We went to the film club last night – that’s Maureen, Dennis and Sue and, for the first time, Dorothy. (Melanie doesn’t come so often since she got together with Norman, it seems.)

Maureen and I went in Dennis and Sue‘s car.

Before we left we heard that the surviving bomber of the Boston marathon had been captured.

It was an Argentinian film called Carancho, which means “vulture”.

I was especially interested because of the time I had spent in Latin America.

There’s a seedy, dilapidated hospital system, an overworked paramedic who is using drugs to keep going, a lawyer who has lost his licence and, to survive, is working for a criminal group which preys on victims of car accidents, gets hold of their insurance policies, negotiates with insurance companies, then steals most of their money.

This is a dark film in which everything is corrupted and decent people get entangled too.

We talked about it afterwards as we usually do.

They asked me if it was a true picture of Argentina. I said, no, it’s a story, you can live a good life there if you keep your head down, but there is a lot of corruption, there is a lack of confidence in its institutions.

As we drove home, I thought again about the countries of Latin America.

Latin America still oscillates between populism and fascism, hyperinflation or militares.

There have been more big cacerolazos in Buenos Aires – pot banging demonstrations.

I expect the Argentinian government of Christina de Kirchner will fall soon.

Maureen and I got out of the car and walked the last part of the journey.

The birds had fallen silent. The only sound was the sheep calling to their lambs in the dark.