Get your miojo working.
Living on one's own stimulates remarkable creativity in the kitchen. When one finds oneself with Old Mother Hubbard Syndrome, miojo is the answer. Despite it being bare, I'm sure she had at least one packet of this wonderful stuff in her cupboard. Here are some miojo recipes for anyone finding themselves in a similar situation:
Miojo á la beufburguer congelé. Lightly fry the beufburguers congelé in any cheap cooking oil. chop up and mix with miojo. Delish with ketchup.
Miojo surprise. Open your fridge and grab the first thing you place your hands on and fling it in the miojo pan. Mix vigorously. Delish with ketchup.
Miojo de Ontem. Put it in the micro with a dab of marg. Delish with ketchup.
Miojo de Ontem Frito. Alternative for those who can't afford a micro. In a frying pan and stir it around a while until it looks reasonable. Delish with ketchup.
Miojo de Ontem Frio. In desperate situations. Delish with anything.
When I think of 101, I'll publish a book.
HWYL
I'm lying in bed at 1am (ignore what time it says at the bottom here) not being able to sleep and loads of stuff running through my head with a background voice saying - write write write!
So here I am now, naked at my computer (well I can't go naked in the pool anymore) and there were two things: The first is Q's comments to James Bond: after the latter fiddles with a control of a car, the latest of Q's inventions: "Need I remind you, double- o seven, that you have a licence to kill, not to break traffic laws". Then, after examining several devices including an exploding pen and a cable shooting belt buckle, Bond picks up what seems to be a large baguette, Q says: "DON'T TOUCH THAT! It's my lunch".
The second is this:
I am rifleman number 3 on the left half of a section of 10 riflemen; we have a gunner out on the right flank, a 7.62 belt fed LMG. We are dug in, ancient trench warfare, waiting for a frontal assault, facing a gentle slope the far limit of which is a line of bush about 800 yards distance. At this very distance a single warrior appears, running towards us, flat slavic features, we know what he looks like because we've seen him before hundreds of times. The section leader gives a command and a single shot is fired. Later we learn this is a mistake as it gives our position away.
More of the Commie bastards are appearing, first at the greater distance, then coming nearer. They're bobbing and weaving, sprinting and ducking. The section leader screams: riflemen! 400 yards, choose your targets! Gunner! Short bursts! The noise: BANG BANG BANG. That's how guns go you know.
There are 30 rounds in an SLR magazine. We start with 4 full magazines and there are boxes of ammo lying around. BANG BANG BANG. When a mag is empty, if you're good you'd have counted your rounds so it doesn't click on an empty chamber; safety catch on, mag off, cock the weapon to eject anything, new mag on, safety catch off and continue. Then the section leader shouts - Fire at will! Which one's Will?
The noise increases. There are 3 incredibly big BANGs right in front and lots of smoke. Oh hell, gas. The usual procedure, and someone yells GAS GAS GAS! oh yeah, really. Down again, slip the mask over the head and check the seals and shout GAS GAS GAS to warn others and to expel anything that's sneaked in. When the mags run out you have to cower down and refil 'em, having trained repeatidly in this, you slide the slippery brass cartridges into the mags with the same ease you have of, say, tying a shoe lace, or taking a ciggy out of the packet and lighting up. NOT! This is fumble and nerves city, you can't hear for screams and bangs and the anti fogging solution you rubbed into the eye piece of the gas mask has the complete opposite effect than that desired. Up over the top again and BANG away. I must've killed hundreds by now, and they still keep coming.
Well I think I can sleep now.
Here's a list of Good Reads for the summer and could be taken as a small selection of my fave literature, though not in order of preference.
Here be Dragons/Falls the Shadow/The Reckoning: trilogy by Sharon Kay Penman. 12/13th Century England/Wales historical novel stuff
The Quincunx. Charles Palliser; The best Charles Dickens book ever, not written by Charles Dickens (that's why it's the best).
Pillars of the Earth: Ken Follet; A man's dream to build a cathedral in 12th Century England involves nasty knights, damsels in distress, merry monks and belligerent bishops.
Life A User's Manual, Georges Perec; I haven't figured it out yet but it's DAM GOOD.
