“IT’S THE HOPE THAT KILLS YOU (2003, 2006, 2009, 2012)” Characters: Bob Dylan, Ralph Mexico Scene 1: The Point, Dublin.  November 17th, 2003. Dylan on stage.  Mexico in audience. “World Gone Wrong”: This wasn’t supposed to happen.  The first time seeing Bob Dylan live was expected to be mind-blowing.  I had high hopes.  I was hoping for the best.  Dylan was hopeless. He played keyboards stage-left for the duration, save for at the death when he ventured into the middle to introduce the band and to do an embarrassing soft shoe shuffle.  It then became clear, as had been speculated during the previous hour and a half, that Dylan was as drunk as a monkey.  “I started out on burgundy, But soon hit the harder stuff”, indeed. Great songs were mangled beyond recognition.  “Re-working the classics” is fine and dandy, but not if you take any semblance of tune, plus all traces of lyrical deft, and bury them under a barrage of licks and solos from a preening numpty of a spotlight-hogging guitarist and a defiantly godawful band. If you’d told me in advance that Dylan would play “Desolation Row”, “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”, “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) and “Girl from the North Country”, I’d have been delighted.  If you’d told me he’d play them in the horrific bluesy-jam stylee he cranked them out in I wouldn’t have gone to the gig.  The fifth last song performed in a plodding, dull, dog of a show was “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll”.  Suddenly everything you’d heard about the genius of Dylan – his mastery, his presence, his poetry, his humanity – was there for all to see. The staggering song from 1964, about the murder of a poor black servant woman by a wealthy society big-wig, was delivered by Dylan as if he felt he could undo all the injustice in the world; as if a simple “song-and-dance man” could change how generations felt, thought, acted; as if he was 22 years old again.  Immense. Dylan finished with cack-handed versions of “Like A Rolling Stone” and “All Along The Watchtower”, but streaming out afterwards I doubted Dylan could ever possibly be as bad live again.  It’s the hope that kills you. Scene 2: Nowlan Park, Kilkenny.  June 24th, 2006. Dylan on stage.  Mexico in audience. “Good As I Been To You”: This was more like it.  The Sideshow Bob served up (The Violent Femmes, The Flaming Lips, a lovely sunny Saturday, a nice crowd – none of them locals, obviously) helped matters along.  “Lay Lady Lay”, “Ballad of a Thin Man”, ‘She Belongs To Me”, “Absolutely Sweet Marie” etc. with a rolling, wild mercury sound.  Cosmic American Music from The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  There was no single moment to induce goose-pimples like “Hattie Carroll” in The Point, but the overall show was a triumph of the will, skill and brill(iance) from his majesty Sir Bob, the world’s greatest ever poet.  A reputation “Saved”. Scene 3: The Point, Dublin.  May 5th, 2009. Dylan on stage.  Mexico in audience. “Oh Mercy”: This was the worst.  Ever.  The direst concert I have ever attended, and that includes the Scoil Mhuire Christmas Concert of 1988 where I sang “Addicted To Love” dressed as a farmer, backed by five loonballs in short skirts with huge balloons as boob-jobs.  Dylan at The Point, Take Two was taking the mickey.  Irredeemably dreadful.  The band were shocking.  Dylan phoned it in.  The sound coming from the stage was the stuff of atrocious wedding band nightmares.  Every song was a trial.  It stank from start to finish, with the unquestionable nadir being a swing version of “Just Like A Woman” that defied laws of decency. An encore of “Blowin’ in the Wind” was starting up as we made for the exits.  No more could be endured.  Terribly sorry Bob, but never again.  I have seen you fan the flames of awfulness with the bellows of mediocrity for the last time.   Scene 4: Nha Trang, Vietnam.  Various dates in March, 2012. Dylan on page.  Mexico in arm-chair. “Another Side of Bob Dylan”: This was the first major book I’d read about Dylan.  This was “Mind Out Of Time: Bob Dylan Performing Artist 1986-1990 And Beyond” by Paul Williams.  I was really looking forward to reading it.  It’s the hope that kills you. A big thick lump of a book, evidently written by a big thick lump of a writer.  The book was The Holy Grail of Ineptness.  It was Dylan’s 2009 Point gig between two covers.  The worst book ever written about anything.  Ever. Purportedly a catalogue of everything Dylan has been up to since 1986, it was full of exclamation marks, and the author intoning “In my opinion”, and “In my point of view” – the first refuge of lowbrows everywhere.  And I am aware of the perennial exclamation marks at the end of each of my postings. Undoubtedly the gormless Mr. Williams purchased the same ACME Corporation “How To Write Abysmally About Music” kit as Jim Carroll from The Irish Times’ “On The Record” blog.  And don’t get me started on that humourless, interminable, juvenile, knuckle-headed, lame-brained, maladjusted, needy, onanistic, petty, querulous, risible, sanctimonious, tarty, uncouth, vainglorious, whimpering, x-rated, yawping, zombiefied, anal, brainless, condescending, detestable, egotistical, futile gimp…    It’s the hope that kills you – however, my fervent wish is that it’s not “hope”, but some painful, rare, exceedingly awful disease that kills that Tipperary tool.  And let this go On The Record: when they finally put him in the ground, I’ll stand there laughing and tramp the dirt down.   “The Lonesome Death of Jim Carroll” certainly has a nice ring to it.    Salute Him When His Birthday Comes!! Ralph Mexico

