BIG IN BRASIL

2009-04-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

ORANGES, ORANGES, WHO'LL BUY ME BLEEDIN' ORANGES????

Well, hopefully in about a year's time, middle class Cariocas who like to squeeze 'em into juice...

Here's Marco, testing the oranges for, erm, orangeyness, a couple of weeks ago at our plantation in Palmital.

They are looking really big and healthy, precocious even, and full of plumptiousness, which is a good thing.

The whole landscape seems quite different, now it's inundated with thick bushy trees, instead of wimpy plantlets.

We now have a Dept. of Agriculture inspector who visits every few weeks, and offers advice.

Very helpful.

If we stick to poo as fertiliser, we can be certified organic.

Well, not us, the oranges, obviously.

Although, personally, I never use anything else...

Oranges, typo Seleta, probably a bit sour this year, so not a saleable harvest, but looking good for next year.

Brasilian farmers tend to plant orange trees and leave them until they are harvestable, without tending them, and the resulting trees, if they survive, tend to yield 3.5 boxes of fruit per tree.

Because ours are continuously tended with medicines, fertiliser, water etc.(we have 3 full-time staff, 2 of whom live onsite, plus tractor with water tanker etc.) it's reasonable to expect a much higher yield. However even at the low figure based on 3.5 boxes per tree, I look to profit around 40% per annum on my investimento.

All I gotta do is wait, and survive on bugger all in the meantime!!

As a result of which, I also have some more immediate ventures under way...see below...

2009-04-17T10:07:00.000-07:00

Well, who'd have thought it?

I've had an allergy to clothing my whole life, (due to my dad being in menswear) and yet now, out of the blue, I'm in the rag trade!

I'm buying womens gear here in Brasil and exporting it to my daughter Hannah to sell in the UK.

Here are some elements that will make up the upcoming website. Punters will be able to buy online or at markets around the south west, and Camden Lock too.

Buy our gear and look like you just stepped

off the beach here...Ipanema!

Logo courtesy of Hannah's boyfriend Ben...well I nicked the bits and he reinvented them, with real paint and a paintbrush...remember them??

Meet Roberta, my mannequin...named

after a lovely young lady at one of my suppliers.

Wearing a Macaquinho, in English, a culotte dress.

Tres chic!

Another dress for ladies.

Matching dress and blouse.

I found a town a hundred miles away where clothing is the main industry, where one street has around 1200, (that's twelve hundred) clothes shops in it, all of whom do wholesale as well as very cheap retail.

There's a complete dearth of other shops, bars, cafes and chemists (unknown in Brasil), and what few there are, are just doorways, with a corridor leading through to a hidden bar or cafe etc. tucked in behind clothes shops!

The only hotel is behind a doorway with steps leading to a lift to the hotel located above clothes shops.

It's bizarre, but a great place to immerse yourself in the biz...I stayed in the hotel both visits and never left the street.

Another Macaquinho.

Fabric wot i bought for making a dress wiv.

Have done my own dress design and getting

it made up here by local peeps.

I am still not gay.

Happy though...

2009-04-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

This is the rough blurb for the website intro...

Summer 2009 Collection

Fresh from the dazzling sun kissed white sand beaches and palm fringed breezy boulevards of Brazil's fabulous Rio de Janeiro, we bring you the latest and greatest Summer fashions for 2009 !!

Working with a select number of Rio's finest small designer fashion labels, Rio Chicoffers you the chance to buy straight into the style and glamour of the most beautiful, vibrant and exciting city in the world!

On or off the beach, day or night, we have something special for you for every occasion, each design produced by hand and in very small quantities, all available in the UK exclusively from Rio Chic.

Treat yourself from a selection of our top items here online, or for the full collection, visit our mobile shop at one of the locations listed below.

Email or text us to receive regular updates on where to find us and what's new ... we are adding new lines all the time.

The Rio Chic Summer 2009 Collection will be available at selected indoor and outdoor markets along the UK South West coast throughout the coming 2009 Spring and Summer seasons.

