Travel insurer's nightmare

Scott Esposito laments the loss of Kapuściński to the literate world, yet uses his obituary in the LA Times to suggest that we were actually quite lucky that he made it to the ripeish old age of 74: "He was beaten and nearly set on fire by soldiers in Nigeria. He was rendered unconscious by cerebral malaria, came down with tuberculosis, then survived treatment in a Tanzanian hospital, where his injections were given with a communal syringe. Four times, at the direction of various despots, he was sentenced to death."

Spain, my ten favourite spots (2): Cuenca

It's taken me nearly four months to get this list moving along again.

Cuenca sits on top − or rather hangs over the edge − of a deep gorge where the Júcar and Huécar rivers meet, making it hard to detect a seam between the walled medieval town and its ancient geological seat.

It sports Spain's earliest Gothic cathedral and its famed "hanging houses" have earned it a place on UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites.

The town's name may come from the Latin conca, meaning river basin, or perhaps from that of its ruined Moorish fortress Kunka.

Driving back from the south, we decided to return to the east of Madrid and Cuenca is pretty much the only significant urban attraction on that route. Just the day before we has been basking in January temperatures of over 20 degrees, but on our approach to Cuenca up a winding hillside road our car was dusted with snow and the thermometer showed outside temperatures of below zero for the first time on that particular journey.

We discovered that Cuenca is one of the best places in Spain to buy top quality ceramics at very reasonable prices. The bedroom in our hotel, the Leonor de Aquitania, afforded us a spectacular view across the gorge of the local Parador, which occupies a well-situated building, formerly the convent of San Pablo.

Next time we pass through V is keen to visit the nearby Cuidad Encantada, a landscape of bizarre geological protuberances. (That's her standing on that particular protuberance overlooking the gorge.)

Amazing Discovery

Amusing little story here describing how the Texas Video store in Zone 13 of Guatemala City was 'denounced' by neighbours for harbouring pirated movies. The headline reads "Another pirate shop is discovered".

The uncovering of this stash of VHS tapes is no doubt a huge victory in the battle against copyright theft. Nevertheless, just round the corner from the market in Antigua (where plenty more of these fortuitous discoveries could readily be made) there's a DVD rental shop called JennyStar, which proudly describes itself as an NGO whose "purpose is to donate ALL profits to support disabled and poor children around Antigua."

"By renting a DVD," they add "you agree that your money, after deduction for our costs, will be made into a donation." Fortunately, costs are kept to a minimum by renting out bootleg copies.

Chapinismo: Chiriz (Small kid)

See also Patojo and Güiro.

We spotted this young and growing Guatemalan family on New Year's Eve in Antigua: six chirices and one more on the way.

V still regrets not having asked how far they had come to see all the acts in the Calle del Arco that night. But they'd made the effort, and they seemed very happy.

It occurred to me later on during my stay that I can think of very few examples of lastingly happy (or at least stable) marriages amongst the people I know out there.

"Come and discover the mistery"

Last night V asked me to check out Guatemalaenvivo.com. Not sure why yet, but I did.

It has a few good pics and this excellent little glossary of chapinismos. I only picked up amishado myself this winter.

Ladinos, we are told, are "a race product of the biologic and cultural crossing between Indians and Europeans," Gringo "a term frequently used to name the US citizens" and Baboso, a "dummy".

Meanwhile Ala!, is an "expression of astonishment or surprise," and not something you'd want to exclaim mid-tunnel on the London Underground these days, unless you want burly off-duty firemen throwing themselves on top of you.

Later this week I reckon will blog about my favourite Guatemaltequismos missing from this list.

The Island

This is the second film in a week to make me think of Logan's Run...and Capricorn One and... and...

It's an entertaining if formulaic grand-conspiracy black chopper chase caper.

Djimon Hounsou clearly didn't make a great impression as a ruthless French mercenary as he is back doing noble Africans again in Blood Diamond; though towards the end, having already laid waste to LA, Monsieur Laurent does seem to be experiencing weird transplanted memories of these anterior, more honourable roles.

Sean Bean isn't at his best. He was more sinister as the by-the-book pilot in Flightplan than as would-be-God Dr Merrick here. Nor is Steve Buscemi's comic turn especially successful.

On the plus side I hadn't quite got the point of Scarlett Johansson before seeing this film. (Though at one stage she pauses to watch her 'sponsor' in a Calvin Klein ad. Blatant. )

One of the problems here is that the director seems to assume everyone already knows where the plot is headed, and so doesn't waste much time setting up (or exploding) the mystery of Lincoln 6 Echo's anodine existence. Alas black choppers alone do not a Philip K. Dick paranoid nightmare make.

Overall, there's a bit too much mayhem and general running around, and the fugitive agnates have far too many fortuitous getaways. Plus the plot ultimately hinges on the ease with which firearms can be smuggled into secret underground facilities.

