What do Pelé, Senna and Happy Birthday have in common?

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For anyone who has been living on the moon for the last 60 years I should explain, Pelé was Brazilian footballer – people generally agree that he was rather good. Ayrton Senna is widely regarded as the greatest Formula One driver of all time. But these two have more in common than their status as Brazilian sporting icons. Despite being born 20 years apart (Pele 1940, Senna 1960) they both dated the same girl.

Xuxa da Graça Meneghel, better known as just Xuxa. Her name is pronounced Shoosha.

 

And yet Xuxa is known in Brazil as a personality in her own right. As you can probably guess, looking at her picture above, she started out as a model.

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7 Tips for Supermarket Survival

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Supermarkets eh? My mum remembers when supermarkets were first introduced – what a novelty it was to be able to pick up and choose the items yourself without having to ask a guy in the brown overalls behind a counter to fetch you a dozen eggs or a pound of sugar. 

 

Nowadays many people see supermarkets as a necessary evil. ‘Necessary’ because, by human nature, we want the convenience of buying all our things in one place and we want to pay low prices. ‘Evil’ because they tend to promote harmful/unsustainable farming techniques, they squeeze small suppliers and competitors out of the market and ultimately lead towards monopolies which are not in the interests of the consumer (phew!).


Still, if you live in a city then you have to be either very rich or very dedicated to the cause to avoid supermarkets altogether. And although I love traditional markets (and use one near my home once a week), I do most of my shopping in a supermarket near work. The following are my top 7 supermarket survival tips:

A traditional shopkeeper (and his long-suffering assistant).

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Sexy times at the airport

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I know. Airports aren’t generally thought of as sexy places. I guess there must be a few ‘aerophiles’ out there, a few lonely people who sit for hours on end identifying passenger jets and writing down aircraft registration numbers in books. But for the rest of us, visiting an airport is a fairly unexciting experience of waiting for people or planes.


Well here in Rio there is another, infinitely more tedious experience waiting for you at the airport: the offices of the Polícia Federal (PF). The Federal Police are responsible for dealing with visa applications and other issues related to estrangeiros (foreigners) and my wife and I have spent many, many hours sitting, waiting, pleading and complaining in their offices. Maybe I will bore you another day with a more detailed account of my experiences at the PF, but for now let’s just say that it’s a painful experience and usually leads to stress, exasperation and arguments.


‘So where does the sexy part come in?’ I hear you demand with libidinous impatience. Well that’s where this smoky-voiced lady comes in…

This was Íris Lettieri back in 1974. She has a sexy voice.

 

 

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Lupi catches bullet

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I won’t resign and I won’t be sacked. I have the President’s full support. I guarantee it won’t happen…It will take a bullet to get me out of the ministry. And it will have to be a big bullet, because I’m a big guy. – Carlos Lupi, 8th November 2011.

Politics and corruption in Brazil appear to be intimately linked.

 

Brazil’s Labour minister, Carlos Lupi, announced his resignation yesterday. This makes him the 6th minister to resign because of corruption allegations since President Dilma Rousseff came to power (at the start of 2011). Lupi’s resignation comes after more than a month of allegations and revelations. As the quote above illustrates, this guy is quite a character. In response to the outcry to that followed the above quote, he made another statement apologising to the president:

 

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"To live in Brazil is shit…

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…but it’s great.”

Who said that? None other than Antônio Carlos Jobim, also known as Tom Jobim, the godfather of bossa nova, composer of The Girl from Ipanema and one of the great Brazilians of the 20th Century. The full quote is:

“To live in other countries is great, but it’s shit. To live in Brazil is shit but it’s great.”

Tom Jobim – legend.