Around the World in 80 Days. The old Verny classic, don't laugh, it's brilliant. No one tops Phileas Fogg's coolness as he steps into the Reform Club at precisely 8.44 and 57 seconds and announces: "Here I am, gentlemen".
Under Milk Wood; Dylan Thomas; Had to have good 'ole Dyl in the list. This will take you about an hour to read.
Ulysses; James Joyce; not for the faint hearted, drink lots of Guinness and try not to concentrate too much.
London; Edward Rutherfurd; everything you've wanted to know about that seething metropolis from the Celts to 20th Century English lords.
The Mists of Avalon; Marion Bradley; talking about Celts... this is the bible.
The Lord of the Rings; well I guess everyone knows by now...
I'm off to the beach soon. One of the simple pleasures of life: Sitting on the beach, it's around 10am, under the shade; $5 camelô cheap sunglasses (ZZTOP 'Deguello', Warner Bros. Records Inc. 1979) in order to surreptitiously gaze at girls in bikinis. I utter the immortal words "Bar's open!" and reach down to a small cool box which is maintaining 4 or 5 cans of FBA at the correct temperature at which FBA should be drunk, BLOODY COLD! There's that satisfying PSHHHT sound and half the can is emptied before pausing.
It's freezing January night in the Cynon Valley, South Wales, I'm in a car with my cousin Sue, she's driving. The car is slipping up a steep country lane hill when we spot two persons, sex unidentifiable as they are wrapped thickly against the bitter wind. They're men. Are you going to the Lion? They are. Hop in then. The car continues struggling up the hill. Five minutes later we reach our destination: The Red Lion Inn. There are just 2 cars in the car park, the glow from the windows indicates the place is open. We push open the heavy open door step over the threshold into the sound and warmth. Despite the two cars, the place is full, buzzing and there's a great roaring log fire. The bar has a selection of real ales from the cask. I sit in a wooden pew with a pint of Felinfoel Special Christmas Ale, surrounded by friendly smiling Welsh people. I get merrily drunk. We leave at 2.30am, there's no Last Order's Gentlemen Please, here, this is rural Wales.
HO HO Bloody HO. 'Tis the season to be pissed tra-la-la-la-la la-la-la-la. Having having sunk another bottle of Bohemia's newly concocted brew, "Weiss", and feeling decidedly ill again Christmas Eve, one comes to the conclusion - IT'S FIGGIN' AWFULL STUFF! Please leave complicated brewing to the Germans, Brits and Czechs. And what in the Divil's wrong with the construction "Having having..." ? Nothing at all I tell you, if Donald Rumsfeld can say such things, then so I can.
Yesterday, by way of celebrating Jesus Christ's birthday, we ate, not a Turkey, but a "Fiesta", "Brought from the Highlands of Scotland exclusively by Sadia", according to the bumph. Yeah, I bet. Yes, and breaking all Brazilian traditions, I forced my family to wait until the morning of the 25th before even SEEING any presents. As we all know, Santa Claus comes around during the night while all the kids are sleeping. Whoever invented celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve should have his turkey stuffed. Where on earth to the prezzies come from? - "Oh, look there goes Santa! Oh dear you've missed him, he just disappeared around the corner!" , "But wait LOOK, he left all the prezzies under the tree suddenly!" or "Santa left THIS present in MY house for YOU!". OH COME ON! NO prezzies 'till Christmas morn!
Christmas Eve should be spent drinking beer and whiskey and definately NOT eating turkey (or Fiesta for that matter).
Something worse than living in a shoebox in the middle of the road must be living in a condominimum - that is maximum houses, minimum space. There's a whole new concept to borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbour - just lean out of your front room window into your neighbours front room window - could I borrow some sugar please? Oh, I beg your pardon, were you having sex? Make 'em thin and high seems to be the architects' new rule - we couldn't fit the 14 inch tv in the front room but we've got 5 floors, including cellar and loft! One of these atrocities has just been completed on the land behind my abode. Whereas before there was deep jungle, snakes, vultures, an infinite number of frogs and toads, criminals and one or two 'gators, now there are twelve identical tall thin houses with twelve identical tall thin families living in them. Can't go naked swimmin' in my pool anymore without someone complaining to the police - officer that man's got a bigger
swimming pool than me!