The Institution that is the “Some Bike It Hot” annual cycle took place over the May bank holiday weekend.  Long weekend, long cycle; three days in the saddle, three nights in the pub, three weeks to recover.  Same as it ever was.   The Institution’s fame has spread to such an extent that this year Reuters International sent over an agent from London to join the usual half dozen half-wits.  Special Agent Nick appeared to suffer from some kind of Reuters Block any time a hill was encountered, but “The Watford Wonder” showed Kenny Jackett-esque levels of enthusiasm to keep the wheels in motion.  He also proved himself a top bloke at getting his round in, a reliable method of ensuring he’ll receive an invite for “Some Bike It Hot 2013″.  Whether he’ll choose to endure a further dose of amateur traumatics with The Psychotic Six is a decision he has twelve months to mull over.   The Institution members assembled early Friday morning at Heuston Station.  There was hassle getting the bikes on the train to Mallow.  There was hassle getting the bikes off the train at Mallow.  There was hassle getting the bikes on the train to Tralee.  There was hassle getting the bikes off and then back on the train at Killarney as, being Kerry, they change the location of the driver for the Killarney to Tralee journey.  There was even hassle from an Irish Rail Nazi over the bikes when we finally got to Tralee.  So much hassle.  Good job we are all endowed with such ahem, endless patience.   Faffing (see last year’s cycle report of 30/6/11: “A Weekend Of Faffing, With Occasional Outbreaks Of Cycling”) was kept to a minimum, and we were on the road out of Tralee by 1.30.  We passed a wedding in Ardfert; the Roger Casement statue in Ballyheigue; the Bill Clinton statue in Ballybunion, where we stopped for pints and lunch – in a pub in the town, not at the statue, obviously; and we were in perfect time for the 6.30 ferry from Tarbert to Killimer.  Which was nice.   I had pushed the boat out, and on the ferry I offered around my home-made sandwiches.  They were “scoffed at”, rather than “scoffed” as sandwiches should be.  Tough audience.  So it goes.   We got an eyeful of the Mouth of the Shannon as we spun in the sun from Killimer to Kilrush.  The power stations in the vicinity were suitably Eastern Bloc looking.  Not that my comrades-on-wheels were paying too much attention to the scenery as they obeyed rules of the road practiced by some quasi-Islamic Faction (“Death Before Yielding”) on a boyracer infested N67.  Ho-hum.   We all arrived safely in two pieces (man and bicycle) in Kilrush and settled in the snug in Crotty’s, the bar owned by relations of Reuters Nick.  Dinner, pints, an uncalled for display of nudity, a story about roller-skates at a Bratislava peep show – the usual fare.  One of Nick’s hospitable cousins let us pitch the tents on a stretch of his land two miles out of town by a wonderfully macabre graveyard.  A true gent, he even helped us assemble the tents.    We returned to Kilrush before 10pm, ready for whatever the town had to offer us.  We weren’t prepared for what we got, however.  Kilrush on a Friday night: The Horror, The Horror.   More pints in Crotty’s were fine, but things were a tad quiet.  With my unerring nose for where the action isn’t, I suggested we take our revels elsewhere.  We went to O’Looneys.  The clue was in the name.  You didn’t have to be a loony to drink there, but you definitely had to park your brain at the front door.  When notorious booze-hounds like the “Some Bike It Hot” peddlers wouldn’t even have a pint on the premises you get an inkling of the insidious awfulness of the place.   “Shenanigans” was our last hope.  We went in the door.  Hope had left town.  Still, we ordered a round.  Some lads started playing darts.  Hoping for some games of my own, I sauntered over to two ladies at a table near ours, speculating that they held the keys to the happiness kingdom.    An interview took place.  One lady repeatedly intoned ”My grandmother was from Cork.  I’m 47 years old and proud of it”.  The other one had this to say for herself “My grandmother was from Cork.  We’re sisters”.  Cinderella obviously had the night off.  We had enough non-shenanigans in ”Shenanigans” and retired to our digs by the graveyard.  I heard the residents of Kilrush crawl back into their coffins before I slipped behind the wall of sleep…   “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day” – “Macbeth”.    Give it a name, Shakespeare.  Saturday morning (Friday night’s tomorrow) in Kilrush was grim.  With omnipresent, poisonous hangovers it was imperative that the faffing be kept to a minimum and we got cycling as soon as (in)humanely possible.  We all were in rag order, but the spirit of “Platoon” – “Take the Pain!” – would see us through, I naively thought.   Getting on our bikes early doors proved a handlebar too far for some of the delegation as the faffing went into overdrive.  The waiting around wouldn’t have been so hard to stomach if we weren’t waiting around in the square in Kilrush.  Kilrush: seven letters for the seventh circle of hell.   Downbeat and shuffling, the natives looked at us the same way the queen looks at green-haired, multi-pierced social workers she gives an award to at some charity shindig.  Resplendent in our multi-coloured, figure-hugging lycra, we looked at them as if they were rarely spotted aardvarks at the other end of David Attenborough’s telescope.  It was a curious curiosity stand-off.    As three of the crew ogled a Gdansk waitress in an upstairs cafe, and one shirker tried to snaffle more sleep, it was left to three of us to circulate in the square, avoiding the menacing looks of the looming corner-boys.  I must have read the inscription on the pub wall about Mrs Crotty being the First Lady of the Concertina a hundred times.  Devoid of saving graces; a void of a local town for local people; avoid Kilrush.  They don’t like our type around there.   Eventually, five of us got going.  Two continued their slavish devotion to ”The Law Of The Faff”, so they remained in Kilrush a little while longer.  Sadists, on every level.   To Be Continued…    (For now listeners, the trail goes cold with us leaving the Imperial Boredom of Kilrush.  I’ll get my people to check, but I’m fairly sure spending a long, long night and an even longer morning in a hell-hole like Kilrush didn’t feature in my contract.  I’ll have to contact the “Some Bike It Hot” union…)     “The Reel With The Beryl”, No Less!! Ralph Mexico   ps.  Part two, “Peddle-Pushers Of The World Unite And Take Over”, will appear on May 31st; there’s the small matter of a big birthday to acknowledge next week.  Further salivating titles for the near future include “Where Have You Gone Daniel Timofte? A Nation Turns It’s Lonely Eyes To You”, and “Eating Nuts Backstage With Half Man Half Biscuit In Cardiff”.  “Can’t Hardly Wait”, eh listeners?

At 9.55pm on Sunday April 29th, 2012, The Magnetic Fields began to perform “Busby Berkeley Dreams” in Cork Opera House.  By 10 o’clock, when the song had finished and the applause had died down, I was ready to start the third phase of my life.

 

Phase One had been the 39 years and 50 days up until 9.55pm on Sunday April 29th, 2012.

 

Phase Two was “Busby Berkeley Dreams” being performed right before my eyes in Cork Opera House.

 

Phase Three is whatever happens after 10pm on Sunday April 29th, 2012.

 

I’m fairly certain I’ll forever look upon Phase Two as the happiest time of my life.

 

I know I know I know I go on and on and on about “Busby Berkeley Dreams” being the high point of civilisation – that is because I am right.  Whenever I put my pen to computer screen to declare that the pyramids, “Hamlet”, The Mona Lisa, Brazil’s fourth goal in the 1970 World Cup Final et al were mere footnotes in art until The Magnetic Fields released “Busby Berkeley Dreams”, I am merely stating an indefatigable truism; and if you think I’m wrong then you’re wrong.  More wrong than a tie with a short-sleeved shirt.  Wronger than tea without biscuits.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Wrong.

