How do you like your fireworks displays? If you’re Mexican, the answer is simple – loud, singeing your buttocks, bursting your eardrums, setting fire to your clothes and, most importantly of all, at 3am when everyone is trying to get to sleep.I’m sure the main aim of most Mexican fireworks displays is to disturb as many people as possible. They are usually pretty successful.
Seriously, no celebration, especially a religious celebration, in Mexico is complete until a few rockets have been set off. Bigger events will merit ‘castles’ of spinning, colourful pyrotechnics and one or twice a year the believers who attend the church outside my home will bring along large ‘bull’ frames, loaded with gunpowder and carried aloft by a lucky soul of the congregation, as he runs around chasing anyone and everyone.
The video below was published by the BBC today and shows a pretty ferocious display in progress, complete with the bulls…large ones at that. Today’s celebration was in honour of the patron sait of pyrotechnics. I’d love to be able to tell you more about them, but to be honest, I usually stand at a safe distance, shake my head in wonder and mutter things like ‘nutters’. But with far more admiration than contempt. After all, I have been known to play around with the odd banger myself…
Three years ago I stumbled across a BBC series by Simon Reeve, whilst browsing through torrents on a site dedicated to illicitly uploaded UK television shows. Called Equator, it was absolutely brilliant. I watched all three episodes about five times each (I used them during English classes…) as Señor Reeve travelled along the centre line of the planet. I hoped that 2008 would bring a sequel, Tropic of Cancer. Seeing as Cancer goes through Mexico. I was disappointed. Sort of. He did Capricorn instead. It was still a very good show, done in four parts.
I’d have to wait till 2009, I thought. Surely then he’ll do Cancer. Nope. He did something a little different called Explore, which wasn’t quite so brilliant. But finally, my three year wait is over and on Sunday BBC2 broadcasts the first of six episodes as Simon Reeve travels the full length of the Tropic of Cancer. And the first episode is Mexico. If you live in the UK, be tuned at 8pm. If you don’t live in the UK, you’ll have to look it up on a torrent site a few hours later. What is a shame is that the BBC haven’t yet produced an iPlayer channel for international users, so that we can see some of their shows…..cough, cough….legally. I’d happily pay a few pesos for the privilege.
Televisa have started showing some 3 minute clips, celebrating the beauty, both natural and cultural, of Mexico in the run up to the big Bicentenario celebrations in September. The video I’ve posted below is from the state of Sinaloa and features the Chepe railway – I took a ride on this awesome train from Los Mochis to Creel in 2003. To say I highly recommend you, whoever you are, do the same is a huge understatement.
The video features some very Mexican looking men and some very attractive, but not necessarily Mexican looking ladies. I’m sure there was logic in their casting choices and I for one am not arguing with them. At least they don’t look non Mexican I guess. The official webpage is here and their YouTube page is here. So far they’ve gotten seven states to agree to producing these three minute videos, the one below is for Sinaloa, but hopefully the other couple of dozen or so will join in the fun. And really, these videos shouldn’t be confined to Mexico – they are fantastic tools to help bring in a little tourism.
Mexico City’s government has introduced a brand new eco friendly transport solution – the EcoBici. I hadn’t seen any of these bicycle stations till yesterday, but having seen one, I soon stumbled across another. And another. There are 47 stations in all. The system is a simple one. Buy a card and use it to release bikes from their moorings. Return bike to a station.
It sounds good, but I have a couple of reservations. For one, it’s not terribly cheap. Not expensive, but not cheap. And a lot of people in this city are excluded if something isn’t cheap. In fact a lot of people are excluded if it isn’t free. Secondly, the sort of people who do have the money are perhaps the sort of people who would turn their nose up at the idea – snobbery is alive and well in DF. If the authorities can’t convince a fairly sizable chunk of the population that the metro isn’t just for ‘poor people’…. but then I could be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I may yet get myself a card and use it.
The top banner isn’t the most important part of my blog, but I change the design now and again anyway. It keeps the site looking neat and, hopefully, attractive. I assumed I’d lost all my old banners as I’d replaced them, but I stumbled across a folder in Pacasa the other day and found all the old ones I’d had for Blogger. And a quick look in WordPress revealed the few I’ve had on this platform too. So a post for posterity…here’s all my old banners.
