Buyer beware

We had been warned! 'Falso dinero'; one gets blase. We get hit twice, once surprisingly from a HSBC ATM which we vainly hope will be rectified on Monday and less surprisingly from an ice cream kiosk in the Japanese Gardens. Irene, as you know, never one to not confront the devious and sly, steams back there yesterday but the person concerned not there and others shiftily deny any knowledge or responsibility. Not a happy conclusion and a waste of time, but they will squirm and deny in their own inner self, the tourist police also now alerted.

We are now sorrowfully aware that our time in BA is coming to an end. We have made a list of "Must See and Must Do" - and so we start.

Two very worthwhile exhibitions have been visited both of contemporary artists and musicians from Argentina and other nearby South American states. The qualities were so often amazing, sometimes politically, sometimes it's colour, shade, shape or luminosity, the music rakes the heart. Some archive music from the early 20th century held me transfixed and real anger was aroused from other painted scenes. I (Irene) stood absolutely transfixed, accompanied with a young man before one particular painting spell bound at the artist's use of colour capturing this very unusual sunlight. The architecture here can be truly striking with so many gems of earlier times hidden in most unlikely streets. Then a visit to the house used by Eva Peron's Social Aid Foundation, some time as a women's refuge, it is now a museum which I found exceedingly interesting as much was contemporaneous with the time I (Brian) might have lived here and relevant to my childhood; toys, utensils, furniture, fashions and so much more. The similarity with Diana too seems to me so clear. I don't know whether or if Eva, used or was used and I would dearly like to have the time to discuss with our a friends at 'Meet and Chat' why there is, to say the very least, ambivalence towards the political philosophy of that time. Was it fascist leaning? Poverty was that spawning ground in pre-war Europe as it had been for communism too. Who was it that aided Franco in his beginnings? Argentina was undoubtedly a prosperous place following WW1 but undoubtedly too that wealth was inequitably shared. I must read much more on this.