didn have time to spoil it. It ended up looking a bit of a mess after crawling under our car and getting covered in oil. It also got hit by a car and ended up running sideways like a crab. It used to howl whenever the Coronation Street theme tune was coming from the telly as it must have reminded it of me mam mam, who was a big fan. Me dad had it put down one Christmas. Coronation Street had been on almost continually over the festive period and the howling was doing his head in. Edgar chatted a lot, like most cabbies, except his opening gambit wasn about football or politics. He just wanted to know if my girlfriend had a nice arse. I told him there was plenty of it. He laughed. Talk of Suzanne arse broke the ice, which was good. I might have to bring it up again with other people I meet if the conversion becomes a struggle. Edgar then put his stereo on and said he would play me some traditional Mexican music. It sounded quite upbeat and reminded me of the music my mam used to have blaring out of the caravan in Wales from our 8-track player. I asked what the song was about, and he told me it was about drug dealers in Mexico. He explained the lyrics �something about a car that is found in the middle of the road with the doors open and the passengers have had their heads cut off and blood is oozing out of the car. I don know how the story ends as his dog was coughing up hairballs again and I couldn really hear what Edgar was saying. After a few miles Edgar pulled his car over and told me he wanted to show me Santa Muerte. In English this translates to aint Death� It was a glass box about the size of the small kiosks you get outside Tube stations selling chocolate, crisps and fags. There were no crisps in this box, but there were fags along with a skeleton dressed in robes surrounded by booze. The poorer people and criminals of Mexico who are not very religious but not quite atheists either worship Saint Death. Ie never thought about it before but I suppose bad people might need someone to pray to, too. As we looked at the skeleton, a car with tinted windows pulled over for a few seconds. The men in it bowed their heads before skidding off again. We drove on to an Easter festival that Edgar said it would be worthwhile my having a look at. Easter seems to be a big deal in Mexico. I saw people acting out some Bible story on stage watched by hundreds of people. I heard choking, but it wasn Edgar dog this time. It was coming from a man who was being hanged. The thing is, Mexico loves violence so much it could just be something to keep the crowd interested before the Jesus bit happens. Kids aged two and three were sat on their dads�shoulders so they could see the hanging being acted out. I wandered off around the market where I found a woman selling dead crickets. Ricky used to buy them to give to his pet salamander, but it was locals who were knocking these ones back. I not sure how long a bag of crickets should last �I don know what the recommended daily allowance is �but one old man whom I expect to see sucking on Werther Originals couldn get enough of them. They were quite cheap so maybe it the low cost that attracts people to them. Or should that be locust? Oh, never mind. They were stacked high on a metal tray with half a lime placed on the side as a garnish. Flies circled. Maybe they were a pudding for anyone who was after a second course. I not very good with strange food. I don like the stuff that chef Heston Blumenthal knocks up, like bacon-and-egg ice cream. I don want to be challenged when eating, I just want to get rid of hunger. Jamie the producer kept asking me to try a cricket. He said he wasn going to let me leave without eating one. So I did. It didn taste bad but it wasn great either. I heard street food was a big thing here in Mexico but I didn think it meant the creatures that lived on the street. I carried on watching the Easter parade. I not a big fan of Easter, though I did have a chocolate egg before I left that was a gift from Suzanne mam. She knows I a fan of chocolate more than a fan of religion, but I am a fan of chocolate. I think that how most people are with Easter. It a religious event that been created to get fat, greedy people interested. I don know why we celebrate with an egg. Bit odd that it all about Jesus being crucified and giving up his life, and then years later we give him respect for what he did by eating a chocolate egg . . . with a small bag of Smarties inside. Are Kinder Eggs sold all year round for really religious people who never forget? I stood on a busy corner and waited for something to happen. Twenty minutes later a crowd came walking up the street. In the middle was a man who was dressed like �and looked like �Jesus, carrying a massive cross while being lightly whipped. Jamie told me that every year there is a long list of people who want to play Jesus. It is a real privilege to get the part. I never wanted to play him in the school nativity play, which is just as well as I was never offered it. I got to be a shepherd and say the line ee travelled from afar�and then I played the drum during the song ittle Donkey� even though I wasn supposed to, as the drum was actually there for e Three Kings� but I couldn help myself. Still, it was more than me mate Carl Grimshaw got to do; his job was to hit a triangle as the star appeared in the sky. This is the problem with overcrowded inner-city schools �there aren enough parts for everyone in the nativity story. I surprised Mrs Mathews didn change the carol to e Six Kings�just to get more kids involved. I was walking alongside Jesus when he started to struggle carrying the big oak cross up the steep
