Living on an Island

I've always loved islands. When you holiday on them, you feel like your everyday life can't creep up and touch you. Big ones, small ones-I've had my best holidays on them. I even came up with a list of my personal 'top ten' islands from the few that I've been lucky enough to visit, while I was trying (unsuccessfully) to get to sleep the other night. My list is as follows:-

1st place Sardinia, Italy Great people, great food, great beaches

2nd place Ischia, Italy Thermal paradise

3rd place Tavewa, Fiji Can the sea REALLY be that colour?

4th place Gili Trawangen, Lombok, Indonesia Don't tell everyone how lovely it is

5th place Margherita, Venezuela Caribbean beaches at a fraction of the cost

6th place Flores, Indonesia Unbelievable coral reef but look out for the dragons

7th place Tioman Island, Malaysia What a rain forest

8th place Venice, Italy Does it qualify as an island? Hope so

9th place The Whitsundays, Australia First world plumbing with wild third world landscape

10th place Curacao, Caribbean I've never seen so many stars in the sky anywhere else


On an island I always feel safe. That's why I'm happy with our new home in Calle Copernico in the Recoletta area of the Buenos Aires. First of all, it's one of the most elegant and select parts of the whole city. What's more, the area immediately surrounding our house is known locally as la isla (the island) because it's peaceful and free from traffic and chaos, kind of like being in the eye of a storm. We're surrounded by embassies-the British one's about 150 metres away and I can see the Union Jack fluttering in the Embassador's garden when I pass to go running in the park. Makes me feel at home.

People say that there's less crime here that in the rest of the city, but time will tell. We're practically next door to the headquarters of the Argentinian Secret Services, so if security isn't tight here it won't be tight anywhere!

Truth is that this house is genuinely beautiful. What's more it's costing us little more that what we're getting for renting out our home on Italy. How is this possible? Well, after the 2002 financial crash in Argentina the peso lost a lot of its value, meaning that people like us who pay in Euros or dollars get better deals. In 2001, 1 peso was equal to 1 dollar and the city was very, very expensive, even for europeans. Today, 1 dollar equals 3.42 pesos. Back in 2001 it would have been impossible for us to afford a flat like this.

So we're benefitting from the financial crisis, whilst the poor street cartoneros, who I see working away whilst I'm sipping a cold beer up on my balcony, are still suffering the consequences of the same event. Many of these cartoneros worked in 'normal' jobs until the 2002 meltdown, and now the only way they have to make a living is by looking through everyone's household rubbish when it's put out on the street each evening to find cardboard and paper, which they then sell for a small sum to a middleman, who then sells it on to recycling plants. This is why they are called cartoneros. It pays very little, 5 or 6 dollars a day, but its enough for them to live on.

The poor cartoneros seem to have a social position similar to that of the untouchables in India. No-one wants to associate with them, and people seem to ignore their very existance. They even have their own trains to carry them from exclusive areas like mine to the poor suburbs where they live each night. These trains are provided because other citizens don't like having to put up with the smell of them. I suppose that a person who's spent 10 hours in 30 degree temperatures wading through rubbish skips does whiff a bit.

One of the interesting aspects of the architecture of our house is a kind of 'upstairs-downstairs' arrangement to the rooms. We're on the 9th and final floor of the building, and there are two lifts, one for us and the other is known as 'the service lift'. It was designed to be used by the servants and opens onto the kitchen, whereas the 'residents' lift opens onto the sitting room. The door between the sitting room and the kitchen is disguised to look like a continuation of the wall, thereby making the kitchen invisible from the 'residential' sections of the apartment. The kitchen was designed to be totally separate from the rest of the house, very different from modern European and North American homes in which the kitchen is the life and soul of the house.

We like to think that we're more 'modern', so we use the 'service lift' with pride, and I'm writing this blog on my computer, which has a permanent home in the room originally designed for the servants to sleep in.

What with servants entrances and untouchable cartoneros, the place seems even worse than Britain for class-consciousness. In fact, it brings to mind a saying that many visitors to Argentina are told by Argentinians themselves. The saying is that "The Argentinians are Italians who speak Spanish but would like to be English". Maybe this desire to be English is reflected in their class-consciousness? Indeed, a lot of South Americans from other nations think of them as snobs, in the way that many people thought (think?) that the British were (are?).