This may sound a bit weird but it's a Friday night and I'm NOT drinking beer. Had a skinfull yesterday at the Shamrock as a matter of fact and sunk about 7 FBA's and a large weissbeer. I think it was the weissbeer that made my stomach gurgle like a 1950s washing machine this morning. I was giving class despirately trying not to chuck. I made it home without that humiliation and lay me down for a few hours.
The reason for this mid-week quaffing session being that a meeting of the entire Welsh community of Porto Alegre, me and Kim, was called in order to... well in order to just get pissed and talk about Wales. As we sat there remembering how green our valley was, we could almost hear the Aberbachgenbach Male Voice Choir singing "Myfanwy" in the background and clutched in our right fists was not a small glass of ice cold FBA but a full creamy pint of Feelin' Foul Double Dragon. Yes, we were transposed to the backroom of the Mochyn Digywilydd Arms where Eli Jenkins, sitting at HIS table, was smoking tea bags through his pipe and Dai was stood at the bar extrapolating in a loud voice, Llancunty's chances of winning the match on Sunday what with his brother-in-law being their new loose-head prop. In walks the man with the basket of cockles and muscles alive alive o, after him, the next sober person is the Sally Army selling All Along the Watchtower, or was that Jimmy Hendrix? The boys from the Bryn are getting pissed again, there'll be trouble soon enough. Is there going to be a lock-in? There's always a lock-in at the Mochyn. John Jones starts up "We Wish you a Merry Christmas.." Christ it's only the 12th mun, everyone joins in but it soon peters out 'coz no-one knows beyond "....and a Happy New Year!", this sets a precedent for "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" followed by "While Shepherds Wash their Socks by Night" and so it goes and so it goes.
Bizarre, I woke up with a splending ressaca in my bed in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.
HWYL FAWR!
Here's a quick middle-of-the-week bonus. The world MUST know about this. Donald Rumsfeld:
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know."
Needless to say he won a "Foot in Mouth" award for that classic.
Weeks have passed and I've been neglecting my millions of fans from around the world. Yes it's true - I've had visits from Italy. HI! You there in Italy! BUENGIORNO or whatever. Canada; the US of A - did ja'all have a nice thanksgivin' ? And the Nederlands, where, I believe, there are lots of naked people in saunas. Oh, and some dude in Australia - G'day Bruce/Sheila, we'll hafta crack a few tubes together soon. Bad luck about the rugger, those pommie bastards didn't deserve it, where were the tries??? They thought they were playing football that's why they won.
You may or may not be gladdened to know the grass has been cut, I spent the best part of last Saturday morning sweating behind a hot lawn mower and cutting away at wayward creeping plants with an enormous scissors, better known as shears. I spent the best part of last Saturday afternoon getting steadily drunk on Fine Brazilian Ale. Needless to say, the dogs didn't get shampooed. They will!
This year has been the first in 12 years that I've missed the Porto Alegre book Fair; FOR SHAME! I had some terribly pathetic excuses (being drunk was the main one). The book fair is a wonderful annual event in which to get drunk and pretend to be an intellectual. A year ago I was drinking Fine Brazilian Ale with Victor and we were reading Aechylus' Prometheus Bound in loud voices and with appropriate gesticulations. ( I must point out here in fact that I and only I was the one drinking FBA for Victor is one of those fine, rare young gentlemen who can enjoy themselves without the necessity of such fripperies. He was drinking cachaça. )
What fun it was. In the past I've picked up some exellent examples of fine literature at the Feira, especially Victorian erotic tales, 'My Secret Life' by 'anon' etc.
It's a Friday night and I'm drinking beer again.
I'm going to pause here. Eat. And reflect on life.
Should I get up at 6am to watch the final tomorrow?
Uhm...I think no. Of course I shall never know the true answer until 5.55 am. And of course as we all know, or at least somebody out there knows... (haven't I used that line already?)... THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE! yes it is.
It's Friday night again, and yes as you may have guessed, I'm drinking beer. It's quite a bizarration that I have all sorts of things in my head to write about during the week...must remember to write about this about that....then Friday night comes and POOF.
