This is a Goodbye Kiss you Dog!

What a way to get international fame! (and doubtless, future TV appearances, interviews and lecture tours, bringing in possibly thousands in dosh) - Hurl your shoes at a U.S. (outgoing) president! This defiant, and I at least find hilarious, act, has united Sunni and Shia in countrywide protest, "We wunt freedom to Zaidi !" say the banners (to which the reply is perhaps "Well, we cunt give it for him!"). US patrolling troops are being pelted by shoes in protest for (or maybe "to") Zaidi's release.

Which makes me wonder.

Do they sneak back later, perhaps at night to cover their embarrassment, to recover their shoes? I mean, are they lobbing around quality footware here? Do they all walk home from the protests stocking-footed? Or do they take along extra pairs of shoes to the protest? Are there specialist shops or bazar stalls that sell crappy shoes, as single items, just for throwing in protests? Rather like the rock stall for the stoning in Python's Life of Brian. Do you have to haggle to buy a throwing shoe? Does a flip-flop carry as much weight, psychologically speaking that is, as a patent leather Italian designer shoe? And there are also some deeper, theological questions - Is a shoe thrower entitled to A Thousand Virgins in Paradise?

Would all world conflicts be resolved if the leaders got together, at the United Nations perhaps, and threw their shoes at each other?

Yours in Bewilderment.

CHARRÚA

ODDS BONKIN'S ! The last time I had played rugby was in 1979. When I went to 'Twit in '74 then Y Pant in '76, rugby was compulsory PT once a week. We formed up two teams and just ... well played! 20 or 30 kids just running around, bashing into each other and trying to get that ball over the line. I didn't have a clue and don't think I ever scored a try at any time!

Now 30 years later, in the far south of Brazil, Gaúcho country, beef and pampas, barbecues and enormous moustaches, on a blazing Sat'day afternoon, at 45 years of age (me that is not the blazing Sat'day afternoon) - I SCORED A TRY!!!!! The roar of the crowd! The glory and Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau ringing in my yers, mun, Arms Park (yes, yes I know I'm hopelessly out of date, now it's "Millenium Stadium" I believe) as one rose to its feet (arms, feet???) and roared with 50 thousand Welsh voices, the commentator exulting in ... uhm uhm... exulting in exultation, "Fear has done it! In the last minutes of the game! mun. Curingas' winning try against... against... what was the other team called again??"

Charrúa Rugby Club was founded in 2001 by a bunch of guys who were fed up with that whoozes game, football (or soccer for my North American readers) which everyone likes here in Brazil. Rugby here is still relatively unkown but there are a few clubs around in the major cities. Charrúa have won several major championships and players have been selected for the Brazilian national team (yes, Brazil has a national rugby union team!).

The occassion was an end of season fun afternoon, they had organized 6 teams for 7 a-side tag rugby, that is - you have a coloured ribbon attached to either side of your hips and a "tackle" is when the ribbon is whipped from your person. As I had been taking my son to regular training each week I found myself recruited into one of the teams - "Curingas" (jokers, as in a pack of cards). No one was more surprised than me when I found myself with the ball and ran like the blazes! As soon as the line was within diving distance I took that dive! Hell, my first (and I hope not my last) try was going to be spectacular, I was sure there was someone right behind me about to whip that ribbon away.

As I was a guest player, my try was worth double (in our 7 a side tag a try was just one point). Curingas 3, The Others 0.

I want to do it again. Are the WRU Dragons recruiting?

Notes from the Pampas

Amongst recent news items from the BBC site that have arrested my attention is one of a "naked woman tied up near station" (in fact "naked woman" arrested my attention, as they usually do, and I was compelled to read the rest). It appears that a couple driving past a railway station in Hampshire saw a tied up naked woman and a man in camouflaged clothing beside her, of course their duty as law abiding citizens was to call the Bill. On Bill's arrival there was no sign of naked woman or camouflaged man. Police say it could be a prank or "some misdirected leisure activity" !!!

I get used bad translations in texts, shop advertizing and film sub-titles, obviously having been done by an incompetent speaker of the target language. I've never seen a NON-translation though, somebody should have checked this bi-lingual roadsign:




Due to the wonders of e-mail auto-response technology and some Swansea City Council Twp not bothering to check, in Welsh it says something like: "I am not in the office at the moment, please send work to be translated".

I got the photo from the BBC site, which I assume is pretty reliable, but to me the photo looks a little doctored in some way so I'm really not sure of the authenticity of it.


Another road sign in Cardiff:

Says, "Look Left" in Welsh, put down as another admin oversight, personally I think it's a deliberate ploy to confuse the English into looking the wrong way and getting smashed on the back of the cranium by a ten ton truck, hmm, actually that wouldn't make sense as Cardiff, I assume, still complies with the rest of Great Britain in that the vehicles are conducted on the left side of the road, well just to confuse the sais anyway.


