry heat and amazingly I hardly break sweat.    

Saturday, June 4, 2016

Rio 2

A day walking the steep streets of Santa Teresa including the beautifully tiled Escadario Selaron; a cable car ride to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain; a make-believe game of footie on the beach. 
Yet somehow we're a bit disappointed. It's overcast, the streets are fairly quiet, and there's a cordoned off area of the beach where a body had been found. 
I mean, we weren't expecting Carnival and we didn't do the nightlife, but somehow, especially with the OIympics just round the corner, we were thinking it was going to be full of joie-de-vivre. Maybe our expectations were just way too high - I mean Rio! - or maybe the financial stresses of preparing for the Olympics is stressing everyone out. 

Friday, June 3, 2016

The Boys From Brazil

View from Christ the Redeemer
To be in Sao Paulo on a Weds & Thurs, well, who wouldn't grab the opportunity to hop over to Rio de Janeiro for the weekend?  So I did, joined by my good friend Bats. 
What a fabulous setting: the bay, the hills, the beach. We stayed at the southern end of the Copacabana, near Ipanema, and ate in the cafe where the 'The Girl From...' was written. Then took a taxi to the statue of Christ the Redeemer which was shrouded in cloud for most of the time, but at a viewing point a bit lower down had fantastic views. Can't believe I'm here.

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Sao Paulo

Itau Culturel's botanical prints collection
With a month to go before we leave the Americas, I'm v grateful for an 11th hour opportunity to visit Brazil. It's a regional meeting in Sao Paulo, so I'll be in a conference room for most of the time but, hey, I'm not grumbling. 
I arrived in the morning so had the affernoon to look around, mainly the downtown Avenida Paulista area. Couple of interesting museums. The Museo de Arte de Sao Paulo (MASP) is a strange building on legs and, like the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, its top-floor gallery exhibits paintings 'in the round' (ie you can see front & back). Just as strange is the Itau Culturel which houses a fantastically displayed botanical prints collection. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Close To The Noise Floor

MFH / Pump's second life continues with a track on Close To The Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984 out on Cherry Red this month. We are in exalted company: early Human League, Heaven 17, OMD, Throbbing Gristle, Blancmange, John Foxx... and a whole slew of lesser-knowns and bedroom bands. 
Our track is 'Mistral' from the MFH Ground Zero cassette album - an airy but edgy instrumental recorded in a bungalow in Cornwall in '81. It's a 4CD set complete with comprehensive notes and an essay by Dave Henderson. A fine piece of cultural documentation which unearths the key role of early analogue synthesizers in post-punk experimentalism. There are omissions: most importantly The Normal's 'Warm Leatherette' and no Cabaret Voltaire for example. But it's the additions that are intriguing. And the reviews have so far been excellent.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Prince RIP

Blimey. And now, Prince. Almost as shocking as Bowie. What's going on!? 
As with Bowie, I didn't really keep up with his output of the past 20-25 years. For me his career is defined by the eighties: the early Dirty Mind and 1999 albums, 84's massively successful Purple Rain (at one point the album, single and film were all no.1) and later brilliant stuff like 'Kiss' and 'Sign o' the Times'. 
I watched Purple Rain for the first time this evening. Weird film. Despite being the main character, his presence is equivocal, uncertain, even ghostlike throughout. 
But he had it all: could play any instrument, brilliant in the studio, flamboyant, controversial, enigmatic, a true dandy, fantastic live, but above all a great songwriter - both for himself and other artists. I doubt if we shall see the likes of him again.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Swimming with Dolphins

This morning, A&N - and Max - swam with a couple of dolphins, as you do. Amazing to watch: pulled along by dorsal fins and pushed by snout on balls of feet. The latter saw the girls rise from the water, arms outstretched like Kate Winslet at Titanic's bow. Parents watched from a distance - too far to get any decent photos. You could buy some afterwards, but at a rip-off £10 each we decided it was a day to remember the experience rather than chronicle it in pictorial detail. Nonetheless, here's a pic of the marine mammals in jumping mode. A&N are far right.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

RIP Johann Cruyff

And another icon departs. Lung cancer at 68. Cruyff was my hero in the early 70s when, aside from Leeds, I was obsessed with European football. Borussia Munchengladbach, Anderlecht, Inter Milan and of course Ajax. Teams that are not so big now but were then. I used to love watching those European Cup, UEFA Cup and European Cup Winners Cup matches, especially the away legs in cities that seemed glamorous even if they weren't. And Cruyff was at the centre of it all, dribbling past hapless defenders, scoring impossible goals, 'that' turn... He wore a no.14 shirt when English League teams only went to to 11. He looked cool. More than anyone (OK, alongside Best and Pele), he made football seem like an art. 