Watch out for us at Weston, Clevedon, Portishead, Ilfracombe and Minehead. Also inland at Bath, Bristol and Wells markets.

Rio Chic use only Brazilian produced materials, and all pieces are fairly traded.

Rio Chic garments should always be handwashed at or below 30 degrees Celsius.

Roberta the lovely shop assistant was wearing these clothes when I was there buying, so they happened to be the first clothes out of the bag and onto the mannequin when I got home...so the mannequin got her name.

Big fat 4 button waist banded jeans, and stunning top with hand applied sequins and gert medieval pointy side danglers (is that the technical term??)...my fave piece....ummmm!

Love this, real trad Latin stylee updated...

...loads of hand applied metal and fabric decs...

Chic or what? Dress with optional straps and pashmina.

Had to secrete pins in this one to keep Hannah out of it...

Didn't work...

Hand appliqued dress with removable woollen collar.

Gorgeous.

Go on, give us a twirl...

2009-04-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

More groovy kit...we've bought around 500 pieces so far, so this is a tiny selection...there are over 200 different designs, all unseen in the UK, so we're hoping to do well with them (obviously).

I'm expecting my long dead dad to turn up and welcome me into the family biz at long fucking last..."better late than never lad"...

2009-04-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

2008-11-21T06:07:00.000-08:00

WELL, ITS ALL HAPPENING HERE FOLKS!!!
Or is it?
Lots of rain and cold weather.
Flooding.
Finally an election result, a month and a half after the election...this takes 'manhana' into a new sphere entirely, and then factor in 24,000 discounted votes!!!
Corruption a-go-go!!!
Thats Saquarema for you. And most of the rest of the country too...
Unlike Britain of course where Democracy is all above board and fair square.
Did I say Democracy....sorry, I meant Mockracy, the system by which all Pretend Democratic Countries are actually run.
So finally, Franciane Melo, (co-incidentally) wife of the state legislator Paulo Melo is in the mayor chair.
Which presumably means hubby will release funds to improve Saquarema (see previous post for his petulant refusal to do so when his wife was outvoted!!!).
(That's hubby on the left of the poster.)

Meanwhile Dalton Borges, the actual winner on votes, has been disqualified and his votes, all 24 thousand of them, consigned to the bin. He has 13 charges of wrongful behaviour against him, including buying votes, so how he ever got to stand and be voted for in the first place is as mysterious (read corrupt) as everything else.
One might have thought, mightn't one, that a new election might have been in order, but no,
the judges in Brasilia deemed Franciane the winner.
And that's that. Sadly, it's probably the best thing for the area, but it's a shit way to get improvements...

MY NEW BIZ
I'm now involved with some buddies in a new business venture called Disk Comida...no, not as in vinyl disks this time..'Disk' over here means 'Dial a'...
Here's the link for the website...only a mockup at the mo' and in Eenglish temporarily...
http://diskcomida.blogspot.com/
And here's our logo which I accidentally nicked off the internet...

And no, it's not me...
Actually I keep telling Fernando, our chef, that it's him...well, he does have a moustache.
So basically, it's a home delivery meal service, plus event catering.
We're also offering my pad with it's massive living room and swimming pool for events, and also discussing the idea of a restaurant here at weekends.
The restaurant idea scares me somewhat, ( lack of privacy, being kept up to unearthly hours by drunken foreigners, as well as by the guests haha) but it's been on my mind for over a year, and this seems to be the perfect opportunity to have a bash...the high season starts soon, which is the time to do it so we'll see what we shall see...
...the delivery biz starts next week, we're just waiting on leaflets, then once they're out, just waiting for the phone to ring...beans and rice anyone?????
Herewith some pics vaguely related to our new venture...

OK this is a view of the scrappers where we went to buy spares for the
deliverymobile...it's a regular Aladdins hole...

On the right is Fernando, our chef, and behind the counter is the humorous scrapper boss...he has a nice line in pricing...you ask how much, and with much deliberation he goes, hmmmm, twenty two, thirty seven, plus fifteen, fifty two, and eighteen....how about twelve reais???