Along with all the other movies it is a messed-up clone of, perhaps it needed to borrow a few chromosomes from quieter, more poignant sci-fi stories, like AI: Artificial Intelligence.

The chapel at the finca

Gliberal comments from Kermode

"Water cooler issue-tainment at its most issue-taining," was Mark Kermode's take on Blood Diamond yesterday. He seems aligned with my view that in order to get this kind of issue into mainstream consciousness you have to make a mainstream, multiplex movie, with all the silliness that that usually entails.

Interestingly though, the McClatchy Washington Bureau has reported that the extent and lethality of conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa is "down sharply", just when this film has made it the hottest topic amongst Hollywood's rock-wearing classes.

"Gliberal...a lovie fest" were the key soundbites in his review of Emilio Estevez's oh-so well-meaning Bobby. (He then quoted another neologism he'd overheard: "Thinkronise" Euugh.)

As for The Fountain, Kermode quipped that "you wait six hundred years for a Mayan movie and then two come along at once".

New Spitalfields

I rose early this morning in order to watch the impressively one-sided final between Serena Williams and an intimidated-looking Maria Sharapova.

So I used the opportunity to get myself up to Leyton and the New Spitalfields Market where you can buy fruit and vegetables by the box at quite remarkable prices, and be skewered by one of the many fork-lift trucks that career around the place like dodgems.

Talking of which, the roads in East London are dominated at that time on Saturday by drivers whose vehicles really ought to carry the warning sticker My other car is a white van. As I made my way north-eastwards one of these weekend family saloon maniacs started ferociously effing and blinding at me for daring to assert my right of way on a roundabout.

Whilst I'm on my own, purchasing massive boxes of perishable produce isn't all that sensible, but I did get myself a box of 8 Peruvian papayas and a box of 12 large avocadoes for a fiver each. They even threw in a few loose plantains, but these will take time to darken enough for frying (or microwaving). Meanwhile, the papayas are an essential part of my morning smoothie and general weight-control programme, and usually cost a pound each at Tesco. As for the avos, I am a fully assimilated panza verde.

I stopped at Magri's Pet Store on Hamlets Way near Mile End because the three-year-old African Grey that belongs to the owner was doing some gymnastics in his cage by the window. I asked how much a bird like that would cost and was told "eight and a half", by which I suppose he meant eight and a half thousand, but I have seen prices of $2000 or less quoted online. It's chastening to think that if I were to buy one now it would almost certainly outlive me. As the pet shop owner wryly observed: "You take them with you."

Epiphytes

The Armchair Orchidist blog has some nice pics of orchids and other parasitos from Guatemala and Belize. The video clip below kicks off with V in the process of acquiring some of these from a tree at the finca.

Various ungulates at the finca

Don't drink and download

Regretably, I have discovered that the strength of my objections to iTunes and Apple's DRM are inversely related to the quantity of wine I consume while surfing the Net and as a result the quantity of 'protected' music on my hard drive has increased of late.

I may not be able to share these files, but I would like to share a couple of discoveries. The first is a remarkable set of twelfth century tunes released by Naxos. They were composed by two almost anonymous composers that worked at the newly-constructed cathedral, Notre Dame de Paris.

Léonin was the earliest known composer of polyphonic organum. He also introduced a rational system of rhythm into polyphonic music and created a method of notation for it. Some suspect that he is the same person as Leonius the Parisian poet. Pérotin, also attached to the cathedral, further developed the new form and his works were preserved in the Magnus Liber, Notre Dame's 'great book' of early polyphonic music. Monophonic Gregorian chant can be soothing, but these pieces are really eerily ethereal.

Another classical 'disk' that has found its way into my iTunes library is a newish recording of a comparatively rare item on the repertoire, Mahler's orchestral arrangement of Schubert's Death and the Maiden string quartet. Fish first introduced me to it, and I soon cherished an earlier EMI recording in my record collection at Cambridge. The Austrian composer re-spun the intimate and reflective classical textures of the quartet with a far thicker weave, bringing out Romantic drama of striking urgency.

I might have woken up with a sore head and buyer's angst, but beautiful music that never dulls is a fine tonic for such afflictions. Shame about some of the other stuff I downloaded.

The Guatemalan Maya Centre

Has a re-vamped website with several galleries of excellent images. The centre is based in Wandsworth and holds regular exhibitions.

Svetlana Sucks

Keeping me out of cinemas at the moment are three of the most annoying adverts ever made.

First there's the MTV commercial about the boy diagnosed with a bad case of brass band. It does consider itself so very clever doesn't it? Then there's the Carling ad with the swirling birdies. Belong, the call to action at the end, makes me want to start digging my bunker. (And it now seems to have spread to TV too.)

