Chavez in Chile

For the Hispanoparlantes among you, here's my latest column on Chavez' much publicized spat with the King of Spain.

Harper in Chile

So yesterday I had lunch and dinner with Stephen Harper. The lunch was at the Hyatt, lots of people. My table included the Cuban ambassador, who made a spirited defence of the Revolution, and a guy named Dana, from the Canadian embassy.

Dinner was at the presidential palace; a much more intimate affair. Maybe 60 people. The president spoke, so did Harper. Everyone best friends. Harper is impressive in person. No sign of the control-freak megalomaniac we know him to be. President Bachelet's English is good.

Isla Negra

Just got back from a weekend at the beach. Visited Isla Negra, which is where the Nobel Prize-winning poet, Pablo Neruda, had one of his houses. It's now a museum. Here are a few pictures....

Friends of LSE

This week the Chilean Friends of LSE had a lunch at the Club de la Union (a very old school private members' club) to honour two of its members who had recently been elected to important positions: Alfredo Ovalle, head of the main business lobby group (on the far right, pun intended), and yours truly, president of the Chilean Political Science Association (holding one of Luis Ramirez' One Laptop Per Child computers).

(Thanks to Luis for unknowingly allowing me to use the picture.)

The works continue

Week two of the renovation works were pretty much a goner.

On Monday the tile guy didn't show up. He apparently has a drinking problem.

On Tuesday he did, but he ran out of tiles. I ordered more, but they were not delivered until today.

So on Wednesday they had nothing more to do, since they could not install the rest of the bathroom fixtures until the tiles were done.

On Thursday, they couldn't be certain when the tiles would show up, so they didn't come again.

But, the stove arrived, and is sitting in the middle of my foyer, and I am slowly accumulating light fixtures. Two for the kitchen to replace the fluorescent horror jobbies that are currently in place, one I bought unexpectedly at the beach last weekend, and a round orb which I got from my birthday from two very good and creative friends, which will look great on a side table somewhere in the living room.

I also experienced some nausea on Tuesday when I paid 800000 pesos for the new flooring. Horrible. It should be in place by the end of next week. Augh!

The only minor major problem I have encountered so far is that they took out some tiles in the kitchen floor, thinking they could replace them, but it turns out the tiles can't be found anywhere. Drat. I will now have to get creative with strategic positioning of different colours.

Chile in the New York Times

President Bachelet gets noticed by the New York Times today. OK, so it's not the most glowing review the current Chilean president is ever going to get. But it's true.

Israel and Navia are two colleagues of mine, the latter works with me at the UDP. Both are fundamentally pro-government, so their criticisms have to be taken seriously (although Navia is a professional critic and has lately become quite bitter in his analysis).

Chag Sameach

To those to whom it matters, wishing you a happy and healthy Passover.