Ninety degrees in the shade

Posted on April 30, 2009 by bobpiper

Ninety degrees in the shade in Havana, and tomorrow we are going to join the one-million strong trade union May Day celebrations in Plaza de la Revolution. A good hat may be necessary to prevent the sun frying my thinning bonce… but I don´t think I´ll be able to do anything about the hooter. Why is it that a piece of your body, half inch or so closer to the sun, some 96 million miles away, should suffer so badly?
Given the close proximity to Mexico… and the influx in foreign visitors for May day, perhaps I´d do better to cover my nose altogether….
Watched the Arsenal v ManUre match on TV in the Cuba Libre Hotel with a bar full of Cuban ManUre fans. Still, theyvé probably been to Old Trafford as often as most of their ardent ´fans´in the UK.

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20 Responses to Ninety degrees in the shade

  1. John Lilburne says:
    May 1, 2009 at 12:07 pm

    You can’t beat a broad-brimmed hat to keep your nose the correct colour. Down here in the Aussie tropics (aka skin cancer central) they are essential in both sunny and wet weather.
    A flu specialist on the radio here said you’ll be fine as long as you’re at least a yard away from an infected person as the virus is sneeze-borne…oh wait, one million people all squeezed into the plaza…sounds like a face mask will cover both sun burn and flu worries :)

    Reply
  2. David Duff says:
    May 1, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    Do try and spare a moment to hold a demo outside Havana’s jail in support of all Castro’s political prisoners.

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  3. Bob says:
    May 1, 2009 at 8:57 pm

    Do you want me to go up the hill to give a wave to all those political prisoners on the island being tortured by your American friends too?

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  4. Chris Baldwin says:
    May 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm

    “Do try and spare a moment to hold a demo outside Havana’s jail in support of all Castro’s political prisoners.”
    I’ve never really been into the whole Cuba ‘thing’, but if I’d known going there annoyed reactionaries this much I’d have ordered my plane ticket ages ago.

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  5. David Duff says:
    May 2, 2009 at 7:59 am

    Well, at least it would show consistency.

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  6. Bob says:
    May 5, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    Duffers, I have given up scanning through your blog looking for some criticism of the US torture regime in Guantanamo – still being defended by the despicable Condi Rice – and no doubt considered perfectly acceptable by you. Extraordinary rendition, Abu Grahib… have you just not had time to fit in all the consistency’you wanted to?

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  7. David Duff says:
    May 7, 2009 at 8:13 am

    There was no torture in Gitmo, that’s why.

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  8. Bob says:
    May 7, 2009 at 3:39 pm

    Yea, yea, yea. And there was no holocaust either. Do you still beleve in the tooth fairy too Duffers? And even if your assertion were true it would hardly explain your craven silence over the other instances.

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  9. David O'Keefe says:
    May 7, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    Clearly denial is not just a river in Egypt.
    Duff, this black and white view of the world of yours is leading you up one hell of a primrose path. Sod it, I’ll join you, the real world is a litle bit grey for my liking, damn liberal, lefties, commies, pinkos, do-gooders they ruined everything.

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  10. David Duff says:
    May 8, 2009 at 8:22 am

    Perhaps one of the greatest and most consistent examples of torture is the torture of words, like, er, ‘torture’. Melting someone’s eyeball with a blowtorch is torture. Stripping people, keeping them awake, cold and hungry, dousing them with water, keeping them in confined spaces along with their least favourite creepie-crawlies, is not torture, because after a hot meal and a sleep they are fully recovered. Servicemen volunteer to undergo this sort of treatment as part of their training.
    Stop being so feeble, Councillor, you’re so wet you sound as though you have been water-boarded!

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  11. Bob says:
    May 8, 2009 at 8:55 pm

    Once again David Duff shows his blatant hypocrisy in support of his ‘friend’ George W Bush. Don’t woory, Duffy, it is a long line of hypocrisy, which predates you and the man who executed his way to the Oval Office. Who dropped the first Atom bomb on civilians, sprayed Vietnamese peasants with chemical weapons leaving survivors and their relatives horribly mutilated generations later, funded death squads in Salvador and Nicaragua, even admitted ‘toture’ (despite your usual weasel words) in Iraq.
    The common factor, of course, is that these actions were carried out by the mightiest military force in history, not against ‘servicemen trained to resist it’ but against innocent civilans. The Cubans need to fear no criticism from snivelling quislings like you who overlook torture when it suits them, and dish out praise to the likes of the idiot Bush.

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  12. David Duff says:
    May 8, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    I don’t know what they put in the tequila in Cuba but you should have a care, Councillor, you see, if you re-read carefully everything I have written you will not see so much as a mention of that four-letter word ‘Bush’, so what on earth you are raving about I do not know.
    Let us summarise: you claim there was torture at Gitmo. I tell you that from the published information so far, nothing was done that is not done regularly to American (and British) servicemen who volunteer for it. That would, I think, lead the average man on a Clapham omnibus to assume that it was not ‘torture’ in the accepted sense of the word. Of course, I understand, and sympathise, that average men on omnibuses in ‘Burmingum’ might think differently, when they bother to think at all, that is.
    PS: Why are lefties so excitable? Discuss.
    PSS: Mr. O’Keefe, you deserve a bit of ‘walling’ for that terrible ‘denial’ joke. Is that the sort of thing that has them rolling in the aisles down at the local Labour club?

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  13. Bob says:
    May 10, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    Clearly the early onset dementia (although, not so early in your case) means you have forgotten your glorious tribute to the idiot Bush when the chimp left office. I haven’t.
    Your geography is pretty poor too. Sandwell isn’t in Birmingham. Try again. But I suspect the people of Sandwell, Birmingham and most other places would agree that the CIA reports of what the US did in Guantanamo (against innocent people) constituted torture. It’s just a shame your blind prejudice and stupidity allows you to condone it, and even make lame jokes about torture techniques. But why am I not surprised?

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  14. David Duff says:
    May 10, 2009 at 5:02 pm

    Everything north of the M4 is ‘Burmingum’!

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  15. newmania says:
    May 10, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    Who is paying for this jolly then ?

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  16. Bob Gom says:
    May 10, 2009 at 10:00 pm

    A curious definition of torture David Duff has. I was looking at the United Nations Convention Against Torture but I must have missed the bit which says that it is not torture if similar methods are carried out on voluntary servicemen.

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  17. Bryn says:
    May 11, 2009 at 6:22 pm

    Interestingly enough, rape could pass this ‘after a hot meal and a sleep they are fully recovered’ torture-or-not test. No doubt the sick puppy will be along soon explaining how it’s only rape if it causes physical injury.

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  18. Bob says:
    May 11, 2009 at 10:40 pm

    newmania, sorry to disappoint you, but I am, and how I choose to spend my money is none of your friggin’ business, actually.

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  19. David Duff says:
    May 12, 2009 at 2:19 pm

    Come on, ‘Bob Gom’, do tell us, how many people do you know who would volunteer to be tortured?

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  20. Bryn says:
    May 13, 2009 at 9:28 am

    New doublethink just in: “Coercion is volition.”

    Reply