Mexico City Thursday 16th September

So that celebration really was HUGE. You may even have seen on on the good ol' BBC. So meditation and morning run done, I set off for the Anthropology museum expecting to see loads of pre-Hispanic stuff. 'Cept muggins went to the History museum which was oh-kay, but heavy on palid Spanish viceroys with 17 surnames, and light on Toltec pyramids. One of the millions of immaculate, white-uniformed attendants did actually talk to me. Probably my longest in Spanish on this trip - social justice, Emilio Zapata, one of the only two decent leaders Mexico has produced (according to him).

Interestingly, on a TV show later, three pundits bemoaned the lack of critical thought in the celebrations. Lots of ¡Viva Mexico! and sombrero thumping, but no detailed list of precisely WHAT has been achieved in the two hundred years since independence and the hundred years since the revolution. Shades of the lack of discussion you'd expect in Russia or China. Hadn't realised Mexico had the same problem. Even more weird, these three well-educated chaps literally said 'nothing' in twenty minutes - not one name or fact - and them bemoaning that from the government! So why did they waste their opportunity to rectify the situation? Editorial methinks...

So anyway, people were climbing on top of anything to get site of their taxes marching past, I mean the proud body of young men. After all, the strength of the revolution and Mexico's progress in the world depends on spending a massive amount of money on the army, right?

They sure could sing anyway, although the people combing through the rubbish just a few hundred meters from where HSBC now vastly lords it over a national monument, didn't seem quite so interested...

And if they weren't marching along the parade (which cut me off from the anthropological museum), they were standing around in case there was a riot... Like you would, with soldiers armed to the teeth marching right in front of you? Hey, Jose-Luiz! When shall we protest the 20,000 plus drug murders in three years? I know, let's do it on independence day when everyone is feeling positive, for once, about a government which happens also to be  bristling with weapons.... that's bound to put the hesitant masses behind us...

On which note, the US announced lower figures for cocaine use this year. Way to go Barack!. Carry on the denial of the ancien regime. So what have the good burghers of the US been doing instead? Smoking cannabis, biggest increase in the 50+ bracket apparently. Must be all the older generation's conscience being wiped as they watch the ceaselessly mounting pile of beheaded bodies south of the border that are the flip side to 'winning' the war on drugs for the next election, I mean the good of the American people .... 

Anyway, I enjoyed it enough, although jingo-jangle militarism isn't my thing, it was people-watching heaven so I just kept on walking and walking until, the 2000 plus metres of altitude, the walking and the morning run caught up with me and I bolted back to the hotel making my first use of the metro. Very nifty, cheap and efficient. Siesta from 5-9 was a bit out of kilter but then few Mexicans got theirs today. So, Domino's (you heard right) it was and then back to sleep. Rock on...