Every year I make the same post. For the same reason. The Jacaranda trees are blooming and painting a vivid splash of lavender across the grey of the city. It’;s dry. And warm. It’s my favourite time of year. 
I had no idea that Mexico City had two major zoos. I’ve been to Chapultepec Zoo, the more famous (by far) of the two and marvelled in a sarcastic way at the terribly cramped conditions that they keep their animals in. The Aragon zoo, I think, is a slightly better place, with more space. But it’s still not what a lion, elephant, giraffe or sealion could call ‘home’. But with the huge amount of parkland and playgrounds it is a kids paradise. And they were there in plentiful numbers, several of whom accosted me, demanding I speak English to them. I replied with a smile and ’Ich spreche Deutsch’ , and they departed, a little confused and disappointed. I might as well make my newfound German ’status’ work for me. And I allow myself one act of evil every day to balance out any acts of good I might do.
But anyway, the zoo. Yes, you could make a pleasant afternoon visit of the place. It’s free to get in and is very close to Metro Bosque de Aragon. I couldn’t find a suggestion box, but if you do, mention that the turtles are clearly not happy living in the puddle they’ve been provided with. Click here to see my photos. 
If you’re a tourist visiting Mexico, then chances are you’ve got at least a couple of old churches and cathedrals on your itinery. And no doubt you’ll pop into a few more that you happen past. But there is a church that is less frequented by tourists than others. Actually it is a temple, but to this non believer, they’re all the same. Churches, cathedrals, temples.
Non believer I might be (although others would use different adjectives, satanic being one of the milder ones), but I still like to pop inside a church or two now and again. They tend to be the grandest buildings in the neighbourhood. And the church I mentioned, the one that recieves so few visitors….well, it happens to be one of the grandest pieces of architecture of them all. In a modern way, anyway.
It’s the Church of JC and the Latter Day Saints main temple, in the north of the city, well out of the way of any stray, lost gringo. I had to make a special trip to get there, and consult a map to work out its exact whereabouts. It is, apparently, the biggest Mormon temple outside of the US, built in the mid 70’s and inspired heavily by Mayan and Aztec architectural influences.
They even have a visitor centre, which is sadly apart from the main temple which you cannot enter. As far as I know. But the visitor centre is worth popping into. Amidst displays of ‘family life’ a central theme of the church, there are a few nice statues and plenty of paintings of , as is usually the case with any religion, extreme violence, blood, guts and gore. Peace, after all, comes only after you kill all your enemies. We got it. They’re perfectly friendly and pleasant inside the visitor centre too, even if I did end up having a dual conversation with the lady who showed me round. One spoken, one kept diplomatically silent within my head.
Are you a member?
No, I’m not. (Because I’m not crazy, lady, that’s why)
If you’d like to wait for a few moments, I’ll give you the full guided tour in English!
I’m sorry, but I only have a few minutes, because I’ve got a class to go to. (Your mad brainwashing strategies wouldn’t work on me anyway lady, so forget about it)
Here’s a couple of booklets to give you some more information, and there’s the web address on the back….www.mormon.org
Ok, thanks very much! (Emergency toilet paper, huh. And what’s up with the web address….had someone already grabbed www.moron.org?)
And here are a selection of our bibles, traslated into lots of languages. What is your language? German?
No, English. (And the booklets are sufficient thanks – I can normally afford loo roll. But why am I getting mistaken for a German so much lately? That’s twice in a month. Have I subconsciously incorporated a bit of a goosestep into my walk? Have my waves for hello and goodbye gone all a little bit Zeig Heil?? )
Of course, I’m being unduly unkind. That’s just my way. It’s impossible to be a person who doesn’t believe in any of the organized religions currently on offer, and to not think those who do believe aren’t just a bit crazy. I mean – talking snakes, a god who is genocidal one moment, running around burying dinosaur bones as a prank the next. And don’t even get me started on the zombie part of the story. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find the history of religion fascinating, and that I can’t see the value of religion in society. Unlike the UK, where religion has become a past time (as in it belongs in the past) Mexico has some very glued together communities, and the bond is the church. And many people enjoy the lifestyle and peace of mind that they get from their religion. I’ve got no problem with that.
