I am in a city called Medellin, Mr Escobar’s old home town and you can see why. A few weeks a go I was in a place called Taganga about 1500 people out of that 90% were gangsters and the other 10% have retired. When the afternoon rains came in Taganga the ‘esplanade’ was a wash with the mud, stones and shite coming down from the mountains so all the shop keepers and stall vendors got their brooms and shovels out to clean up the street – no council man or truck is going to come around and do it for you. Now in Toy Town its different a parking attended or fuckin arseholes (depends on what part of London you have had a ticket in) operate in a completely different way, they tell you where on the street is a free spot, more than likely they will open and close your door for you and when you come back to the car they hand you a ticket – which is the bill for the time parked – so no chance what so ever in getting a fine for staying 31 minutes instead of 30!
How perfect must a city be in order not to require generating money from fines to help improve other aspects of the city?
The 300lb gorilla in the room is women which I will have to talk about. They are different here again think of the old Renault adverts with Nicole and Papa, oh and the father’s mistress which we will admit was also hot – it’s just that Nicole stole the show. Here the ladies are all Nicole’s, if they fall into the ‘Fathers Mistress’ age group then they will go for an ‘upgrade’ or a change in size.
The women are Barbie dolls, they all have those hourglass waste lines a chest which can balance two bottles of beer on and an arse to match – so good if you have 3 friends beers to hold, lips, nose, eyes – the same all cut and shaped into the idea Barbie doll look. Now I’m not a fussy, and a preference is when women are natural looking – aka Nicole, those women are also here and well in any given day here you can give a score of six or seven. Before you think I am rating women out of ten you got me wrong – that’s how many times you have seen your future wannabe girlfriend/wife/mistress (delete on your own preference – I’ll take all three!)
Next homeless people, every where has them and its a very sorry state but Toy Town has fixed that issue (like a lot of other places in Colombia) glass and plastic comes with a refund attached to each item, we are talking a couple of pence but in the evening when business have closed they collect all the rubbish and assemble it in one area of the street then spend a couple of hours sorting the rubbish into piles so in the middle of the morning the magic dumper truck comes along and takes the separate piles and disposes of them accordingly leaving the plastic and glass for a refund. Now don’t say oh but then they spend it on drugs so its bad – feck that lots of people earn money, pay tax and then buy drugs – no difference in my book, but at least recycling has been addressed.
I’ll not stop there, you’ll be hassled for a few coins if you sitting around anywhere and sometimes you hand over the equivalent of 10 to 50p once they have enough 50p’s they trott off to a sweet shop, buy in bulk a type of sweet and then go back and resell the sweets to the people who have donated money in the first place – genius if you ask me – taking money to make more money and all achieved from the same target market!
Next – Law & Order. How do you control Toy Town – well you don’t and I don’t think anyone will have the balls to fuck about here! I’ve been in SA for five-ish months now and I’m still scared when I see a cop carrying a gun, the guys that deliver cash to banks look even more scary because they carry even bigger guns. Whenever I see a cash deliver truck I cannot help but think of a scene from a Hollywood movie where a car is going to pull a huge skid in the middle of the street and then a all out gun fight is going to start, the chance of it happening is next to none but – but, well it is Colombia and it could! So apart from carrying fuck off guns the cops are just ticking the box, whenever you seen them they are on a motor bike or standing talking to the hot barista in the cafe while they wait for their de-cafe, no foam frappechino with cream on top. The only thing I have seen them do is stopping another fella on a bike to search him – aka ran out of money so they need a bribe to pay for the days snacks & juices.
Speeding – well it just doesn’t matter because it’s a city and you can’t get very far by going fast, and its SA so they just don’t bother – like a seat belt, you know it’s there to save you but if nobody acts like an idiot then the law’s are flexible. Parking on a corner – no problem, just don’t be an arse and drive like a lunatic when you see a parked car, take your time see whats going on. Now this is all ideal but one thing that needs to be added into the equation is that they are all terribly holy so I’m sure they all rely on a little divine intervention now and again.
Taxi drivers are needed for this example, they worry about a few things so for this they need holy cards with a picture of Jesus, Mary and St Christopher on them. You then place the said cards in the correct order on your dash-board – Mary covers the rev counter so you don’t kill the engine, ‘Jesus I hope I don’t get a speeding ticket’ you know where he fits and finally I hope I get to the location – so St Chris will cover the petrol gauge.
So Pablo has done a good job in creating and maintaining a Toy Town and unlike East London if someone here is going to get a slap you won’t find two very big dude’s calling around in a black Jaguar. No – no, not at all this is Toy Town, here they carry a gun and drive a Black Escalade!
the bean hunter 