Porto Alegre Book Fair is under full swing and also under lot of rain (traditional Book Fair Rain), annual orgy of intelect and beer. This year there has been a great improvement on the beer tent arrangement, the Opinião bar no longer has a monopoly on beer sales but there are fewer food stall choices, the decor is a tasteful deck and wooden bar tables, much better than the plastic stacking chairs and tables and ground level tarmac floor of previous years. However there is a smaller space and fewer tables which now means one waits for 3 hours for a place as opposed to the previous 1 or 2 hours. This didn't spoil a pleasant afternoon spent in the quaffing of Fine Brazilian Ale and perusing the literary delights of the second hand book stalls. The rest of the weekend I spent with lots of misdirected leisure activity.

Arte na Mesa

With absolutely no intention of upstaging my good friends Helô and Airton with their wonderful table art, I felt I have to post this photo of last Saturday's lunch.  Alone at home, around 11am and wondering what to do for lunch I felt suddenly inspired to do something particularly fancy with no idea as to what.  Off I pops to the supermarket to buy: entrecot, a bag of ready cleaned mixed lettuce, mushrooms and a kind of pan - that I've seen but never actually used before - with a hole in the middle and grill and domed top.  You place the pan over the gas ring and the meat comes out a treat.  Oh and two bottles of wine;  can't remember which exactly, one red and one chardonnay, both from Chile.

I cleaned and cut up the 'shrooms, put half with the lettuce and cooked the other half in a pan with olive oil and garlic then I thought of what they would be like with half a glass of red wine in there, so I dumped that in also.  Another bunch of chopped garlic cloves went into a mix of olive oil and lemon juice and a wee pinch of curry powder; this was duly poured over the lettuce and mushrooms.

Meanwhile the meat was cooking great on my new fangled doughnut grill-pan.

And the result you can see in the photo.

Go Vote; But don't Fuck Up my City Streets

Wonderful; democratic elections! I cannot imagine how it was during the years of dictatorship here. It's great now that we can express ourselves freely without fear of persecution and possible jail sentences, censorship, oppression.

Go vote!  There's a nice, almost carnival atmosphere on the day; wave your flags on the street corners; drive around in your cars and beep constantly on your horn (it's a little annoying, but hell - free elections!); exercise your right!

BUT IS IT REALLY NECESSARY TO THROW THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF FLYERS AND LEAFLETS OF YOUR CANDIDATE AROUND, CHOKING THE STREETS WITH GARBAGE???

Beer and Wine.

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Pub

Dylan Thomas pub crawl. I'll raise a few pints to DT's (there's an unfortunate pun there!) memory today, just for the heck of it, keep an eye on THIS for the results later. Our chief bard Dylan would regularly down a bottle or two of Whisky for inspiration. Now Blast me for a Pumpkin if I cannot get the taste of the stuff, I know it's a noble drink, ranks with Real Ale and a good Red Wine, but the Gods know, I've tried. A friend of mine gave me as a gift a small bottle (200ml) of Bowmore single malt from Islay, and I took a dram last night to see if my tastes have changed... but no, I have a sensation that I'm going to vomit, a hot sensation rises up my chest to my throat and I have to do some serious gulping! So no change there.

Still on the subject of Scotland, I've just been in contact with a friend in Edinburgh and she told me about the RED HOT CHILLI PIPERS !!! Well worth a peek.

NEW BLOG!

I've got a new blog! I drink beer, take a photo and write some crap. Check out the "A Glass of Beer" link.

I'M BACK!

Having spent the last few months at my summer retreat in the Cayman Islands, it's sooo droll trying to keep the blog up while lying on the beach supping Cayman Sunsets and fighting off dozens of girls in bikinis, I'm slowly adjusting once again to PoA life.

The first "What the Blazes?!" I find on my return is a zero tolerance drinking and driving law that is being rigorously and enthusiastically enforced by the state's storm troopers who have about 3 Breathalyzers amongst them. Hundreds of people up and down the country have been jailed for the crime of drinking a glass or two of beer or wine to accompany dinner. Now while I cannot condone the consumption of alcohol in vast quantities before taking control of a motor vehicle, I think it's an absurdity to condemn a person as incapable of driving after having consumed ONE glass of beer or wine. It's laughable but even a chocolate liqueur can get you a R$1000 fine and loss of license (it's a year's suspension, then you have to take the test all over again). We even have to be careful about cough medicines.

Anyway, can't argue with the Might and Wisdom of Brazilian Politics, the immediate effect on your humble servant is I've had to curb my Friday and Wednesday Happy Hour at the Shamrock now Happy Hour is spent with a couple of bottled beers at home HARRUMPH!

Ex-pat Welshpersons everywhere should pay a visit to THIS.

