Rail Tales - Adventures on Public Transport

YOU know, I’m no weirdo… but I sure do seem to attract them.

I can be sat on a train or bus with maybe a hundred MILLION seats available around me and the weirdo will always walk up, sit opposite me, and engage me in some form of nonsensical conversation.

Because I’m just too nice to be rude I always seem to let them talk. And the next thing I know 40 minutes has passed, we know each other’s names, and I think I’m beginning to smell like he does.

Ahhh… public transport. Don’t you just love it?!

Stripped back to its essential purpose it provides the same thing all over the world – the place where every weirdo in town hangs out.

Whether it’s actually on the bus, train or tram, or indeed at the bus, train or tram station, these areas are the unofficial homes of the strange sorts who drift through day and night just being, well… weird.

If they’re actually on the public transport they’re in transit, and so provide almost a travelling entertainment show.

Every city’s the same. And believe me when I say that San Diego, situated right next door to TJ, is no different.

I crossed the border last week for a series of secret squirrel meetings - which sadly I can’t talk about right now.

Anyhow to get to Fashion Valley, where the meeting was taking place, I had to get the ‘trolley’ which – by UK definition – is an over-ground train.

The trolley took over an hour to get to the valley stopping at various industrial and residential areas, and Down Town.

And I knew, as soon as I stepped foot on it, I would be ‘entertained’ shall we say.

For someone like me getting a seat on public transport is like playing Russian roulette with an equally sinister possible eventuality.

Do I choose to sit next to the fairly sane-looking woman reading the newspaper whose hair is slightly mad-looking?

Or how about the guy staring out the window seemingly minding his own business, whose hand is rather worryingly close to his groin.

Hand placement debatable...

Hmmm… next carriage then.

I’m never sure whether the guy I sit next to will ask me for directions, or pee on me.

(For the record the latter hasn’t happened yet but we all know it’s only a matter on time…).

In any case the bottom line is if something strange is going to happen to you in your day, you can bet your bottom dollar it will happen on public transport.

On this particular day last week I jumped on the trolley, briefly forgetting the risks.

About five minutes in I looked up thinking ‘is that guy to the left of me staring at me?’

Sure enough he was.

He must have been little over 25 but the crazed focus and greyness of his tired eyes told me he had experienced far more in life than a young man should.

He didn’t engage me in conversation. He simply stared and made noises. Very LOUD noises.

He gargled, he whooped, he giggled, bleeted and barked, and he made bird noises – oh, and he muttered the occasional swear word.

All the time, staring.

Needless to say I switched carriages at the next stop.

The next carriage seemed okay at first. The seat next to me was free so I had a moment of relaxation.

And then the wire-framed black guy sitting opposite piped up ‘you look like a guy who knows about style…’

‘And you look, and smell, like a guy who just soiled himself…’ I thought.

Oh god. Can everyone just leave me alone, I pleaded in my head.

The icing on the cake came when, at the next stop, a guy jumped on board and asked to have the spare seat next to me.

He seemed okay and perfectly sane at first. But I soon realized he had some sort of facial skin complaint, which meant he couldn’t help but scratch himself.

Oh, and he really REALLY smelt of fish.

Did he have serious issues with his body odour? Or did he actually work in a fish market? Unsure. But I definitely wasn’t going to ask him.

The worst part was that this day was a particularly balmy 32 degrees. Everyone was sweating – including the fish guy.

And – whether on purpose or not – he proceeded to over-enthusiastically rub his sweaty arm and shoulder on me with every turn of the track.

What do you do?! Do you ask him to stop even though he might not actually know what he’s doing? Or do you let him continue with the thought in mind that this is now some sort of homo teasing game.

‘Oop… my stop’.

I get off, at – it soon becomes apparent – one of the roughest neighbourhoods in San Diego.

Still at least the chance of being peed on is minimal.

I need to buy a car.

People are indeed strange when you’re a stranger.

During that same transit I also saw a huge black man sitting opposite a three foot tall golden Buddha. You know, that’s an everyday sight right?

Another girl was so heavily tattooed it was difficult to make out whether she was born that way and had skin colour tattoed on her.

Getting in amongst the general public you also can’t help but rate people’s dress sense.

And a great many Americans seem to have some of the most bizarre fashion, well, disasters.

I mean, people wear sunglasses on their faces, and they wear them on their heads but… what’s with wearing them on the back of your head?!

