New Statesman - <![CDATA[Nigel Fountain]]> http://www.newstatesman.com/writers/nigel_fountain en <![CDATA[A collision of cultures]]> http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2009/05/oaxaca-amada-teachers-pri-2006 http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2009/05/oaxaca-amada-teachers-pri-2006 Thu, 21 May 2009 11:37:48 GMT Nigel Fountain Oaxaca is home to the weird and the wonderful, including surreal graffiti, spectacular protests and God smoking a joint

That Tuesday lunchtime I was a few pews back, assessing Jesus as Charles II, a David Niven version.

Christ was wearing a blue coat, flared from the waist, with white ribbon. Effete, I thought, uninterested, and sat opposite a pyramidal Virgin: bland, prim, pert.

I was in the Basilica de Nuestra Seņora de la Soledad in Oaxaca, a church that could be described as a unique example of Mexican [...]

]]> <![CDATA[Time and the river]]> http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2008/07/london-past-thames-city-river http://www.newstatesman.com/travel/2008/07/london-past-thames-city-river Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:29:43 GMT Nigel Fountain A bicycle ride along the Thames Path spirits Nigel Fountain out of the rat race and into London's past

The stillness of the pigs lingers in my mind. Prostrate, they were in adjacent stalls, snorting sporadically as if disturbed from pleasing dreams, snuffling, belching, deftly manoeuvring vast pink and black and white bulks to get the most exposure possible to the sun. Two enormous, oblivious Rotherhithe pigs, safe from American hog camps and Gloucester Old Spot sausages. Among global piggery, surely the most blessed of their kind.

Cycling the [...]

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