2012 favourites

Because I like lists of things:

... films (in order): Beasts of the Southern Wild, Argo, Looper, Skyfall, Ted 

... books: Heliopolis, English Passengers, Last Days of the Incas, How to be a Woman, The Psychopath Test

... TV: Mad Men, Season 5. Sure to jump the shark next season, but until it does... cheers!

...proudest achievement of 2012: Perhaps that I have not watched a single moment of reality TV. Not including the news.

... hotel: Second Home, Barranco (right).

... quote from a student: Student's homework was to interview someone from a different background about their education. One question was, What would you do if you won the lottery? This kid fail bad in Inglish.

... quote from my kids: The night after the epic Murray US Open victory.

Leah - "Daddy, are you watching tennis tonight?
Me/Awesome Dad - "No, why?"
Leah - "Good. Beacause I don´t want you to say 'shit', 'fuck' or 'yay'."

... man: Tim Minchin. Love that funky ginge...

... woman: Caitlin Moran, including and especially her views on witches.

... child: Dead heat. Leah made a massive comeback second half of the year, just when Maia looked like she had it sealed up.

... parenting fail: Dropping Leah off at nursery with neither her lonchera (snack box), nor wearing any pants.

... first world problem: Having to take the 'bus' to pay an overdue electricity bill.  This took over 45 minutes, meaning the sun wasn't on the pool when I got home. Swim chillier than preferable. @FWP

(First World Glossary: A 'bus' is like a large taxi, but has many more people in it. The driver doesn't ask where you're from, and it doesn't take you to your destination. You get off the minute you recognise anything near your chosen destination. It is very cheap and usually smells.)

... rumour:  "If the Mayans were good at predicting things, there wiould still be Mayans."

... sporting live moment: In an unparallelled year of sporting magic, Jessica Ennis' 800m, Andy Murray at US Open, Scotland scoring a try against the All Blacks... but it was probably my goal against Maintenance in the school 7-a-side league.

... YouTube: Best of Zidane. Go on, click the link, the guy was a genius.

... time-wasting site: Fail Blog. Thank you, particularly News Anchor Fail Compilation 2012.

... bar: Maximo's, Barranco

.. fact: That on average, women speak 7000 words a day, whilst men only speak 2000. In Scotland, I believe the ratio remains the same, but the figures are reduced by a thousand.
Her allowance: "Ei, Billy, you gettin' sum more beer?
His allowance: "Aye."

... piece of advice: Don't take your SmartPhone out in town. Buy a Pay-as-you-go for nights out.

... biggest regret: Not taking the above advice about the SmartPhone v Pay-as-you-go.

... worst moment in 2012: Probably when they mugged me for my iPhone. Or when the guy in Ayahuasca's offered to make me a 'special Scottish' cocktail, whereupon he gave me something that tasted like Tennants on Buckfast on Scotch, blended wi' pure shite.

... most embarrassing moment: Receiving a letter from my kid's school (which is my school) stating that I was last parent in the entire school to pay their child's school fees. And could I pay them please.

... best buy: Trampoline.

... lowest point as a man:
1. Trying to put up the trampoline.
2. Joking during football that I weighed just 43 kilos. At the end of the game, my opponent came up to me, quietly, and asked me if I really weighed 43 kilos.

... moment of ageing:
Sixth form student trying to cheers me up, after I said I was 'old'.
Student - "Come on, Sir. What age are you?"
Me - "35."
Student - "Ah, that's not old. That's my Mum's age."

Hmm... that's it, I think.

Favourite photos of 2012

Holiday home. Punta Ala, Mancora

Favourite Maia photo. Cafe, Arequipa

Sunset shadows, Arequipa

Mercado, Chivay

Casa de Victor Delfin, Lima

Cafe, Barranco

Lima, Parque del Amor

 Beetle

Leah in Chivay

Favourite place of the year - breakfast on our terraza in the sun

Proudest Parenting Moment - Leah Green Hero

Cultural highlight - El Senor de los Milagros

Top Taxi Drivers

Lima taxi drivers are not exactly unique: there a few cities in the world where something of the local culture is not passed on through the characteristics of the local ferrymen.

New York: foreign policy, where you are driven by whoever's country has recently had its regime changed. 

Jo'burg: violence, where you're pretty safe unless the driver takes a shot at a rival taxi company, as the majors are owned by warring gangs (that was true in 1996 anyway, I may be a little out of the loop on that one).  

Buenos Aires: victims financial crisis, where educated classes now drive cabs, listen to classical music, talk eloquently and often in English on a range of subjects, especially politics, and very very few rip you off... that is left to the officials. 

What marks Lima as unique is that you negotiate the fare before the journey, and your Peruvians are nothing if not unexpressive, making negotiating, frankly, rather unengaging. My standard negotation formula looks like this. Hope the Mathematical notation doesn't lose ya: 

Driver: X

Me: Y

Driver: X

Me: Y

Driver: X-1

Me: Y

Driver: X-1

Me: Fine. (I feel guilty, tip him back up to the price of X).

But as 2012 draws to a close, allow me to dedicate this to my favourite 5 taxi drivers of the year. Well played, mostly gentlemen (but one mad half-blind woman, with a dirty windscreen):

5. The guy who haggled backwards and won 

Me: I'm going to a place. I offer 7?