These people might just as well wear T-shirts saying ‘tool’ on them.

I also hate people who wear their caps backwards. And then you see these people putting their hands up to shield the sunlight from their eyes. I’m sorry but WTF?

No caption needed here...

Anyway, Jacks and I are off to look for a car.

Hope you’re all well! Oh, and a big 'HELLO' to my followers in Russia, Ecuador and Poland! x

The edge of reason

I’M not going to lie to you, the last couple of months have felt like an extract from Bridget Jones’ diary – only with me as the lead character.

A). Finally finish doing up house in England creating perfect living space and awesome batchelor pad – check.

B). Book random holiday to meet beautiful Mexican girl I met randomly online seven years ago – check.

C). Accidentally fall in love with beautiful Mexican girl in a moment’s glance – check.

D). Seemlessly lose level-headed nature, quit job, rent house and move to Mexico to be with beautiful Mexican girl – check.

Seriously, all the craziness of the last 15 or so weeks is not lost on me.

As I write this I’m sat in the bedroom of my new home in my new life in Tijuana Mexico.

I have no job, no car, and a very vague grasp of the language which surrounds me.

But you know what, as I've said before, all those things I held dear – aside of course from my family and real friends – bear no real significance to what I feel now.

It’s true what they say, your possessions start owning you.

So giving up the iPhone, the car, the HD TV, the all-singing all-dancing stereo surround system, the Sony PS3… the list goes on… was the single-most liberating thing I’ve ever done.

Some people have suggested that, at the age of 34, I’ve had some sort of mid-life crisis.

That’s crazy. I mean, those people in the throws of a mid-life crisis buy a car – they don’t move to Mexico! Love makes you crazy right? In my case I think it just accentuated it.

I’ve never been happier.

Things have been difficult at times. And there has been a pretty large sense of Groundhog Day on more than one occasion.

My life at the moment consists of me waking up late, taking breakfast, playing guitar, watching a movie and greeting Jacky when she returns from work (repeat x 7).

My plan has always been to take a break from work, throw caution to the wind and see what comes up.

During the course of my new-found life of leisure I have of course been attempting to find work. But christ, bureaucracy over here is interesting to say the very least.

I’ve been trying to ‘volunteer’ my journalistic services to a large international event which is coming up in October.

To ‘volunteer’, unpaid, it transpires that I need to have a special visa.

This visa is apparently only obtainable in Mexico City, which is a good three-hour flight from here. And it costs some serious money.

We contacted the immigration office here in TJ and they said – because they’re ‘friends’ with the international event organisers – that they’d ‘waive’ the necessity for me to get the visa.

Only snag is that they also said they aren’t prepared to give me a letter supporting this.

So it seems I can’t even volunteer legally without spending a chunk of money flying to central Mexico.

They did however offer me a ‘tourist’ visa for $15 which will allow me to stay here for 180 days as a holiday-maker. That’s the same passport stamp which I got for FREE on arrival in Mexico.

I tell you, someone really needs to set up a website for tourists which has valid visa information. They’ll make a mint.

You phone the British Embassy in Mexico and they say they ‘don’t deal’ with visa enquiries and pass you on to an $18 a minute hotline.

I do miss working for The Herald. Working at the paper you couldn’t help but feel a kind of responsibility to its readers.

The stories we wrote had an impact on people’s lives. They kept people informed of what was going on and what was right, and wrong, with society.

More often than you’d actually believe ‘Brian’ from Tamerton Foliot would be one of my biggest supporters – if only to help him publicise his monthly table top sale in the village.

“Hi Tristan, great work in Afghanistan… how long were you there?” he asked in the first phone call I received in the office after three months on the frontline.

“Well, actually it was…”

“Anyway,” Brian said interrupting.

“I need you to put something in the paper for me…”

"Get me the President.... oh, hi Brian"

Each to their own I guess. It was a good reminder that what you do is only important to those that find it important.

And that’s why – regardless of what a great many people in that newsroom thought – I always had my feet on the ground.

As I said in my somewhat emotional leaving speech at The Herald, I loved every single minute working there. I loved my job.

However in March within minutes of meeting her, I found something I loved more.

So now I find myself in Mexico, which I actually find hard to believe, is apparently a ‘third-world’ country.

I mean, what’s a ‘second-world’ country?!

The other weekend Jacky’s family took me to Pancho Villa which is a Mexican outdoor swap-meet or market.