Here we all are at the printers, agreeing the final version-ish of the leaflet...
Blue ink on yellow paper...
Actually blue-ish ink on yellow-ish paper...

Long Shot.
Sums up my life actually...

CORSETS
(There, you weren't expecting that to happen, now were you????)

Check out my mate Fleur's new biz site...she makes amazing custom corsetry (and just about anything else you can wear, including a fine line in fairy wings as I remember...)

She did some great stuff for me too.
No, not corsets, you big stinkypants, and not Fairy Wings neither...
It was upholstery, alright???
Marvelous...good luck chuck!!!
That's a Gurkin on the left by the way...

http://www.fleurtyfairy.com/

MONORAIL ?
OK, now of corsets time for some boys stuff... (see what I did there?)
So I was watching a Brasilian movie on Sky called "Um Homem sem Importancia", 'An Unimportant Man', shot in Rio in 1971, and the main character and his mate head off on the famous old tram across the aqueduct and on up to Santa Teresa.
They then appear again on a different and much smaller tram (?), which appears to be a monorail...huh? Only with three wheels...huh?
I was always intrigued by peculiar/obscure transport modes, and this was obviously as pec/ob as they come...so, onto Google...and thence to a very helpful gent in New York called Allen Morrison whose made a massive study of all things tramlike in South America, the Universe and Elsewhere...
After I stayed up a night and photoed a rerun on Sky, he identified it as the Vila Jardim Santa Cecília Monorail, which provides the only access to about 45 houses with about 200 residents, upside a big hill in Santa Teresa.
This community is also known as the "Bairro Suíço" (Swiss Quarter) or "Morro do Alemão" (German Hill) because of its German-speaking population.
The 150 metre long 'monotrilho' was built by the residents in 1949, and is still there and as far as I know, is still active to this day.
The traction is provided by the tired road wheels at the rear, and the small wheels at the front grip the single rail and guide it.
It is undoubtedly both the most obscure monorail and one of the most obscure railways in the world.
Below are my pics from the movie, (complete with my TV!), and then pix of an almost equally obscure monorail in India...almost equally obscure but not quite!! (It has driven wheels running on a centre rail, and the big wheel you can see in the pic trundles freewheelingly along the roadway, just to stop it all falling over!)
Here's a link to Allen's page with more recent photos of the monorail...check out the rest of his site...it's amazing and absolutely massive...
http://www.tramz.com/br/rj/vj/vj.html

BOAT
OK so here we have some pix of the boat what I used to own and then half own and then not own at all.

Motor Yacht Glala.

Interestingly when you own a British registered vessel, you own 64 shares of it.

Odd number, I thought...why sixty four?

Why not a hundred...normally when you own all of something, you own

a hundred per cent of it.

Ho Ho.

Guess what.

There are a hundred shares.

You only own 64 of them.

You can only own 64 of them.

But guess who owns the other 36 shares.

Of your boat.

Whether you like it or not...

The fucking Queen!!

Actually, it works to your advantage, as she regularly chips in a third towards mooring fees and maintenance, which can all be crippling on an old boat.

And, luckily I know how to spell the word gullible.

Do you?????

So Glala now has a new owner, (well, he owns 64 shares of her at least!)

Below is a link to his website. He seems to be planning a big restoration, and talks about our work as having not been up to scratch in the late 80's. In fact the poor work he refers to was done by the guy I bought her from, who was somewhat of an idiot.

I'm about to send the new guy an email and fill in some informational/historical gaps.
http://www.ceze.net/glala/index.htm

This is Glala lying off Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo in 1940, the mass evacuation of the BEF and other allied forces back to Blighty.

Due to her shallow draft, Glala was able to get in close to the beaches and tow off whalers loaded with soldiers to the destroyers standing further out to sea.

She had an engine blown out during a Stuka dive bomber attack and had to head back to England for repairs.

The first 2 pix below were taken on the day of the relaunch in September 1989 after a year and a half of restoration on a slipway in Woolston,Southampton.

