mmm...

The heat is on

It's started to get hot. Every day this week has been approaching the mid-thirties, and apparently it's gonna get even warmer. I can't say I'm complaining though. I just need to be careful with the damn sunblock. I've got burned twice since I got here, both times because I'd changed into smaller clothes so I hadn't covered a tiny bit further up. Schoolboy error. By smaller clothes, I'm not talking about budgie smugglers just yet, but I'll have to get a pair eventually if only to set your young hearts all a'flutter with the photos.

Football was good fun as usual last night, even if I did play as badly as I've ever done. And to make it even more embarrassing it was WAGS night too, with beers and barbecue afterwards, so I even had an audience for my total ineptitude. Highlights included falling over on my face twice (once whilst trying to skin someone on the wing) as well as possibly the worst corner that's ever been taken in the history of football. A carefully side footed pass to the edge of the box missed everyone and ended up putting their winger clean through instead. All of this with the usual huffing and puffing and seriously heavy legs. I really need to work on my fitness here - it's so hard to run for long periods of time in this heat.

We've signed up for a new bike rental system this week though, so that should help. A lot of cities have this now - a load of bike docks and you use your mobile to unlock the bike and leave it back at any of the other stations. It's pretty damn cheap too, as long as you don't incur any of the fines. Only 10 reais a month, which works out around 3 or 4 quid. We're going to test it for the first time tonight to see what it's like, around the Parque do Flamengo.

The park is excellent - it's pretty much just one huge outdoor beach sports club. It's full of football pitches, beach volleyball courts, tennis courts, cycle paths and the like. It's only half an hours walk from the apartment too, which is class. I need my good friend Horst Abelgaufts to visit so we can resume the Tennis rivalries from a decade ago. At the minute I think I'm just about shading it.

We're also starting to get properly excited for Carnival in a couple of weeks; more specifically the arrival of Chris and Squeek, and possibly some additional secret Special Guests, yet TBC. There's still a lot of stuff to do in the apartment to make it fully presentable, but we'll get there in the end.

I expect it'll be a fortnight to remember. Or at least one to try to remember.

Sent from my iPad2

Big Brother is watching you......being raped (And doing nothing about it)

The Brasilian Big Brother was the main story of the week here - the opening booze filled party got the show off to a pretty bad start with one of the female contestants allegedly being raped.

It seems they were all plastered; she passed out, but one of the guys apparently went ahead and had sex with her anyway. He's been kicked off the show and arrested, and (strangely) she's still there. 

There's obviously a whole storm quite rightly brewing about the lack of intervention by the producers, and I expect Endemol could get into a spot of trouble over it, but we'll see. 

Personally I blame the parents. (Big Momma and Big Daddy, obviously.)

In other news, we went to Praia Vermelha during the week for a walk. It was excellent. The beach itself is in a really beautiful place, a little bay surrounded by the mountains with Sugar Loaf on one side, but the water didn't look too pleasant. There were lots of floaty things in it, but this didn't seem to bother the three-eyed kids frolicking around in it. I saw a huge lizard as well on the winding mountain walking path, but it sloped off, before I had a chance to pap its ass. 

Tomorrow night we're going to see Rita Lee at the Circo Viador in Lapa (where we went to see Kings of Convenience), and I'm looking forward to it. Not sure what to expect from her solo stuff, but I do like Os Mutantes. I expect the crowd will be class as well, considering how vocal they were for the softly spoken Scandinavian songsmiths. It should be a fun night. 

  

Praia Vermelha

Parque Eduardo Guinle

That's life

We're having a marathon of This Life. I'd mentioned it to Hugo a couple of times as being a show that I really liked when I was a teenager so I'm watching it for about the third or fourth time now. It's pretty funny seeing all the 90s references again, and the music they listened to was pretty class; plenty of Radiohead, Whipping Boy and Drugstore.

Of course, the main reason we're watching it is so I can explain properly to Hugo about the time I came out to Squeek:

Me: "I've something to tell you."

Squeek: "What?"

Me: "Er....you know This Life?"

Squeek: "Yeah?"

Me: "Well, I'm kind of...a bit like Ferdy"

Squeek: "What, you're a Mexican courier?"

Hmm, I really needed to work on that speech.

Parks and recreation

Last weekend we went to check out the Museum of Modern Art. The collection was pretty disappointing, but it was great to get strolling around galleries again. It's beside the Parque do Flamengo, a huge landfill project that was completed in the 60s designed in part by Roberto Burle Marx, whose name appears to crop up every time a park or a garden is mentioned around here. He's got his green fingers in a lot of, like, design pies or something. It's a good place to catch excellent views of the Sugar Loaf mountain and Jeebas and it's not too far from here either, just one stop on the tube. I need to explore it properly though. It's pretty big. A bike would be the best idea methinks. I reckon we'll probably rent some out for a few days to see whether we'd actually use them much, or whether they'd go straight into the cupboard with the skateboards and the ouija board. Lots of boards there.

