The European election results are in, with no surprises and will be interpreted by everyone as they think best. I voted for the Greens as the Remainer party that also had a coherent EU manifesto that I largely agreed with. I’d hoped they’d pick up a third London seat, but oh well. All in all, […]
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Good grub
Work was frustrating yesterday as I somehow lost an entire day’s work: a document got corrupted and when it was revived all my edits had disappeared, despite having been saved many times. Anyhow, in the evening we went for our usual coffee to Bartolo (superb and lovely people), and then on for a stroll up […]
State of the nation
I have received some work I’d been waiting for for some time. It’s a major report on nutrition which needs editing, and is fascinating reading. I can’t say anything about it for now, of course, but will say that things are both better and worse depending on your perspective. This is a major study, with […]
Seven forms of disappointment (at least)
SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES We watched the final episode last night, one of millions watching it as it was aired. Something I have not done for other than sport or politics in a long time, perhaps ever. It was truly terrible. I have always been a hate-watcher of GoT, but this was shameful and […]
Culture traitor
We got a ride to the Puebla outlet mall, not because we intended to shop or even step inside but because we were to be collected from here. Our hostess was waiting and we drove up to San Rafael Tenanyecac, a small village quite near Cacaxtla. Along the way we passed the black obelisk from […]
Up and up
We went up to the top of the pyramid to the yellow Spanish church. There was a good view of Cholula all around, and even the volcano’s outline appeared through the haze, startlingly tall for something that is invisible for most of the day. An open space on the San Pedro side was divided in […]
Unwanted children
I listened to the latest Talking Politics podcast this morning, which had an interview with the historian Tom Holland about Roman collapse and the present day. One throwaway point he made was that Europe, Russia, the Islamic World, are all descendants of Rome and, before that, Greece and the Near East, and their thought descends […]
Betrayal
SPOILERS FOR GAME OF THRONES SEASON 8 EPISODE 3 So we watched the big battle last night, the one that took 55 days of filming in cold rain and more special effects than one can shake a stick at. Unfortunately the latter rather lost their impact as our TV, which is small and not the […]
Joining the wave
In the mid-morning we went out for lunch and walked past makeshift roofed veranda outside someone’s house with a table and a pan set up outside and a handwritten sign saying ‘pulque, michelada’. The food looked delicious so we decided to eat there. It turned out to be excellent: a couple of quesedillas filled with […]
Mexican baroque
This morning, after a lavish breakfast composed from our purchases from the market yesterday we went down to Santa Maria Tonantzintla, a church which used to be a temple to a mother goddess until it became a church of the Virgin. It is covered in ornate, baroque plasterwork, yes, Mexican baroque. There is ornate plasterwork […]