Driver: 6

Me: No, I said... eh? OK. Where are we?

Driver: 7. 7.

Me: No. You said 6. 6. Dougs 1 - Lima 0, I think to myself, proudly.  

Driver: OK.

We drive all the way across the road. He stops. And I'm at my destination, as I was the whole time.  

4. Health and Safety Guy Who Had Seatbelts And Was Going To Use Them

He had seats. He had belts. He had standards. Even though there was no way of attaching one to another, he was insistent that I wore my seat and my belt - well, more of a sash - before he drove off. Safety first.  

3. The Pushy Guy

Outside of school, we'd driven 10m and his car died. I helped him push start the car, he drove on in the middle of traffic, I had to run quite fast to catch up, to avoid being run over and to jump back into the car. It broke down again immediately and died completely. I helped push the car about a KILOMETER to the service station. HE THEN TRIED TO CHARGE ME THE FULL PRICE. Have to respect that.

2. The Horny Guy
Who saw a hot girl looking for a taxi, nearly broke his own neck doing a double take, made a rubbish excuse for why he couldn't take me any further, took my fare... then did a U-turn to look for the hot girl.

1. The guy who tried to pick me while I was half way through a run
A combination of persistence, lack of fitness/hangover, cheek and the fact that I'd stashed an emergency S/.10 in my shorts pocket... this has to be the winner.  

Casa Melgarejo, Before and After

From what I can gather from this far flung corner of the globe, over Sunday breakfast of bacon and coffee the broadsheet reading classes are faced with a tough decision with how to proceed with the day: Cupcakes or Home Improvement?

Well, it's Sunday, the kids are with Katie at the park, I don't like cupcakes and I so have time to upload a few Before & After photos of our cracking abode. Ever modest, I have revealed our Home Improvement secrets in the captions below. Enjoy!

Living room

Living room 1, Before... 

Living Room 1, After
WHAT WE DID: Removed dead animal remnants from wall, bought a chair,
somehow got Wife to agree to giant Kate Moss print. Win! 

Living Room Of Death 2, Before...  

Living Room 2, After... 
WHAT WE DID: Removed dead animals from the wall replacing death with mirror, cleaned the windows, traded grey/brown for colours. Took the 'After' photo with wide angle lens   

Mainlining In The Bedroom: Before...

Main Bedroom, After...  WHAT WE DID: opened curtains, rejected off-yellow paint, put a mattress on the bed, lamps not candles, added an '&' for no good reason, removed more obvious signs of recent heroin use. 

Terrace, Before...

Terrace, After...
WHAT WE DID: Got the pool in shot, replaced bad table with good table,
painted wall very blue, using the sun, added living Human Child.  

 Done.

Private school anecdotes

First of these for a while.

I was teaching a poem, The Cockroach, an interesting sonnet about a man recognising his own worthlessness in a cockroach exploring his flat. Setting the tone of the poem, I lazily asked a couple of kids how they reacted when they saw a cockroach... if they'd ever killed a cockroach? A couple of half-hearted responses.

I picked on Arianna, a magnificently haughty teen in the middle row.

- What about you Arianna - ever killed a cockroach?
Meeting my gaze, she replied, with some dignity - We have, like, people... to do that sort of thing.

Mancora Top 7

Right in the north of Peru, within sight of Ecuador, is Mancora - busy with tourists, mostly Peruvian or backpackers - we stayed about 3 km south on Las Pocitas, which doesn't translate to exclusive rich showy-offy beach houses, but if it did, it would be a better translation.

Met with maracuya sorbet at the house, we pretty much kicked back and relaxed for 6 days. Bubble was not even - well, only briefly - burst when at breakfast, facing us in the sister house also settled down to breakfast, was one of my GCSE students. Fortunately quite a good one, so my skinny white frame should remain free from Facebook and I won't be cyber stalked by the Biebber generation.

Here are some glimpses:

Conclusion: I could definitely winter there.

Food in Peru

You hear a lot about the food in Peru. Everyone talks about how good the food is. The food revolution, gourmet tourism... all of that. It's not as interesting as all of this.

This is what you don't hear enough about, what now amounts to almost an entire shopping trolley's worth of comedy.

Allow me to give you a tour of your standard Peruvian supermarket:

Correct. Those are Bimbo burger buns, then Wanka fruit, thenFanny tuna.
All available at Wong. That's just Wong, isn't it? 

Tea. No, not tanning oil. Just plain old, er, tea. 

Clearly inspired, the service station opposite offer the following classic combo deals. 

Kraps, anyone? Goes nicely with Bailey's, and Wanka fruit. 

Bosh bosh zoom zoom biscuits. Tosh. 

And I am missing Batti Mix (Yoghurt) and Bum Bum Sticks (Lollies). Photos to follow, with any luck. 

 

Last but not least, here's how you can choose your ice cream flavours. I say flavours, but they mean colours, don't they?

Yes, that would be how you explain what chocolate ice cream tastes like. 

And here's vanilla. No, sorry, pistachio. That's a white dude, with acne. 

Strewth.