 

The live version of “Busby Berkeley Dreams” in the Opera House wasn’t flawless.  Stephin Merritt’s voice was paying the price for extensive touring and he didn’t attempt to hit the high notes as featured in the immortal album version.  The instrumentation was even better live though than on record.  The break before the final chorus was “outrageously beautiful”. 

 

Come to think of it, I am doing Merritt’s vocals a dishonourable disservice by highlighting the lack of high notes.  He possesses a doleful, deep, soulful, sweep of a voice, and he sang “Busby Berkeley Dreams” from the bottom of his lungs and from the bottom of his heart.  It was magnificent.  Phase Two of my life: The happiest time of my life.

 

Earlier, the five model citizens that constitute The Magnetic Fields live experience had walked on-stage at 9pm and casually sat in their seats.  From stage left to right – a pianist and singer (female), a ukulele player and singer (female), a guitarist (male), a cellist (male), and Stephin Merritt (genius), standing behind a recorder resting on a small synth resting on an harmonium.  Which was nice.

 

To a soundtrack of “Name Drops Keep Falling On My Head”, it is with pleasure unfettered that I identify the pianist/singer to the extreme left as Claudia Gonson.  She is the lucky lady who responded to my e-mailed request for a performance of “Busby Berkeley Dreams” with a friendly, chatty reply.  I repaid her courtesy by plaguing her with assorted oddball yammerings right up until show time in the Opera House.

 

It wasn’t the standing ovation at concert end that had the band beaming with joy; it was the knowledge that they could now put some water between themselves and the freak assaulting their piano player with bizarre photo requests and persistent marriage proposals.  They were flying to Portugal the following morning.  They should be safe there.  Maybe.

 

The divine Ms. Gonson and the deity Mr. Merritt kept up a between song discourse that included gags about fornication in New Jersey balconies and the perils of photographing Ireland from a train.  Everyone was so relaxed on-stage they made themselves tea, and adjusted enormous cushions, in between squeezing out sparks of other-worldly divinity.

 

“Come Back To San Francisco”, “Smoke & Mirrors”, “All My Little Words”, “Time Enough For Rocking When We’re Old”, “Grand Canyon”, and more, much more – a 25 song roll-call from the real Great American Songbook.

 

It was a cold Sunday night in Ireland.  One million people were tuned into the final of ”The Voice” on RTE1.  There were about 200 people in the stalls in Cork Opera House to see The Magnetic Fields make complete cults of themselves.  The gig was just the best ever.  Reflecting on it’s brilliance, I cannot write any more…  I need to lie down…  To sleep…  Perhaps to have some “Busby Berkeley Dreams”…

 

 

Rezco Seress Has The Glums!!

Ralph Mexico

In the mid-90′s when the dice landed on “John Waters” in the Sinead O’Connor board-game “Find A Father For My Next Child”, the bearded Castlerea columnist stepped up to the plate; and a daughter, Roisin, was brought into the world.  Waters fell under the usual gullible parenting spell and wrote a toe-curling article about how his daughter was beyond perfection, a miracle child.  Printed in The Paper of Record, I don’t recall if the headline was “Sweet Child O’ Mine” or even “Nothing Compares 2 U”, but the actual column was a hideous, bloated embarrassment.

 

Still, I was tempted to plunder the more fawning phrases of Water’s overblown opus in order to properly describe my feelings towards my new bike which is beyond perfection, a miracle machine.

 

Then I gave myself a good talking to and settled for taking the great Scott bike for a cycle instead.

 

The route was North by North-West,  first through Freemount and then Dromcollogher where I stopped to read the words of “There’s Only One Street In Dromcollogher” which were helpfully painted on the side of a public house by the village green.  As I cast a cold eye over Percy French’s famous song, a car pulled up beside me and the cloth-capped driver asked me “Are you losht?”  His concerned enquiry was the nicest thing that has happened to me in the 21st century.  Make of that what you will.

 

I cycled into Newcastle West under sunny April skies.  I had brought a five euro note with me to treat myself to an energy drink and a packet of Jaffa cakes when I inevitably felt tired.  The decision not to bring my wallet was based on keeping the load as light as possible for the sufferfest of a cycle home. 

 

I went into an antiques shop that had records and books on display in the window.  I bought two fine big books about The Beatles for my fiver.  These heavy tomes would have to be ferried back 40kms under my cycling top.  I now had no money for any food or drink.  And I was starving and parched.  Plus I had barely survived the journey to Newcastle West.  Returning with the awkward added bulk of a pair of Beatles’ books, weak with hunger, hanging with thirst, was going to make the cycle home much more delightful…

 

You’re lucky listeners – you only have to read about this class of gombeenism once a week; I’ve to crawl through life under the weight of such insanity.  Ho-hum.

 

My main reason for journeying to the capital of West Limerick was to see the statue in the square of native Newcastle West poet Michael Hartnett, which was unveiled by Paul Durcan cupla blian o shin – Mr. Hartnett would approve of the gaeilge as he was a noted bi-linguist.

 

I’d only become aware of Michael Hartnett last year, and a bit of world-wide webbing educated me to the power of the poet.  “Inchicore Haiku” was the work that impressed easy-to-impress-me the most.  Bleak, gritty, challenging seventeen syllable epics about the hard knock life in an impoverished Dublin: they struck a minor chord with someone coerced into sharing a classroom with psychopaths from Liscarroll.  I felt the squalor Hartnett wrote about.  Church.

 

“Inchicore Haiku” made such an impression that I submitted a poem to The Limerick Writers Group who are co-ordinating a tribute to Michael Hartnett for publication later this year.  The poem was called “Likewise, A Pleasure” – a title cadged from a line in “Weak Become Heroes” by The Streets.  The rhyme and reason-free verses detailed me getting threatened in The Richmond House by some yob after I asked for ice in my cider.  “Gods make their own importance”, indeed.

 

The Limerick Writers Group operate a “Don’t call us, We’ll call you” policy to submissions.  They’ve never called.  I don’t anticipate “Likewise, A Pleasure” appearing at a newsagents near you any time soon.  So it goes.

 

But, the bronze Michael Hartnett statue in the square in Newcastle West is a fine piece of work.  The inscription at the base reads “This head is a poet’s head.  This head holds a galaxy”.  Which is nice.

 

The poet is gazing to his left, to the street that runs between Bob Burke’s Butchers and Rashers O’Flaherty’s abandoned premises.  He is in pensive mood, ”Thinking in English, Dreaming in Irish” perhaps.

