The 8:52 service to Retiro has been cancelled due to a fire on the train... and the station...

I like Argentina. It's a marvellous country with great wine, good beer, excellent food, attractive women (if that is what you're looking for), some of the best football in the world and more than decent scenery.

Argentines are a lively bunch too. It appears, from my limited experience, that civil liberties include the right to riot in the streets whenever and wherever they feel like it. Indeed, I got a taste of it a few years ago, when I was in Buenos Aires just as George Bush came to town.

So, I read with interest that Buenos Aires commuters set fire to a passenger train, stoned station buildings and tried to overturn a ticket machine in protest against yet another delay to their regular journey. Whilst the Government alleged that activists from the Workers Party were behind the mayhem, the response of a representative of the railway company seems to be more in tune with the approach of the locals;

"We understand that people get angry when the service is delayed."

That, my friends, is bureaucratic poetry...