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As mentioned in this post a few months ago, you can't escape The Beatles here. This evening, Mexico City's Tourist Office invited me to take part in a press conference announcing a series of upcoming Fab4 events: an exhibition, gigs by cover bands, a replica of the Cavern Club in the Zocalo, a Magical Mystery Tour… Bizarrely, it was held in an aquarium (cue renditions of Octopus's Garden and Yellow Submarine).
One of the guys on the panel was Ricardo Calderon who's been collecting Beatles paraphernalia since 1964 and now has one of the biggest collections in the world, some of which will form the exhibition which opens at the Soumaya Museum later this week. He's an annual visitor to the International Beatles Week in Liverpool. In fact, he's been so many times, bringing a posse of Mexican fans with him, that the Mayor bestowed on him the title of Honorary Ambassador to the City of Liverpool.
Farewell Chris (Fish) Squire, who died yesterday, aged 67, of a rare form of leukaemia - in Phoenix, just 'up the road' from me.
I don't mind admitting I was a Yes fan in the early-to-mid-70s, saw them twice, had all the albums, Roger Dean posters on the wall and greatly admired Squire's bass playing (and was once laughed at for saying so by a Glenn Matlock fan). I even had Squire's 1975 Fish Out of Water solo album and am playing it as I write this. He appeared on every single Yes studio album, the only one to do so.
Never mind page three and Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster, Britain's tabloids have got nothing on the Mexican red tops (prensa roja). There's not a day goes by without either a dead male body or a naked female one on Mexico's tabloid front pages. Sometimes you get both, like this one today, which is relatively mild compared to others I've seen on the newsstands. The former is almost always a drug-related crime, usually a shot to the head but sometimes worse. There's another tabloid called Grafica which is more or less the same, and another, El Nuevo Alarma!, which deals only in crime. Not even naked women.
To the hospital again to swap N's temporary caste for a something more rigid. Ingenious new material. Soft underlying bandage as normal, then thick, multicoloured sticky tape which once wound round went completely solid. And you can get it wet, have a shower, even swim - though I don't think she'll be doing that for a while… The bad news is that it's got to stay on for six weeks.
A day trip to Monterrey, 800kms north, not far from the US border, population around 4m.
On our way into town from the airport the first thing that strikes you are the mountains which come right up to the city (or the city comes right up to them), including The Saddle seen here. Stopped off at the Consulate (which w share with Canada) then into the foothills to the house of Liliana Melo de Sada, a wealthy patron of the arts. And what a house. It looked like a 17th Century English country pile chocabloc of antique furniture, paintings covering every inch of wall space, a trophy room… but learnt that it was built just 32 years ago. Anyway, nice lady, good meeting about a couple of dance projects, and always interesting to see how the other half live.
In the afternoon we visited the 100 year old Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza de Monterrey which will be the venue for one of the projects, and then MARCO, the city's big contemporary art museum. Great building designed by Ricardo Legoretta and two interesting exhibitions: American graphic designer Lance Wyman (which I already saw at MUAC in Mexico City) and a big one on Stanley Kubrick which made me want to see his films all over again. But it was the building that really did it for me.
This morning we announced the UK programme for FIL (Feria Internacional del Libro) at a packed press conference in the Museo Tamayo. 150 writers, academics, publishers and artists; nine nights of music & dance; science, children's & gastronomic programmes; three exhibitions; a film festival; and a whopping great pavilion.
Too many names to list here but the writers include Irvine Welsh, Jeanette Winterson, Philippa Gregory, Andrew Motion; numerous professors inc Alan Knight and Paul Garner; Random Dance Company, Jazz Jamaica; Aurora Orchestra; indie hand Spector, a folk night from all four home countries; exhibitions by Davids Hockney & Shrigley; nine independent films; Shaun the Sheep etc etc. For full list (feel, the 80% that's so far confirmed), see here.
This evening we attended a graduation ceremony to mark the end of the school year, or rather N and her peers' end of primary school. That's both childhoods nearly over. End of an era. It was quite well done with school orchestra, songs, dancing and certificates. Seems like yesterday that she started primary in Bangkok.