But the suckiest of the lot is the little Orange "Good things happen" film designed to get people to turn their mobiles off before the movie starts. It is set during a black-out in New York, and is turned into torment by its soundtrack, a song called This Side of the Blue by Joanna Newsom − very much in the cooky/retarded tradition of American folk, and seemingly about San Francisco not the Big Apple.

This morning I googled Newsom and it turns out she looks (and dresses) like a sibling of Fiona Apple's recruited at a young age to work for Father Christmas at the North Pole. Bring back the Orange Film Marketing Board...please!

Has bean and blogged about it

Stephen Leighton of the Has Bean Weblog has in fact just been to Guatemala, visiting a number of specialist growers, such as El Bosque in the municipality of Amatitlán.

Stephen is the owner of Has Bean Coffee Ltd. based in Stafford, a micro coffee roaster dealing in high quality coffees from around the world.

He writes that he "left the [Anacafe] boardroom with the same warm feelings for Guatemala. For years they have sold coffee on their Hue Hue’s and their Antiguas and have sat there saying our coffees good. On the whole they were but its not enough in the modern market you need more. You can see this very clearly in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican model for me has meant they have dropped down the specialty pecking order to the poitn I rarely get exited and it has become very one dimensional. Guatemalan coffee has a lot more to offer in terms of Varity of tastes and I think they are building on that."


On El Bosque, the Has Bean site informs visitors that the farm "is situated on volcanic terrain between 5,000 and 5,500 feet" and "covers 32 hectares, all dedicated to the cultivation of strictly hard bean Bourbon. Although not an organic coffee no pesticides nor herbicides are used on the farm. In the cup sweet, its clean, good body with wicked hints of spice, awesome espresso and fantastic filter, a must try. " (Filtered through the pure crystaline waters of Lake Amatitlán?!)

Ryszard Kapuściński has died

Sadly Ryszard Kapuściński died yesterday of a heart attack while recovering from surgery in Warsaw.

In my opinion the veteran Polish foreign correspondent was one of the world's most outstanding writers, and was deservedly nominated for the Nobel prize in 2005.

To get a taste for the very special reporting talent of this most literary of witnesses, you can start with The Shadow of the Sun: My African Life.

Also worth reading is The Soccer War, his account of the background to the 1969 conflict between El Salvador and Honduras, which was sparked by a World Cup qualifier.

Babel

"I wanted to explore the contradiction between the impression that the world has become quite small due to all the communication tools which we have, and the feeling that human beings are still incapable of expressing themselves and communicating amongst themselves on a fundamental level."

Well, if that's what Alejandro González Iñárritu set out to do with Babel I think he was largely successful. I did not detect any of the pretentious "we are the world" whacko-Jacko preachiness that Mark Kermode reported on Five Live last week. In fact, this movie is a fair way from being classically arty-farty, though it does have its roots in Mexican art-house.

Ok, the preview was rather pretentious, but the movie itself no more so really than Crash or Traffic. It may seem so simply because it isn't rooted in a very concrete topic like the narcotics trade or racism. The problem described above by the director is that much more nebulous. (The scene where Pitt blubbers all over the phone is a bit unnecessary though! And the one where he picks a fight with a disagreeable English tourist made me laugh.)

A friend of mine that walked from the cinema before the ending of the film complained, like Kermode, of the tenuous connection between the three main stories. Some seem to single out the Japanese thread as the loosest. But I detected a common theme of neglected children in all three.

Iñárritu and his usual collaborator Guillermo Arriaga are the acknowledged specialists in the manufacture of multi-stranded narrative, and unlike their native Hollywood equivalents (such as Paul Haggis, the writer-director of Crash) they don't literally litter their scripts with unmissable links between their characters. The result here is a composite story that is perhaps more intriguing than gripping.

If you like your empathetic encounters with human truth to be very clearly sign-posted (like the scene in Crash where the racist cop saves the woman he abused the night before from a burning car) then perhaps you will find this film just a little dull. I found it quite moving, and it resonated with an idea for a story that has been gestating in my head for a while, about miscommunications and misconceptions between the citizens of Antigua and those that visit it. It has the working title of Gringos...and has no plans to adopt a global perspective.

Arriaga seems to experiment within his standard formula each time he fashions a script. In The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada only the first half is non-linear. In Babel he develops further the technique of running together alternating stories that are tellingly shfted in terms of chronological time.

One thing that follows from the stated aims of this movie is that it isn't all that interested in revealing to us the full consequences of the plot for each of the characters, though Amilia, the deeply unfortunate housekeeper-nanny, is the major exception.

There's some great dialogue for connoisseurs of Mexican Spanish, such as "Este pinche buey anda bien pedo" and a fine original score from Argie composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who also worked on Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Walter Salles' Diarios de Motocicleta.