Here are some developments in my life: the dogs are getting smellier and the grass is getting longer. I guess that's non-developments really, the weeks are passing by and every weekend I find some pathetic excuse, that's what you're thinking right? Well that's basically it. Tomorrow I've got to do something to get off my fat arse and get the dogs washed and grass cut.
Providing the weather's okay.
England don't play good rugby, they've got to the final by playing football. Look at the results, there's hardly a try to be seen, it's all kicks. Penalties and drop goals. So in answer to the question, who am I going to support tomorrow? Well I'll think about it dreaming.
SHWMAI! It's over for the Welsh team then, we can return proudly though, it wasn't a shameful defeat against the saeson, if that blasted ref hadn't awarded so many penalties...
I'm still on my no-beer-during-the-week diet, I'm not sure it's working and I really really feel a great difference... NOT! Maybe I'll go back to drinking beer during the week, or maybe I'll get a bathroom scales or pop into a chemists to check out if I've lost some pounds. The good news is - it doesn't hang over the belt yet!
Today is Friday so I'm drinking beer, listening to Frank Zappa - Broken Hearts are for Assholes - and, right now, Leonard Cohen.
Friday's a nice day for me, just private students and no group of screaming 12 year-olds, that was yesterday.
Let me get another beer.
Brazilian beer... deelish.
I must stop right there because I'd sort of promissed myself I'd try not to use this as a platform for my moans and gripes about Brazilian things, from beer through driving to politics. Brazilians are allowed to say lots of lovely inflammatory remarks about their country, but us foreigners are not.
"I saw you naked in the early dawn", 'Greensleeves' - Leonard Cohen. I'm sure Henry VIII didn't write that line.
Sunday morning 11:00, I waved the Red Dragon flag around and yelled WHOOOO HOOOO several times. Wales were ahead at one point, at a few points in fact. On the taxi on the way, we got the driver to constantly beep his horn while we waved the flags out of the windows, just like the Brazilians at World Cup Soccer. The taxi driver thought it was great fun and didn't charge extra for the beeping.
If you were watching your favourite football / rugby / volleyball / basketball ..... etc. team on tv playing an important match and a lovely girl came and danced naked in front of the tv, what do you do?
Later today, the sun has been shining and it's been fairly warm. No I didn't cut the grass or shampoo the dogs, they can stay smelly for another week.
Oh, by the way, that didn't happen at the Shamrock pub, the naked dancing girl in front of the tv I mean. Somebody out there knows what I'm talking about.
It's a cliché, it's Nature's bad joke, revenge probably. Yes, once again, bright sunny and hot all week then Friday night and all Sat'day - rain! My lawn is getting hairy and the dogs smelly, or is it the other way around?.
Hope you're all having a great Samain, that is Halloween to you Christians. While the kids were out dressed as Mickey Mouse and E.T. trick or treating, we were dancing naked in the moonlight, having midnight orgies and sacrifying virgins. Great fun. Pass another virgin would you Beelz! Cheers!
It's a cliché, it's Nature's bad joke, revenge probably. Yes, once again, bright sunny and hot all week then Friday night and all Sat'day - rain! My lawn is getting hairy and the dogs smelly.
Hope you're all having a great Samain, that is Halloween to you Christians. While the kids were out dressed as Mickey Mouse and E.T. trick or treating, we were dancing naked in the moonlight, having midnight orgies and sacrifying virgins. Great fun. Pass another virgin would you Beelz! Cheers!
I've never been one for World Cup Fever. I just have to watch the games of the Rugby World Cup however. This morning, Sunday 8.30am, we went around to the pub, Simon's Irish pub, The Shamrock (highly original name) Porto Alegre, Great Place!! (that's got to be worth a free Guinness at least), to see Argentina and Ireland. There was: myself, Welsh; Simon, Irish; Sergio, Argentinian and Francisco BRAZILIAN! We were drinking beer at 10am on a Sunday morning.
Argentina lost 15 to 16. Close game.
Next week we're going to do the same, it's Wales against New Zealand! WHOA! I would like to say that Wales have got a good chance of getting into the quarter finals, BUT.......
