Cuba: part 1

So, there's a photo everyone who goes to Cuba takes, but it's still good, so here it is.

The mural's in Havana's Plaza de la Revolucion, which was baking hot, particularly on the huge mass of flat concrete which lies at its heart. You can walk into the middle of it and no one will follow you, and suddenly you're free from the jockeying of the jineteros. The guy on the mural is called Ernesto, who's a national hero because he smoked cigars, despite being asthamatic.

As a fellow sufferer, I tried to follow his lead. A few days earlier we got a guided tour of one of the city's biggest tobacco factories, in concurrent - actually, almost simultaneous - Spanish and English.

They make these rather unappetizing looking items -

- which, of course, look way better once you've stuck the label on and sparked one up.

Back to the Plaza, though. Facing the Che mural is an enormous statue of poet, writer and campaigner for national independence José Martí, who was far uglier than Mr Guevara, but was at least Cuban. Sarah and I wanted to go to the top of his tower, but the lift was broken, or closed, or something. So it goes.

Our host in Havana was Chris, and towards the end of the trip, wandering round the Necropolis Colón, the pair of us imagined a TV series involving the Cuban hero travelling through time, with Christopher Lloyd shouting, "Martíííííííí" a lot. But the project stalled when we realised not many Cubans will have seen the Back to the Future films, and not many Back to the Future fans will know who José Martí is. And then this rather unnerving sight made me think of other, darker film franchises.

Monster raving

They're back! Yes, like the Wispa, Roast Beef flavour Monster Munch have returned to the shop shelves, and not even Iceland's theft of my savings is enough to stop me getting my hands on a packet.*

To my mother, who once famously denounced this particular flavour as "tasting like cardboard", I would say this: never has cardboard tasted so good!

* Say what you like, but The Electric Goose can never be accused of ignoring the big issues.

Form an orderly Cuba

Oh, yeah, so I guess I didn't mention I was going away to Cuba. Sorry, but I didn't want you to discover my flat was going to be empty for two weeks then break in and steal my stuff. Anyway, I'm back in place, having had a most excellent time. An indecent number of photographs will follow. I'm not sure a detailed write-up is on the cards; I ended up forgoing cultural notetaking in favour of blitzing that big pile of lit and drinking mojitos.

Cuba: holiday reading

BOOKS. LOTS OF BOOKS.

Voyage to the End of the Road

Had a lovely time at the End of the Road festival in Dorset at the weekend. Cider, cigs and silliness, plus music in the form of The Young Republic (fantastically raucous cover of Dylan's 'Isis', did THREE sets), Laura Marling (overcame the Big Top's rubbish sound and only being, what, five years old to play a storming set, if you're allowed to call folk "storming", although I guess the heavens had just opened so it sort of works), Jeffrey Lewis (I was standing in a puddle in a ditch behind a very tall man, but still bought his album as soon as I got home), Kimya Dawson (so cutesy, she's capable of making very cute bunny wabbits look, um, very uncute), The Wave Pictures (really fantastic and, wow, David Tattersall's guitar-playing is as clever and inventive as his lyrics, which is to say very clever and inventive indeed), Bon Iver (made me like the album, which I was previously a bit iffy about, so tres Bon, hyuk hyuk), Mercury Rev (epic, camp, hard to understand when you've just swallowed a gallon of cider), Devon Sproule (not quite as interesting as her name would suggest), Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band (my feelings about this are to complicated to be explained in parentheses, but I both loved and hated it), Noah and the Whale (the sun was out, they're in the charts, it was fun), A Hawk and A Hacksaw (only caught a couple of songs, but suitably confusing), Richard Hawley (his usual mesmerising self, and started his set, brilliantly, with the line, "Okay, let's ballad."), Calexico (surprisingly danceable Sunday night headline action), and, finally, Zombie Zombie (seemed to play just one song lasting 45 minutes, but with much pizzazz and yelping).

But that's just me. Luke, who fed us some Jagermeister when we were flagging, has penned a nice write-up here.

Visually, this:

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