A good one-dollar cigar

Sometimes an old man waits on customers behind the counter at Hermanos Petrides, a cigar store on Calle Uruguay between the Eje Central Lázaro Cárdenas and Calle Bolívar. He has a weathered countenance and an extremely patient manner toward the uninformed customer. He is almost old enough to remember the era when Thomas Riley Marshall, vice president to Woodrow Wilson, summed up the U.S.'s woes and said, "What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar."

The old man's sons most frequently take care of the customers these days, with equal grace. I don't smoke, but this is where I steer people from the U.S. who want to buy legitimate Cuban cigars. I also suggest -- as the old man suggested to me, when I was buying Cubans for friends in New York -- that they try Mexican cigars from San Andrés Tuxtla, Veracruz. They only cost a dollar or two, and my cigar-smoking friends tell me they are as good as stogies that generally cost five or ten times as much.

Yabba dabba do

I thought that I knew Mexico City pretty well, but only realized the other day that the Flintstones had moved here.

Mickey Rourke, move over

On July 1, Alberto and Alejandro Jiménez, better known as "La Parkita" and "Espectro Junior," their monikers as professional wrestlers, were found murdered in room 52 of the Hotel Moderno, around the corner from the Arena Coliseo, where they had each fought countless times. They had rented the room, accompanied by two prostitutes, who left later that day without the Jiménez boys. Hotel management was suspicious, knocked on the door several times, and as there was no answer, went inside and found the cadavers.

Unfinished alcoholic drinks were found in the room, and police sources suspect that the girls put eye drops in the Jiménez boys' cocktails. This would have been with the intention of knocking them out to rob them, but eye drops can be deadly. In 2007 a band of women known as Las Goteras -- the Droplets -- was arrested for the murder of various men with this modus operandi.

Here is a link to the coverage of the Jiménez murders in Ovaciones, Mexico's premier sports newspaper. For those who cannot read Spanish, here is a version from that most esteemed of British tabloids, The Sun.

The wrestlers were twin brothers. They also happened to be midgets.

Cristina cooks

For some readers, Cristina Potter will need no introduction. She writes a blog that is faithfully scrutinized by hundreds of thousands of readers, and was voted the world's best food blog by the London Times. Called Mexico Cooks, she writes about the wonders of this country, principally culinary (but also artistic, floral, musical, etc.). Here she is, slaving over a hot stove, on a recent afternoon in San Miguel de Allende. I had the pleasure of attending a feast prepared by her and several friends of the hotelier Diane Kushner. Cristina's mole is unbeatable.

Don't forget not to vote

On July 5, Mexicans vote in local elections. Here in Mexico City, the pickings are rather slim.

Some candidates, like Ana Guevara, the retired track-and-field champion, are used to running, although not for office. The worst you can say about Mexican politicians is that the best thing you can say about Ana Guevara is that she is not a politician.

Some dinosaurs of the PRI, which ran Mexico for over 70 years, are trying to convince the voters to return to the fold.

Even Guadalupe Loaeza, a columnist who made her fame writing gossipy articles about well-to-do women with nothing to do in Polanco, is getting into the act.

Perhaps the saddest aspect of this year's election is that the story with the most traction is a movement that is trying to convince Mexicans that, as a protest, they shouldn't bother to vote.