Airport Security
I am writing this in the smoking bar at the airport. It's not just my cigarette that is fuming. Airport security really pisses me off. On getting to the check-in queue at San Jose’ a security guard asked to look at my passport and leaving tax papers. On walking a further two yards a second security guard asks to see the same. He examines my passport, first by hand, then with a jeweller’s loupe, then leafs through every page with an ultraviolet torch. Unsatisfied he rechecks every page, fingering the edges of the paper, presumably to check for pistols and WMDs embedded within the paper. The spine of the passport is subjected to internal examination, still unhappy, he asks if I have any other ID. I ask he wants to see a note from my mum, saying it’s OK for me to get on the aeroplane, but he is not amused. Finally he pisses off with my passport, my Spanish residencia card and my UK driving license to photocopy them. I obviously look like an Al Qaeda activist in disguise, you know, white skin, no turban, no AK47, an Anglo-Saxon name. Eventually El Dicko gives up trying to find something wrong and hands me back my papers.

I walk another two yards; a young and rather pretty security guard asks for my passport, and opens my suitcase either to search for contraband and smuggled Latinas or to fondle my underpants. She doesn’t spend nearly enough time checking my briefs, nor does she mention how great they’d look on her bedroom floor, so I guess she must be abnormal in some respects.
I walk another two yards and have finally made it to the check-in. I of course have to proffer my passport again. I am not in a jolly mood by this point and am not in the slightest mollified by the check-in girl’s explanation that they are only doing their job.

After obtaining my ticket I walk to the desk of the ‘Migration Police’, so that they can check my passport. Another 3 yards and we are at the only bit that makes any sense, the checking of the hand luggage and finally I am through. I shelve my plans for giving up cigarettes and head straight for the smoking lounge.

I hope not to receive a rectal examination on boarding the plane.

What's Happenin'
If you are not bored by this already or writing a letter to FHM recommending me to james.carter@emap.com for a position as a staff writer you will be by the time I am finished with the Toronto and living in Costa Rica full time!

I have been back in San Jose for a little over a week now, although it seems like mere seconds have passed, unfortunately I'm back on a plane to Canada tomorrow. Not that I have anything against Canadians, I'm just wholly unsure of this winter thing of theirs. The moment the Boston Tea Party was over, England should have given everything north of The Great Lakes to the people that would later name themselves Americans and kept the juicy bits from New England down to the Mexican border for the mother country.

Anyway, I'm back in CR and have stayed half my time at the Hotel Jade and the other half in the company apartments. The company has offices in the top floors of a shopping mall. So lunch is often spent in a stroll through the laberynthine mall walkways trying not to return the glances of the beautiful latinas, their bums seem to follow my eyes all over the place! The company apartments are quite nice, tastefully appointed, with showers big enough for a safari adventure. The maids come and clean the apartments every day and routinely remove any item of clothing on the floor for washing and pressing, returning it the next day. This is all fine, but recently I have noticed other people's pants appearing in my closet. That's underpants or briefs for my American readership! I could deal with this if they were little lacey numbers that had recently encompassed the firm tight buns and moist wonderousness of a hot latina babe. Even better still if the maid had forgot to wash them, but oh no, these are mens pants. Which is always horrific and a shock unless they are your own. Or you are gay, which I am not, but I do have very normal lesbian tendencies. I only ever sleep with women. More distressing still is the fact that my pants must end up travelling through another company apartment closet, discovered by the occupant and returned to the maid or like as not thrown from the 8th floor apartment windows.

I had a marvellous meal the other day with some new friends, quite possibly the best I've had in years.
There was a great amuse bouche of smoked salmon pate' made with soured cream, horseradish and cayenne pepper served on little discs of lightly toasted french bread with olive oil.
The starter was a salad of endives, walnuts (pecans), grapes, celery and feta cheese in a balsamic dressing which arrived with a garlic bread ciabatta topped with pesto and parmesan.
The main course was a Thai Green Prawns with boiled rice and an alternative main, which was king prawns in a pico de gallo on tortilla chips.
The desert was natural greek yoghurt, with pecans, almonds and honey alongside a little sliver of dried orange.

I will of course take this opportunity to thank Emma for assisting me with the cooking and Nicky for the loan of her kitchen and gorgeous little bewooded cottage. The six present had a wonderful time and as ever I massively over did it on the portions. Apparently Nicky finished the pate' and curry today. I think she wants me over to cook again when her freezer is empty and she can load it up with gormet ready meals prepared by yours truly.