Pancho Villa swap-meet/market

Jacky’s dad said it was important for me to go as it was the ‘real Mexico’.

What he failed to mention was that I needed to go in disguise as a ‘real’ Englishman in that market was going to get charged three or four times the price a Mexican would.

Puppies, furniture, medicine, fruit, fishing rods, pirated DVDs, car parts – you name it and it was being sold.

By the look of it I’m pretty sure a few people actually emptied their vaccum cleaners onto a table and tried to sell their contents.

I walked away with a squash racket for £2, a picture frame for £0.70 and some nail clippers for about £0.80. Result.

On the way back I was also surprised to see a sort of car rally going on on a stretch of wasteland.

This is apparently the weekly car sale where private sellers bring their vehicles to sell.

Did I mention that things are somewhat different round here…?

Anyhow, I’d best get back to doing um… nothing I guess.

I’ve actually got it down to a fine art, and I reckon that in four years time I’ll be entering the Olympics competing against other lads of leisure. At least then I might find it more interesting.

Home is where the heart is

TIJUANA has plenty of prominent landmarks and monuments.

The huge 160ft Mexican flag which flaps proudly over the city streets in the breeze, the spectacular arch, the awesome red-coloured Cerro Colorado mountain – these are all standout features.

But for me, there is one spot which stands out above all others as a symbol of what is both good and seedy about this place.

As you drive out of the city up into the residential areas, there on the right, is a building – on one side it plays host to a Church of England church, and on the other side is a lap dancing club called ‘Los Baldes’.

For saints and sinners... this building has it all

Even the club’s sign, fixed below the sign for the church, reads ‘noche de milagros’ (night of miracles).

There’s almost a divine beauty to the placement of the two establishments next door to each other.
I guess at least when you’re done having fun you can go and confess your sins a few steps away.

It really is hard to imagine a city in this world which has a worse reputation than Tijuana.

“Well, at least you’ve got a flak jacket,” was the obvious and uneducated comment from a Herald colleague before I left for Mexico’s shores.

That same colleague asked if Jacky and her family lived in a “tent”.

Yes, and they sharpen their spears and arrows before going hunting for food every morning.

Tsk.

I guess you can’t blame him, thanks largely to Hollywood Tijuana is seen as a tequila-swigging gun-slinging town – the latter day Tombstone.
When I mention I live here people immediately kind of cower, thinking I'm going to 'open up a can of whoop ass' or something.

It’s only when you have a direct link to a place that you begin hearing that place mentioned in films time and time again.

Sadly each and every time that mention is a slur. 

Personally I find TJ to have a gritty charm. It has a ‘can do’ mentality and a ‘f*ck you’ stance at the same time.

It’s kind of like how I imagine Iggy Pop to be.

TJ’s city centre is much like any other with high-rise buildings, Starbucks, and malls.

The ‘down town’ area is full of bars, taco stands and tourist shops selling sombreros and bottles of cheap tequila.

As you make your way out of the city there are areas which I guess you’d call well, poverty-stricken – or close to the definition. The sight of these areas reminds me of the vast residential areas of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Like Rio these areas criss-cross the plains below the mountains like a giant patch-work quilt.

TJ is not the nicest place in the world – far from it.

If you want to find trouble it wouldn’t be too difficult.

But hey, look out your window... do you see golden palaces and rabbits skipping gleefully on the scissor-cut lawn?

I’m guessing not.

It’s a fascinating place. Its home to three million people and many of those people are from different backgrounds and areas of Mexico.

With its proximity to the US it also plays host to people from countless other countries who are here to knock on America’s door.

I still believe I am just about the only Englishman here.

Having now spent nearly seven weeks living in TJ I can honestly say I have been bowled over by the positivity of the people.

As an Englishman I know full well how we’re used to building things up far beyond their worth.

And as a nation we seem to enjoy knocking these things down again just as much as building them up.

Back home in Plymouth the grey skies seem to reflect the overall mood.

But here in TJ people stand with their heads held high. Yes, they agree that it’s not all be a bed of roses (citing some pretty extreme violence a few years ago revolving around the drug cartels) but they want change.

And I think the glorious climate has something to do with that foresight.

They want to shed the image which has been so long-associated with this city.

One thing which is sure to do more harm than good is the potential setting of Hangover 3 in the city.