The bottom one is in Lulworth Cove in 1985, when she was a great deal less than seaworthy. She had just taken part in a Dunkirk Little Ships reunion.

Top photo below is M.Y.Glala the day I discovered her in early 1988, in use as a houseboat on the River Hamble.
Below that, a pic of her on Stem to Stern Boatbuilder's slipway, in Willment's shipyard, Woolston, Southampton, where we lived (on the slipway!) for a year and a half.
Phil Godard of Stem to Stern ran the entire rebuild and become a great friend of mine.
Anybody know where he is now??
Below that is Glala docked in the Isle of Wight, after relaunch, during sea trials/piss up. That was the day I bought a battered jam sandwich in a chip shop and nearly threw up. Seemed like a wicked idea at the time...the sandwich that is, not the vomitting...

MY BIRTHDAY MONTAGE CARD FROM HANNAH...thanks Spud!
Here it is.
My naughty childrens!!
All montagey!

CITRUSNESS..NICE PIC THEREOF.
Here is a picture of citrusness...one day these will be mine, all mine...
In fact my 1500 trees and all the rest are doing very well, after months of weather varying between rain and shine...perfect for citrusness...my trees are two meters or more now...must go and see them again soon...in fact I will save upo and go and wee on them...they like that...(as you will know if you saw The World's Fastest Indian...great film!!)

ETIQUETTE????
Now a Section on Etiquette...
Bet you weren't expecting this one even more than the other one you weren't expecting ...haha

How to greet a proper lady.

How to greet (or restrain) a not very proper lady.

ESCONDIDINHO
This is a new and very short section.
In fact, that was it !
No, ok...escondidnho is my new fave dish..
...basically if you boil up aipim, cassava, manioc, tapioca, gari, whatever you wanna call it, and then mash it up with cream and milk and cream cheese, (it goes transparent like wallpaper paste and all weird and gloopy...) and then bake it with prawns or carne seca or any meat or whatever underneath and some parmesan on topperneath it makes this sort of gooey with a thick crust kind of slightly cottage pie-ey mmmmm Yorkshire puddingy cum lasagne-ey comfort foody kind of yummy thing and basically...I like it.
I've made a rough version just with cream cheese and skimmed milk which was fine...
When I told Hannah about it she said she'd just seen some Indian cook knocking out almost exactly the same thing but currified...small world innit? No actually, it's really big but everyone eats one of the same three things pretty much...cassava or rice or pasta or bread...ok four things...actually Brasilians eat pasta, rice, potatoes, toasted manioc flour and chips at the same meal all the time...ok five things...

This is a picture of Escondidnho.
Obviously, really, isn't it???
It goes thick and crusty round the sides as well...mmmmmmmmm.

TOONI ON THE TELLY!!

How marvelous!
Tooni who used to work in the Bell in Bath is now one of the presenters on the BBC2 series 'Ocean'. Here she is in the Arctic. She trained as a marine biologist whatever that is but only so she could get on the telly I expect!
She told me once she was called Tooni because her mum'n'dad liked...you guessed it...cartoons!
(By that logic, my name should be Citroen Theatre Groupie)
By the way, for any Brasilians looking in, the white stuff in the picture is called 'snow' and is what we call 'cold'. It's very similar to 'hot' but not as.
The big white thing hiding in 'the snow' behind Tooni is 'a polar bear' and is very dangerous and very hard to spot, and behind that is a thing we call 'a boat'. It gets stuck in what we call 'the ice', as you can see here.
Tooni will be stuck there in 'the snow' with 'the polar bear' because 'the boat' will probably remain stuck in 'the ice' for what we call 'quite a long time'.
Good luck with the TV presenting Tooni!

LAFER
Well isn't this quickfire diversity at it's most diverse and quickfire!
I feel quite proud and all encompassing!
OK my fave Brasilian furniture tends to be by a firm called Lafer.
They also make or made glass bodied copies of the old MG, and are most famous for building the fibreglass Earhole phone boxes you see all over Brasil.
But sod all that, I like their seating...and here are pix of my absolute fave design...
One day it shall be mine, oh yes, it shall be mine...