Toronto Restaurants
Downtown Toronto has a lot to keep the urban office warrior happy after the day at work is over, well the downtown area does. The rest of it is a vast concrete wasteland scattered with generic shopping malls and people ricocheting between their places of work, their homes and shops in cars the size of Belgium on overcrowded freeways.

The financial district, reminiscent of New York has it's fair share of good eateries and the Queen Street East is an incredible multicultural melange with something reasonably priced to eat inspired from just about every corner of the globe.

Today's exciting restaurant mini-review will concentrate on the places you should probably take your significant other if you want to make up for a medium size atomic row. Or somewhere you should consider taking your next potential significant other if you want to have a medium size atomic row with the current one.

The Fisherman's Wharf on Richmond Street West has a cosy candle lit atmosphere, attentive staff and some excellent grub. I started off with the Boston Clam Chowder which, to be honest was tasty but not quite as pleasant in the mouth as say... Shakira.
Their signature dish though is worth the $60 even if you discount the bad bits. The bad bits are the deep fried breaded cheese stuffed shrimp, cheesey oysters, deep fried scallops and stewed mussels. All of which strike you as the sort of food that McDonalds would sell if they opened a fast crustacea cafe'. The good bits and they are very good indeed; are the longitudinally split Alaskan king crab legs which are simply perfect with a little lemon juice on them, the lobster tail and the tiger shrimp. These together are worth the asking price.
Soundbite: Forget the other half, go on your own and order king crab legs for two.

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is buried under the Hilton also on Richmond Street West. It is as good for steak as Jesus is for Christianity. Marvelous! I started off with the Crabtini which is basically a large martini glass piled with thumb sized lumps of crab meat tossed in a vinaigrettee with a Creole sauce and attractive, pleasant tasting greenery around the side. I could eat this every day.
I am not a huge steak fan, by which I mean both that I do not like huge steaks and that I am not normally greatly impressed by steak at all. This place has changed all that despite having a ridiculous name. I ordered a medium cooked ribeye. It arrived on a plate hot enough to melt the tines on my fork. I asked about this, apparently they heat the plates to a waiter bullshitting 500F. I didn't have a thermometer with me but it was bloody hot and did the job, keeping the steak warm until the last perfectly cooked morsel had been reverently consumed. The steak itself, was I believe about as good as it is possible for a dead animal to taste. Good enough in fact to throw Darwinism into doubt. Nothing that tastes this good could have survived 2 million years of human existance without having been eaten into extinction several times over. It was tender, juicy and all that other hyperbole that steak is always supposed to be but never is. Well, almost never. Apparently the steaks are cooked in some special broiler at 1800F that fires at them from both sides. I can't vouch for the technology, but I only remember one steak this good before and that was at The Capital Club, a stone's throw from The Bank of England.
Soundbite: Flights to Toronto are available from all major international airports, get there somehow, anyhow.

Intelligent Design and Creationism are to common sense what Parmigiano-Reggiano is to watchmaking.

Canada
Geography: Canada is an amazing country and it is surprising that it does not play a larger part on the world stage. It is a big place in terms of land area and is actually larger than Europe, Asia, Australasia, North and South America combined. Everything in Canada is measured on a grand scale, to drive across it would take two weeks and wealthier Canadians use motorised golf buggies to traverse their kitchens.

Southern Canada is intolerably hot in the summer and intolerably cold in the winter. Spring and Autumn only last two weeks each but are apparently very nice.
Northern Canada is a frozen wasteland only fit for arctic beasts and snowmen.

History: The first European visitors to Canada were probably the Vikings about a thousand years ago. Five hundred years after that, the French discovered it and finding no-one living there except for a couple of frozen Native American Indians, decided to take it for themselves and call it New France. In 1758 the British noticed that the French had had the effrontery to have claimed a bit of land that wasn't either in France or composed entirely of North African desert. As Britain owned the whole of the discovered world at that time they didn't like it a bit. So they stole it. The British allowed the remaining French to live in the province of Quebec and to speak whatever language they wanted, so long as they stopped moaning.

The French speaking Quebecois to this day pretend that they didn't finally surrender to the English on September 18th 1759 and that they actually live in a different country.

People: For such a vast country the population is very small, if you laid all the Canadians end to end, they would be nearly as long as a 1971 Cadilac Eldorado. Canadians are similar to Americans except they aren't trying to shoot each other all the time, don't keep invading other people's countries and don't meddle in the politics of other nations. They still drive cars the size of ocean liners but justify it because small cars get lost in the snow drifts on their driveways during winter.