I still haven't worked out whether the British are respected or hated here. While we travel around the city in taxis, speaking Italian, it seems that almost every taxi driver says in Spanish "My mother comes from Italy!" Indeed, the Italians seem to be very popular here and people have in idealised image of Italy as a nation. They often assume that I'm Italian as well. At first I used to always say "No, I'm from England". This clarification was normally greeted by an awkward silence, following which my interlocutor would turn to Daniela and continue praising Italy and the Italians.

OK, so I got fed up with this and started to say "We're here from Italy", which is kind of true, because we normally live there. I didn't actually say that I was Italian, just that we lived there. This ploy worked well for some time, until an awkward incident at the local laundry which I'll now explain.

Daniela had previously dropped off our dirty clothes there, and when I went to pick them up the worker assumed that I was Italian. I must confess that I went along with this, if only because in Italy everyone knows instantly from my accent that I'm English and it was a novelty to be able to pretend. However, things started to go wrong when they changed the conversation, finished saying how much they loved the Italians and had so much in common, and went on to how much they hated the English. They still thought I was Italian and now I'm worried that they'll find out that I'm really English and cause a thaw in our relationship. It would be a shame because it's the only place in town that manages to clean Sophia's bibs well.

Still, my ego did receive a timely boost later the same day. For years my Italian friends and students have pulled my leg about how I maintain such a strong English accent when I speak Italian. I went to the bank to change some money and chatted with the bank clerk. She asked me for my passport and expressed great surprise on reading that I was British. ".....but you speak Castillano with an Italian accent!" she added, refusing to believe that I was English. I left the bank with my sense of identity extremely confused but happier that ever about my Italian language skills!

Please Sir, can I have some more?

Yesterday in Buenos Aires there was yet another mass demonstration which attracted gunfire from the massed ranks of police present and brought the afternoon traffic to a standstill. The name of the demonstration caught my attention instantly...'The Hunger March'. Thousands of trade union activists, social organisations and groups from far-flung corners of Argentina came together in the centre of the city, waving banners carrying phrases such as 'Hunger is a Crime' and 'Every child needs food and clean drinking water'.

Now in europe I'm more used to trade unionists marching because they are concerned that their members might loose their jobs, or because they need a pay rise to maintain their standard of living. But neither in the UK nor Italy can I remember a trade union demonstration that had such a striking objective: to raise awareness that millions of Argentinians workers couldn't even feed their families.

But was this rhetoric or fact? In a country in which many people are unemployed, surely it is they, the unemployed, who really have difficulty in making ends meet. Surely not those in paid employment, these marching trade unionists? Was this yet another attempt by an interest group to exaggerate the extent of a problem, in order to score political points?

Well, yesterday Argentina's President, Cristina Kirchner, announced a new policy. She was going to reduce the tax burden for Argentina's high-earners, those who earn above 7,000 pesos per month (about €1,600). In doing so, she hoped to stimulate the countries struggling economy and get these people spending again.

Whilst left-leaning, Cristina's newest policy appears to be extremely pragmatic, especially if many of the countries workers really are struggling against famine. To understand their situation we need to look at how much your average Argentinian worker earns, and analyse food costs as well.

An unskilled, full-time worker in Buenos Aires earns about 1,500/1,700 pesos per month (€340/385). If this worker lives in the poor suburbs of the city, pays a rent and has two young children, then they would probably have the following expenses:-

Rent 300 pesos
Clothes and essential furniture/household items 150 pesos
Transport (bus tickets) 50 pesos
Energy costs (heating, electricity, gas) 100 pesos

These costs leave low paid workers about 900 pesos (€200) per month to feed their families. But what can you buy in Argentina for 900 pesos?

I visited a mid-range supermarket in Nunes, a barrio of the city which is neither rich, nor poor. There I wanted to see what our hypothetical Argentinian working family of four could buy with their weekly, 210 peso food budget.

I was instantly amazed to see that the prices of foods in the supermarket were at least equal to those in Italy, if not superior. A litre of milk cost 3 pesos, a bottle of drinking water the same. Remember that in many parts of Argentina tap water isn't drinkable. A loaf of bread 5 pesos. A basic frozen pizza was a real luxury at 15 pesos. Steak an impossibility at 15-20 pesos for a decent joint (in Argentina!!).

That night as I ate my 15-peso-luxury frozen pizza and watched Newell's Old Boys against Racing Club on TV, I realised that in our hypotheticial, low-paid, working Argentinian family I was eating a third of my weekly food budget! Three pizzas a week is certainly a starvation diet, and suggests that the marchers weren't axaggerating when they said that Argentinians couldn't afford to feed their families.