Okay, we're likely to get thrashed. Anyway it's a good Sunday morning programme, beer and rugby. Or maybe I'll go to church instead.... NOT!
Pouring rain. All my weekend plans gone to hell, cutting the grass, washing the dogs, taking Fran to the park to practice skateboard, running around the park as part of my new get-rid-beer-belly campaign.
An update on the rugby, Wales have beaten Italy today and so are through to the quarter finals. Next week we play New Zealand, the All Blacks. Slim chance.
Here's a funny one: Australia 142 v Namibia 0. Crack another tube Bruce! ppshhhht!
I guess Namibia are out.
I've been abstaining from beer during the week. Two or three beers a day doesn't make me an alcoholic, but my belly is expanding. This expansion must stop before I get a hanging-over-the-belt beer gut, that's the worst type. So from now on, only beer at weekends - I may make some exceptions, it's not a strict rule, - and more excercise. Maybe eating churrasco just once a weekend could help also.
Today I'm going to talk about TITS.
For a great part of my life I lived in Cyprus. 1972-1974, 1981-1984 and finally 1986-1989. In those 80s years I was a horny young squaddy, going to the beaches of Ayia Napa and Fig Tree Bay was some kind of exquisite torture. The girls of Finland, Denmark and Sweden would wear something about the size of a postage stamp on just one part of their bodies. Nothing More. I would say Nothing Less, but less would be impossible anyway.
For the European, semi and complete nakedness is something quite normal and acceptable at the beach and in the sauna. Complete families. We don't see couples humping away on their beach towels, we don't see guys sporting and flaunting erections up and down the water's edge. There are no wild sexual orgies on the dunes. For all our European prudishness (that term may only apply to the English actually), being naked is fine. The German and Scandanavian cold aloofness also works when their naked. In public situations, this cold aloofness helps in disassociating nakedness from sex.
The hot blooded Latin race however cannot make this disassociation. The daring girls who take off that little top part are abused, called whores and arrested by armed thugs calling themselves "keepers of the peace". The only mixed saunas are to be found in Farrapos and the guys certainly don't go there to sweat out the flab. It's a cultural thing, hundreds of years religious oppression means you will burn in hell if you show your naked body.
Come on, everyone's got tits. Even me. I'll have to drink less bee
Millions of people all over the world are at this moment watching the World Cup.
Yup. And YOU don't know about it because you live in Brazil, unless you happen to be zapping through NET and come accross ESPN Brasil, at 9 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
I'm talking about World Cup Rugby.
The first person to say "Isn't that like American Football" will get their heads duffed in by Charrua Rugby Club Porto Alegre. American football is for BICHAS.
Here are some important results so far:
Wales 41 - Canada 10.
Check it out.
Well there's a thing. Part One has apeared. Ignore the brief summary and read the real thing.
Today is churrasco day.
Today I invite Dickens, Joyce, Wilbur Smith and Ken Follet to eat churrasco:
So, guys what do you think?
"It is the best churrasco, it is the worst churrasco, the picanha is very mal passado, the picanha is very bem passado", shut up Dickens you boring fart.
"up from the Dee the picanhasco eats we eats the picanhasco, it verilly makes it way into our guts to be processed processed and possessed, po po po possessed. This is what Bloom thinks when he eats his sausaigão, and Bloom eats. It."
"The FRANGO guerrilla unslung his AK47 'banana' rifle from his shoulder and let blast short taps into the picanha. The picanha, blood spurting everywhere, falls onto the plate, the soldier quickly despatches the bloody lump with his razor sharp combat knife"
Ken? "Oh, Fuck Off"
Well there's a thing. Part One has apeared. Ignore the brief summary and read the real thing.
Today is churrasco day.
Today I invite Dickens, Joyce, Wilbur Smith and Ken Follet to eat churrasco:
So, guys what do you think?
"It is the best churrasco, it is the worst churrasco, the picanha is very mal passado, the picanha is very bem passado", shut up Dickens you boring fart.
"up from the Dee the picanhasco eats we eats the picanhasco, it verilly makes it way into our guts to be processed processed and possessed, po po po possessed. This is what Bloom thinks when he eats his sausaigão, and Bloom eats. It."