City of Tiny Lights

I rant periodically about this and get highly irate when a driver passes a red light, which is frequent here, but I can understand very well why it happens. Venice is the City of Canals, Anchorage is the City of Lights (I got this from wiki), Someplace Else (whatthefuck I read it somewhere but forget) is the City of Towers (Seattle? Toronto? Or, apparently, someplace called Sharn on another world), Porto Alegre is the City of Traffic Lights.
I believe there is not one road in PoA without a traffic light at least every 100 yards; and what's more they are synchronized to turn red as you approach. One cannot help accelerating just an incy wincy to get through that red light when you're in a tad of a rush and the previous 3 lights in the past 300 yards turned red in yer face.

10 things and some Nice Photos

It seems that the current craze is listing the ten things one must do before one dies, or the ten books one must read, 10 places one must visit or whatever:
ah well, here's a mixture, sort it out yersel:

1. Stonehenge.
2. Fart Loudly in the Presence of Her Majesty the Queen of England.
3. Make Love in a Tub of Heinz Baked Beans.
4. Make a List of Ten Things You Must Do Before You Die.
5. Charles Palliser's "The Quincunx".
6. Visit Ankh-Morpork on The Discworld and have a few beers in the Broken Drum.
7. Herman Melville's Moby Dick.
8. Terra del Fuego.
9. Dylan Thomas's "Under Milk Wood".
10. Lie Down and Make Sure You Are Very Comfortable.

Bloody hell, took all morning that did.

Look at THIS and click on "more pictures"

National Identity Crisis

An ongoing debate amongst Welsh people is whether we can accept being called British, there are those that vehemently refuse to be called British and only accept Welsh! Never "English" of course.
"Welsh! Never British!", I've seen in these on line discussions.

CRAP! You are British!

Whenever people ask me here where I'm from or what my nationality is I always reply: Britain and British but I'm not English (because it's far easier to begin thus), THEN I have to go on to explain that I'm Welsh and about the differences.

WE ARE BRITISH! GO STUDY HISTORY!
From the Romano-Greek - "Pretanni" or "Britannia" and - DUH! - think about your school history lessons...when were the Romans around?? UH? EH?? and then... when did the Angles, Saxons and Jutes arrive??? Wasn't there a few hundred years time lapse? Who were there first? The Pretanni or the Saesson and Angles?? Is it some kind of coincidence that ANGLE-LAND sounds remarkably like ENGLAND??!! OF COURSE NOT!!

I'm British AND Welsh.

And of course certainly not English.

Thank you and good night.

What the FUCKIN' Blazes??!!

As I write there is the sound of gunshots in the streets. It's freakin' 12.30 lunchtime for freek's sake! I actually began this post with the following:

The United Nations Commission for Finding Things Out has found out that Brazil is: Corrupt, Violent and Racist. What? Really? How so??

Then I heard the shots and modified the post. Last Sunday night around 11pm there was a big gun battle, the worst I've heard since I've been here, must've gone on for a good 10 mins and I believe I counted 3 or 4 separate weapons from different directions. Perhaps today is the counter-attack. I took a peek out on the terrace and saw the usual bunch of skinny clowns rubber necking in some directions, then I saw one of them with a hand gun in his ...er hand (sorry!), it was a big 'un, quite possibly a Browning 9mil or whatever the equivalent is here; that's the first time I've actually seen one armed, I thought about taking a pic with my mobile but it wouldn't've captured anything at that distance.

I've had another surreal experience at the bank, my card was blocked because I haven't yet updated my details by proving my income. I mean I've been depositing between R$2000 and R$4000 every month without fail for the past six years and every year I have to prove that I earn a salary, I mean WHAT THE BLAZES?!

Dewi Sant

Tuesday last, my conversation with Vivi, Big Boss Lady of the Shamrock, went something like this:

Me: So you'll be doing St. Patrick's again this year.
Vivi: Oh yes, of course, you know the usual stuff, green beer, green people, etceterah.
Me: What about St. David's, are you going to do St. David's?
Vivi: What's that?

So I didn't go to the Shamrock last Sat'day, I stayed home and sank loads of Slava.

May the Gods Bless the Beer makers!

WHAT THE BLAZES??!! one and two

What the blazes??!! (1)

I object strongly to my country's flag being used as a snobby upmarket fashion trade mark, I don't mean just a t-shirt design, I have several Y Ddraig Goch t-shirts myself. I mean the image used as an actual trade mark. Brazilian company Carmim use the passant dragon image on their clothes and fashion accessories. Okay, it may not be red and of course we don't have the patent on our flag, but check this out:






Now I can't go out in my Y Ddraig Goch t-shirts without people thinking I'm a rich fashion follower who buys Carmim clothes! YES, It makes me mad. Here's the link if any Welsh person wants to write an angry e-mail off to them, I just did.


WHAT the blazes??!! (2)

Everywhere I sweep there are long black hairs (as well as cupim wings), I mean what the blazes??!! Where do they come from? Long black wimmin? I would say they come from the Good Lady, but I mean, how come she's not freekin' bald by now?