Rumour is rife here and – while many people living in other areas of the world would say for sure that TJ would be the perfect setting for the third debauched installment – to me the prospect seems sad given the efforts that are being made to change the perception.

When I tell people I’m now living in Mexico I’m sure their minds immediately picture white sandy beaches, endless sunshine and tequila.

Sure the endless sunshine and tequila are in abundance, but the idyllic image is pretty far removed.

Tijuana is kinda like America’s ugly step brother who lives next door.

Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder.

Did I move to TJ chasing a dream of those white sandy beaches and tequila shots? Er, no.

I moved here to be with a girl who, with a mere glance, turned my world upside showing me that our lives don’t have to revolve around our jobs and the opinions of others.

My view every day is of Jacky. And there’s nothing more beautiful than the view of her smile each and every day, and the knowledge that I put that smile on her face.

As a newly-made friend told me a couple of weeks ago: “Tijuana, by its mere nature, attracts people who are re-inventing themselves.”

So let’s create something beautiful.

Oh, wait... news just in. We had a rather unwelcome visitor three nights ago in the form of a baby camel spider.

I spent a total of five months in Afghan and didn’t see one in the whole time. Seven weeks here and look what ran across the kitchen floor...

While the mere sight of it was terrifying, what was more alarming was the way – when cornered – it ran at us with its front legs held aloft.

Ewwww...

An Olympic-sized pain in the a*s

SPENDING just a few hours in America is enough to make you feel normal and sane.
People in the US are always keen to talk to you once they know you’re English or British.
And they seem to think we all personally know Prince Harry.
Sure I’ve met once, but we’re hardly ‘mates’.
I’ve now given up trying to explain exactly where I’m from in England.
The conversation generally goes: “Where you from there?”
“Plymouth, you know... in the South West of England.”
Usually at this point I draw a map of the isles in the air and point to the bit on the left.
“Is that in London,” they then almost always ask.
“Er, you know what? Yes it is... in fact, the WHOLE country is contained within London.”
I just can't be bothered.
I’ll never ever forget a pompous Aussie in Sydney asking me the same question.
When I replied “Plymouth,” and “it’s near where the best beaches are in England” his response was “you have beaches?!”
"Yes that’s right, because we live on a frikkin island.”
Mexicans are different.
I’m sure most Mexicans have never visited London but they seem to have a better grasp of the geography.
I can't be too critical of the Americans as their country is just so huge.
Bizarrely San Diego itself seems to be more Spanish than Benidorm. The closer you get to the border the more taco stands and Spanish-language signs you see.
When we’re in the US Jacky and I seem to swap roles.
In Mexico I let her lead the conversation. But in the US, being predominantly English speaking, I take the lead role.
It’s strange and I often forget, letting her stumble through a conversation while I stand in the fold.
It’s only when I open my mouth that I realise I can wholly engage in conversation again.
Most of the time though I can’t help but answer ‘si’ or ‘hola’. Weird huh?
Christ, I even order burritos when I’m the States.
As you can no doubt appreciate all conversation at the moment revolves around that small sporting event we call the ‘Olympics’.
Everyone keeps asking me if I’m ‘excited’ about the games.
So much so I reply, that I moved to a different continent.
Looking at friends’ comments on Facebook, I’m sure that given the chance many Londoners wished they had too.
London is one of the busiest places on earth, so what’s an extra few hundred thousand visitors?
A few extra cars, a few thousand more tourists with cameras.
I can only imagine what rush hour on the tube is going to be like. I feel bad enough getting in the way of commuters as I stare blankly at the tube map when I visit.
Imagine all those foreign visitors clutching huge maps and puzzled expressions. 
God, even the thought of it sounds like an Olympic-sized pain in the ass.
I really hope it does help to boost the UK’s economy and end this existential ‘funk’ which walks hand in hand with the double dip recession.
But hey, I couldn’t really give a toss about the games themselves.
To gain my interest they should introduce some new games.
Maybe a two-mile sprint event for footballers who have just been told they have had their Ferraris torched by Seb Coe?
Or how about an archery event with everyone aiming their arrows at Sepp Blatter in his hospitality box?
Or wait, how about an event where Gary Lineker eats as many Walkers crisps as there are starving children in the world?
One name captures my imagination, and his event is the only result l will listen out for. Tom Daley.
Smash it mate, make Plymouth proud and put the 'Great' back into Great Britain.