"The FRANGO guerrilla unslung his AK47 'banana' rifle from his shoulder and let blast short taps into the picanha. The picanha, blood spurting everywhere, falls onto the plate, the soldier quickly despatches the bloody lump with his razor sharp combat knife"
Ken? "Oh, Fuck Off"
After a long absence, here I am. The absence was due partly to writer's block (damnfuck laziness) and partly to lack of time. In it's turn, the lack of time was due to a Sociology test followed by a Linguistics test followed by an English Culture test. In two of them I THINK I did pretty well and in one of them I KNOW I did pretty well. Guess which.
Today I've been organizing my life. In fact, I've organized a part of my small office space and that could be some kind of Freudian way of saying I've been organizing my life. I've had 3 new shelves put up and I've been transferring books and beer jugs. That's my life; books and beer jugs.
One shelf is Penguin Classics, it goes like this: Verne, Stevenson, Verne, Conrad, Hardy, Lawrence, Collins, Dickens, London (Jack, not the city), Conrad, Conrad, Swift, Jerome (K), Dickens. You may have noticed that Conrad is prominent there. Once again thanks to Victor. I'll have to get Dickens together more, he's spread out a lot.
After a short break. The above shelf: Wilde, Saki (WHO the FU..?!), Brontë (which one?), Dickens, Dickens, Dickens, Eliot, Lawrence, Dickens, Defoe, Dickens, Collins.
End of part one, before my computer freezes up on me again.
Part Three.
If we are what we read then I'm some kind of weird alien of boring fart 19th Century gentleman with a perversion for Hollywood adventures. Apart from Dickens, Ken Follet and Wilbur Smith feature highly in my collection.
Who, you may ask, are KF and WS. Well you'll just have to go and find out for yerselves.
Today has been a day of weirdness. Aside from the office organization, that I see now that all the explanation that I had written for this blog has been lost somewhere in the ether (Part One, and I'm not going to type it all up again, you'll just have to make inferrences), my monitor on which I am typing this, went PFFF. Banging on the top, the usual emergency method, didn't work this time. I had to beg a monitor from a student.
On this borrowed monitor I am typing my thoughts and drinking beer
Diolch yn fawr once again to Victor who has set up a statistics page for me...I can see how many people have been visiting my site and reading this really interesting stuff......millions......well okay then...2, and that's me and Victor.
Continuing the story...
Llywelyn the Last was killed by a common English soldier on 11 March 1282.
See you not the rush of wind and rain?
See you not the oaks lash each other?
See you not the ocean scourging the shore?
See you not the truth is portending?
See you not the sun hurtling the sky?
See you not that the stars have fallen?
Have you no belief in God, foolish men?
See you not that the world is ending?
Sang his bard at his death.
"And then all Wales was cast to the ground", Brenhinedd Y Saesson, Welsh chronicle.
Today I have to face 11 hyperactive young teens and teach them passive voice in all verb tenses.
Llywelyn Fawr wouldn't have had such difficulties when facing the English King John over Menai Straights. King John had an army over 15,000. Pull up another mangonel.
Llywelyn Fawr was the grandfather of the previously mentioned Llywelyn ap Gruffydd. What's bizarre is that Llywelyn Fawr ('the Great') married King John's daughter. King John thought this would bring the Welsh under his controll.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Teenagers ! Once more into the breach!
"Never forget, Llywelyn, that the world's greatest fool is a Welshman who trusts an English king"
Dafydd ap Gryfydd to his brother Llywelyn (the last Prince of Wales)
Llywelyn made several treaties with Edward I "Longshanks" - "Hammer of the Scots" and of the Welsh so it seems - he of "Braveheart" fame - only to have Edward go back on his word.
Edward gave refuge to Welsh rebels, including the above Dafydd who at one time plotted to assassinate Llywelyn, then, on the day of Llywelyn's wedding produced a document to Llywelyn strictly forbidding him (Llyw) to "offer sanctuary to the King's enemies". This was, by the way, at the wedding of the bride that Edward had kept captive for 2 years before allowing Llywelyn to marry.
