Things To Watch Out For In Mexico:
1. Prices are given using the $ sign but are in pesos. So a cup of coffee in Starbucks doesn't really cost $30.
2. ...even if that Starbucks has valet parking. Which they do in some places here.
3. Road signs pointing to Mexico don't mean you're in the wrong country. That's the name of the capital too. Try to keep up...
4. Two guys carrying pump action shotguns and looking mean inside the 7-11 convenience store doesn't mean there's a heist underway. It means the shop assistant is emptying the till - and they're afraid a heist might be about to happen.
5. They won't smile back - I tried. They will watch your every move.
6. On the same theme, if you want a really good haircut, I guess you look for the hairdresser with the armed guard outside because the place must be making good money.
7. A 'Ferreteria' has nothing to do with ferrets. Pity, I was hoping for a story of Northern English working class culture having spread to the wider world and left its mark in unusual locations. (It's an ironmonger.)
We eventually escaped the rain washed mountains, and came down to the river which marks the border between Guatemala and Mexico.
Astonishing scenes of people taking the 'unofficial' route across, on lashed up planks and inner tubes.
Go to the - and this is what I was describing... you'll hear more in our report later in the week.
Bit of an existentialist nightmare developing here.
We've come to the tiny mountain village of El Triunfo, close to the Guatemalan border, to find out how two-way immigration is affecting the people here.
We may never leave....
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Mexico City
The TV programmes here are filled with scantily clad women playing football with sparkly balloons.
Obviously the World Cup game against Argentina is a big deal, and the square outside our hotel is the venue for a big screen event so people can watch the needle match.
Argentina's record against Mexico: played 23, won 8, drawn 11, lost 4. But they looked shaky against Ivory Coast. So the Mexican fans are definitely 'up for it'.
I'm going to try something new on the blog while I'm in Mexico (we're here mostly for political coverage rather than football, although we'll certainly make the best of the soccer passion today).
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We spoke on the World Update programme today to Air Marshal 'Black' Robertson, who since his retirement has been responsible for coordinating British-US relations at the UK Ministry of Defence.
One of the points he made was that now UK and US forces are working together in insurgency situations more than in full scale wars, there is an urgent need for training to bring their operational tactics in line.
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Do robots have rights?
Fascinating ideas from one of our guests on the Monday World Update, , a computer scientist in Stockholm.
He believes robot technology is already so far advanced we have to consider against abuse by humans and vice versa.
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A lot of concern on US blogs about the takeover of Somalia's capital Mogadishu and other key towns by the Islamic Courts Union.
See, for example, "" and " and several blogs Eugene Robinson's Washington Post article that "Somalia is coming under the sway of an Islamic militia that may harbor al-Qaeda militants".
In this week's World Update and this weekend on Reporting Religion, we're checking on the reasons many Somalis seem to be welcoming what Western bloggers are treating as another Taleban.
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Great real life comment from Turtlex:
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Expect whole libraries of books about the life and especially the scandals of Charles Haughey, the former prime minister, or Taoiseach, of Ireland - now deceased.
From gun running to cocaine, through corruption, murder and marital infidelity, it will be very hard to separate the truth from the frenzy of speculation now that the libel law no longer applies (you can't libel someone who can't sue you).
Even our interviewee this morning, biographer Bruce Arnold, spent most of the short time he had, just minutes after the news of Mr. Haughey's death was announced, discussing the controversial rather than complimentary aspects of his history.
Permit me a little time to tell you just one story which illustrates why that is.
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Does the killing of Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi mark a great step forward for the counter insurgency? Or will his supporters be inspired by his martyrdom?
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I like soccer, as I may have mentioned before.
Indeed my work colleagues are having to face up to the evidence of that because I'm walking around with a black eye collected during a recent game.
With the World Cup coming, I'm as enthusiastic as anyone about the prospect of some classy football night after night on our TVs.
But how would we explain to a visiting space traveller the obsessive focus in today's British papers on one foot of one footballer?
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As part of our new devotion to Latin American news (see previous post) we are planning to take World Update to Mexico for the presidential election on 2nd July.
That will give us a chance to investigate the apparent struggle between two strands of Latin American socialism - social democracy and populism.
A full analysis of that struggle can be found , by Jorge Castaneda.
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Another in an occasional series of career shortening admissions.
Hugo Chavez is good news.
You won't read into that statement any personal view of the Venezuelan president, I hope.
As I come through the door at Bush House each day, there's a device looking a bit like a cross between an airport metal detector and a revolving door that erases any personal opinion. Zzzzzph! There... gone.
But the arrival and political gamesmanship of the Venezuelan president has put Latin America on the global news agenda in a way that it hasn't been for many years.
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| 22:45 UK time, Thursday, 29 June 2006