 

You’d be inclined to christen the statue “The Thinker” if that Rodin chancer hadn’t purloined the name, or if “Thinker” wasn’t so open to myriad connotations in West Limerick…

 

After satisfying my Michael Hartnett memorial lust, I was on the road out of Newcastle West when I encountered another statue.  This one was for The Fallen during the skirmishes after the treaty in the 1920′s when much blood was shed attempting to make Ireland A Nation Once Again.  I read about the brave West Limerick men slain by the crown’s forces.  One inscription caught my eye.  It was for a gent who “Died in action in Ballyhahill”.

 

In the distant and dim past I did a line (not a drug reference) with a fair lady from Ballyhahill.  After a series of lukewarm dates it became kinda’ obvious that the young lady was not going to fully succumb to my more base overtures.  We went our separate/celibate ways. 

 

“Died in action in Ballyhahill” was destined never to appear on my headstone.  “Je Ne Regrette Rien” will probably be inscribed on hers.

 

 

We Are The Fiddler’s Green Preservation Society!!

Ralph Mexico 

How about this for a rollicking read?  The story begins in Germany before The Great War, with a pair of teenage boys who are struggling to deal with their sexuality.  They seek escape in a suicide pact, but stage it as a duel over a girl to protect the reputation of their families.

 

One teen kills the other, then turns the gun on himself.  He survives, and gets packed off to a sanatorium for the mentally ill.  He becomes addicted to alcohol, sleeping pills, cocaine, morphine – the whole ahem, shooting match.

 

He writes a few books, under a pen-name filched from two of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales”, and becomes fairly well known in Germany in the 1930′s.  The Nazis fling him into a psychiatric clink in 1944.  Two years later he writes his masterpiece in 24 days.  He dies in early 1947 before the wonderful book is published.

 

Quite a tale, eh?  Sounds like a stonking page-turner, don’t you agree?

 

What I’ve just laboriously described is the two page “Note about the Author” in the preface to “Alone In Berlin”.  The Note about the Author.  Cripes.

 

The actual book, “Alone In Berlin” by Hans Fallada, is magnificent – “The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis” according to Primo Levi.  That is damning it with faint praise.  “Alone In Berlin” is easily amongst the top five books I have ever read.  That’s proper praise, even though I’ve only ever read seven books.  My grubby pen is woefully incapable of doing it justice with mere etchings.  Instead, I’ll eke out a 25 word synopsis and leave it at that:

 

“An old couple living in Berlin under the yoke of Nazi rule start leaving postcards with anti-war messages in public places around the city.  Brilliant.”

 

Such a simple story.  Such a wonderful book.  “Alone In Berlin” was the best book I read during my Vietnam sojourn and I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Sermon over.

 

Having spent some quality time with Ladies of the Night in Vietnam (see post of March 19th), I lapped up the opportunity to spend some quality time with Ladies of the Write in Vietnam.  Annie Proulx, Anne Tyler and Edna O’Brien were the female authors who demanded my time (if not my money) and it’s debatable if any “Massage, Boom-Boom” could have been as fulfilling.  Again, certain parts of my anatomy are aghast at these sentiments.  So it goes.

 

“Postcards” was the Proulx book I read.  It may be even better than her more well-known ”The Shipping News”.  Famous forever for her short stories due to “Brokeback Mountain”, she is a bewitching novelist.  Of course her books tend to be sadder than a burning orphanage, but letting some darkness into this Jedward-infected world is no bad thing. 

 

Anne Tyler kept the marvellous-story-of-a-woman-who-walks-down-a-beach-and-out-of-her-stifling-family-life-and-discovers-a-few-things-about-herself-and-quelle-surprise-life-along-the-way flag flying with “Ladder of Years”.  Which was nice.

 

Like the accommodating hooker who had no hang-ups about showing me the rose tattooed on her breast in a busy Nha Trang bar, Edna O’Brien was a stupendous bonus.  The finest female Irish writer ever?  Get that second foot into the grave Peig Sayers – there’s a new prose queen in town.

 

“Returning” is an effortlessly sublime short story collection.  “In The Forest” is O’Brien’s “The Book of Evidence”-style recreation of the infamous Brendan O’Donnell murders in rural Clare in 1994.  It is harrowing, yet sadly beautiful.  An Irish “In Cold Blood”. 

 

During “Dance Stance” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland rattles off the names of a few Irish writers as a tribute to this country’s literary prowess.  Edna O’Brien is named alongside Wilde, Behan, O’Casey, Shaw etc.  I always wondered whether she was deserving of such an accolade.  Having read “Returning”, “In The Forest” and, since I arrived home, “The Country Girls”, there’s little doubt that Edna is a Dame well deserving of every honour going.    

 

“The Finkler Question” by Howard Jacobson was the first book completed in Vietnam, having abandoned the dreadful “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood.  Jacobson’s Man Booker prize winner from 2010 is tough going and as unfunny a comedy as anything starring Adam Sandler. 

 

The book is all about jewishness, and not jewishness in a smart way (“Two jews see a lovely lady.  One says to the other “I’d lend her one”); just jewishness in a precious “Look at me, I’m a jew, I’m persecuted and full of neuroses about my jewishness” way.  This is no anti-semite call – “The Finkler Question” is the most undeserving winner of The Man Booker prize since well, “The Blind Assassin”.

 

Two minor classics from Irish authors kept me safe amidst the bedlam-a-go-go of Hanoi.  “A Bit On The Side” is another peerless set of short stories from Mitchelstown’s finest son, William Trevor.  “Dancer” by Colum McCann is a tremendous novel about Rudolf Nureyev, and far superior to the universally lauded “Let The Great World Spin”. 

 

Everyone needs cultural signposts in their life.  When backed into a corner, put on the spot, made to sing for your supper, it’s good to have answers at the ready for those most revealing of questions: Favourite album?  Favourite song?  Favourite film?  Favourite book?

 

“Steve McQueen”, “Busby Berkeley Dreams”, “Heathers”, “The World According To Garp” are my eternal responses.  Pay homage, pilgrims.

 

“The Cider House Rules” by “Garp” author John Irving was the final book read before leaving behind two months of sun and seeing rain again.  A fine novel, if light on passages which necessitated the book being chucked away in sheer disbelief at it’s brilliance as “Garp”, there is little doubt Irving is a wordsmith of the highest order.

 

However, the finest piece of craftmanship I came across in The Vietnam Book Club was from the pen of that boorish alpha male Hemingway in his short story “Indian Camp”:

 

“They were seated in the boat, Nick in the stern, his father rowing.

