All eyes on the Philippines this week, and rightly so. Godspeed to those American and British ships making their way to the devastation in Leyte and Samar. It’s sad, though, that the global news machine can only process one disaster at a time. The world has all but forgotten the tropical storms and floods that have battered Acapulco in the past two months. It’s a lesser tragedy, with mercifully a much less significant death toll, but nevertheless it tears at my heart. Acapulco was my youthful stamping ground, the most glamorous, exciting, beautiful place I had ever been. At 22 I went on holiday there for a week and stayed for another six. It was a playground for some big Hollywood names, and the surroundings reflected their standards of hedonism. I followed in their footsteps like a panting little puppy, water-skiing around the gorgeous, unpolluted bay for hours, eating in fabulous restaurants and dancing all night. Alas, no more. These days it feels as if the drug cartels have taken over: everyone who owned a villa triple-locked their doors and hired hefty security guards. Most of those I knew eventually sold up and left.
The Oscar race has begun in earnest, with a few good movies on release and some terrible ones. I agree with all the praise for Tom Hanks in Captain Phillips — but not about Gravity, the film which has the lovely and talented Sandra Bullock being pulled about in space on what looks like an umbilical cord. It sent me to sleep. I dragged Percy and Ivan Massow to see another film I had high hopes for, having read four-star raves from several critics. Sadly it was such a pretentious boring dud that we left halfway through.
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