I’m trying to write a novel, one set in Condesa, a nice, quiet, leafy suburb of Mexico City, in mid-2015. A number of things make this difficult, not the least of which is that it’s now 2016 and not only are events quickly moving way ahead of me, they are also, conversely, getting closer to… Continue reading México, DF: What links the murder of dogs in Condesa to the Corredor Chapultepec?
I’m walking down the street in a pleasant upmarket neighborhood and as I walk I have to tread carefully, as the ground beneath my feet is covered in often quite deep cracks as a result of a huge earthquake which is said to have taken place 30 years ago. Such is the level of detail… Continue reading Does “Mexico City” live up to the hype?
La imágen mejor conocida y mas difundida de México en los últimos uno o dos decénios es la de una mujer colorida, bella y fuerte con trajes y rasgos aparentemente indígenas. Sin embargo, con un poco de reflexión queda claro que esta imágen en nada corresponde a la realidad en la que viven las mujeres… Continue reading Frida y México: Imágen, identidad e ideología
A neoliberal writes You don’t come across many shirkers in Mexico City. Not even that many beggars. People work, and when there isn’t any work, they work. Six in 10 Mexican workers, or 30 million people, work in the informal economy — take the metro and at every stop there is someone who has got hold of… Continue reading Mexico City and London: Striving to Survive
The notion of ‘linguistic repertoires’ is not a brand-new one, but it has become fairly central to Sociolinguistics in the last few years. I’d never heard of it until this month as I’d never studied Sociolinguistics before. Now I’m doing a master’s course which includes modules in Sociolinguistics, so terms such as ‘linguistic repertoire’ form… Continue reading My ‘linguistic repertoire’
“We now know that one way in which the machinations of the global far-right alliance operate is via the enticement of hate-rich but cash-poor politicians such as Salvini and Le Pen into the megalomaniac pretensions of (most obviously) Vladimir Putin and Steve Bannon and his backers.”… Continue reading Will Whatsapp help bring about the return of “tropical fascism”?
Roy Porter points out in the very first sentence of ‘London: A Social History’ that London is ‘not the eternal city’. Unlike Rome, where we’ve been living for the last 18 months or so, London won’t even be in the EU in a year’s time*, which might make it appear odd that someone (me) who… Continue reading On moving back to London one year before Brexit
I’m at Fiumicino airport queuing to get on the plane to go back to the UK for Christmas. Word comes down the line that there isn’t enough space for all the hand luggage. This makes sense. Most people travel with far too much stuff these days. Between me, my (Italian) wife and her parents (who’ve… Continue reading Merry Christmas, f*ck your blue passports!!!
I’ve been trying to work out why pretty much everyone treats everyone else like pricks on the internet, and also to figure out how far verbal violence online is starting to spill over into what we must for the sake of our sanity regard as the real world. For the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, it is… Continue reading Violence and the Internet
The singer Manu Chao once said of the connection between organised crime and politics: ‘The worst enemy of democracy in the 21st century is not military dictatorships, but mafia dictatorships, and military dictatorships will seem really light in comparison. It’s already happening in Russia and in Mexico, but it’s coming up everywhere, and it’s very… Continue reading Rome: The far-right and the mafia
Infinite Coincidence 