Casablanca

I liked Hugh Laurie's The Gun Seller so much, thought I'd give a sample to encourage you to pick up the book. Also, just thought it was entertaining enough on it's own to be worth the while. It definitely belongs in the, "if I ever got around to writing fiction again, this is what I'd want to sound like" file.

Don't go to Casablanca expecting it to be like the film.

In fact, if you're not too busy, and your schedule allows it, don't go to Casablanca at all.

People often refer to Nigeria and its neighbouring coastal states as the armpit of Africa; which is unfair, because the people, culture, landscape, and beer of that part of the world are, in my experience, first rate. However, it is true that when you look at a map, through half-closed eyes, in a darkened room, in the middle of a game of What Does That Bit Of Coastline Remind You Of, you might find yourself saying yes, all right, Nigeria does have a vaguely armpitty kind of shape to it.

Bad luck Nigeria.

But if Nigeria is the armpit, Morocco is the shoulder. And if Morocco is the shoulder, Casablanca is a large, red, unsightly spot on that shoulder, of the kind that appears on the actual morning of the day that you and your intended have decided to head for the beach. The sort of spot that chafes painfully against your bra strap or braces, depending on your gender preference, and makes you promise that from no on you're definitely going to eat more fresh vegetables.

Casablanca is fat, sprawling, and industrial; a city of concrete-dust and diesel fumes, where sunlight seems to bleach out colour, instead of pouring it in. It hasn't a sight worth seeing, unless half-a-million poor people struggling to stay alive in a shanty-town warren of cardboard and corrugated iron is what makes you want to pack a bag and jump on a plane. As far as I know, it hasn't even got a museum.

You may be getting the idea that I don't like Casablanca. You may be feeling that I'm trying to talk you out of it, or make your mind up for you; but it really isn't my place to do that. It's just that, if you're anything like me--and your entire life has been spent watching the door of whatever bar, café, pub, hotel, or dentist's surgery you happen to be sitting in, in the hope that Ingrid Bergman will come wafting through in a cream frock, and look straight at you, and blush, and heave her bosom about the place in a way that says thank God, life does have some meaning after all--if any of that strikes a chord with you, then Casablanca is going to be a big [bleep] disappointment.