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms

Been reading an interesting book about the Zoroastrians of Iran, Samaritans of Israel, Copts of Egypt, Yazidis of Iraq, Kalsha of the Hindu Kush and other forgotten religions, hanging on by a thread in the Middle East. It's by Gerard Russell, a former British and UN diplomat (fluent in Arabic and Farsi), now advising on human rights policy at Harvard, but is as much a travelogue than an academic tome. 
It's easy to forget that there are religions other than Islam (or Judaism or Christianity) in the region but for how much longer?

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Not as young as I used to be

Unlike these fit young children, yours truly ran into the sea and promptly tore a calf muscle jumping over the breakers… It's official, I'm getting old. Consigned to reading in the hammock. 
But I suppose there are worse convalescences.

Monday, March 21, 2016

Coba

This morning we drove a few miles to the Mayan ruins of Coba. It's not as famous as Chichen Itza, which is much further inland (and which we visited this time last year), but actually it's better. Less crowds, lots of shady forest and cycle track between the various buildings. Its heyday was from around 100 to 1000AD, thereafter overtaken by Chichen Itza and abandoned when the Spanish arrived. Indeed it was quite a late rediscovery and only opened up to tourists in the 1980s. Fascinating place.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Wiped Out

To Tulum, second Easter in a row. This time with the Marchinis. Not a great journey though. Plane had to make a stop in the middle of nowhere to wait out a thunderstorm in Cancun... where we eventually arrived late at night and I had to drive a rental minibus through driving rain to Tulum, frantically searching for a very well-hidden windscreen wiper switch.  

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Farewell My Friends to the Show that Ends

In the past week, three more major musicians have clocked out. What is going on?
At 90, George Martin's death last Tuesday wasn't a surprise. Forever associated with The Beatles (and quite happy to be so I imagine) he produced lots of other artists, from Celine Dion and Elton John to UFO and Ultravox, but nothing that really stood out. He was old school, suit & tie, an arranger as much as anything. 

A day later, Nana Vasconcelos died of lung cancer, aged 71. Not a name that trips off every music fan's tongue, but he was one of the best percussionists in the world. Three days of mourning have been announced in Recife, his home town. I still have his wonderful Saudades album from 1979, the three Codona LPs he made with Don Cherry and Colin Walcott straight after that, and scores of albums by the likes of Talking Heads, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Eno & Hassell, Penguin Cafe Orchestra and Laurie Anderson to which he contributed. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. My one regret is never having seen him live.
But perhaps ther saddest of all, is Keith Emerson's suicide last Friday. Shot himself following depression caused by a nerve-related condition to his right hand which for a proud keyboard player like him must have somehow tipped him over the edge. I was never a huge ELP fan but still have Pictures At An Exhibition and Welcome Back My Friends... They're are often held up to be the epitome of prog excess, and it's true they were uber-accomplished musicians playing uber-flashy music. But my main complaint is not so much about the excess, more a dislike for classical pastiche and the fact that they sounded soulless and thin. The other triple live album of that era, Yessongs, was just as instrumentally 'sophisticated' but so much richer, thicker and involving by comparison. And no drum solos. Anyway, that's no way to end an otherwise inspiring life. Tragic.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

A Man, A Plan, A Canal - Panama!

Into San Diego to stroll along the gentrified wharf and
Seaport Village, and before that Balboa Park, site of the Panama-California Exposition in 1915/16 which celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. A century later, the buildings are still there even if they were originally supposed to be temporary. Much of it is in Spanish colonial style, renovated and now housing museums, a strange wooden 'glasshouse', a version of the Globe Theatre, and these funny little international cottages which serve as mini tourist parlours run by expat volunteers. We popped into the German, Chinese and British ones which were as you'd imagine.
Then off back to Mexico City. Nice visit.
(Btw, the title of this post is the longest palindrome I know of).