The sun was coming up over the hills.  A bass jumped, making a circle in the water.  Nick trailed his hand in the water.  It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning.

In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die”.

 

 

Somos Mas!!

Ralph Mexico 

 

“Smoke” is one of the Great Lost Films.  Written by Paul “New York Trilogy” Auster, directed by Wayne “The Joy Luck Club” Wang, and starring Harvey “Sister Act” Keitel, it is an unheralded gem.    Keitel plays Auggie Wren, the owner of a small cigar store in Brooklyn.  During the movie, Auggie tells another character about his hobby: every day at 8am he sets up his old camera on a tripod right outside the door of his shop on the corner of 3rd Street and 7th Avenue and takes a picture of the crossroads.  Although it is the same place every day, the picture is different of course.  The weather changes, the people in the picture always change, but he documents the flotsam and jetsam every day.  He then prints the picture and puts it in a scrapbook.  Everybody needs a hobby.   Should I ever return to Saigon, I’ll make it my mission to take a picture at the crossroads of Bui Vien Street and De Tham Street every day.  The moral duty to record happenings at this fantastical crossroads would see me break the habit of a lifetime and bring a camera with me on holidays.  As Harvey Keitel may have said to the nuns in “Sister Act” – “Sometimes you gotta’ leave a habit behind”.   The Bui Vien and De Tham crossroads is located slap bang, dead centre, in the middle of downtown tourist-world Saigon.  At its busiest it resembles Times Square on New Year’s Eve when all the sailors are on shore leave.  At its quietest it is like the square in Pamplona during San Fermin when all the bulls are running wild.   And its never quiet.   On two corners are bars advertised by garish neon signs.  “Crazy Buffalo.  Crazy Bar.  Crazy Chillout.  Crazy Nightclub”, complete with a (“Crazy”, one would presume) bright buffalo head and horns glowing high on the wall of one.  The other place is dominated by the bar name “Go 2″ surrounded by a phalanx of glitter gulch.  All very Vegas.  And a million miles from what XTC had in mind when titling their 1978 album “Go 2″.   There’s a pharmacy on another corner, and the fourth corner boasts a t-shirt shop advertising itself as “Outfitters to Free Spirits”.    “Outfitters to Free Spirits”?  I had to avail of some painkillers from the pharmacy after seeing that sign…   In three hours sitting outside Go 2, sipping cold Red Saigon beer I bought a hammock, two bookmarks, a blue pen, a shuttle-cock shaped yoke that you see the locals playing keepy-uppy with, a bag of mango slices, four copied dvds, another hammock, and a second one of those keepy-uppy yokes.  Total price: less than 10euro.  And I only bought from 1% of the street vendors who were touting for business.   I turned down sunglasses, cigarettes, t-shirts, books, maps, lighters, toys, fans, tissues, cds, Andy Carroll – everything for sale, everything going cheap.  “You buy – Lucky for me, Lucky for you” was the spiel from the sellers.  I wasn’t buying it.  Or their tat.   Then the girls appeared on the scene.  “Massage, Boom-Boom” was their mantra.  “Fine girl you are, But I gotta’ say “no”" was my response from my heart, which wasn’t a winner with some other vital organs.    One determined lady went into intimate detail outlining what kind of sparks would fly when we got on our own behind closed doors.  She assured me “You be very happy, very quickly”.  I assured her that a hasty outcome was par for my course, and would have nowt to do with her professional dexterity.  Ho-hum.   The opportunity to buy drugs was as commonplace as “Massage, Boom-Boom”.  One fella, obviously not an advocate of “Don’t get high on your own supply”, tried to peddle me marijuana on five occasions, each time sidling up to me as if he had never seen me before.  Sweet Mary Jane seemed to have led to some short term memory loss on his part.  So it goes.  His gear may have been top, but I just said “no” – I was high enough on the theatre unfolding at the wonderful crossroads.   A million motorbikes, driven by a million divine-legged divas in short shorts.  The occasional car winding its way through the madness.  Petrified pedestrians risking life and limb limboing through the chaos.  Quite the spectator sport.   When the sun went down, the freaks came out to play.  There were bins being collected, mattresses being balanced on speeding motorcycles, kids being balanced on chairs on the front of motorbikes, Jehovah Witnesses trying to convert, Lady-boys trying to pervert, buskers playing Kylie songs, pretty (local) women out walking with (western) gorillas down the street, whirly-gig sellers; all human life, plus a few dorky yanks, was on display.   Giving my head some peace from the sensory overload of the crossroads, I tuned into the conversation taking place over my left shoulder.  Here’s what was being said, “I learned the drill eventually and worked out to keep my head down until she grabbed my ears and the bell sounded”.  Who needs context for a sentence like that?  I certainly needed another Red Saigon to numb the pain…   But the intersection of Bui Vien and De Tham, eh?  The crossroads of the world….   Before I go I’ll let you into a little secret, listeners: the first time I was in New York I made a pilgrimage to Brooklyn to stand at the corner of 3rd Street and 7th Avenue and I took a photo from each of the four corners.  I even bought a disposable camera especially so I could take those photos.  But no, I did go there at 8am.  That would have been too weird.   I went there at 9am.  I didn’t want to let Auggie Wren see me mimicking his hobby.     Levon At The Helm (RIP)!! Ralph Mexico