Probably the clearest insight into the problem of hunger here was provided whilst I was leaving the supermarket itself. A security guard came up next to me and started shouting at a young girl, who must have been no older that 10, who was standing close to my trolley. The child went away, and the guard informed me that the girl had been planning to rob me. But planning on stealing what? I had no wallet, no mobile phone nor expensive gadgets on me. I had been warned about going out looking like a rich european and had intentionally 'dressed down'. "No, She wanted to take the food from your trolley" the guard replied. Her parents had sent her out to get food knowing that, being a child, she couldn't be prosecuted if caught.

Maybe Cristina Kirchner should be concentrating her thoughts on other matters than tax breaks for Argentina's high-earners.

Buenos Aires Floods

During a sudden heavy rainstorm on the 29th November the streets became flooded...watch the results!

One for the Road, Please

Here in B.A. we've been using the city's taxis to get around. Whilst driving along the Avenida Libertadores I've rediscovered my previously lapsed Catholicism, praying desperately as I wince at our taxi driver's courageous overtaking and try to ignore various HGVs speeding towards us in the middle of the road.


To tell you the truth, I've seriously considered drinking something strong before taking a cab, but my general sense of Brit just arrived in south-america paranoia has prevented me from doing so. However, I'm sure that if I was tanked up with something strong I'd maybe even quite enjoy the trip. As it is, it's a nerve-racking, white-knuckle ride.


Apparently, according to yesterday's cabbie, B.A. is one of the world's main centres of psychoanalysis. A famous psychologist once said that you could analyse peoples' minds by how they drove. I'm sure that's true, and what's more I'm sure that you can judge a society by how it drives. Do you want to see some examples?


Well, let's start with the Brits. They are really obedient, obeying the rules 100% of the time and maintaining their lane discipline. You get the feeling that they'd love to do something daring, break a rule here and there, but they only bring themselves to do it if they're on a motorway relatively free of traffic. If someone does break the rules, however, thereby going off programme, they are considered fair game and, in the case of pedestrians who cross unexpectedly far from pedestrian crossings, will even be mowed over by unrepentant drivers. "Serves them right" you can hear the drivers say, "should have obeyed the rules!".

It's like something deep down inside the British driver hates having to be so obedient, and when he (or she) sees someone breaking the rules the resulting sense of jealousy prevokes a desire to see the rule-breaker punished.

Now the Italians. Boy oh boy, I could write a book about Italian drivers.

First of all, for them driving is a way of letting off steam in the way that heavy drinking is for the Brits. So otherwise civilised, mature, responsible people (yes, both men and women) will act in otherwise impossible ways when they are behind the wheel of a car, and other people will make excuses for them! The British "Oh, he was drunk. He's not normally violent" is echoed by the Italian "Oh, it was a really fast car. He didn't mean to run into that young family at the pedestrian crossing. He loves kids!"


In Italy, women run the home and for men, the only place to let off steam in an increasingly frustrating world is on the road. The faster a man drives the more courage he is seen to have, although I suspect that the more accurate rule that the faster he drives, the smaller is his primary sexual organ.

So. on to Argentina. I can't claim to understand the nation's psyche, but I have spent the last two weeks being driven around B.A. Maybe I can understand certain aspects of their mentality from my on-the-road observations? Let me make some suggestions, which I'll then be able to test against my future experiences.

First of all, they don't consider it risky to drive close to the car in front. This isn't the Italian "Drive faster of get out of the way". No, it's less aggressive. It's more of a "Look, I'm here. Whatever you do, you need to take me into consideration". Is this the south american inferiority complex at work? "Yes, we are tucked away down there, but you must take notice of us!".

Secondly, they seem to demonstrate more lane discipline than the Italians, but then incredibly, as if there was a form of common unconscious linking them all, simultaneously cut the same corner allowing a matter of inches to be left free between each vehicle whilst travelling at high speed-kind of like the red arrows. Here they seem to be less individualistic than the Italians, instead able to work as a team. The resulting order isn't anal like the British one. After all, they are breaking the rules but, significantly, they're all breaking the rules in exactly the same way and in perfect harmony. Strange, but true. Think it'll take me at least five years here to work that one out!

Finally, they seem to have a sense of devine destiny which Italians had in their rural, Catholic, poor past and Brits had until we stopped going off to fight wars but seem to be losing in our urban peace-time present. For example, in B.A. it seems that at most crossroads the rule is this; he who arrives first, passes. This rule seems to apply irrespective of the road markings.


