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One’s just opened up in my hometown (which would suit our Cuba-loving MP down to the ground).

I’m slightly surprised that, after doing a little bit of digging on the Internet, I couldn’t find a peep of disdain from anybody about these bars, which seem to revel in the ‘fun’ aspect of Ché. Ignorance must be bliss…

Picture an old guy in pastel-and-flourescent clothes:

“Hey, you speak English?”

“?Que`? Disculpe, pero no hablo Ingles.”

“I SAID, DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH, BOY???”

I say that because I’ve seen it. It was the one and only time I can remember being ashamed of where I got my passport. Memo to the whole world: going to another country without learning the language is just plain RUDE.

But as soon as that evil bearded motherf***er dies, I’ll be booking my flight. All four of my H.S. Spanish teachers were Cuban, came here in the 1960′s as children. And from how they describe it, it would be about the neatest place on the planet if it weren’t for the communists.

The music is retro too. Nothing has “Evolved” since the 50s and Batista. It is music that Fred and Ginger would have danced to, let alone Castro and Che (did they dance? ever?? in their pathetic little military garb? Boy did they have an easy time of taking over that country militarily wise!

It is frozen in time (1960) like the Chevys held together with string and cellotape, and the grand Colonial buildings rotting like bad teeth, everything is said, but nothing is done (ever heard a Castro speech!)

Why not lift the trade embargo, I could never see the sense in it. Capitalism trumps Communism every time…

Commieland. Well some chap in one of the Baltic states did build “Stalin World”.

One of the interesting aspects of the story for me was that, along with the German movie “Lives of Others”, it revolves around the repression of the artistic spirit by communism.

For so many years, we were subjected to the repeated calumny that it was capitalism and commercialism that stifled the artistic soul, while collectivism and non-commercialism set the muses of art and culture free.

I can only imagine, and hope for, the discomfort of one of these apologists for tyranny while watching either movie accurately portray the truth—that it is collectivist regimentation that is forced by its own perverted inner logic to suppress and destroy the artist who demands to freely express his art.

In a world awash in collectivist horse manure, such stories are a fleeting scent of rose petals on the breeze, to be treasured for the momentary respite from the odor of decay.

Three things struck me about Cuba for the 7 days we were there. The feeling of constant surveillance – my in laws thought I was being paranoid but I often felt like there were eyes on us (as in the general man on the street). Even when we were just on the beach I was almost positive that the bar tender was actually just another security guy in plain clothes.

Also, when one travels outside the resort the countryside seems drastically under utilized. Given the climate I expected more crops to be under cultivation but there were large tracts of land that were just sitting fallow with bits of old equipment randomly dispersed throughout them rusting away.

The most strange feeling though is coming down by the harbour in Havana and seeing streets and squares that were obviously laid out for commerce to be nothing but houses. There were very few stores or cafes (almost exclusively in the hotels) and it gave the place a very strange feeling. It was gorgeous to look at (well the restored bits anyway) but it just felt dead.

That being said if the Castro’s ever do kick off and the Cuba’s can find someone more librally minded to run the place it is a beautiful place to visit and I’m sure there will be lots of money to be made in Havana once commerce is allowed again.

Instead of a Monorail, entry/exit and vehicular transport within the park would be by railroad cattlecar. Entry would require changing all your cash into Commieland scrip, which you would either have to spend entirely within the park or forfeit upon exit. There would be a “zipline” for escaping across the Berlin Wall, daily Cultural Revolution parades in Maoland, etc. Visitors would be arrested randomly in public by plainclothes secret police, then spirited off to the Commieland jail, then randomly released sometime later after interrogation for crimes against the people (after they signed full confessions, of course), etc.

Well the picture I want to see on T shirts and posters of the lunatic old wheezer, is the one the Sunday Times Mag published a few years ago.

It is of him chipping out of a bunker on the golf course at the Royal Rio Country club (he was a poor little rich kid after all).
Let’s see how cool his revolutionary credentials stand up with the loony left, when that one circulates!