Life is a roller coaster

IT’S not often that a grown man asks you if you’d like to ‘touch’ his monkey during daylight hours in full view of young families in a steamy bustling street.

It was a first for me. And my reaction was one of disbelief as much disdain.

You see over here in Mexico everyone seems to be making up new ways of making a few pesos.

And this attempt to prise a few pence out of my pocket almost deserved reward – if only for making Jacky and giggle uncontrollably for hours afterwards.

The Mexican wasn’t suggesting anything sordid. In fact, he did actually did want us to ‘touch’ his monkey – a mal-nourished-looking sort of marmoset.

While it might not be unusual to see these kinds of people parade monkeys or parrots around in resorts around the world, here they’ve taken the idea to new levels.

Sure, in Tangiers I was offered to hold a snake for a photograph for a few pence. I think in Tenerife I also held an exotic parrot.

But over here these people have upped their game.

Kittens and puppies and even tiger and leopard cubs are offered to hold and pose with.

Did we take them up on their offer? Hell no, we don’t agree with it.

But you have to admire the efforts of the street men.

I mean, where the hell do you get a leopard cub? eBay?! Walmart?! (They seem to sell everything else bar cafetierres).

Another thing Mexico has an abundance of is dogs.

It seems that you’re not Mexican unless you have at least one. And sadly there are so many strays they nearly outnumber people.

Driving around Tijuana is difficult enough without having to avoid hitting a dog.

And most of them are big enough to cause more damage to your vehicle than to them if you do hit them.

With the intense 24/7 sunshine here (I’ve seen one drop of rain in just over five weeks) the odds are that the bugs are going to be bigger.

And they certainly are.

That ‘thing’ which I posted a picture of a few days ago was nothing I’m told.

We ended up spraying it with enough insecticide to wipe out an entire species. And then it wriggled and writhed around like it was enjoying a cold shower.

The old faithful foot stamp was the only way to deal with it in the end. But you just know it has friends who want to join the party.

Cockroaches are the norm around here. As are spiders and spiders of the 'black widow' variety.

You know, the Mexican (or Spanish) word for spider is ‘arana’.

So when I ask someone what kind of aranas they have over here and they reply “well, tarantulas” you know that that arana is going to be pretty special.

I mean, a ‘tarantula’ is a ‘tarantula’ in any language surely?

So the ‘tarantulas’ over here are not going to be your average money spider are they...?

I am yet to meet one but you’ll know when I do.

They say that in space ‘no-one can hear you scream’, but believe me – the guys on the International Space Station will hear me when I see one.

Last weekend I’m also pretty sure you would have heard the screams of 20 or so thrill-seekers who got stuck on America’s tallest theme park ride.

Jacky and I – together with one of her best friends – visited Six Flags Magic Mountain in Los Angeles which is home to a ludicrous amount of rollercoasters.

One of the newest rides is the ‘Lex Luthor – Drop of Doom’ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn5X805NVLY)  which throws people up to a height of 200+ft, pauses, and then drops them down about a thousand times as fast.

It’s the world’s tallest and most vertical drop ride. When people drop they do so at 85mph in five seconds.

We were queuing to go on this new ride, watching people going up and down, when all of a sudden it went up... and then stopped.

Can we come down now please?

A long way down...

Now THAT was the stuff of nightmares. The usual delay before plummeting is about 20 seconds. But these guys were up there for about four minutes.

So stood aghast with feelings of impending doom, what did everyone on the ground do?

They took photographs of course... me included.

Once a journo always a journo right?!

Fortunately the thrill-seekers made it back to the ground in the planned fashion, albeit slightly delayed.

And by that point we were no longer in the queue.

Six Flags makes Alton Towers look like a pink merry-go-round.

Life is a roller coaster

Not the time to drop your keys

Not for the faint-hearted

And Jacky is its biggest fan. I’ve seen excitement on a face before, but Jacky’s expression at the mere mention of the attraction is something else.

When a grown man gets off a ride you’re about to get on and says ‘THAT is f*cked up’, you know you’re in for the ride of your life quite literally.

‘X2’ is its name. And it’s worth googling. You sit in it backwards and you’re thrown around a track upside down and left to right.

You actually feel slightly abused when you get off. Well, at least I did. Jacks was bouncing.

So we got a little excited...

It would appear mad to queue for two hours for a two-minute thrill but it’s worth it each and every time.