This rule, inevitably, leads to accidents. Indeed, our taxi was involved in one the other day in which thankfully no-one was hurt. We arrived at a crossroads, and both our taxi driver and the driver of the car arriving from our left believed to have arrived first. They both continued and inevitably collided, slowing to only about 20mph at the moment of contact.

I think it'll be safer if we buy our own car.

My handsome Sammy, Cornwall, November 2008

Beautiful Cornwall during a storm, November 2008

Computer viruses and knife crime on the streets of Buenos Aires

Well hello there everyone, from sunny 1586 Avenida Roosvelt, Buenos Aires. Here we've just about survived our first week in the Argentinian capital. It's been hard going at times but we've made it through.

Not that it's been a week without its fair share of challanges and problems, I'll have you know. First of all, my computer refused to allow itself to be connected to the internet. I shouted at it, told it to stop being so euro-centric and get used to working in South America, but all to no avail. I was unable to make Skype calls for three days or use the net to search for a flat. Finally, I was put onto Roque, a smiling, highly skilled Argentinian I.T. technician who solved my connection problems. Whilst Roque was working away, he cheerfully asked me if he could be excused for a moment and off he went to the bathroom, situated next to the computer room. Next of all I heard the sound of vomiting, before about five minutes later my brave technician emerged, smiling broadly as if he was fine. Typically English, I tried to make out that I hadn't heard a thing. Five minutes later he asked to be excused once again, there was yet more violent puking in the bathroom and my courageous technician emerged,, this time allowing himself to mention that he 'must have eaten something bad' that morning.

Still, he solved the computer problem and as I waved him goodbye, I was left to reflect that these Argentinians must be a tough breed. I returned to the bathroom and started cleaning the floor and putting bleach down the loo. Then I noticed my sixteen-month old daughter Sophia typing away playfully on the computer keyboard. Now, I didn't want to risk her facing the same fate as Roque so I picked her up and whisked her off to clean those little fingers for about ten minutes. If she'd picked up food poisoning from the keys it would have been a new form of computer virus.

I received further proof of Argentinians' toilet habits being different those of Italians the next day, whilst I was eating lunch in the Belgrano area. Looking out of the large glass windows of the 'Ramsey' cafe, I noticed a man who had just stopped directly in front of a large potted plant standing on the pavement. There, in broad daylight, he dropped his trousers and had a pee against the plant (I think it was a pine, but I'm not sure). Then, he did up his trousers and waited obediently alongside other people at the traffic lights for his turn to cross the road. None of the other pedestrians noticing his behaviour even gave him a second glance, suggesting that this is normal behaviour. Kind of like any English town centre after 11pm.

It's hard not to notice the giant security bars covering people's front doors and windows. They suggest that crime is a big problem here. Indeed, the TV is full of news about violent goings on, and people have advised us against choosing a flat of house on the ground floor because it's easier for robbers to get in. We've taken to 'dressing down' when we go out (much easier for me than for Daniela) and carrying as little money as possible (again much easier for me than for Daniela). It seems that there is a massive difference between rich and poor (see photo, above) without the sizeable middle class which we have in Europe.

Notwithstanding the dangers outside on the streets, its our humble little kitchen that has been the scene of this week's 'bloodbath'. When we first moved in, I found myself attracted to the enormous carving knife in the kitchen, probably provided for guests to cut those enormous Argentinian steaks. Whilst chopping an onion I cut off part of my thumb, which would have needed hospital treatment had we not yet organised our private health care insurance and had I not been afraid of going to an Argentina state hospital without being able to speak any Spanish. Daniela told me I was stupid and should have been more careful.

Now, when you love someone you should never rejoice in their suffering so I feel very humble when I admit that I did feel just a little sense of justification the following night when Daniela's efforts at chopping a tomato were swiftly followed by a chain of Italian swear words. Yes, the carving knife had claimed its second victim of the week.

The kitchen struck again whilst I was closing one of the drawers under the sink, only to find that it had a sharp metal lip which gave me one of those cuts on my hand like books can give you-almost invisible but very painful.

I was now becoming extremely paranoid every time that Sophia got near the kitchen, so Daniela, sensing this, sent me to the chemist's to stock up on plasters and antiseptic cream. Wise investments, judging by our first days in the kitchen.

By the way, last night the kitchen struck yet again. Unfortunately, the hot water boiler heats the water in an exaggarated manner and if you're not careful it can burn. Daniela found this out the hard way last night when water spilled on her big toa to treat the resulting burn with ice from the freezer.

From Buenos Aires, have a nice weekend. And if you're planning on doing anything in the kitchen, be careful.