Our Man in Tirana

When we first arrived it seemed that I heard it everywhere. Now, as we get ready to leave I'm hearing it everywhere again. In the last three days I've heard it three times - on Wednesday in Juvenilja, on Thursday somewhere I can't remember, on Friday at an open air festival in Mother Tereza Square. The latter was a kind of ersatz reggae version - pleasingly different. I tried it once myself at Flares on karaoke night, but I couldn't hit the high notes. Maybe I ought to give it one more go.

If Live Earth's line-up of ageing rockers isn't your thing you could always try the opera. Tomorrow and Saturday Verdi's famous opera Aida will be performed at the Theatre of Opera and Ballet in Skenderbeg Square. Here's an extract from an earlier performance. Thanks to Adrian for sending this.

Last night after another fine dinner at King House - highly recommended - I ended up at Tirana's trendiest nightclub, Lollipop. There were five of us there and I think between us we raised the average age considerably. I'm not a nightclub person, but there was a live band playing and a friend arranged some tickets for us. We arrived just as the band were playing Gloria - a taste of home. For those who don't know, Gloria was a song by Them, whose lead singer was Van Morrison before he got famous all on his own. Van Morrison is a son of my own home town of Belfast - and is the person they should have named Belfast City Airport after instead of drunken wife beater George Best. Then we could have flown from Van Morrison airport to John Lennon airport. We also had The Monkees, Elvis, Robbie Williams and a few others I can't remember or didn't recognise. I thought it was interesting that all the songs were in English and the few words the singer spoke between songs were a...

Thanks to Laura who sent some information on the Tirana Jazz Festival which starts tonight - 29 May - and runs until Saturday 2 June with performances every night. I'm not a big fan of jazz so I have no idea who most of the artists are, but that's probably all the more reason to go along to a few shows and find out. The venue for all performances is Lollipop on Rr. Pjeter Bogdani. You can read more about the festival at Moving Culture and in the festival booklet .