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Some Like It Hot


This morning Wolfgang showed me round his workplace in Encinitas. He's a designer at Electra Bikes in the small, attractive town of Encinitas about 25 miles up the coast from San Diego. Nice, laid-back, sun-sea-and-surf atmosphere. And cool, creative office. We then headed down the freeway, listening to obscure French 70s electronica and Charanjit Singh's 1982 Ten Ragas to a Disco Beat (house music before house had been so called), to Coronado, a long thin island which lies in front of San Diego.
My favourite Marilyn Monroe film is Some Like It Hot (1959) which although set in a swanky beach hotel in 'Miami' was actually filmed at the Hotel del Coronado. Fabulous place, built in the late 1880s, all crisp white wood, rotundas, terracotta roof and original elevators. It has an interwar feel, perfect for Some Like It Hot's prohibition story). The film also has one of the best final lines of any movie. See here

Friday, March 11, 2016

Vista

My good friend Wolfgang lives 'up the road' in San Diego (actually Vista), just across the border from Tijuana. So I've flown up to see him - and his partner Evan - this weekend. I've known Wolfgang for 36 years. We can go years without seeing each other (the last time was in Beijing exactly five years ago) but we always keep in touch. Music is the common thread, and tonight we listened to hours of stuff. Wolfgang knows and has everything and will explore side avenues, download-only releases and obscure solos by a former bassist that most people (including me) have no idea about. He is a walking discogs.com. Finally I could keep awake no longer and crashed to the sound of French 70s synthprog band Pole.

Friday, February 5, 2016

Happy Birthday Cabaret Voltaire

100 years ago, a motley group of international poets, artists, philosophers and scientists found themselves living in Zurich, sheltering from the madness of WW1. And 100 years ago today one of them, the poet Hugo Ball, opened the Cabaret Voltaire on 1 Spiegelgasse - a club for artistic and political soirees which inspired a whole new art movement, Dada, and also gave the name to one of my favourite groups. 
Happy centenary Cabaret Voltaire. 

Monday, February 1, 2016

The Generation Game

Today we drove to Valle de Bravo, a small, lakeside pueblo magico 100 miles west of Mexico City. After a pleasant lunch with our new friends Aiko & Axel and their two daughters, we walked up cobbled streets to the picturesque town square, but not for long. 
The real reason we were in this neck of the woods was literally the woods. Half an hour east of the town is the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve. Which sounds a bit quaint, perhaps even dull… but hold onto your hats. Here is home to millions of them (some estimates say around a billion). 
In the so-called winter they migrate here from eastern USA and Canada. That's around 2,000 miles - tough for a bird, but for a butterfly!?  
But here's the weird thing. They don't all migrate. Only the 4th generation does. These Monarchs live 6-8 months, arriving in Mexico in late October and returning to Texas in early March. The next three generations live for only about 6 weeks each time and migrate relatively short distances. Each year (different generation), they return to the same wintering sites and even to the same tree as their ancestors. No-one knows how they do it. 
On the way to the sanctuary we drove through a swarm (ok, correct proper noun is a kaleidoscope) of them, slowing down traffic. But the main habitat is up in the pine forests (a particular type of fir tree, the Oyamel). And to get there we rode horseback, dismounting half an hour later and walking the last few hundred yards. And there they were: millions of them, filling the air and covering the trees  It was difficult to really capture them on camera, especially against the foliage, so check out this 2-minute video.

Friday, January 29, 2016

Land Rover Defender RIP

The last Land Rover Defender rolled off the production line in Solihull today, the 2,016,933rd, and 68 years after the first one went on sale in 1948. It was the very first off-roader, decades before Range Rovers, Landcruisers and SUVs roamed our cities. I remember my first ride in one on Dartmoor as a 9-year-old. It was incredibly basic. 
Great article here on a 1951 trip from Calcutta to Calais which took 26 days with barely any planning. Pakistan was barely four years old and Iran was called Persia.
Anyway, it's not the end as in The End. Apparently, they're working on a follow-up.

