Arshole in Charge of a Country

I'm trying to post pictures but it keeps failing.
The president of Iran's a fuckwit. He wants to "wipe Israel off the map", this guy is a president??

Millionaire's Lament

FLASH BOOK REVIEW!
Code to Zero: Ken Follet.
I'm usually a Follet fan, but this one is a bit weak, too fast, too Hollywoody and too predictable.
I'm in that most embarrassing of situations again: no money. Fuck, I mean really no money, okay, I have 50 reals, that's to last me until Monday but there's things to pay for - petrol, barbecue, beers, food for the kids!
I'm fucked.

Art in the Disguise of Porn or Is It the Other Way Around?

Here's a picture of a huge cock being taken to the PoA Bienal.

I wonder if the woman in the window about 300 yards to my right can see me sitting naked at my computer. It's too hot to wear frikking clothes. After Sundays near miss with Wilma, she hit with a vengence last night, gusty and wet like a 50 year old prostitute (wot??).
Victor left a message down below somewhere. Come in Victor All is Forgiven! Let me tell you people about Victor, you call him several times for a barbie and he never comes or, really worse, says he's going to come THEN never comes. The last time - the begging for forgiveness bit in his message - he said he was on his way then hours later he was drunk in a bar somewhere in Cidade Baixa. What 12 beers? Come on Victor, lets do a barbie sometime and you can bring the twelve beers, and please turn up this time!
And how about the book fair? I'm hoping to get there to do some loud recitals of Prometheus Bound again in the beer tent, or perhaps some Shakespeare this year. If we drink enough Guinness (which could prove to be very expensive) we could try Ulysses or even Finnegans Wake.
Talking of ART, went to the Bienal today, ART FART. Mostly blackened rooms with weird sounds and projected images, does this mean something? One exhibit was a ceiling high (and the ceiling was high in the warehouse) stack of what appeared to be vegetable sacks, on closer inspection there was a tiny tv screen sunk into the stack on one side with the still image of a pussy. Yes a female genetalia pussy. An obviously phallic stack and the tiny image, perhaps the artist is trying to tell us something about male power or some crap. In fact it didn't occur to me to find out if the artist was male or female.
Another exhibit was a line of pictures showing a penis in an alternating image that changed like venetian blinds folding opening and closing. First the cock tucked between the legs of a hairy man then an erect full frontal. What would Freud tell us about all this then?
There was a video of five naked women blowing red powder around, that was fun.

IF Someone Shoots You in the Forest, Does it Make a Noise?

Today I can go out and legally buy a gun! If I had the money that is.
Brazil's referendum resulted in a majority of no to the prohibition of selling firearms. There were complicated arguments for and against.
As Wilma lashes the Florida coast we're feeling the effects here in PoA; at my barbecue yesterday the newspaper which I use to cover a metal table lifted slightly and shifted on the table top. A few minutes later a paper napking was blown to the floor, I thought about cancelling the barbecue, taking shelter and boarding up the windows but after several minutes of close observation of the neighbours washing line made me I decided to risk possible injury from falling paper and go ahead with my weekly orgy of consuming large quantities of roasted meat and cold beer.

Beer makes you Happy.

BOOK REVIEW!
"Fools Die" Mario Puzo.
Read it.
I'm on my fourth FBA (Fine Brazilian Ale remember) and feeling quite happy. Or is it just the feeling brought on by the mild drugging effect? Because, when I think about it... uhm let me think for a couple of minutes.

Yup when I think about it, I'm not really happy, right now, or in my life. BUT when I think about it again...I think I AM really happy. Am I or amn't I? Only I know the answer to that question, but I'll have to look deep inside to find the answer. Perhaps another beer will help.

More Tea Vicar?

Chimarrão is a green herbal tea that the Gaúchos love, the plant is Ilex paraguariensis, I don't know the common name in English, here it's Erva Mate, the Spanish speaking countries know it as Yerba Mate I think. It's drunk from a small gourd through a metal straw and it's shared around a group, family or friends and continually topped up with hot water from a vacuum flask. In this way everyone gets to share their herpes! Yerpes Mate!
Anyway here I am sharing one right now with Angel. It's the Gaúcho equivalent of a nice cup of tea only they take it everywhere with them, to parks, at work. Where ever there's a Gaúcho, the ubiquitous cuia (that's the gourd) will be with him.
No thanks I farted, pass the fucking buns.

Rock for Teens

TEENAGERS! Pay attention: Check out the "Ananda is a Rocker" link that I've put there on the right somewhere. Ananda is Angie's daughter, there's lots of stuff about those weird new rock bands like Avril Lasagna and Pinkin' Lark or something like that. Anyway take a look. It's in Portuguese.

It rained on my barbecue last night! I had to scurry over to the barbie pit with an umbrella then scrurry back to the shelter. It's a bit cooler today. Had to cancell my class this morning due to ... er....well put it this way, if I had gone to class, I would have had to spend most of the time in the bathroom. Feeling better now though and it's almost time for the first beer of the day!

