The Mexile

I read a funny gag on the differences between British blokes and American chaps the other day. The gist was, an American will always big up his friends when introducing them. “Hey, meet Brian. Great guy, graduated from such and such university, really smart guy, you’ll love him. I’ve known him forever, has a great job etc etc.” The Brit? “Have you met Dave? Here he comes…Dave the nonce!” It’s funny, because it’s true.   True in that, these are noticeable cultural differences. Not that Dave is a nonce. We can tell he’s not a nonce, because he’s got friends. British blokes don’t have nonce friends. Brian, on the other had, could be a raging nonce on the Epstein list, with a dozen photos of him having baths with minors knocking around the interweb, and he’d still get a great intro. And that, weirdly, is another cultural differences between Brits and Yanks. I have some true stories about nonces. I’ve come across a couple of them. I can tell you two things. One, you don’t have to be ...

I left Mexico 15 years ago last week. That blows my mind. It seems like…well, maybe not yesterday. But not 15 years ago. I don’t keep in touch with many of my Mexican friends, I’m sorry to say. I guess life is too busy here to worry about there. I do have an annual-ish catch up with Daniel , a former student. He worked for a plastics company that I gave classes to on Wednesdays and Fridays, 7am to 9am. It was one of the first classes I ever had, and it lasted till the week I left. There were usually about five or six in the class. Daniel was about my age. A couple of years older. We would go out mid class for a smoke together. And we both kept turtles. When I left, I gave him four of mine, including Bob, my favourite. Once a year, more or less, we’d have an online chat. And on my two visits back to CDMX, we met up for breakfast, along with Maria Elena. She was also in the class. They lived near each other and drove in to work together. One time he messaged to let me know Bob had been k...

I’ve just spent a total of five nights in Bangkok, and my verdict is this - I overstayed by three nights. I wrote a disparaging post on Threads about the city, which got me a lot of hate from the Bangkok Massive. But I stand by it. The city is much like Jakarta (or many other overpopulated Asian mega cities) but with temples and a mountain of litter. It’s worth little more than 24 hours of your time. First night, go see China Town. Next day, see Wat Arun, cross the river and tour the Grand Palace and finish off with an evening in Khaosan Road. Take in an overpriced Mauy Thai fight or a Ladyboy cabaret if you must. Flee Bangkok the next morning. The floating market and train street tours are shit. There are other fabulous temples, and the temples are all fabulous, but temple fatigue is real and it sets in quickly. Once you’ve seen one…you know how this goes. And if you’ve taken my advice and seen Wat Arun and the Golden Palace, then you’ve seen the best and it’s all downhill from there...