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Reich Slowed Down

I listen to Steve Reich a lot, mainly his second-half-of-the-70s output. It's great to either really listen to, or have on as background music while writing. But my current favourite of his wasn't actually released by Reich, is barely recognisable as his and he may not even know it exists. It's Section I of Music for 18 Musicians, slowed down 800% and therefore stretched to 44 minutes. At that speed it sounds like a lot of ambient drone stuff, including Eno's Discreet Music, but there's something about this piece (here on You Tube) which makes me play it over and over. It helps, of course, that the original, unslowed-down composition is possibly my favourite piece of music ever. 

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

UKMX Closure

This evening we officially closed the Year of UK in Mexico Year with a press conference and reception at the Museum of Modern Art. Feel a mixture of relief and sadness. It's been a great project - 390 events in all 32 Mexican states, attended by 1.55m people (and reaching many millions more through the media (5,954 articles & reviews, if we're counting, which we are). And judging from those articles and the warm words spoken by guests tonight, it's been thought of well here too. 
We already know what's next: a year-long celebration of Shakespeare. Not quite on the same scale thank goodness, but should keep us busy. 

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Black RIP

Another one bites the dust. What a month…
'Black' was the artist name of Colin Vearncombe, briefly famous in the second half of the 80s for his beautifully melancholic singles 'Wonderful Life' (with a fabulous B&W video that was, incidentally, a masterclass in how to frame a picture) and 'Sweetest Smile'. 
The irony was that he wrote the former after being involved in two car crashes, his mother had been seriously ill, his first marriage had disintegrated, he was homeless and had just been dropped by WEA.
An album of the same name followed, swiftly followed by Comedy, both successful, and then things petered out. He seemed to spend the next 25 years never having properly come to terms with his brief(ish) flirtation with fame and moved to rural Ireland - where he died today, a fortnight after a car crash. Very sad. 

Monday, January 25, 2016

Berlin: So Much to Answer For

Just read a book (B-Book) and watched a film (B-Movie) about '80s alternative music in West Berlin, depicted/experienced by Manchester-born, Berlin-resident, Mark Reeder. Its ten years depict a (stereo)typically decadent city, from just after Bowie & Iggy left, to the advent of the Love Parade and the Wall coming down. 
Reeder somehow ended up as Factory Records' West Berlin rep, invited Joy Division over, formed a couple of bands of his own, managed the all-girl group Malaria for a while and generally got under the skin of the city - as well as making forays into East Berlin. Along the way he sketches Berlin's take on the Neue Deutsche Welle scene, including bands like Die Todliche Doris and Nina Hagen, and then the arrival of Blixa Bargeld, Nick Cave, Die Arzte and so on.  
Mark Reeder and Muriel Gray
I could share Reeder's excitement at arriving in West Berlin - that strange, isolated, exotic chunk of urban bohemia surrounded by communist East Germany. My first visit was in the first week of the new decade, probably a couple of years after Reeder arrived (the concert he organized for Joy Division was a fortnight after I left). I was 18, travelled there by train with a friend and stayed in a youth hostel. It was freezing, perpetually dark but it had an intangible energy, like it was living on borrowed time. I visited my heroes Edgar Froese, Conrad Schnitzler, Manuel Gottsching, Gunter Schickert and Michael Hoening. You could just do that then. Ring them up and go round to their apartment. Reeder talks about his early love of Krautrock from when he was working in a Manchester record shop, but once in Berlin he seemed to lose interest in it and gravitated to the newer scene. (There were connections: Gottsching produced Geile Tiere, Schulze put out Ideal's first albums, Kruger worked with Malaria etc).
Anyway, both book and film are interesting. You can finish each in a couple of hours. The book's OK, a bit coffee table-ish. The film is better: it brings the place alive, you get to hear the music, marvel at Reeder's uniform fetish and meet some of the crazies, top of the list being Blixa Bargeld. It also includes Muriel Gray's visit when she did a West Berlin report for The Tube in early '84. But it's a little one-dimensional, a bit too 'isn't-Berlin-ever-so-decadent'. I went three times in the 80s and saw a different though equally alternative and interesting side.