The English Barons were given free reign over the borderlands - in Welsh territory English law applied. Welshmen and women were harrassed and killed, when the relatives took this to the justiciary, THEY themselves were imprissoned for "breach of the King's peace", made to pay fines, had property confiscated and were publically humiliated.
This is part of background info to the "Y Ddraig Goch" story.
Where's me beer
When it comes to spontaneous writing I'm crap, James Joyce is NOT me, my stream of consciousness has been dammed (and probably damned) somewhere way back there at the third neutron on the left and it comes out through the sluice gates in short sharp bursts, every three months or so. If my writing abilities were as good as my digestive system is bad, I'd be Sidney Sheldon. Yes, I'm talking Dai O'Ria, at least once a week, the advantage is, I get to read a lot.
Here's my diary entry for this day, 29th September, 26 years ago, I was 14 years old:
"We got called at aout 9.30 and we had weetabix for breakfast when we went down. After I washed and dressed I let one of the gerbils out in the garden while kev and dad cleared out the garage. At about 12.00 we went in and stayed in the living room till dinner. Had sweet and sour pork for dinner. after that I went to Ceri's. We stayed at his house for a while and messed around with his new hamster. Then we walked around. We went down past the joinery and around there. I came in at about 3.00 and I stayed in the garage for a while looking at the gerbils. Before I came in we went to collect some dandilion roots to make more coffee. Then I read in the bedroom for awhile then watched TV and had beans on toast for tea came to bed at 8.00 and kev put the light out at 9.30."
That's how it is sic sic sic, punctuation an all, Jeezus, can you believe it... "messed around with his new hamster.." !!! "...looking at the gerbils..." (for a while even). Move over Samuel Pepys. It was also a Monday but a public holiday by the way in case anyone's wondering why I wasn't at at school. The school day's usually start with... "Got called at 7.30 and after breakfast went to the loo till 8.00..."
Part two of my Identity Crisis story "Y Ddraig Goch" will appear sometime over the next few days. I can see though, that as yet, I have no fans...where are you you bastards??!
Croeso!
Diolch yn fawr Victor for introducing this blog and setting up the biz.
Now I suppose I've some explaining to do...
first of all what the figgin's is yddraiggoch? Splitting the address up into it's proper component words it's -
Y Ddraig Goch. If anyone knows, you're up to win this week's special prize, just send your answer along with a cheque for $R1000 to me and you could win something really amazing!
Well I'd like to speak about national identity....why am I writing in English and why people eat a lot of cod fish in Great Britain.
Here's part one of my best selling novel for YOU entirely free here on internet.
Read and Enjoy:
A Busca do Dragão Vermelho
or
Who on Earth Am I?
How does the foreign visitor feel when he steps into your local for a quiet beer?
When a foreign accent is heard in the local, we're all curious to know where the speaker is from. The visitor will soon find him or herself with instant friends and a whole bunch of questions to answer about nationality, what the figgin's are they doing in Aberbachgenbach and what do they think of warm flat British beer. Gaúchos are as curious as the Welsh about foreign accents. I only need to open my mouth here and I get the same questions. After a visible double-take when they hear my Portuguese (but I don't have an accent, do I?), the questioning usually starts with, "You're not from here, are you?", good observation, very astute. Next comes, "Are you English?" (or "American?") followed by a list of questions about what I do, what brought me to Brazil, do I like it and the one guaranteed to annoy me most, "Are you Gremista or Colorado?", in other words, which of the two local football teams do I support. I live in Brazil and I hate football.
After 11 years the questions are a trifle tedious, I just try to be polite. Whiz back a little and take a look at that first question again. My answer is, "Não, sou Galês, de País de Gales", (and that is NOT pronounced like strong winds) which is mostly met with blank looks, not because they don't understand my Portuguese, but they've only a vague notion of what or where País de Gales is. That vague notion is connected with Pelê's first World Cup goal and Prince Charles and the late Lady Di. Then they more than likely come up with something like, "Ah! País de Gales! That's in England, isn't it?"!
I've lots more if yer interested and someday I'll put on the versão Portugues ;-)
see ya
Hwyl Fawr
