A Túrin Turambar turun ambartanen

Thanks to the dude, wherever and whoever ye'are, who sent a comment on the Silmarillion quote. I'm going to be writing a paper on dragons in literature, so if ye've any ideas...
These are Glaurung's, Urulóki - one of the Fire Drakes of the North, dying words:

"Hail, Nienor, daughter of Húrin. We meet again ere the end. I give thee joy that thou hast found thy brother at last. And now thou shalt know him: a stabber in the dark, treacherous to foes, faithless to friends, and a curse unto his kin, Túrin son of Húrin! But the worst of all his deeds thou shalt feel in thyself!"

What was the worst of all his deeds? READ IT!!

Drink beer, eat churrasco, be naked.

Write a book, plant a tree, have a son, see Jethro Tull live.
These things a man must do in his lifetime.
I'm still working on the book.

TÚRIN TURAMBAR DAGNIR GLAURUNGA and beneath they wrote also: NIENOR NÍNIEL

It's times like this when you begin to realize how important really small seemingly unimportant things are - like tea towels. All of these things I shall have to acquire by next week (and all cost money of course). Latest developments, I've bought a cooker, second hand R$140, got no gas bottle yet. Next step is to get the electricity connected then I'll be there - well okay, aside from the fact there's no bed...plates... kfs.....chairs....bed sheets....
AND I haven't even mentioned TV...computer...microwave...
I'm reading, for the Nth time, Tolkien's Silmarillion. If you haven't read it - READ IT NOW! Immediately. Try and get yer head around it, it'll be worth your while. Here's an extract from The Tale of the Children of Húrin. Túrin Turambar:
A short diaglogue between the warrior Túrin and his sword, Gurthang:

"Hail Gurthang! No lord or loyalty dost thou know, save the hand that wieldeth thee. from no blood wilt thou shrink. Wilt thou therefore take Túrin Turambar, wilt thou slay me swiftly?"
And from the blade rang a cold voice in answer: "Yea, I will drink thy blood gladly, that so I may forget the blood of Beleg my master, and the blood of Brandir slain unjustly. I will slay thee swiftly."

It brought goose pimples and tears to my eyes. for the rest - READ I

Give me yer old chairs

Separation update. Let it be known! I shall of next week, or the week after, or the week after that, be living ALONE! In a two bedroom apartment WITH A CHURRASQUERA!! That means barbies to you unPortuguese speaking folkments. So it's bachelor parties every weekend! NOT! I still suffer from that middle age affliction, common to quite a lot of folk - NO DOSH. BYO parties are possibilites, I'll let yer know. Lots of outdoor space in the new (old) pad, big verandah for naked sunbathing!
This is a bit by bit move, I can't afford a removal company. In a couple of weeks the computer goes. I'll have to get a cooker from someplace.
FURNITURE DONATIONS WELCOME!

Thomas Hardy was indeed perplexed. James Joyce wasn't.

When confronted with a blank page.
LIKE THIS.








Even Thomas Hardy was perplexed.
So I imagine.
What the hell, I'm pissed. Again. Brazilian Fine Ale has such an effect that one can drink all afternoon, then suddenly feel pissed..well I guess that's what all beer does anyway.
Separation update is: I've found a good flat; 2 bedrooms, good location (Cristal, for those who like details) BUT no churrasquera :-( I'll have to check out the situation.
MEANWHILE.
The project is going a bit slow due to an in family bereivement. Tomorrow, I'll get back to it.

Kitchen Sinks

A kind of polite truce now exists at home. Where is that IDEAL apartment / house in the classifieds??? It must have a kitchen sink of course AND a barbecue area essential. Swimming pool optional.

The Meaning of Liff

I'm on a sort of diet based around BEER and GARLIC; it explains why I don't suffer from colds often.
It also explains why I don't have too many friends.
What is the meaning of Liff? Look it up in the dictionary.

Closing the door behind me; opening the door infront.

The title is a challenge. What am I going to put there? The first line can put people off the whole thing. So whatever will be there after I've finished typing this may have nothing to do with the content of this paragraph. I take no responsibility, I've had too many beers today to be responsible for anything.
First off today; I'd like to publicly anounce, through this means, that is my BLOG, my separation from my dear wife. Yes after 12 happy and sometimes not so happy years we've decided to go separate ways. The kids already know, Alice (12) said, "Okay, that's sensible, let's find a nice place for dad to live", Francisco (7) said, "I don't agree!".
The first stage of this separation consists of me trying to find a place to live. I've seen some dumps and some dumps! The first thing that comes to my mind is: JEEZUS WHAT A DUMP. The next thing that strikes me is, when Brazilians move out they MOVE OUT, and take everything, including the kitchen sink - REALLY! "And this is the kitchen...you can put the fridge here, the cooker here..." etc. The "kitchen" is an empty cell block with a water pipe extruding from the wall - "You put the sink here...".
Apart from the trauma of separation, I'm currently working on something that will shake the literary world by its roots; well okay maybe just by a few twigs; all I have to say is: Wait until Porto Alegre Book Fair 2004 !!
The door behind will not be closed completely, I'll leave a space for the kids to get through, and maybe later...

Evil Sausage

My long absence is in part explainable by the fact that I've just had my folks staying with me for three weeks. My Dad, a spritely 68 year old with a slight beer belly, is not difficult to please, but if you get it wrong, and I did a couple of times, you really get to know about it. Just a cold beer and an open not too noisy place seemed to be the right formula. Consequently we spent most nights at Dado Pub, which my old man dubbed "Dai Doe's" making it sound a true Welsh traditional tavern. Their 3 week visit can briefly be summarized thus: Churrasco, Dai Doe's, Cisne Branco, Churrasco, Gramado, Dai Doe's, Churrasco, Porto Alegre Tourist Bus, Dai Doe's, Public Market, Churrasco and on the last night - YES Dai Doe's ! Frequent visits paid off. On our last night the entire staff of Dai Doe's got together and presented my folks with 4 Dai Doe glasses and a letter written in perfect English, "We enjoyed having you in our pub.....etc etc." signed by all the waiters. Tears for beers.
My dad didn't think much of the evil sausage.

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.