Sunday, January 24, 2016

A Bullfight

Today I went to a bullfight. It was never high on my list of things to do, and there's plenty to object about them, but I'd been invited by a colleague and was curious. 
Bullfighting pre-dates Graeco-Roman times, but around 300 years ago the Spaniards turned it into what it is today, and subsequently exported it to Mexico and a few other Latin American countries. 
We went to the Plaza de Mexico which, with a capacity of 41,000 is the biggest bullfighting arena in the world (bigger than any in Spain). Today's almost full house seemed to be mostly middle-aged and male, though there were quite a lot of women too. There are even female matadors.
There are six bullfights (corridas) with each of the three star matadors fighting twice. But before they come on, there's a whole other process involving regular matadors, banderillas and picadors (a guy on a padded horse) whose job it is to weaken the bull. 
Today there were two star matadors from Mexico and one from Spain. The latter, Julian Lopez Escobar, was a real show-off: stylish, arrogant and hardily moving at all, which is what all matadors aspire to. Just to stand there and let the bull move around you. At one point he did it on his knees. People threw their hats into the ring and waved white handkerchiefs (an odd gesture: in another culture it indicates cowardice). If he puts on a bad show, though, people jeer and throw their seat cushions instead. 
And of course, the bulls get killed. And no, it's not nice to watch. But I'm not going to pass judgement. I've been the once, it was culturally interesting, and that's it.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

A Bit of Cornwall in Mexico

In 1825, sixty Cornish miners sailed from Falmouth to the port of Vera Cruz in Mexico, and from there travelled by horse and cart along rough roads to a small town called Mineral Del Monte in Hidalgo state, 10,000ft up in the arid mountains. Cornwall had been enjoying a tin-mining boom and so the men had been hired, along with 1,500 tons of state-of-the-art equipment, to help re-invigorate Hidalgo's silver mining industry. In effect they were bringing the industrial revolution to Mexico.
After a while their families joined them, and then more, so that by 1910 there were some 350 Cornish families living in Mineral Del Monte. At the same time they married locals, and introduced football, cornish pasties and Methodism into the area. There are still people around with surnames like Pascoe, Pengelly and Ludlow. 
Liz being Cornish, we've been meaning to visit for ages, and finally made the trip today. But what really hurried us up was finding out, only recently, that Liz's Great Great Grandmother's nephew (so pretty distant) was one of those miners who came out in the 19th century. He was called John Gundry - the son of a famous Cornish wrestler as it happened. 
The town has four mines, two of which are well preserved and have been converted into museums. We visited one and in the main square sampled a cornish paste, as they're called here: savoury ones with meat & potato (spiced up a bit with cilli) and sweet ones with fruit puree. 
We then found the Pantheon Ingles (English cemetery) in which there are some 300 English graves, mostly Cornish. And there we found John Gundry. And his son, Tom (who died down a mine aged only 21). It was a touching moment. So here's Liz with her very distant relative.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Hugs

I read today that National Hugging Day is celebrating its 30th anniversary. It was dreamt up in the US (where else?) and of course there's a website. It's easy to be cynical, especially for Brits and Japanese who shy away from public (or even private) displays of affection. And you have to laugh when it advises us that "reasonable care should be taken with those [whose] reaction to a hug is unknown". Yes, we may laugh, but hugging is good. I had a perfectly content, happy childhood, but we weren't a huggy family. I've compensated by being so with my own. And of course you can't escape it in Mexico. 

Friday, January 15, 2016

17

Today is our 17th wedding anniversary. So what's the material this year?  Turns out there isn't one. Just a gift-giving theme, which is... furniture. But rather than exchange wardrobes, we went out for a curry. Yes, there's a decent local Indian, with a twist. The beer isn't Kingfisher, it's Corona with chilli at the bottom. 

Thursday, January 14, 2016

RIP Alan Rickman

And another. Sixty-nine, just like Bowie. And Lemmy. Weird. Great actor. Great voice. My Potter-loving daughters are particularly distraught. 

