Morocco ... Part two

Before we left Casablanca for Marrakech, I wanted to visit some of my old haunts from 40 years ago.

Jamilla and I went to rond point (roundabout) Mers Sultan, a chaotic merging of seven, wheel-spoke lanes in a residential suburb not too far from the city. I used to live in a first floor flat near here. I thought I'd found my old flat, or at least the street-level entrance to it, but I could not be sure after so many years.

During long balmy evenings I used to lounge around on the terrace above the street din with my friends Ahmed and Abdulhak, smoking and listening to "Can't Buy a Thrill".

Ahmed is dead. Abdulhak is an Imam in Italy, or so I've heard. Nothing lasts. Nothing stays the same. Experiences fade to memory. Once familiar landmarks become a palimpsest.

So now, I wanted to sit outside Cafe Mers Sultan, on the rond point, and drink a beer or a coffee, just like I did almost every day in '78. But the cafe's licence had long changed, forbidding the consumption of alcohol al fresco.

I walked to Brasserie du Soleil, fully expecting it to be gone ... but it was still there. This is where I ate dinner most nights, at a footpath table. It's still called Brasserie du Soleil but has become a dark and dingy beer bar, windows papered up, as if it should be ashamed of itself.

Nothing stays the same.