Topic - Offbeat

On a clear day, and there are plenty of clear days in windy March, certain points of Mexico City afford a fine view of the surrounding mountains. What the clean air also reveals is that just about every nook and cranny in the folds of the hills has been built up – with the homes [...]

Normally there isn’t much of what’s now popularly referred to as “bonding” between train drivers and their passengers. The obvious reason for this is that the driver is up front looking ahead while the passengers are behind, watching things rush by the side windows, the closer the faster. On the Mexico City Metro, communications between the drivers and [...]

Argentine cartoonist Quino (Joaquín Lavado), creator of the Mafalda comic strip, is in Mexico this week. Mafalda, which Quino began drawing in 1964 and continued until 1973, was always popular in Mexico, itself home to some of the world’s finest political cartoonists. Mafalda, a child of the 60s, combines the innocence of the Peanuts strip with the [...]

This past week, Mexico’s most famous drunk of the Internet era died – ironically run over by a woman driving under the influence of alcohol. Guillermo López Langarica, popularly known as La Canaca, became famous when, after being arrested for drunk driving, argued: “so what? I haven’t crashed!” The colorful Guadalajara character, known locally for [...]

Stray dogs are still part of the Mexican landscape. The number of street dogs has diminished substantially over the years with the work of the catchers, but strays – mongrels for the most part – can still be seen hanging around the markets and street stalls, where their scavenging for food has a greater chance [...]

People who visit Mexico on business trips, and attend conferences, will have discovered that they aren’t much different here than anywhere else – the long introductions, the bad jokes, the charts, the strategic coffee breaks, the conference jargon. One word that is extremely popular among speakers at these events is “fundamental,” which for convenience’s sake [...]

Mexico City’s urban expansion, and corresponding increase in traffic, has meant that capital dwellers have over the years been putting forward their starting times in an attempt to steal a march on their fellow rush-hour sufferers. People who used to leave at 7:30 am are out by 6:30, and are wont to make that 6:20 [...]

People who spend time worrying about the large number of monopolies in Mexico should perhaps check out the cutthroat competition for listeners on the morning radio news shows, which take to the airwaves around 5:30 am or 6 am and don’t let go of them until 9 or 10 am. Then they start up again [...]

Personal titles are very popular in Mexico. You make a phone call and ask to speak to someone, giving their first and last name. Having ascertained, by shrewdness or direct inquiry, that the caller isn’t a person of any great importance, the secretary informs you curtly that el licenciado, or la licenciada (or el ingeniero, [...]

Two unsolicited emails – aren’t most of them? – popped into my inbox this week, both about the ancient Mayan site of Chichen Itza. One called for recipients to vote for the site as one of the new seven wonders of the world. (I’m not quite sure what was wrong with the old ones, but [...]