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Cold and Wet - Shock, Horror

Dark, cold and wet. A typical winter's day in Britain perhaps, but not here. Apparently, at a low of 6C, it was the coldest day in Mexico City for years. There was even some light snow in the western suburbs, unheard of. But it was the rain that got me. Between November and May, Mexico City precipitation is supposed to be off the agenda. Did it make me feel like home? Yes, but in a bad way.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

A Walk Across the Rooftops

Up on the office roof, testing out a satellite phone in the event of Mexico City going pear-shaped. It's a heavy piece of kit, quite bulky and I'd guess rather old. But after connecting the bits and pointing the 'dish' in the region of Venus (or somewhere), it worked. 
Funny things roofs. An untidy sprawl of noisy air-con units, water tank, elevator machine room and pipes leading to and from who knows where. Seems a real waste of space. 

Monday, January 11, 2016

RIP David Bowie

Late last night, just before I went to bed, something made me click on YouTube to watch David Bowie's 'Lazarus' video. It was an uncomfortable experience, like he was prophesizing his own death. The last scene of him, looking old and frail, retreating into the black confines of a wardrobe was almost too painful to watch...
Here in Mexico City, the news arrived first thing this morning. It was a complete shock - I had no idea he'd been battling cancer for 18 months - and yet, it wasn't. Something had prepared me for it. Even his death was a piece of performance, a piece of art.
I spent today in a bit of a daze, stopping in a cafe on my way to work to read all the reaction and twitter tributes and then, in-between (actually during) meetings thinking about what Bowie meant to me. 
I grew up with him. One of the first albums I ever bought was Pin-Ups in 1973, closely followed by Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. Everything about him was so alluring: music, looks, lyrics, the whole thing. I saw him live four times, including the Stage tour in 1978 at Earls Court. I can still remember first listening to side two of Low the year before (for some reason I played it before side one). Would a pop star ever do such a thing now? Inconceivable. In the 70s he was untouchable. And with Scary Monsters he began the 80s in equally impressive fashion. Thereafter he rather lost his muse, but every now and again he'd pop up and surprise. 'This Is Not America' with Pat Metheney, was beautiful. Reunited with Eno, Outside (1994) was complex and daring. Some of his drum and bass stuff on Earthling was actually pretty good. And I was lucky enough to see one of his last ever concerts at the Budokan in Tokyo in 2003, which was fantastic.
This evening I got all my Bowie LPs and CDs out - 31 in total - and played a random selection. At the same time Sam sent me messages from Brixton where, impromptu, huge crowds gathered by a Ziggy mural on the High Street and outside the Ritzy Cinema. Being a one-time Brixtonian, I feel I should be there (although in truth he's usually more associated with Beckenham where he moved to aged six).
So, the end of an era and very very sad. The one thing that cheered me up was this tweet: If you're sad today, just remember the world is over 4 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as Bowie."

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Spring-clean

One of the downsides of moving from country to country is the accumulation of stuff. I happen to love stuff, and it pains me when, every now & again, we have to check stuff out. Particularly books. Today we had a bit of a spring-clean and I went through our library. It was so hard. The main target this time was Chinese titles. Over our four years there I'd been given lots of big, heavy catalogues from obscure museums in Wuhan, Shanghai, Chongqing, Nanjing, Guangzhou etc. Somehow they made it over to Mexico, but really, do I need them?  So of course I start flicking through them - and they're all great. I could quite happily spend the rest of the month reading them all from cover to cover. But I can't, so out some of them go, together with dictionaries, anthologies and other heavy tomes of reference. It's a drop in the ocean, but at least a step in the right direction. The next concern is the record collection...

Friday, January 8, 2016

Deutsche Mexicanische Freundschaft

We watched an interesting film tonight, Guten Tag, Ramon, a Mexican-German co-production from a year or two ago. It's about a young Mexican from a poor background who somehow manages to make his way to Wiesbaden in Germany where an 'aunt' has promised him work. The aunt never materialises and without a word of German he's forced to beg on the wintry streets. To cut a long story short, he's taken in by an elderly woman and starts helping her and other elderly residents with odd jobs before the police get wind of him and put him on a plane back to Mexico. The happy ending is somewhat unlikely, and overall it's a bit whimsical, even cheesy... but a nice feel-good movie for a Friday night. 

