In Tallinn zoo there is a three-legged elephant called Gertrude. She also suffers from arthritis. People who have had a chance to compare her dancing with mine say that she is far and away the more graceful mover. In Cuba that is a bit of a problem. An article in the constitution obliges musicians to exhort their listeners to dance in 97 per cent of Cuban songs and they follow it diligently. You can see my problem.

Seeking relief from this permanent reminder of my inadequacies I spent a night in front of the TV. Two of the Cuban stations had dance programmes. One of them was astounding. Picture Kraftwerk dressed in trilbys and jackets that are too large for them. Instead of state of the art electronic equipment they are positioned behind the biggest wooden xylophone you have ever seen and all four play it simultaneously. Then the dancers come out. Apparently this is what passes for entertainment in Guatemala.

But those Guatemalans have it good compared to the Chinese. You get Chinese TV´s foreign language stations in most of the hotels here. The news is far better than that on CNN and the music is a jaw dropper to behold. The People´s Army choir singing accompanied by a group of women and two pairs of creepy looking twins singing lines we all thought were probably illegal now:

Introduce new scientific concepts

The economy in the northwest is growing vigourously now.

We have abolished the tax on agriculture which has existed for 2600 years.

We´ve exceeded the ten year plan.

Sorry if anyone has been hoping for high level analysis of what’s happening here. You might get that next week when computer time is less precious.