See that wastrel in the Hoi Phong hotel room watching twenty films in five days?  That’s me that is.     Ostensibly an exercise in doing no exercise and resting up the sore ankle with a view to being AOK for some May/June cycle-frolics - any way you paint it ’twas a spiffing way to pass the time.     Shops selling dvds for 50cent were visited.  Snacks were purchased.  Notes were taken.  Some of the films had a Vietnamese angle (“Indochine”, “Hearts of Darkness”, “The Quiet American” etc.), but this cutting edge blog will concentrate it’s Director’s Cut on more recent fare.  Then thểre’ll be á mảrquee Marks out of Ten round-up at the end, before the lights come on and you make your way slowly out into the foyer.     The film I was most looking forward to seeing was “This Must Be The Place”, partially made in Ireland, named after an immortal Talking Heads song, starring Sean Penn in a Robert Smith fright-wig and Bono’s daughter as an emo-kid.     “This Must Be The Place” is hilarious.  You will be in convulsions from the opening frame (a view of Landsdowne Road) to the closing scene (a view of Landsdowne Road).  Tears will stream down your face.  The problem is “This Must Be The Place” is not a comedy.     You gotta’ wonder how a film featuring David Byrne as himself, countless versions of “This Must Be The Place” throughout, and a cameo from Harry Dean Stanton could fail, however “This Must Be The Place” is an inglorious mess.     The first part, set in Ireland, is mildly diverting but then the action moves to America as Penn (you’ll like this) searches for a Nazi war criminal, and it becomes laughable dreck.  The odđ surreal sketch involving ping-pong or suitcases on wheels and the impressive scenery cannot save a film where the story is patent bobbins.     As an ageing rock star, Sean Penn hams it up outrageously, but really after this mortifying turn he should just put his career in an envelope and post it to Jimmy Nail.  “This Must Be The Place?”  “Road To Nowhere”, more like.     Next up was “Beginners”, a film so in love with itself that it has been spotted checking into hotels all alone carrying a suitcase packed with a video camera, a tub of mayonnaise, a Barry White cd, three gerbils and a bag of satsumas.     “Beginners” is nowhere near as clever as it thinks it is.  Ewan McGregor plays a sensitive soul.  He’s a cartoonist, of course.  He acquires a new, arty girlfriend.  She’s an actress, of course.  And she’s french, mange tout.  Christopher Plummer is McGregor’s gay, dead dad.     It has all been done before.  Affected, precious couple; family melodrama; the gay angle.  Basically, “Eternal Ice Storm of the Spotless Milk”.  Here’s some “Beginners” advice: Avoid.     Now listeners, I’m not too convinced that there’s a heaven, but I’m certain there is a hell: it is being in the IFI when a new Woody Allen film is being shown.  And I’d say the audience for “Midnight in Paris” would be even more hellish than usual.     Imagine the torture of sitting there in the dark while the fey pseuds race to out-do each other by being first to laugh aloud at the knowing references?  A horror show.     The film itself is perfectly adequate, if a little over-feted in landing the best original screenplay Oscar.  Adrien Brody chews up the screen in his few scenes; Carla Bruni is Va-Va-Vôom in her appearances; but giving the lead role to that big-nosed clod Owen Wilson is the greatest error of judgement in Woody Allen’s life.  And that’s saying something…     Film Four was “Hugo”, Martin Scorsese’s love letter to movies, to clocks, to magic, to Paris.  It is an epic, beautiful, loving piece that would look great on the big screen and/or in 3D.     The only quibble, as the monkey said to the organ-grinder, is it’s length.  Hear ye, Hear ye: no song should be over 3 minutes; no album should be over 40 minutes, no act of love should be over 7 minutes; and no film should be over 90 minutes.     “Hugo” clocks in at more than two hours.  My mind ached after it.  My lips were dry.  My concentration slipping I wasn’t at my razor-sharp best when I reached for the tube of lip balm on the bedside locker, and lathered a dollop onto my PG Tips.     I started watching the fifth flick, Pedro Almodovar’s “The Skin I Live In”.  I settled back to bask in the glow of another effortless mini-masterpiece from the Spanish maestro when my lips began burning.  Suffering Antonio Banderas - What the hell was going on?!?!?!  My lips felt as if a pyromaniac had a blowtorch trained on them.     I grabbed the lip balm and then realised my mistake.  I had not used lip balm.  I had smeared on Pain Relief Cool Gel from a similar sized tube also resting on the locker.  Ho-hum.     Pain Relief Cool Gel is hot, hot, hot when treating sore ankles.  It is off the scale when liberally applied to sensitive lips.  “The Skin I Live In” is a fine film.  I’d recommend not watching it though when your lips are the temperature of the planet Venus.  “The Skin I (nearly) Died In”, indeed.     And now, lips still alive, “It’s time to play the music, It’s time to light the lights…”  Ah, “The Muppets”.  It’s impossible not to love the new film about their re-union.  You cannot fail to be swept away by a stunning ballad asking the timeless question “Am I a Man or a Muppet?”  There is no option except laughter when confronted with Chris Cooper, as the evil corporate bad guy, doing a moneybags rap.  Even the stoniest of hearts will skip a beat as one of the twentieth century’s greatest romances (Kermit and Miss Piggy) is rekindled.  Ah, “The Muppets”…     As is customary, we’ll finish a hotel room film feast with a movie made in Sweden.  This one is not however about two strapping lads arriving to fix Agnetha’s washing-machine while hẻr husband is away and she’s forgotten to put on any underwear.     Instead, this is “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”, and a surprisingly good film it is too.  The book may have finished last in the Compact Editing Sweepstakes, but the film clips along at a decent pace and is worth sticking with if only for the use of “Orinoco Flow” in a scene that would have Enya choking on her Diamante truffles.     Here’s the marks out of ten for the seven featured films: “This Must Be The Place” (2) “Beginners” (2)  “Midnight In Paris” (6)  “Hugo” (7)  “The Skin I Live In” (8)  “The Muppets” (7)  “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” (7).     Total: 39 out of a possible 70.  An Honours mark in the old Leaving Cert system.     It’s sure been a while since I emerged from a hotel bedroom with any Honour intact…         Jolly Hockney Pics!! Ralph Mexico

As a people, the Vietnamese place profound importance on the humble tooth-pick.  Fair play to them.  It is much appreciated by those of us blessed with ahem, “interesting” teeth contours.  In the middle of the table for every meal - beside the soya sauce, the raw chillis, the salt, the pepper, the chopsticks, the napkins, the spoons, the knives and forks, the floral centre-piece (tables are big in Vietnam) - is always and forever a tube of tooth-picks. 

 

So far, so good; but then you extract a sliver of wood… and the tooth-pick is the size of a baby’s arm.  With as much of a point as an article by Kevin Myers.  Tooth-pick manufacturing is one of the few areas I cannot claim absolute knowledge of, but I reckon the Vietnamese method of making tooth-picks involves getting one of Ben O’Connor’s old hurleys and slicing it length-ways in three.  That’s it – no more after that.  I’ve seen totem poles that are smaller than some of the tooth-picks in Vietnam.

 

Still, these mammoth slabs of blunt wood can come in handy sometimes.  What do you think I’ve been using as crutches for my sore ankle for the past month?

 

Tooth-picks became a hot issue of interest for me when watching the water puppets performance in Hanoi.  Quite simply, the wood used to make the puppets would have been better utilised as tooth-picks ‘cos the water puppets show was pretty poor fare.

 

Water puppetry is an ancient art, over one thousand years old, but virtually unknown outside Northern Vietnam until the 1960′s.  Some things truly are best kept secret.

