What I really like about Cuba is that you can go into a local bar in a provincial town and you'll get jazz played at the highest standard - played often a cappella, or certainly with no amplification or whatever. Even if you are not knowledgeable about music, and I am not, you can find yourself really enjoying it.
John GimletteArgentina is really in a different category because they butchered all their Indian or indigenous people in the war of the desert in 1850s. Which sets them aside from their neighbors in a macabre way.
John GimlettePeople my age and younger do think much more towards Europe. We have to fill the gap sometime - we can't think we are an empire any longer after all.
John GimletteI slightly feel, having written Paraguay and Newfoundland - and both of them have developed eccentricities through isolation - I am quite relieved to be back in France and Germany, and I want people to enjoy these books for the writing and not because they feel they can laugh - some will laugh - at these eccentric places, that's not what I intend.
John Gimlette