I stop on American Football and am perplexed. Nothing makes sense to me and I’m confused why the commentator is yelling at a pitch full of crumpled bodies. It’s too much for my baffled brain to deal with so I flick on and hit Sean Paul, which is just the ticket to get me in the spirit for Margaretville — Montego Bay’s hottest night clu.

Wha’gwan at Margaretville

I was never going to get through the 50 flavours of Margarita on offer so decide to stick to rum and coke. We’re all enjoying the open deck of the club and I watch the inky black surface of my drink vibrate to the heavy bass of the ragga music playing downstairs. Every now and again loud sirens blare and I eventually realise that they and other random sound effects are being crow-barred into the music. Curious, we all venture down into the heart of Montego Bay’s hottest dance spot to see wha’gwan.

Bums, hips, legs and pelvises thrash around on the dance floor, many of them grinding into each other like some kind of bizarre, fleshy machine room. This is ‘bump and grind’ — the Caribbean dance phenomenon of simulating sex on the dance floor. The two requirements to being a bumper-and-grinder are…

A) you have to be black, and…
B) you need booty.

I watch as a local Jamaican woman, on all fours, fantastically rotates each butt cheek in opposing directions whilst her dance partner thrusts his groin into her ample cushioning. I carefully pick brief gaps between flailing limbs on the dance floor and dart my way to the bar to order a drink and watch the stage show which is about to start.

Death of a white boy

A buxom Jamaican woman stands on stage and as part of the show she has to pick out a partner to join her in a dance competition. She looks around the club then says huskily into the microphone, ‘I want a white boy.’

Surreptitiously, I step behind a large, Jamaican gent and pray to Jah that she doesn’t spot my white, trembling, presence. She doesn’t, but another — probably the only other — white boy is within arm's reach. She calls him over and the crowd roars for more. He takes a few steps in, looks at the horde through petrified eyes and makes the fatal mistake of backing out. The walls reverberate with the cacophony of boos. I down my rum and coke and immediately start bumping and grinding like Shaggy on amphetamines. Shaggy from Scooby Doo that is.

My moves must have been appreciated because at about 4am I notice three beautiful women eyeing me out at the end of the bar. I stumble over and as the haze of the smoke clears I notice something not quite right about these lovely ladies. The main thing that bothers me is that they are men in drag, and rather muscular, frightening looking men at that.

"You want to play?" one asks me. Too afraid to speak I shimmy my body backwards whilst incorporating a light sprinkle of bump and a just a touch of grind.

Red, Green and Yellow

The next day, bright and early, we pile into a bus en route to The Bob Marley Museum. It takes us about an hour to get there and conversation is sparse, because we are all very hung over. The bus pulls into the entrance of the museum which is introduced by a huge red, green and yellow painted facade and ‘No Woman, No Cry’ blares out of a nearby sound system.

We’re met by our Rasta guide who calls himself 'Captain Crazy'. He takes us through Bob’s childhood home whilst giving us a commentary interspersed with a maniacal laugh which I’m could either be born out of real craziness or a simple desire to keep the tourists engaged. I look at the exit sign which — like most objects — is painted in green, red and yellow and decide upon the latter.

The highlight of the tour is Bob Marley’s resting place and we walk around the cold, marble stone of his grave adorned with pictures and musical paraphernalia. We’re told we don’t like Bob Marley’s wife, Rita Marley, because she plans to rebury him in Ethiopia, his spiritual resting place and the origin of Rastafarianism. I think to myself that maybe she is wrong and that maybe Jamaica is heaven is under earth.

Then ask myself why I’m constantly trying to incorporate lyrics from Bob Marley’s songs into nonsensical and slightly rubbish philosophical musings.