There are two national languages in Canada, English and Mandarin. A smaller number of locals also speak French, Urdu and Korean.

The national sport is Ice Hockey, which is much like you would imagine a game of high speed team heavy weight boxing on skates.

Canadians are an ethnically diverse bunch 57% white, 49% Asian Oriental, 44% Asian, 20% Black with the remaing 2% made up of Native Americans.

Canadians as a people are warm and welcoming and unlike their southern neighbours talk meaningfully about politics without mentioning God. They also believe that access to education and healthcare should not be the exclusive preserve of the wealthy and have well founded state run systems for the population at large.

For the fast facts check out the CIA World Fact Book, for something more interesting there is the National Lampoon version.

Not all of the facts contained in this article are strictly true!

Toronto
The first surprise on arrival to Canada is that none of the ATMs at the airport take VISA so if you don't carry Mastercard, AMEX or some completely obscure Canadian card you are completely stuffed and won't be able to get one of the Lincoln Town Cars that they use for taxis outside the airport.

On queuing for a taxi you will realise that all taxi drivers are from the Indian sub-continent and on taking a cab you will realise that none of them have a clue where you are going despite repeating your destination address for 7 minutes. Ontario has recently decided to oppose using Sharia law to resolve domestic disputes. Which is is good as I've heard that recently, Saudi Arabia has refused to allow democracy, trial by jury or human rights to affect their way of doing things, so it keeps the world culturally balanced. At least I should be able to get a decent curry somewhere near.

If my experience is anything to go by, Toronto is basically a car park sprinkled with uniform concrete, cubiform buildings that have been labeled so as to inform the visitor whether they are entering an IKEA, Furniture Warehouse or their hotel.

Toronto has places which are called bars, while you are in one, someone who is apparently nice, will ask you if you want a drink. If you say yes, they'll turn around and make you an insipid cocktail from government stipulated thimbles (much like the UK in this respect), then charge you the same price as a 3 bedroom apartment in a less fashionable area of Paris. Yesterday a packet of cigarettes cost me $12 Canadian, the beer to go with it was $6.50. In Spain you can be jailed for charging prices like that. I am still working it out, but I think it must be a tax on sin to keep Canadians pure, I believe a packet of condoms here costs the same as a Ford Mustang.

America's Security fixation
To fly to Toronto I had to change at Houston George Bush Airport Texas, there was an hour and fifteen minutes between flights. More than enough time you might think. However, if you had mixed opinions about the US before take a connecting flight through the States, you will be positively incandescent about the officious stupidity of the twats after you have tried to swap planes there. I landed at Houston at 5:30. I'd had to complete a customs form declaring that I wasn't bringing anything in, a Visa waiver saying I wasn't staying on the plane.

On disembarkation I had to queue for an hour so that I could be quizzed by one of the bureaucratic monkeys of the Immigration and Nationalization Service that fingerprints you, photographs you and asks stupid Questions.

INS Officer: How are you feeling today Sir?
Me: Not very well actually?
INS Officer: Are you ill?
Me: No, I am really annoyed at being made to queue up for an hour and go through passport control just so I can change flights and get out of a country I had no intention of visiting in the first place.

I ran to collect the checked in suitcases from my previous flight which were laying deserted awaiting thieves, having been decanted from the plane some 40 minutes previously. I rush on to US Customs, "Anything to Declare Sir?", "Yes, I declare I am very angry with this ridiculous facade!" Running on, I threw my suitcase into a chute, which sent it on to the next flight. It wasn't opened or checked by Security personel, as had happened in Costa Rica. I hurried off to have my hand luggage checked. "Take the laptop out of the bag, let me look at your shoes, all metal items in the tray......" I managed to get on the connecting flight just as it finished boarding and was sat next to a woman who was running several hours late as she'd missed her flight due to an identical theatrical drama.

Well to those of you that say 9/11 blah, blah, blah as justification for this farce, think for a minute about the flights that travel direct from Costa Rica to Toronto. They still fly over the US, anything naughty they are carrying, is still with them on the plane, they don't have INS officers checking people who fly over the US. Er, why not have two queues? One for people in transit, one for people entering. Unfortunately, it's a little too simple for the semi-evolved simians that define American security measures.

Sorry, but something has gone horribly wrong with the US. What happened to common sense and why did a fraction over 50% of the electorate decide that GWB was a suitable inheritor of a post previously filled by the likes of Washington and Roosevelt?