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

The Biggest Tortilla in the World

Our last day in Oaxaca City. Another great breakfast (we've been somewhere different each time), followed by the Governor's Palace with its impressive mural flanking the main staircase. Every governors palace seems to have one, though this is not by one of the usual big three (Rivera, Orozco or Siqueiros) - it's by Arturo Garcia Bustos, who was a student of Rivera and Kahlo, and is still alive today. To its right is the rather incongruous (and reportedly) Biggest Tortilla in the World, 4.4m in diameter and decorated, like the mural, with notable Oaxacans. It's now 15 years old and well past its sell-by date.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Monte Alban and the Tree of Tule

This morning we visited Monte Alban, an archaeological site on top of a hill a few miles west of Oaxaca City. It's not as big as Teotihuacan or as famous as Chichen Itza but it's just as impressive. Perhaps more so, given it's much earlier than either - founded by the Zapotecs in around 500BC making it one of the earliest 'cities' in MesoAmerica. There are the customary temples, tombs, ball courts and dwellings, and a lot of really interesting stone carvings, some of people, some of pictographic writing. Our guide pointed out non-Zapotec figures which he said were evidence that Chinese, African and Assyrian people had come to Meso-America before the Spanish. I don't know about that, but there were clear examples of their knowledge of biology & medicine with graphic carvings of internal organs & breech births. According to research, the city reached a peak in around 500AD, thereafter it fell into decline before late 19th / early 20th century archaeologists 'rediscovered' it. Fascinating place. 
From there to the Arbol del Thule (Tree of Thule) on the other side of Oaxaca City. It's quite some tree, not in terms of its height, but its girth. At about 42m in circumference and 14m in diameter, it has the thickest trunk in the world. At first it was thought that it was multiple trees but not so, it's just one. It's also incredibly old: at least 1,500 years. And it's dying… Traffic, pollution, and the town around it is guzzling up all the water that would normally go to the tree's roots. 

Sunday, January 3, 2016

Once Houses, Now Museums

In the Casa de Juarez
Museo Rufino Tamayo
More museums, all former colonial style houses… First off, the Rufino Tamayo Museum, a sister museum to the main one in Mexico City. This one is dedicated to pre-Hispanic art, mainly sculpture. It's beautifully presented with each of the half a dozen or so galleries adopting a strong vibrant colour. Lots of fabulous pieces worthy of the National Museum of Anthropology. This figure is from sometime between 200-750AD. Great, thoughtful pose.
The Textile Museum of Oaxaca focuses on the contemporary, with two exhibitions: one on rebozos, the other on patchworks. The latter was interesting: large, hanging quilts on the theme of cities.
Smallest museum of them all was the former home of Benito Juarez, former President of Mexico. Juarez was born in Oaxaca state but moved to Oaxaca City at the age of 12, living in the house in question from 1818-28. He was supported by the owner, a bookbinder, and a lay Franciscan monk who made sure he had a good education. In 1834 he became a lawyer and in 1847 Governor of the State of Oaxaca, before moving on to even greater things. It's a simple house and a simple museum.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

Santo Domingo

Museum of Oaxacan Cultures
Church of Santo Domingo
Sightseeing in Oaxaca City. From the massive, maze-like Mercado del Abastos (Abastos Market) where we all but lost ourselves, to the equally large & labyrinthian Museum of Oaxacan Cultures… 
The latter was once a monastery and is said to be one of the best restoration projects (carried out in the 1990s) in Latin America. Ranging from artefacts from Monte Alban to gold & silver from the mining boom and right up to the late 19th century era of Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz (both native Oaxacans), it was too much to see in one go. More manageable was the adjoining Church of Santo Domingo which in terms of ornateness is pretty hard to surpass. Every inch of the walls and ceiling were covered with paintings, carvings and gold leaf. There was a wedding going on at the time which afterwards, in that golden late afternoon light, moved out into the square in front with much dancing & singing. Magical.

Friday, January 1, 2016

Oaxaca

New Year's Day and the beginning of a long weekend in Oaxaca City in southern Mexico. Been meaning to come here for ages, and now with Nick, Kate & Thomas, we have the perfect excuse. A culturally rich, laid-back and very walkable city surrounded by rugged hills and mountains. The tallest buildings are the churches, of which there are many; the rest are colourful, low-level colonial-style houses, galleries, museums, shops, small hotels (ours was once a convent) and hundreds of cafes and restaurants. Its gorgeous. 
We're going to attempt to have breakfast and dinner - skipping lunch-  in a different place each time. There's plenty too choose from.