State of the Allotment

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

(c) Mariola Zepeda 2006

For a fine set of pix from last night, check out Mariola Zepeda’s Flickr photos

He referred to the Smiths obliquely as a ghost who is always nearby but still gave it some welly with songs like Panic and Girlfriend in a coma. The crowd, myself included, couldn’t help but join in more with those songs rather than his relatively sedate solo stuff. He made the odd stab at Spanish with some, frankly, baffling dialogues seemingly influenced by his recent move to Italy. “Is there a Julia in the audience?” which is something to do with the police in Italian. (pull)Fair play to him for shouting “Tapatios” to the crowd though, we liked that.(/pull) And there was the requisite booing when he mentioned that tomorrow he’d be playing in Mexico City. Sita especially appreciated the changes of shirt with an average of 4 songs to each ripping off of silk shirtery…

Interesting backing band too, shaven-headed 25/40 yr old men forced to wear some bizarre dungaree outfit. They had the songs down pat.

Overall a fantastic concert and it was definitely worth arriving early to get to the rows where you could see every passionate expression. Even if it meant watching Eurovision clips from the 60s, New York Dolls footage and a Bjork/Kate Bush percussionist/keyboardist act named Kristeen Young.

The setlist via a source I will soon track down:

William
In the future when all’s well
Don’t make fun of daddy’s voice
Panic
Dear god please help
I’ve changed my plea to guilty
First of the gang to die
Disappointed
You have killed me
Ganglord
Let me kiss you
Everyday is like sunday
Girlfriend in a coma
I just want to see the boy happy
Life is a pigsty
Please please please
How soon is now?
Far off places
Irish blood English heart

A fair while ago near Mexico City, in 1531 if Google serves me correctly, the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. Juan was a young Indian boy and spoke Nahuatl, just like my Dad (see comments in the previous post). La Virgen told him to build a church on that there spot. He was on his own, and an Indian to boot, so the Catholic priests didn’t believe him. He went back to the place she’d appeared and she made a rose bush bloom (not common in the winter). He took the roses back to them as proof. The blanket he’d wrapped them in had a Turin-shroud-like perfect impression of said Virgin. Not long after, most natives converted to Catholicism. So the Virgin of Guadalupe is sort of representative of the mestizo (mixed) heritige of Mexico’s native and European roots. She incorporates all kinds of indigenous Nahuatl female deity imagery with her moon, stars and sun and is a more palatable version of Christianity for the local populations.

Apparently the celebrations kick off in a bigger way come 5pm, but I’ll be hungry by then and fixing to go and see films about wardrobes and allegorical big cats. So I left at around 12ish and asked our neighbour, Sra Teresa where the church with all the celebrations take place, she pointed me in the right direction and I started my pilgrimage. 24 blocks later I arrived at a church/fairground filled with kiddies in traditional Mexican garb being photographed with the virgin, blessed in the church and some were lucky enough to get tied to giant bungee cords and flung into the sky (I have pictures…).

All very nice. I also found a place in the city center that does courses on Flash and other stuff pretty cheaply so I may look into that soon too. That’s all for now, off now to eat and watch CGI lions. Cheers. Click HERE for a slideshow of all today’s photos.

and it’s mainly for the chorus: “Vamos a aclarar el panorama, hay pinguinos en la cama…” and the rest of the rhyming-dictionary-3rd-rate-singer-songwriting…

Just for the record: Fantastic meal in La Matera again with Victor, Jana and family last night. Picked up Sita’s fancy new business cards. Tidied the house a bit and now I’m off for web designery… ooh and I’m at 1070 at the scrabble. 4 off my all time best. This can’t last… More meaningful posts soonish. Cheers : )

The 9 o’clock showing was sold out so I had to wait till the 10:20 one, so I managed a swift pint of coffee before queuing up outside the cinema. Fantastic film, review probably coming sometime in July when I get a chance… saw the trailer for Hitchiker’s Guide, which I’m not looking forward to as much as I expected. I read somewhere recently that the golden age for science-fiction is 14… anyroad I finally got home at 1am, with the dog barking up a storm, naturally, and realised that what with the 8 hour time difference and all that it wouldn’t be a bad time to reestablish contact with me folks who’ve been trying to catch me in all week. Anyroad, had a lovely chat, then fed and watered the menagerie. Obsessively checked the stats on me website before bed (one from the rasterbator was a novelty). And am blogging a bit now because the coffee’s still swilling around me system. I’m picking young sita up from SJO tomorrow morning so I need to get a bit of kip in though I might end up finishing Zadie Smith’s White Teeth tonight at this rate. I’ll read this back tomorrow afternoon and make any necasery edits… Happy weekend folks