Devuélveme el rosario de mi maaaaa-a-dre...

Y quédate con todo lo demáooo...

A couple of years ago we were watching Gente de Primera on TVe. Compared to the X Factor the production values might have been a bit wobbly, but the sheer talent of the young artists competing for the big recording contract was vastly superior. And given the comparative longevity of most of the stars of Spanish and Latin pop music, so was the prize they were competing for.

One of the contestants was a young boy called Israel. Almost every week the judges failed him and he had to face the public vote, not for lack of vocal gift, but because, a bit like Ray on the X Factor this year, he was seen as a one-trick pony, able only to make his mark in the cante traditional of Andalucia's gypsies. But what a pony. For me Flamenco is a hit or miss formula. It will either make you want to hold your ears in pain, or it will contrive to leave you an emotional wreck, throttling your soul with a potent mix of sadness and joy. There was one performance that Israel gave on this show I will never forget. He sang El rosario de mi madre, and it left us both with tears in our eyes. Duende, as they say.

At the time we heard the song attributed to the legendary Camarón de la Isla, who I guess you could describe as the gypsy Elvis (or Bob Marley). Yet there was something about the lyrics that made me want to investigate further: in all honesty the sentiments were just a bit too cheesey and sentimental to have come out of the slums of Sevilla. Sure enough, I found earlier Latin American versions of this song, such as a plaintive bolero, and eventually tracked its origin to Peru and Don Mario Cavagnaro, famed and quite prolific composer of Peruvian waltzes. Anyway, the full lyrics are here.

The first series of Gente de Primera was deservedly won by the Flamenco-inflected Yanira Figueroa and the second, equally deservedly in the end, by Nauzet from Tenerife.

Here he sings the classic Maná track Vivir sin Aire. Israel meanwhile is probably hot-wiring cars in the backstreets of some dusty Andalucian town.

It's a good enough rendition, but I think this particualr song needs to be treated a little more delicately. I once heard it being sung by a group of young Mexican tourists in the rainforest near Tikal and it is that version that has etched itself in my memory, even more so than the original.

"Art with a capital F"

Mark Kermode made me chuckle with his dismissive remarks about Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel on Five Live last Friday: "Meretricious, self-important twaddle..."

He wants it to be known that he hated it before anyone else, right from the opening twenty minutes of the first public screening in Cannes back in May last year. And he thinks that González Iñárritu should get back to making "exploitation films" like Amores Perros, because on the evidence of Babel he has become "the film-making equivalent of Michael Jackson".

Instead of coming together as they did in Amores Perros the different strands of this story race apart at great pace, says Kermode, and he likens the way that the director struggles to link them back together at the end to "herding cats".

I shall have to watch this movie tonight to see if he's right!

On the subject of deliberate convolution Gibnut and I had a little discussion about David Mitchell's multi-stranded narratives last week. I stated my misgivings about Ghostwritten but he insisted that Mitchell greatly improved the technique with Cloud Atlas, a novel I haven't yet read, but has perhaps jumped a few places up the queue now.

Children of Men

Alfonso Cuarón's singular vision of a fucked-up future twenty years hence not only looks stunning, it also feels stunning.

Trouble is that what is a triumph on the level of representation, is close to being an abject failure on the level of explanation.

Watching part of Aeon Flux on Frode's big screen this weekend reminded me of how important it is that our dystopic nightmares remain rooted in and relevant to our own contemporary world and its present problems. Aeon Flux struck me as almost totally irrelevant, stylistically a kind of Logan's Run meets Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

There's something rather 70s about Children of Men's version of incipient apocalypse too. In particular I was reminded me of the final Quatermass series which starred Sir John Mills. Social and political order are degrading, human fertility has collapsed completely, Britain alone stands tall etc. Yet at one stage I found myself desperately scanning a wall full of newspaper cuttings looking for a deeper, more joined-up explanation.

Cuarón has certainly tried to bake in some extra relevance into P.D. James's 1992 story, giving us a whole load of Allahu Akbar AK-wavers and destitute illegal immigrant "fujees". But the background to this mess (and even to the key characters Theo and Kee) never properly materialises.

Still, while it may not be the kind of movie that leaves you thinking, it is the sort to invade your dreams, unlike Aeon Flux, which does neither. And if it starts to wobble the moment you start to consider the detail, at the more soupy, holistic level it does actually seem rather plausible.

I have been a big fan of Cuarón's for some time. He can compose a scene with many more textures and dimensions than audiences are generally used to. Here, the scene when Theo, Kee and Miriam escape from the safe house is masterful. Mexican cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki also deserves a special mention, in particular for the visceral final battle in Bexhill.

Meanwhile London in 2027 seems to have succumbed to the same deadly tuctuc virus that has ravaged Guatemala for the past 3 years.