Free Senor Nice by Howard Marks Page A

them started playing a game on her mobile phone. A flight attendant asked her to turn it off, reducing her to tears. I wondered how human beings could even consider flying through space at 500 miles per hour in 500 tons of steel machinery which could be disabled by a mere text message.
    After twelve hours of sleep, nicotine deprivation and a pathetically small ration of red wine, we landed at Montego Bay. Immigration was friendly but slow. We waited several hours for officials to put meaningless stamps on scraps ofpaper. Their uniformed colleagues smoked and gazed blankly at the sea of surprisingly contented and patient faces. Everyone was delighted to be here. I was given a six-month visa. I was already beginning to regret I would be there for just one day.
    The
Observer
had booked me into a hotel on Treasure Beach, a two-hour drive away. The smiling, dreadlocked hotel driver picked me out immediately, bundled me into the back of the car, and drove like the clappers through the pitch-black Jamaican night.
    Swarms of vehicles zigzagged chaotically through laneless streets and alleyways. Laws, a highway code and other means of avoiding danger were entirely absent. ‘Drive on the left-hand side of the road’ obviously meant do so eventually, that is, make one’s way towards the left side. One-way street signs merely suggested that most vehicles should go in the same direction. Driving straight towards or into oncoming traffic was strongly encouraged. Unlit vehicles, arms gesturing randomly out of their windows, tore madly in any direction, emitting clouds of dense black fumes. Drivers changed lanes without slowing or looking, and scraped the road with capsizing bodywork, sending showers of sparks on to pavements crammed with sleeping, eating, TV-watching and trading communities, where the odd death or amputation was not a hindrance to business. People, donkeys and dogs reluctantly ambled off the road, avoiding injury at the last possible moment courtesy of screeching, corroded brakes.
    We arrived at Treasure Beach, a string of loosely linked fishing settlements and the site of Jake’s Hotel, a ramshackle assembly of wooden cottages, concrete villas, bars, small pools and beach. I had read in the hotel brochure that Jake’s is to Treasure Beach as the university is to the city of Oxford, a focus of culture and clowning, but at 10.30 p.m. Jake’s was disappointingly dead. The driver took me to my cottage, the only light for miles. There was no wardrobe, no hot water, notelephone. There was, however, a fully stocked fridge, a wooden writing table, an L-shaped stone bench, a large double bed under a rainbow-coloured mosquito net, and a CD player.
    I walked out to the veranda, sat in one of the huge armchairs, gazed through almost pitch blackness at outlines of palm trees and shacks, listened to the frothy pounding waves, and sorely wished I’d had the balls to smuggle in enough dope for a smoke. Perhaps it is foolish to take coals to Newcastle, but a Welsh miner can only blame himself for freezing to death if he doesn’t. I raided the fridge and read the service directory and the covers of the dozen or so CDs. The music collection was first class. This was no surprise; the hotel is owned by Jason Henzell, son of Perry Henzell, the writer of the first great Jamaican film,
The Harder They Come
, and part of the Island Resorts chain owned by Chris Blackwell, founder of Island records. The hotel is also a personal favourite of Robbie Williams, who according to the hotel brochure wrote his massive hit ‘Angels’ during one of his stays.
    Over a hundred recordings a week are released in Jamaica, a greater output per head than any other country. Jamaican musical rhythm and dance movements derive originally from West Africa, and the songs, including hymns, developed at sugar cane and banana plantations. When slavery was abolished, syncopated rhythm, gyrating hips, bodies dipping forward and bawdy lyrics became the hallmarks of