 

The stage is a pool of murky water.  The puppets are operated by (it says in the guide) “highly skilled puppeteers” who stand in the water behind a bamboo screen.  The show is Punch & Judy playing monkey tennis with Zig & Zag in a pool, with a couple of enflamed dragons thrown in.  It’s 45 minutes, and 5 dollars, of my life I’ll never get back.  So it goes.

 

In the age of “Avatar” et al, painted blocks of wood ploughing through green water just doesn’t cut it.  The only saving grace was the band by the side of the stage who cranked out the beguiling tunes using an array of gongs, bamboo xylophones, cylindrical drums, and a nutty single-stringed yoke called the dan bau which sounds like Jimi Hendrix playing the theremin.  Right-handed.  Wearing a blindfold.  Good music, poor show.  It was like Elvis Costello at the National Concert Hall in 1999 all over again.

 

While the puppets were pants, Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum did exactly what it says on the tin.  You join a long, long queue, which in fairness moves quickly enough, and eventually you get to file past the embalmed body of Uncle Ho, lying calm as you like in a glass cubicle with the wispy white hair looking suspiciously nifty.  The mausoleum is shut for 3 months of the year to allow some maintenance take place on Ho’s body.  To deduce from the waxy sheen of his face I’d say the contract for the upkeep could be with a certain M. Tussaud.

 

The actual building housing the body of Ho is a monumental grey edifice with a roof and columns supposed to represent a lotus flower.  I dunno’ but I thought the building more resembled a super-sized version of the public toilets at Inchydoney beach.  Maybe they had the same architect…

 

Respects paid to Uncle Ho, the Great Liberator, it was a short walk down to the Temple of Literature.  This place was founded to honour scholars and men of literary achievement.  A statue of Twitter’s Joey Barton is set to be unveiled there next year.

 

The complex is a nice relaxing retreat from the mania of the Hanoi streets.  There’s lots of stuff about Confucius and higher learning.  All of that guff went over my head, but I thought the flowers were nice.

 

I read that Vietnam’s first university was established here in 1076, which makes the place 938 years old this year.  I did the sums while admiring my university degree in Applied Mathematics.  Obviously.

 

 

Hanoi And Her Sisters!!

Ralph Mexico

 

 

ps.  The 27 hour train trip from Nha Trang to Hanoi was an opportunity to appreciate the Vietnam countryside with greater ease than on a bike last year.  It really is a glorious country; it’s sole defect is to be monotonous in it’s beauty.  A Hanoi native working as an engineer with the Vietnamese army air-force in Nha Trang sat beside me for a long stretch.  Among the snippets proferred was that “John” is a common name for Vietnamese pet dogs.  The reason?  The name of the hated president of the United States who stepped up the campaign in Vietnam in the early 60′s?  Take a bow (or even a bow-wow-wow) JFK.

Man cannot live on sun, sea and sand alone.  Neither can pale dweebs.  So, after life being a beach for a month in Nha Trang it was time to move on, and to move up to the central highlands, to the city of Dalat.   Once known as “Le Petit Paris”, Dalat is a favourite Vietnamese haunt for artists, honeymooners, and domestic tourists.  However, it sure ain’t the weather than brings the hordes to Dalat’s door as the temperature is cool all year round with rain making an appearance with Irish-like frequency.  My jacket and tracksuit top were taken out of cold storage.  The Fashion Police wrote a few more tickets.   The landscape close to the city wouldn’t be out of place in the Emerald Isle either.  Rolling hills awash with acres of green vegetation, Dalat is the cradle of fresh garden vegetables in Vietnam.  Peas, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, parsley, sage, rosemary and bunches of thyme etc. all growing up a storm on the hillsides under clear polythene tunnels.   You’d have your suspicions that some coves might be growing some Rastafarian-friendly herbs too, if only due to the sheer scale of the tunnel operations on display.  Oh, and the pimp mobile parked beside the tunnel with the Cheech & Chong flag flying, and “Trenchtown Rock” booming from the speakers is a little give-away as well.  These citizens of Uncle Ho seemed more interested in hangin’ with the ho’s than digging with hoes.  So it goes.   Dalat is built around the snazzy Xuan Huong lake.  Romantics rent out paddle-boats shaped like giant swans and cavort gaily across the lake emitting vibes of love and happiness.  Curmudgeons tramp around the 7km perimeter lake path scowling, listening to Suicide’s first album on headphones.   The Hang Nga Gallery aka ”The Crazy House” was worth a visit.  An ”Alice In Wonderland” warren of caves, stairs, statues, trees, flowers, tea-rooms, trip wires, and giant spider webs, it’s a far-out maze of psychedelic oddball-ness.  Dennis Hopper surely lived there at some point.   You duck into a room at the top of a winding stairs and there’s a stuffed otter, an opera-singing parakeet, and a picture of Richard Nixon in a kimono to greet you.  Things get progressively weirder after that.  You get freaked out by slanting mirrors, pecked at by caged turkeys, and shouted at by rotund, unsmiling Russians who seem to make up the rest of the visitors to ”The Crazy House”.   The Hang Nga who owns the mad dwelling is the daughter of Truong Chinh, Ho Chi Minh’s successor, who served as president from 1981 until his death in 1988.  It is unrecorded if it was over-exposure to his daughter’s hallucinatory house that done for him.  I wouldn’t bet against it though.   Apres this house horse-play, it was a balm to hop on board a train for half an hour.  The old skool cog railway is a rickety, ancient, wooden bone-shaker that ferries you, and your twenty or so fellow train fetishists, at Charlie Adam pace 8kms up to Trai Mat.   Once in Trai Mat, everyone alights from the small express and walks up the hill to the Linh Phuoc Pagoda, which is a holy hoot.  There is a seven tier tower you climb up with a Buddha seated at every level; some of them even sporting gaudy, tacky, wonderful five ringed neon haloes.  There is a ten tonne bell you can hit a clatter with a helpful hanging hammer.  There is a twelve foot high gold Buddha casting a lazy eye over proceedings from another roof-top.  And best of all, while we were there it was prayer time in the temple so we were treated to some enchanting chanting.  Bless.   Then it was back downhill, and all aboard the choo-choo for the glacial descent back to Dalat.  Loads of time to get acquainted with your fellow train-travellers.  I was sitting beside Richard and Sue from England.  He was near sixty, a bit of a bore, and full of guff.  Sue was a good few years younger and had kept herself in good nick.  She didn’t speak much, letting Richard hog the stage.   Long-winded Richard was saying how he had worked in insurance until a few years ago when computers had made his position redundant.  “Basically”, he harrumphed “they got a machine that could do everything I could do, so I was out on my ear”.  I gave a glance at Sue and said “I bet Sue wishes she’d brought that machine on holiday with her, eh?”.   Tumbleweed.  Richard Pryor at the Alabama KKK convention in 1976 would have got a better response.  Maybe they deserved an apology?  Nah, I thought about following up with “Listen Dickie boy, You line them up and I’ll hit them all day”.  Instead I looked out the window, humming “Dalat’s the way, Uh-huh Uh-huh, I like it, Uh-huh Uh-huh”.  As you do.     Bananas Back On The Menu!! Ralph Mexico   ps.  The recent blog about the birthday spent in the company of “loose women” was brought to mind again while recently reading Justin Cartwright’s rather fine novel “The Promise Of Happiness”.    Charles, the old man, is depressed and Clem, his golf partner, hands him a card advertising “Oriental Angels”, an escort agency… Clem says, “Ask for Honey.  She’s Vietnamese”. Charles: “North or South?” Clem: “Any direction you want.  Look them up on the net”.

