Costa Rica is world’s greenest, happiest country

According to an article in today’s Guardian, Costa Rica “tops index ranking countries by ecological footprint and happiness of their citizens”

A rainbow over San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica

“Costa Ricans top the list because they report the highest life satisfaction in the world, they live slightly longer than Americans, yet have an ecological footprint that is less than a quarter the size. The country only narrowly fails to achieve the goal of what NEF calls “one-planet living”: consuming its fair share of the Earth’s natural resources.”

PS: the BBC now has a deeper analysis/explanation of this index. You can read it here.

Anyone for a 99?

The new president of Panama was sworn in yesterday. He pledged to keep his three main campaign promises, the first of which was to get tough with criminals. He owns a chain of supermarkets called “Super 99″ and one of them was attacked by an armed gang last night.  A shoot-out ensued. Not an auspicious start… but at least the gang was caught.

Non-British readers may like to read about “99s” in the UK here.

Privatisation has been a train wreck

Britain’s railways and Spain’s appear to be gulfs apart. Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is right to call for the re-nationalization of the rail network after the latest fiasco (the government has had to bail out one of the private operators).  You can read his column in The Guardian here.

The trains in Spain race swiftly across the plain

Like most countries, Spain succumbed to the motor car a long time ago. Unlike, Britain, however, it did not give up long-distance travel by rail for travel by coach [bus].

Forty years ago, the rail network in Spain was very poor and the country backward by European standards. To visitors, that was one of its attractions, however.  I once spent 20 hours on a train from Madrid to Barcelona, trying to sleep on newspaper on the floor of the corridor.

How times have changed. The Guardian has an article about Spain’s new high-speed AVE trains. I understand the enthusiasm for these trains completely, especially as air travel has become such a nightmare.

Noir of the Week

I love the Noir of the Week website. This week they turn the spotlight on the Glass Key, based on a Dashiell Hammett story.

“All of the key components of noir are present in this film: a very definite crisis of patriarchy, strong willed femme fatales and a plot centered around an expose of a political nature. And in regards to the surreal aesthetics attributed to noir film, what else could so gloriously conjure the ghost of Andre Breton like the shots of a somber black umbrella parade through the rain at Taylor Henry’s funeral?”

Check it out.

So much more than a vampire flick

I’m not a great horror fan but Swedish movie Let the right one in (Låt den rätte komma in, 2008) is an exceptional offering. The film has so many themes – including social alienation, the trials of puberty and adolescence, love, revenge and pedophilia – that you’ll be thinking about it long after you finish watching it.

Set in Stockholm in 1982, the two first-time actors who play the main characters – a 12-year-old boy and a 12-year-old vampire who strike up a friendship – give remarkable performances.

I always enjoy the cinematography of movies set in Sweden and in this case the bleak, white winter landscape and pallid faces are contrasted with the scarlet of clothes and other objects – including blood.

I  can’t recommend this film too highly. It is one of the best new movies I’ve seen in a long time.  There is so much to get your teeth into…

Las Lajas finally has a decent hotel

My family and I love to spend time at the beach. By that I mean the simple pleasures: swimming, eating and sunbathing on unspoiled, largely empty beaches. The nearest long stretch of beach is at Las Lajas. That is about a one-hour (very pleasant) drive from David, now that the road is paved all the way.

CP Snow

Another writer who seems to have slipped through the cracks in recent decades is C. P. Snow. As a young man I read most of his Strangers and Brothers series of novels and recently watched the TV adaptation from 1983 for the first time. He was not a novelist of the first water but I found – still find – his works relevant and interesting from a historical and social perspective. They chart the history of Britain from the 1920s through to the 1960s and afford great insights into the “corridors of power” (the title of one of the novels).

An interesting Hammer film

This movie shows how you don’t need a big budget to produce exciting, thought-provoking cinema. It was quite subversive for its time, but then it was directed by Joseph Losey.  Senator McCarthy did Britain a favor by forcing Losey to emigrate.

If the movie was very much rooted in its time, it still speaks to us today. Britain’s sci-fi literature of the 50s and 60s was always challenging; the story of These are the Damned fits right in with the post-apocalyptic themes of the novels of John Wyndham. At the time the film was made we had just weathered the Cuban missile crisis. For days, the world had waited with baited breath to see if the human race was about to destroy itself.

The movie makes a fairly obvious comparison between the petty criminals who like to mug and hurt people, and the ruthlessness of the Establishment, intent on ensuring survival at all costs. Oliver Reed is at his brooding, violent best but is gradually won over by the children.

Well worth watching if you get the chance to see it.

Organisation of American States decides to readmit Cuba

This piece of news was reported in today’s Guardian. It could mark a sea change in relations between the U.S. and the rest of the Americas and was, at the very least, a bold move by the Latin American governments.

Ironically, it was thanks to the Bush Administration’s treatment of the region that the Left found its voice again. For the most part, Bush ignored Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). When he did focus on the region, he was perceived as heavy handed.

With Cuba providing his inspiration, President Chavez of Venezuela dared to cock a snook at the US. Other countries (Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras) have since followed suit, while Brazil is challenging America’s hegemony throughout the hemisphere.

If the US has only itself to blame for this latest development, it will be interesting to see how the situation plays out. Although most Americans may not even hear about the decision, the news is bound to be covered widely in LAC.