Sticky and dangerous, Port of Spain might only exist to correct anyone who thinks ecstasy comes in a tablet. I went there for a cricket match and didn't get away for two years. It's a tropical disease, the kind that tempts you to piss away everything you thought you wanted. Kind of infection that melts your veneers. A place to die, but die wasted and shrugging.

No turquoise waters, no powder beaches. Instead, manatee-infested swamps slide into the Gulf of Paria, giving brochure-spotters the finger. The place lives for itself. And somewhere in its hot, wet air, in the stench of sex, in the relentless rhythms, in the low-low-down dirty dancing, in the traffic of Venezuelans, of substances, of violence, beauty, and humour, lie the keys to utter abandon - as it says on every bar and rum-shop licence - 'any time, any day'.

-- DBC Pierre, former resident of our fair isle, from a Hunter S Thompson-themed article in today's UK Observer.

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