Absolutely stunning, I reckon.
I search for these and other goodies every day online and off.

I have a couple of sections of this, the YOKO by Tok &Stok...the Brasilian equivalent of Habitat. I'm constantly searching for more. It's a rip off of Michel Ducaroy's TOGO design for Ligne Roset, which featured on the Big Brother set a couple of years ago, and which is closely related to my beloved Cinna Sandra set, which now lives at my mateToby's house in Batheaston. Hello Tobe! Hello Sandra!
It's illustrated in black leather below, and you can see mine in my ex apartment on the last bunch of blog, belower down.

This is another gorgeous, though tatty Lafer, upholstered over a
fibreglass shell on a wooden base. I'd love to find a set of these with the armchairs an'all.

OTHER STUFF
Odds and some sods...
This is a stunning 1960's piece by the American Paul Evans from his Cityscape series.
I doubt I'll ever find one of these.

Guess what you flick to turn on the lamp...

Old audio cassettes type lamp!

VARIOUSER AND VARIOUSER

Amanda, Sonia's niece, has now gone back to a life of evangelism
in Rio with her dad, the minister.
God help the church.

Wicked T.
And another shot of the Gurkin.
And the Anna.

Well, when I first opened my record shop, I bought crates of pristine stuff from a guy up the road, most of it on US labels. And the wooden crates had these weird stickers on them, but no address or contact, in fact they didn't make it clear what Liquorice Pizza actually was even.
So, the other week, after fifteen years, I trawled the net for clues, and there it all was.
LA and environs, a chain of record stores, all very fondly remembered by punters and staff alike.
Great name, and great graphics tambem. Ooooops. I mean as well.

If you flip back in my blog to March you'll find the guys from Bath's Jammadesamba staying with me for a break after drumming all over Rio throughout Carnaval.
Here the article in the local paper, in which Jackson says that Finnish girls samba harder and better than Brasilians. Tell it like ya see it son...and keep yer head down!
Talking of which, last night I thought I 'd been shot!

Whilst on the piss in my fave bar by the lagoon,my fullglass of caipivodkaexplodedwith a massive bang, simultaneously with me noticing a car pull up outside and then move on rapidly. I was so convinced, and lacking any other explanation, that i ran my hands over my body to find the bullet hole and ready for the pain to kick in! I still know nothing but I guess the ice erm, exploded!! (Does ice explode??)

Here's Sonia cooking up a storm at my place the other week.
I'm trying to put her in for 'Iron Chef'.
(Don't tell her.)
I told the estate agent I wanted to live by the Lagoon, not in it.

And here as a final finale, my road this morning after a certain amount of raininess
Which is why it really does matter whether Paulo Melo gets the hump as to whether or not his wife gets in and whose votes get thrown in the bin and who bribes who and all that shit...
Democracy, please, not Mockracy.

2008-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, Saquarema doesn't often make it into the international news, let alone into Hollywood movies, but this time we scored on both counts!!!
The star of this story was busted in Lake Shopping Mall, where I go on the piss now and again, right here in good ole' Saqua'!!

Justices turn down appeal in 'Alpha Dog' case
Story Highlights
Jesse James Hollywood's lawyers say 'Alpha Dog' film publicity would demonize him.
Prosecutor in real-life case assisted movie's producers.
Case, and movie, involve a drug-related kidnapping and murder.
Hollywood could receive the death penalty if convicted.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court is allowing a prosecutor who helped in the making of the movie "Alpha Dog" to stay on the capital case on which the film was based.

Justin Timberlake starred in "Alpha Dog," the film based on the Jesse James Hollywood case.

