TUESDAY NIGHT at the Gravity bar. That's above, but the picture is not representative.

Two conversations. The first is with two stolid Germans. They have come from Hamburg, a very long way. We talk a little about what I remember about Hamburg, then they describe their plans, which appear to be walking around Cancun city looking very conspicuous. I advise them not to go to Coco Bongo, but to go to Chic here. Same thing and less chance of methanol in the drinks, you know? I mean, you never know. We start talking about Germany, and its difficulties, and like many men of other countries I meet here he is not pleased with the direction of his country, at all. He is particularly displeased, in a very quiet and rational way that speaks of a deep well of rage, of the energy policies, and how decarbonization is madness, the decommissioning of nuclear is madness, expecting the grid to hold with just renewables is madness.

I ask him what he does for a living, and he gives a rueful smile of slight shame and says “I sell rooftop photovoltaic panels.”

Can’t make it up. Next up is a husband of one of the tennis ladies - one of the Terrible 25, but a sensible one. By the way, the dancer who was making the ridiculous moves the previous night, who was also notable to my eyes for smoking a very big cigar with natural panache, comes over to the table as well, and gives a big cigar to my new friend, the husband of the Tennis Lady. They are all Canadian. We fall into easy conversation and I ask what he does. He says Frieght Logistics.

Here’s how my head works. I cannot bear to appear stupid and I do not want to appear uninterested. When people start talking about their jobs they often reveal interesting things, and if they really like their work you can learn a lot. But in order to prime the pump, you have to ask questions, right? So my brain scurries back to the card catalogue to look up FREIGHT LOGISTICS and hey presto, there’s a whole series of elevator conversations with the guys in our building who do something like this. The notes are faded but I can make some things out.

“So you get it from port to warehouse, but you don’t have any trucks.”

Ding ding ding! That was the magic question, because it indicated the most general understanding, and if I knew that, I did not have to have everything explained. Indeed that is what they do. He developed a proprietary software, I think - it was loud and we were all drinking - and he ran the company with his wife. Keep it going, brain.

“Just in time or more, I don’t know, longer-term inventory, or both?”

It was the latter but they did JIT as well. I’m running out here.

“How do you track these days when something gets to its destination? Barcodes? Or is it QR codes?”

My friends, it’s still barcodes.

Then we turned to politics, and he was going off on Trudeau, dancing at a concert while Montreal had riots. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I liked his dad.”

“What, Castro?”

Snort. I can also tell you that men of a certain age of the Canadian variety can probably tell you exactly where they were when the saw the Mrs. Trudeau at Studio 54 picture. It burned deep on their brains.

Then there's Man-Mountain Canuck, who was sitting at the bar with a flagon of fruity something well-infused with tequila. He also has a shot glass of tequila and downs it as I approach, slamming the glass on the bar top with cliched gusto. He’s probably six foot and change, three bills, skin the color of blizzard and hair the color of carnage, a spattering of indistinct tattoos across his chest. He’s halfway to heaven. I say TEQUILA when he slams the shot glass down and he says TEQUILA! I ask what he’s drinking and he says he has no idea. One of those bottles over there.

Where you from?

"You’re not going to believe it," he says, "but MAN-I-TOBA."

I say “I’m from Minnesota. Your Canadian brother.”

We shake, meaningfully. He says he’s been following the Vikes since his own CFL team went to shit. What do you do when you’re not up here drinking?

He was a gold miner. Worked in a mine, gold silver copper zinc. Which one to you get the most of? Gold and silver. Really? Not copper, what with all the electronic demand? Nope. What’s the company?

"HudBay."

You mean Hudson Bay Trading company? The department store?

No, see, they had the same point of origin, but branched off a long time ago. Then he points over to another table. "That’s my brother, he’s getting married tomorrow, and I’m standing up for him. Would you believe I’ve never been out of Canada?"

"It's a big beautiful country. Why would you want to leave?" That earns me a firm handshake.

Later I check my phone to remind myself of the name of the Winnipeg CFL team. Ah, the Blue Bombers. When I walk past the table later he waves and I shout GO BOMBERS and three other heads swivel around, and they’re all miners. Except the guy who handles everything mechanical. “He breaks it,” he says, pointing to Man-Mountain, “I fix it.”

How long can you work the gold in the mine?

“Ten years, they used to say, but now that he’s in charge, probably five.”

I don’t know if that meant he’d be really good at extraction or do something that made it all collapse ahead of schedule.

Dinner review! Remember, I know you don’t care. We ate at the Argentine place, El Gaucho. Steak! Can’t go wrong with steak!

Empenada with spicy meat: very good. Wife’s empanada was undercooked. Dough appeared raw. Waiter very apologetic and assured us he would speak to the kitchen. I'm sure the kitchen was spoken to. There was a salad in there somewhere which was like a 1930s British bohemian: very thin with a strange dressing. We each had a New York Strip, and the good news was that it was not entirely fat. It was big so we could get a fair amount of actual meat out of it. Dipping sauces helped. Dessert was a volcano cake, but it was a volcano in the contemporary Vesuvius sense, inert, not the exploding and gushing volcano of yore. Nothing ran out when it was sundered.

Ambience and setting was A+ as usual. Meal: a solid B. They're all solid Bs.

You’re wondering, of course, if there have been problems with getting housekeeping to stock what we require. Yes. This is perhaps a perfect example of a First-World Third-World problem. Not that Mexico is the third world, but you know what I mean: the collision of expectations and the lassitude of the staff. The problem was the Nespresso capsules. They were all decaf. And we can’t have that. So I sent a message to our butler, who assured me that the proper ones would be on the way. Over at the other place, the Grand Palladium, that would have been that, and nothing would happen. Here, at the TSJ section of the Grand Palladium, that means action, and it means it now.

Sure enough, someone showed up a few minutes later with Nespresso capsules. I examined them: decaf. I explained this to the guy who delivered but he did not understand. So I said “espresso” and then said “Caffiene”and mimed being jittery and bug-eyed. Then I said DECAF, pointed to the capsules, and made an easy flowing hand gesture.

I do not think I got my point across.

I related this to our butler who said she would take care of it. No rush, I said. Later, while I was out, Wife said another hosskipping lady showed up with a bag and just gave her, like, six. Fine. When I examined them, you know the story:

		Sigh

Meanwhile the butler had sent a note saying it was all settled. But it was not. I took a picture of the bottom of the capsules, which clearly said DECAFFINATED, and sent it along, noting, no rush, tomorrow’s fine.

Door knock a few minutes later. It is Hector. He has spoken to hosskipping for this building. He said “I understand there was a picture taken.”

I said that there was indeed and showed it to him, and he understood completely and said he would be back in a minute. I assured him it was not that critical. He insisted. I said as long as you’re here, we had requested four Dos Equis stocked per day, and as you’ll note, they stocked two. He apologized and swore on the grave of his ancestors it would not happen again. He returned in a few minutes with caffeinated capsules and more beer.

Today, I note, there were even more capsules. And four cans of beer.

Coors.

I think they’re testing me. Will he call up about that?

I did not call up about that.

TOMORROW: Enter the Cypriot