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.