Justices declined Monday to get involved in an appeal from Jesse James Hollywood, the accused mastermind of a plot to kidnap and murder 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz.
Hollywood -- his real name, says his family -- says publicity over "Alpha Dog" would unfairly demonize him before potential jurors.
The movie was released last year. Hollywood and his lawyers argue the power of popular films to influence the minds of the general public makes their upcoming defense all but impossible.
Hollywood is charged with heading a Southern California drug ring, and ordering the murder of Markowitz in August 2000. The boy's older half-brother reportedly owed Hollywood a $1,200 drug debt.
Hollywood faces the death penalty if convicted.
The justices' refusal to intervene now means Hollywood's criminal trial can begin early next year as scheduled.
While police were investigating Markowitz's murder and building their a case against Hollywood and his accomplices, the suspect fled the country. He was found five years later in Saquarema, Brazil, and extradited to the United States in 2005. He is now 28 years old.
Don't Miss
Chief justice shows his writing chops
During this time, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Ron Zonen was contacted by movie producers, and he agreed to turn over to them probation reports, police files and other "sensitive" information on the case. He was also an unpaid consultant to the film. Zonen defended his actions, saying he was trying to help publicize the international manhunt for Hollywood.
The movie starred Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone, Justin Timberlake and actor Emile Hirsch in the role modeled on Hollywood. The fictionalized plot deals with a young drug dealer (named Johnny Truelove in the film), with a circle of friends, one of whom commits murder on Johnny's orders.
In real life, four of Hollywood's associates have already been convicted in the case, including triggerman Ryan Holt, who sits on California's death row.
The state's highest court ruled earlier this year that Zonen can remain on the case, but it criticized some of his actions.
"This is not to say that Zonen can or should escape censure," wrote Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar. "We find his acknowledged actions in turning over his case files without so much as an attempt to screen them for confidential information highly inappropriate and disturbing."
Hollywood's attorneys said that Zonen was unethical and that publicity from the movie tainted the jury pool. In addition to Zonen, they want the entire district attorney's staff removed from the case. "What we're saying is, when you do something like that, that's a conflict of interest," lead attorney James Blatt said. "You shouldn't be on the case."

2008-10-07T15:10:00.000-07:00

AS IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY AND SONIA'S TOO WE HAD A PARTY SO I THOUGHT I'D BETTER POST SOME PIX...
And then I thought, well that's a bit sparse, so I've added some random bits too...
Latest news is that we've just had the Brasilian municipal elections all over the country...
I expect the goings on are fairly typical here in Saquarema...
...in which case WE'RE FUCKING DOOMED!!!!
In brief, 3 or 4 months of convoys of hundreds of nutters on momobikes, in cars, on lorries, beeping , screaming, shouting, waving, bannering, soundsysteming and anything annoying-ing...
Then 2 days of silence, then last Sunday, the voting...
The result...I think the polite term is "impasse"...
The winner is allegedly Dalton Borges...the previous Mayor...
But, he's been disqualified as he was found giving out food for votes (I heard it was cash actually, 10 reais (£3.00) per vote...)
So the Vice Mayor, Franciane Melo, who recieved a similar number of votes is in...or is she???
Supporters of both have been arrested for fighting in the streets in the last couple of days...
So last night, Paulo Melo, UN-coincidentally Franciane's husband, and State Legislator for Rio state, goes on his own radio show (on his own radio station no less) and announces that all the funds he was going to see diverted to Saquarema for much needed improvements (this included asphalting 250 kilometers of dirt roadways...have you seen mine???) are going to be RE-diverted elsewhere, because if the voters here in Saquarema don't want to vote for his wife Franciane, they're not getting any money for the town...
I ended up speechless, and had to go for a drink...
They're not getting my bloody vote...
Any of 'em.
I haven't got one.

Also on the corruption front, here's a pic of Pierry, my friend Sonia's 20 year old son who died, cause unknown, in his mother's arms in hospital here in Saquarema last October.

It now turns out that the Brasilian Navy, his erstwhile employer, had diagnosed him with throat cancer, but had not told him or his relatives, had not treated him for it during his time in the Navy's hospital in Rio, and had not informed the local hospital here in Saquarema.