My Birthday
I had to go into the office to sort out the tickets to Toronto as I've been asked to work there for a week. So I spent the morning of my birthday there. During the afternoon, I hit downtown San Jose with a friend Paul from work and we visited some truly memorable bars, but got back to the hotel for 5pm.

Edelberto, Olga's husband, met me at the hotel and took me to theirs for my birthday party. The food was wonderful. Both multiculturally culinarily it was a truly marvelous spread. Olga cooked some wonderful Aaerbeijani bread and lasagne.
Another new friend, Maki made some sushi. I'm not normally fond of sushi but it was great. Maki left Japan when she was 23 to gain her degree in the UK only to find herself in Costa Rica a few years later. I find the idea of leaving your home country and moving to a country where they don't even use the same aphabet to study and build a new life very impressive.
Another Japanese girl made some patatas rellenas (minced meat wrapped in mashed potato, covered in breadcrums and fried) and Olga's daughter Nana made a birthday cake for me which was very touching. I haven't had to blow out candles on a cake made for me for several decades now.

It warms the spirit to know that there are people in the world who seem to live there lives solely for the purpose of bringing happiness to others. Even more so when it's me they are trying to bring happiness to.

STOP THE PRESS!

All of you people out there doubting my handsomeness will need to reassess your opinions after this!

....and before you wags start asking, no, she actually has 20-20 vision and excellent taste!

San Jose
On Sunday prior to starting work I had my hair cut at a place in the same shopping mall as my office. After the cut, the woman washed my hair and while I was laying back, the nape of my neck resting against the basin she covered my face with a hot moist flannel and lightly pressed it inside my ears and gave them a little gentle scrubbing action. It sent me back to my childhood and for a few brief moments I was a baby being bathed by my mother and about as happy as it is possible for a human to be.

Tuesday I nipped out to the Jazz Cafe for a few beers, a truly great venue, very stylish, live music and friendly staff. The barman, Freddy a friendly Costa Rican, gave me a running commentary as the Police came in at about 10pm and arrested the pianist for non-payment of child maintenance.

At work I sit next to Olga, a wonderful woman from Azerbaijan. The tapestry of her life is so amazingly rich. She has a law degree from her home country, has spent seven years living in Cuba where she met her husband Edelberto and has worked as everything from a waitress in a Chinese restaurant to a representative for the United Nations. They have invited me to their home on Saturday to celebrate my birthday. So much of her life has been spent in what most westerners would regard as abject poverty but she has a richness of spirit, a big heart and seems to spend her spare time cooking and thinking about how she can help out other people.

Olga has taken it upon herself to look after my mental and physical health. Which is great as her cooking is superb. I hope she brings in some more bread.

San Jose
Well I went out for a bit of a walk, San Jose feels much as you would imagine a Central American metropolis to feel a few grand buildings, a few colonial houses and a lot of rather run down concrete edifices. Even though it's Sunday, many places are open and I managed to score a "Let's Go" guide book. The centre is packed full of people of all manner of skin tones, most seeming friendly, the sky is very impressive, deep blue with big fluffy clouds and although the city is over 1000m above sea level you can see the mountains on either side of it. American fast food joints seem to be taking over from the smaller eateries, which is a shame. The sense of life is incredible from the birds that sing almost everywhere to the lush grass along the sides of the roads surrounding the rubbish bags awaiting collection, or biodegradation. I stumbled on a little fiesta outside the Museum of pre-Colombian gold with a brass band and much costumed dancing. Rather shamefully I went into Taco Bell and had a burrito. I am a Mexican food addict and since leaving San Diego some fifteen years ago I can't pass up the opportunity to eat it, even though it is almost invariably disappointing.

I just went outside, I thought there was a a monster truck revving contest outside my room, it's raining, raining hard, but that is par for the course this time of year, Costa Rica only has two seasons, a dry one and a wet one. It's warm more or less all year round, in the wet one it just rains once or twice per day but the dramatic skies and the plant growth have to be worth it.

Taxi drivers seem to be friendly if a little unaware of where they are, but charge according to their meters.

I forgot to pack my PC microphone so I'm having to use my mobile instead of Skype which is going to cost me a packet, I have to get one soon, together with a proper mouse, I don't like the laptop touch pads. Electronics-wise I am relatively well sorted though. I have a bunch of DVDs here and a few XVIDs on the PC together with my iPod and an Altec Lansing 'inMotion' which is a docking station for an iPod that charges it and has speakers, as I speak I'm listening to ColdPlay's X&Y album.

