Havana life

Now, I’m here to write about life in Havana, about daiquiris, fishing and salsa. But it’s fair to say life in Cuba has been getting a bit intense. Not as tense as it is elsewhere, but we’re very definitely on the list of countries where the US wants regime change. Washington has cranked up its 64-year trade embargo on the island into an all-out oil blockade. Donald Trump said he is hoping to conduct a “friendly takeover” of the island. The Habanos cigar festival, which I had been planning to write about, has been “postponed.” So I find myself pushing aside my notes on the ever-higher prices of Behikes, instead

A frisson of fear tends to run through non-Americans when they face immigration in the United States. For years, young Brits have been warned prior to their first trip: “When you meet the immigration officer, don’t make jokes!” To boys cultivated to be insouciant in Britain’s posher schools, this usually means approaching the booth nervously repeating, “Don’t say bomb, don’t say bomb” – hopefully under their breath. However, I’d say the officers guarding America’s borders are among the most welcoming, and sometimes even funny, I’ve met – I’m excluding ICE, who sound awful. It’s often a surprise given I’m usually arriving from a country firmly on America’s State Sponsors of