It's Friday! It's five o'clock! And it's Crackerjack!
Actually it's Saturday, it's nine thirty in the morning and it's my cool batch pad.

Y Ddraig Goch a Y Ddraig Cannaid

During the 60s the English government and more specifically the Liverpool council constructed a dam and flooded a valley in Wales, obliterating a Welsh speaking only community, the village of Capel Celyn. All the Welsh politicians were against the project which was to supply water to the English city of Liverpool.
The residents of Capel Celyn were evicted from their homes and the village destroyed by dynamite. At the opening ceremony local crowds attacked the dignitaries collapsing tents and trapping them inside, that would've been great fun to see and take part in! During the construction of the dam and the hydro-electric plant Welsh "freedom fighters" used explosives to sabotage the proceedings. The English used explosives to destroy the homes. Who are the terrorists here?

"...gradually the Welsh people realised that when it came to a conflict with their bigger English neigbour, they had no control over their destiny." (BBC news).

Actually they had realised that in the 13th Century
Anyway, after 40 years the Liverpool city council have offered an apology to the community. Sorry we destroyed you livelihoods people, we just wanted some cheap water.

PoA today is Bright and Sunny and not too hot!

A Pleasant Evening on the Terrace Vicar

Y Ddraig Goch reporting from the heart of Southern Brazil, well not really the heart - more the small white fluffy bit just below the belly button. GAÚCHO Land! Cowboys and accordion music. Porto Alegre's a fairly decent city, could be much better though, it has a lot of tourist potential with a very wide river (really an estuary) and wonderful sunset views. The local government don't seem to want to bother their arse over attracting tourists though - there are Shopping Centres mind you. I think PoA could be known as the City of Shopping Centres, hundreds of the fucking things. Hate 'em meself.
And from my living room and terrace I have a wonderful view, the terrace is great for al fresco sex and barbies, though not at the same time could be a bit dodgy. The sex should come before the barbie I guess. I've often thought of inviting my gf onto the terrace for a shagging I'm not sure how the neighbours above would react, I'd probably be evicted on the spot. Tell the truth, I don't have the courage, maybe at night though.
Watch this space!
HWYL FAWR!

Those Little Hearts

Yes we eat chicken hearts in Brazil. What do they do with all the chicken hearts in Britain? Does anyone eat chicken hearts in any other part of the world?
There's an 'Inter' football game tonight which means the road to my class will be jammed and on the way home there'll be hundreds of drunken fans disappointed or elated but drunken anyway.

After a Long Absence

Dear readers! Y Ddraig Goch news from the deep south of Brazil is BACK. Don't go away.
If you've been following events in my life, I'm still in a flat in Cristal, still doing barbies most weekends and most importantly STILL with the Little Angel, sometimes she pisses me off with weird moods but all women do that don't they?
Barbecues
For my foriegn followers, if I have any left that is after an absence of seven months or so...
A Brazilian barbie is like this - don't read this if you are vegetarian!
Huge Slabs Of Dripping Red Meat must first be purchased from the soopie-doopie (supermarket kiddies!) or açougue - the butcher. I prefer the supermarket because at the butcher's you have to ask for the right cut and look at it and try to sound as if you know what you're talking about when you say 'hmm that's a nice piece but I wonder if you take a shave of the bottom', most Gaúchos DO know what they are talking about - I don't (I'm not Gaúcho, I'm a bachgen from Cymru), so I just go to the soopie-doopie and get ready packed meat.
Shopping list: Meat (which usually includes sausages and chicken hearts)
Bread (for the garlic bread)
Charcoal.
Beer (most important!)
oh and maybe pop for the kids. (cries of "what no salad?!)
Having purchased your HSODRM (Huge Slabs Of etc.) you must now spit it. The spits are a good yard long, depending on the size and shape of your HSODRM you'll need a double (two pronged) or single spit. A light coating of rock salt then on yer fire it goes.
Ooops forgot to mention the fire preperation.
The barbie pits here are like brick raised stand-alone (I mean they're outside on a terrace or garden wall) fire places with a short chimney. Here's the traditional Gaúcho way of preparing the fire (the alternative non-Gaúcho way is emptying the charcoal into the pit, pouring on half-litre of alchohol, light match and WOOOF!). Take a standard 600ml beer bottle and a tabloid newspaper, make sure that the newspaper has already been read by all the members of the family, neighbours etc. Make sure the beer has been drunk from the bottle. Take a double page of the paper (one sheet) and diagonally screw it up at the same time forming a ring, so you'll get a screwed up paper ring! Place this tightly over the beer bottle (if it's loose make a smaller ring). Repeat several times until the bottle complete with screwed up paper rings. Place the bottle with the SUPRs into the barbie pit and pour charcoal over the top. Make sure the bottle doesn't topple. When you've emptied the bag carefullyextract the bottle from the rings and you have a kind of short paper tube going into the charcoal, the Gaúchos call this the 'volcano', light another piece of paper and pop it into the volcano and wait. Soon it'll be roaring.
Next - drink lots of cold beer and serve the meat to your happy mates.