Listeners, put on the kettle, pull up a pew, take the weight off your mind.  Dip your mitts into a cornucopia of carry-ons, a smorgasbord of situations, a platter of pickings from four weeks in Nha Trang, South-Central Vietnam.  Refunds are available at point of entry.  The marble cake is especially fine today…

# Vinpearl, the largest of Nha Trang’s off-shore islands (and the only one boasting a “Hollywood”-type sign visible from the shore), was visited in cahoots with some Swiss soldiers of fortune and some local people about town.  The island is reachable by boat or by cable-car.  The thought of another spin on those fandangled cable-car death-trap jobbies didn’t put my shorts in a knot, so I took my chances in the water and arrived alive.  Swimming, barbecue, picnic, more swimming, disco – very nice, very nice.  Then the night fell, and the fun stopped.  Story of my life.  Everyone stayed in tents.  No-one slept in tents.  Astonishing degrees of heat.  Confounding armies of mosquitoes.  I’d have had more fun in a tent on Brokeback Mountain.  So it goes.

# Sitting on the beach, in the shade of course.  A little sunglasses-donning beauty queen walks over and asks if I speak english.  “Badly”, I reply, baldly.  She wants help with the pronunciation of some words.  Her list includes “canopy”, “embellished”, “monument” and “ceramic”.  She is fourteen.  “Canopy”?  “Ceramic”?  Her future’s so bright she’s gotta’ wear shades.

# The Lodge disco on a Friday night.  The dj is “Captain No Tunes & The Throbbing Bass Line”.  The dance-floor heaves to a thousand Vietnamese Shaking It.  The westerners stand around drinking expensive cans of Heineken, served up along with an enormous bowl of fruit covering a massive bag of ice.  I can’t see this kind of catering catching on in Ronnie Hartnett’s Bar.  Hartnetts also chose a few years ago to make their yard into a smoking area instead of a dance-floor.  Any Vietnamese visitors to The Square, Kanturk will be unimpressed.

# Guest appearance in The Lodge by the hottest young pop star in Vietnam.  He looks like Limahl after entering a “Jedward lookalike” competition – and being placed fourth.  I don’t catch his name, but he’s Big in Vietnam.  The crowd goes ballistic.  He mimes, struts, poses, grinds, the whole nine yards.  He sings “Happy Birthday” to some swooning casualty of bling.  The dancing from the locals moves up a notch and gets down and dirtier.  We, from the west, drink our beer and eat our fruit.  No dancing.  You gotta’ keep some dignity.  It’s not rocket surgery.

# Walking home from The Why Not in a “refreshed” state on a few different nights.  Suddenly surrounded by a group of women rubbing up against me and telling me how handsome I am.  I thank them for their commendable taste, then tell them if they don’t take their hands off me I’ll start getting medieval on their collective asses.  Not my usual line of patter with the ladies, but these are no ladies.  Every night after midnight, Nha Trang is infected by a plague of these rampant criminals preying on unsuspecting, and usually drunk, tourists.  No point going to the police – they are in on the racket too.  It’s a regular sight to see a sobbing tourist bewailing their fate at being robbed by these vermin.  I was telling someone about my encounters with the low-lifes.  They asked me how did I react?  I said, in my best Groucho Marx/Charlo Spencer accent, “I would have thrashed them to within an inch of their lives; but I didn’t have a tape measure”.

# Over the course of five nights in Nha Trang last November, “Dangerous” and I only went from our hotel to Salut restaurant, to The Sailing Club disco, to The Why Not late night bar.  Every night.  The days were write-offs, because we only went from our hotel to Salut restaurant, to The Sailing Club disco, to The Why Not late night bar.  Every night.  This was like going to Cork city and merely calling to The Long Valley, The Hi-B, The Bodhran, and McDonalds.  Not much ground being covered.  This time, the Po Nagar Cham Towers, the Long Son Pagoda, the Sunday Market, were among the proper Nha Trang tourist attractions visited.  Around the corner from the hotel we stayed in last year I discovered a wonderful coffee house called Paramount, and a spiffing stationery shop that is missing a trick by not calling itself “Stationery Porn Nirvana”, because it is stationery porn nirvana.  This second spell in Nha Trang has unearthed a world of hitherto undiscovered delights.  Still, just going from our hotel to Salut restaurant, to The Sailing Club disco, to The Why Not late night bar every night was not without its merits.  Quite.

# Also last year, we cycled into Nha Trang and arrived at a T-Junction with the sea in front of us.  In our search for a hotel we had to choose to go right or left.  I was on map-reading duties that day.  I deduced that the heart of the city was to our right.  Sure enough, we cycled into the centre of Nha Trang night-life.  Alas, it was a plush hotel-free zone.  We ended up in the perfectly acceptable, but incorrectly monikered, Asia Paradise Hotel.  This year, I took a walk back to that T-Junction, curious to see what awaited us had we plumped for a left turn that day.  What did I find?  Hotels.  Lots and lots of hotels.  Luxury hotel after luxury hotel.  Even a hotel called The Luxury Hotel.  More lavish hotels than on the strip in Las Vegas.  We could have stayed in a different four star gaff each one of the five nights.  The moral of the story?  My success rate in reading maps may be on a par with that of a one-legged man in arse-kicking contests, but I know that in politics, in life, in the paper you read: always choose Left.  Uncle Ho would agree.

Hang On To Your Lego!!

Ralph Mexico

 

ps.  For those of you who facebook, please note that The Prefab Sprout Project has a page and is recruiting friends.  Please extend the hand of friendship to the project.  Tell them Mexico sent you.