So the next time anyone is in the US put it in your itinerary. It might seem strange to pay to be abused but hey isn’t that what council tax in the UK is all about?

The thing...

Okay, when I'm confident this THING is no longer living upstairs with us I'll be back on the Mac and updating this blog.
Ewwwww... It's like an insectileopard from Mars! And I'm sure it winked at us as we discussed ways to kill it.

People are strange when you're a stranger

YOU know, most of the more interesting and funny moments of my new life in Mexico have happened around the dinner table.

Telling my girlfriend’s mother that I was feeling ‘horny’ when I meant to say I was feeling ‘hot’ (due to the sun) is a moment which those in attendance will never let me forget.

Another standout moment has got to be when numerous members of Jacky’s family tried to teach me to roll my R’s to get the perfect Spanish accent.

The sound that came out of my mouth was not a rolled ‘R’, it was more like the sound of a bee slowly dying (probably of embarrassment).

Having five or six people rolling R’s at me at the same time in perfect harmony was one of the most surreal moments of my life.

“It’s easy!” Jacky told me.

“Er... it’s really not,” I replied.

It is one of the most difficult things I have ever tried to learn. And now I am so self conscious of doing it wrong and simply making a noise at someone, that I can’t possibly EVER try it again.

I don’t understand how people can wake up one day knowing how to do it.

I’ve even tried googling it to find a video tutorial. To be honest the comments – mainly from half-wit Americans – are more entertaining.

So yes, I’m trying new things. I’m eating different food, I’m exploring new places, and I’m learning a new language (well, new for me).

An Englishman here in Tijuana (known as ‘TJ’) is a rarity.

And to say I stand out like a sore thumb is a massive understatement.

My skin colour is different, my accent is weird, and I’m literally about three feet taller than your average Mexican.

I stand head and shoulders above everyone. When I’m in a supermarket I peer out over the aisles like the Statue of Liberty gazing out over Manhattan’s ant population.

Jacky bought me a pair of boots as a welcoming gift and, while the size and length of the boots are fine, they are so narrow that I’m sure the daintiest British tinkerbell supermodel would have a job squeezing into them.

I now honestly believe that I – like many men who derive from the West Country – have ‘pasty’ feet.

Such has been the intensity of people’s stares here that they’ve nearly walked out into traffic.

I, more often than not, smile politely and say ‘hola’.

I’m not sure exactly what people expect me to say, but they often look bemused and give me a look to suggest ‘wow... it speaks’.

It’s strange being in a foreign land. And my foreign mind works in strange ways.

Wherever I am, somewhere in the chasms of my brain I immediately look for an indication of where the next toilet is. You know, just in case nature calls.

Last week Jacky and a contact of hers took me to a kind of TJ chamber of commerce event.

It was a weekly update for a huge expo style event called ‘Tijuana Innovadora’ going on over here in October.

It will undoubtedly be a big deal as they’ve lined up the co-founder of Apple as well as many other important speakers from the US and Mexico.

The event is all about celebrating TJ and its relations and standing with the world.

So unbeknown to me, my attendance at last week’s event – as an (award-winning... well, I can say that now right?!) English journalist – was seen as a ‘big deal’.

I walked into a room of around 100 people and people stopped talking and stared.

You know like the classic scene in a Western when the stranger character walks into the saloon?

People stopped sipping their coffee, they fixed eyes on me, the guy in the back stopped playing the piano... (okay, there was no piano player but you get the gist).

The next thing I know someone thrust a microphone into my hand and signalled for me to introduce myself.

I spoke some Spanish, I spoke some English, and I spoke something which is a cross between the two incorporating hand movements and weird facial expressions.

And I got a round of applause. Oh, and then everyone started dancing. Honestly.

I must have said something right? Right? People even wanted their pictures taken with me.

In that single moment I felt like I’d announced my arrival to potential future employers.

So watch this space.

At the weekend I also encountered something else which was new and weird in equal measure.

We drove past a hardware store (TJs equivalent to B&Q) and there was a large group of men shouting at the passing vehicles.

It turns out that these men were actually plumbers and electricians who were plying for trade.

Yellow Pages? Facebook group? Who needs em. Just shout loudly at your potential customers!

Personally I wouldn’t want to employ someone who scared the living cr*p out of me but hey, when in Rome... or Mexico.

It got me thinking that maybe I should just massively over pronounce my R’s and growl at people to show that I’m actually trying?

Hmmmm... maybe not.