I've also started training in the important craft of caiprinha making. The first time I tasted one was in London a couple of years back and it really was pretty horrible. It was made with no love, and it tasted like cold piss on a winter's night. Thankfully it didn't put me off; I've acquired the proper taste recently.

Wednesday was football day. It was similar to last week in that I wasn't really sure what people were shouting most of the time, but it was a lot of fun. They really do argue a lot with each other; lots of blaming each other for conceding goals, misplaced passes, contentious free kicks and the like. I only played a couple of games though, there were a lot of people there and I don't fully understand the system yet; who can play when, and so on. Goals McGuigan did make an appearance at the very beginning though, to signal his intent.

There was a barbecue immediately after the game as well, so we had some beers and lots of meat, which was pretty sweeeee eeeeee eeee e eeeet. I could get used to that.....

Yesterday we took a trip into the city centre to see a lawyer about the process for civil partnerships here. There's a fair bit of paperwork to be done, but we made a start anyway. Watch this space, I suppose....there could be a party fairly soon....

Museu de Arte Moderna

Woody Allen vs The Syringe of Impending Death

Only gone and got me some ant killer, yo

hahaha, fools. FOOLS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNgMJnU8Q5o

Joga bonita

Six weeks without playing football, or doing any exercise for that matter, is far too long. We played in a 6 a side floodlit outdoor pitch, with artificial grass and sand. It makes for suffering from seriously heavy legs pretty quickly. There was about 18 of us, so we split into teams of 6, 10 minute games with the winner staying on. Azul vs vermelho. I played about 4 games I think. Won the first two, 1-0 and 2-1. Lost the next one 2-0, and won the last one 1-0. I'm glad Hugo found this group, since it's a decent level to play at; ie it's the usual crowd: 1) a few guys who are much better than the rest, good at dribbling, holding the ball, extremely fit, quick, etc. 2) a few beer bellies and oldies 3) one guy who shouts at the referee a lot, and his teammates, and who just isn't very good. Everyone was pretty nice, given that I didn't know what the fuck half of them were saying most of the time. I was known variously as Jarrrrrraaapappgpgpggp........Geraldo, Geraldinho, and finally Gringo which seemed to stick. Played ok, set up the first goal of the game on the right wing beating my man and crossing to the back post for a first time volley. That settled me in nicely. Had a few decent shots saved, set up one other, and had a goal unfairly disallowed for handball. The ref bowed to pressure from their goalkeeper. I was seriously knackered by the third game in a row though. Plus we had to wear our bibs over our tops, so it was hot as fuck. It was hot already before the second bib. Christ. Overall it was pretty brilliant. It was class to play as the sun set and hear the crickets chirping beside the pitch. They've said I can play every week, and I can get a bus to the pitch from here,and a lift back. I wouldn't want to walk round there after dark. I'd totally get jarfnapped.

2012

So Christmas and New Year have passed, and now it's time to do it all over again. Whoop whoop!

The New Year's weekend was good here; went to a dirty bear club on Friday night for some drinking and dancing. I do declare some pretty hot customers round these parts.

Saturday was spent trying to get rid of the hangover, and to get ready for the fireworks at the beach. The weather was a bit rubbish, raining all night, but it was still amazing. I think fireworks are always generally the same wherever you see them, so it's all about the background and the atmosphere in the crowd. Both were fantastic; everyone was squeezed onto the beach and people were dancing and swimming and frolicking in the sea all the way up to midnight. Everyone wears white, and some crazy people make offerings to some sort of sea goddess or summat. Lots of different kinds of people too; a mix of the favela kids, rich locals, and wide eyed foreigners, all brought together in a mutual hatred of DJ David Guetta. Or maybe that was just me.

So now it's like, totally the future!!

An exciting year ahead: Ireland to Greece their way up the slippery pole of victory in the European Championships in Polkraine. That is if Europe still exists in June, and the Mayans haven't turned up in their spaceships to blast the shit out of everyone.

We also finally get to stop hearing about the London Olympics, thank fuck. Carnival, teaching English, lots of music, films, TV, and technological gadgetry.

And most importantly, I am playing football tonight for the first time over here. Someone from Hugo's work plays every Wednesday night in a dodgy area in the north of the city. I am nervous, for many reasons. Firstly, I'll have to get a bus on my own for the first time. I've been procrastinating, mainly due to mental things like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_174

Secondly, playing with people you don't know for the first time is kind of like your first day at school. I just hope this time I don't cry when I get there and refuse to play with the other boys. For about 6 weeks.

Lastly, they're all going to be fucking Brasilians.

I foresee having to bring out my secret weapon: the Chris Waddle overstep.

They shall fear me.

Suspicion

I'm worried the ants are up to something. Something diabolical. I saw them carrying a hammer into the washroom.