And besides, for as long as Scientology exists, there’s no branch of Christianity which will even threaten to be the craziest cult on the planet. Not even Pat Robertson and his cronies. To balance my unfairness, I will say that everyone in the LDS church were very polite, friendly, and dare I go so far as to say quite charming. It’s worth a visit, and the temple itself is a very impressive piece of architecture. I have photos….click here to see them.
And one last thing. A caveat. My brand of agnosticism rules out nothing. I freely acknowledge that anyone, supporting any religion, could be right. And I could be wrong. So don’t be offended! And don’t try and give me any ‘I told you so!’ nonsense in the afterlife! 
George Bush gets too much bad press you know. Blair too. Even Stalin and Hitler might feel they are a bit hard done by in history books. What about people like Michael E. Szymanczyk and Daniel M. Delen? Where’s the balance? These two are top of the tree in an industry that successfully achieves a holocaust a year. Well almost. What’s another couple of hundred thousand between friends….
This does seem to be taking something of a tangent away from Mexico, but let me explain. When I was back in the UK, I worked in retail. I managed petrol stations, which of course, sell cigarettes. The way they were marketed changed over the years, thanks to government legislation. First of all they banned the collectors cards that were put into packets. General advertising was next to be banished, completing the ban on television advertising of years before. Then they forced manufacturers to put large You Will Die A Horrible Death From A Multitude Of Nasty Tobacco Related Diseases type messages on the packets.
Next came the vocab the cigarette companies used. Words such as Mild, Extra, Ultra and Lights were out. Smokers had to buy according to the colour of the packet. And just before I left the UK for Mexico, the last refuge of the visible tobacco branding campaigns was taken from them too – the header unit of the cigarette gantry in stores. Since I left, the packets have also had grisly pictures added for further effect.
Has any of this worked? Well taxing the product did more to get people to quit. Raise prices, and some weak willed smokers will fall by the wayside. Providing you don’t increase prices so much that you stimulate the creation of a tobacco smuggling industry that actually then decreases the average price of a cigarette – congratulations to Mr Brown on that masterstoke. But still, making cigarettes appealing and ‘cool’ can’t be considered a good thing. Because, aimed at kids or not, it will appeal to them. This generation of smokers might be a lost cause, but no need to grab the next generation.
Unless you are a cigarette manufacturer. In which case the next generation, and the one after that, is the exact market you’re going for. Which brings me back to Mexico. What is considered good, responsible practice in Europe doesn’t apply legally to the rest of the world. A good, responsible company wouldn’t need to be legally bound though to put those ideas into practice to do so, though. Would it? Yes it would. Cigarette art is alive and well in Mexico. Cool new packet designs, gimmicky boxes and other eye catching ‘cool’ is put to good use. Yesterday I bought the special, and limited, edition Winter Warmer Camel cigarettes with their cool side slide opening carton. Because yes, despite my apparent anti smoking stance, I am a packet a day man.
Cigarette art is cool though, there’s no getting away from that. But when your product is a packet of death, you do perhaps need to put a little extra time, effort and money into the branding. I regularly look out for cool old tobacco art products in antique markets. It’s all just cool. But the fact remains, The good sirs at RJ Reynolds, Altria (aka Philip Morris) and others are still taking advantage of the law to entrap Mexican and other people elsewhere into their habit of choice.
I know, they’d disagree. They’d offer excuses of choice and possibly even a choice ’scientific’ document thats shows tobacco to be completely harmless. Which I’d give the same credence as I do Fox News reporters who claim Iraq is a great success, the Holocaust deniers who insist the 6 million disappeared Jews are fine and well, and the 21st century Russian historians who are repainting the rule of Uncle Joe as a golden era.
Another month is finished and another nine faces await your verdict. Hot or not? No, no, no…this is supposed to be about my talents, or lack of, regards photography! Anyway, click here to be whisked as if by magic to my photography blog where you can cast a vote for not one, not two, but three faces…