Sonia is in the process of taking it to the courts, and has procured documentary proof, mostly through a sympathetic office worker at Navy HQ. The only possible reason seems to be budgetary, in which case there most be other similar cases, certainly in The Brasilian Navy, and possibly throughout the armed forces.

Oh yes, it's all one big fucking laugh here in sunny Brasil.

(It's actually been dull, cold and raining for weeks.)

2008-10-07T15:06:00.000-07:00

SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO OR ANY RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER...
Some pix of my flat before, during and after renovs in 2004.

Living room strewn with derelict belongings...airing cupboard and kitchen beyond...with handy internal porch with three doors...but note the original Georgian arch and alcoves mmmmmm...

The open plan kitchen a la Bath city Council 1974 ish...very collectable now...
The quaint walled garden...I'm sure I remember having children...

I heard council contract scafflers out there one day discussing whether my flat was inhabited...
"Not unless it's that tramp in the old trainers..."
I don't wear trainers...
Demolition in full swing...the council had done a great job...they'd just smashed their way through any Georgian features and rammed in partitioning to hide the mess of pipes and conduits and stuff...
But open plan becomes a tangible thingy...

2008-10-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

RENOVATE!!!!

Living room, archway and kitchen...
I designed an epic kitchen, using Ikea boxes and bits, but with a custom built stainless top and a modular sink from Finland and all kinds of shit.
Everything came from eBay, from the fridge freezer, dishwasher, sink, taps,hob and ovens to the door handles and cupboard door catches.
Likewise the sofas, from eBay Belgium, the beds, the shower/jacuzzi/steamer unit and the Philip Starke knockoff bathroom sink.
And the dining table and chairs.
And my bum.

Here's Jonno pratting about in the kitchen whilst seriously overcharging me!

He used to moan on everytime I picked something up on eBay...
"More fucking eBay shit..." he'd quip.

And here's Graham in the not yet lovely bathroom...with the not yet lovely jacuzzi/steamer /everything thing...
Jonno really loved that one!!!
Late at night whilst showering, they say you can still hear him swearing as he takes the skin off his knuckles yet again...
"Fucking eBay shit..."

2008-10-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

BUT ALL THINGS MUST COME TO AN END, AND SOME ARE DISCRETE AND CHARMING OPEN PLAN MODERNIST STYLED GEORGIAN FLAT CONVERSIONS...
And , of course, some are not...

Hmmm, both discrete and charming!

ART!

And illuminated shelves...from eBay of course...

Kitchen still with blue wrappers on...

Bathroom...all from eBay but the bog (B&Q).

2008-10-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

MORE PONCED UP FLAT PICS...

CAN YOU TELL WHAT IT IS YET??

FAR OUT (DISPLAY CHEAPO) HABITAT STONE TABLE AND STOOLS (IN FIBREGLASS)

2008-10-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

BIG ART!

This is amazing.."Lee vs Lotus"....8 foot by 4 foot sheet perspex with vinyl overlays and texturing...
The lamp was a modification (by me) to an award winning Spanish design.
All the lighting for the flat was bought on eBay, mostly from Spain.

This I bought from the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath.
I was looking to ad some colorful art to my very "white in three shades" flat...but when I saw this it had to be...white art for a white flat...

2008-10-07T13:08:00.000-07:00

AT LONG LAST...SOMETHING NEAR THE PRESENT...
MY SPECIAL HAIRCUT FOR MY BIRTHDAY...
A MOHEEK!!!!

And a special dins on my birthday courtesy of Sonia and her niece Amanda who is now living with her...

I was ill once, (some would hold more than once) in 2002, and spent a couple of weeks sofa ridden and getting into modern design, paintings, furniture and architecture...(thence came shop and flat refurb)...
Eventually I was so taken with old Mondrain that I thought I'd have a go at abstraction...taking it down a little...so I bought some pastelly things and did a series of views of my view from my sofa...each a little more abstracted than the last...this was about as far as I got...entitled "STIJL LIFE NUMBER 3".

2008-10-07T13:06:00.000-07:00

OUR HUNDREDTH BIRTHDAY!!!!!
Sonia and I are 100 years old!!!