After my walk to Sabanas park and taxi back I felt a little peckish, the hotel restaurant is closed until 6pm so the concierge called a Chinese place which has delivered a rather large pot of chicken curry and rice for the princely sum of about ÂŁ2.50. Although definitely pleb food, I'm enjoying it, it's rather spicy and that makes a pleasant change from the insipid baby-sick curry that the Chinese restaurants in Spain serve up to the chile-phobic jamon munchers of Andalucia.

Cut scene to a bar in La Linea translated for your convenience:

J: Hola Pedro
P: Hola Jason, where have you been
J: I've just had a little tapas
P: What did you have
J: Nothing special, Cheese, Jamon
P: (in shock and admiration gasps) Jamon, great, I love jamon, our jamon here is great, a celebration?
J: No Pedro, it's just jamon, like we both eat every single day, it's not special unless you buy it in England where you have to remortgage your flat to buy a presliced, prepacked, 100 gram, plastic wrapped packet of the stuff, here it is thoroughly ordinary and besides which there are only four things on the menu.

I have heard of a pub where they brew their own beer, I intend to search it out, more news on this great quest later.

New Orleans
Am just feeling very sorry for the people of New Orleans. What a terrible loss, so many thousands of people, who have lost their homes, their jobs, their friend and relatives.
No doubt once those that have sought sanctuary in the sports stadia and convention centres have been moved to drier places, the papers will have something else for the front pages.

The levees that kept the city dry have been broken and it will take many months before they are repaired and the city pumped dry. But the city as was has been washed away and what remains will be rotting and need to be leveled. Many of the homes were not insured, the people who lived in them too poor to make the payments, those that had jobs will no longer have jobs as the places they worked will also have been washed away. The poor of New Orleans are like refugees from a foreign war that have arrived with nothing but their tears.

If it is ever rebuilt, will it ever be the same and if the city cannot be built up again can the US rebuild the lives of those people that have lost so much?

Costa Rica
Well I am finally away from the company I used to work for in Gibraltar and due to start my new job in Costa Rica on Monday. I'm writing this in the early hours of the morning as I went to bed at 23:15 local time which is 07:15 in Spain and woke up a little under four hours later. I am sure the jet lag will pass.

I arrived at 6pm by which time it was already dark, it is warm enough but very humid, I'm worried about the camera and lenses growing mould on the inside. I'll have to get some silica gel packs.

Mental note: Always get a lot of small bills, giving people a 5 dollar tip for carrying your suitcases from the arrivals lounge at the airport to the taxi is excessive.

The restaurant at hotel Jade is fantastic. I was presented with a little appetiser consisting of two little thinly sliced discs of bread that had been grilled with olive oil until crisp, covered with a piece of lettuce and a lump of a delightfully sharp mix of tuna, peppers, onions and tomatoes lightened with a little lime. Unfortunately the crisp bread gave way mid-bite and most of the first one ended up on a page of the menu. The friendly staff brought me a couple more.

The soup arrived with hot bread rolls and a small bowl of olive oil, balsamic vinegar and rosemary. The soup itself was excellent, mind you I think it's hard to go wrong with green lentils, it was a hearty farmer type soup with a little smoked bacon a few cubes of carrot, potato etc. After clearing away the very empty bowl the waiter brought a lime sorbet which looked great, tasted superb and was just the ticket for clearing the palate.

The steak arrived with a simply superb mix of fresh saute'd vegetables and some gratinated potato. I followed this up with a pleasant and well presented chocolate mousse and washed it down with a couple of glasses of wine. The service was friendly, courteous and very efficient. All in all it came to about $50 US which although expensive by Costa Rican standards is a steal for someone from western Europe.

Kay has been an absolute saint helping me to get all my affairs tidied up. Maria is quite upset and has said that it's better that we switch to friends mode. My mum is a little worried, she's not feeling too well at the moment and is concerend about me getting yellow fever, dengue fever malaria and tennis elbow.

My good friend Ken has had a blow, his girlfriend has just died and I worry about him. One day Ken's story will be told in full. He was the first person to put a Bristol engine in an AC Ace, then the AC factory employed him, where he put bigger and bigger engines into the little AC until they had a 289ci Ford engine in it. Then Carole Shelby who had nothing to do with the project whatsoever camed along and bought AC's production output and told everyone he had developed a car called the AC Cobra.

Anyway now I'm away from home for a bit I'm sure there will be more time for blog updating.