This is the cake to prove it...
But of course it didn't prove it for long!

Here Sonia displays the people she has magically made appear before our very eyes..

Poufffffff!.

The Barbecue crew!!

2008-10-07T13:03:00.000-07:00

What a crazy party!!!
Outdoors, by the lagoon, barbecue...
Freezing cold, murderous winds, ice cold lager...
Saved only by the (my) introduction of frozen vodka shots...
Vodka, the winter warmer...
Now competing favourably with the other Russian import of choice here, the Kalashnikov.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about...
I made two enormous sponge puddings, one apple and one pineapple...
This lot ate the bloody lot...
I got a round of applause...
They got indigestion.

That's Lau (who used to work for me on the house) and wife in foreground...
I think he's already looking for the Rennies.
I have never seen this man before in my life.

Nor him neither. .

2008-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

PARTY GETS PROGRESSIVELY MORE RAUCUS.

Pamela is deep in thought whilst performing a modern ballet piece.
Either that or the vodka has gotten to her.
Either way she's definately free forming.
The sturdy Amanda on the left, Sonia's niece.
Group photo opportunity...
With drunken English twat messing it up...
"I've fallen..."

Well, it was very late by this point in the proceedings...

2008-10-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

FINALLY THE POOL IS WARM-ISH ENOUGH TO USE AGAIN...

This was Sunday last...
The pool has been really cold since april, anmd I've barely used it.
The temperature at night is always cold and the ground must retain it, and so the pool stays cold, even on days when the general temperature reaches 90 or 95.
But after a couple of humid days the pool was ok, though not how you say, warm...
Not enough for floating asleep in at least, one of my regular more strenuous in-pool activities.
The Naked Chef.
Well, partially.
Making a rice bol.

Ditto.

Carlos taking a few notes.

Like don't get really fat.

2008-09-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

IT'S BACK!!!!
After months of absinthe, no absess, no absence...due, actually to having nothing of any note to report...
But here we go, random jots and photes...

The Gerrits...with glass topped table...
I need an outlet for these...UK price around £750 a set plus shipping...
Outdoor variants available ( i.e. split hardwood back and seat to allow drainage), painted or wood, hand made in solid non-Amazonian hardwood ( and a couple of bits of ply obviously...), constructed with wooden pegs as per the originals, which are worth around £250,000 each in their red/blue version...
I loves 'em...

The estate as it was a few months ago when building work was pretty much complete...
Needs a few more trees and plants...

The shadey veranda, great for brekkies...
The nearest bush is now inundated with dwarf tomato plants...
The roof terrace roof is now further palmed up...just needs chairs and table...

My mates Sonia and Lu at my fave lagoonside
bar Estacao Boqueirao a while back...
Pinchico, the bar's boss, is standing for election at the mo'...which consists of him and hundreds of mates driving round and round the town every other night on small 'sickles and in cars and trucks, beeping horns, screaming , shouting, chanting, waving flags, blasting out soundsystems at a deafening level, letting off explosives and generally blocking all traffic and all attempts at normal day to day life... and everything...
(The candidates are allowed to donate petrol to supporters!!)
Meanwhile, all the other candidates and their supporters are doing exactly the same thing at exactly the same time in exactly the same places, and there you have it....Brasilian politics.
I doubt that one in a hundred of the supporters has the vaguest idea about any of the candidate's vaunted policies, but this in fact matters little, as the chances of any of the candidates actually carrying out any of the policies if elected is pretty much zero anyway, and there you have it, Brasilian politics...

2008-09-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

Ooooh how random.
How unexpected....

OK my suite , taken from the en-suite...

How sweet...
My seat...

MMMMMmmmmmm
My shed...
How neat...

My Brasilian designed Eclipse lamp...
Just in case you hadn't had it forced down your throat by
me previously...
It comes in a pizza box which is erm, good...?
I have been working on a chair design based on this
lamp, but unfortunatelly it doesn't work...
Isn't life funny sometimes...
And then other times, not...

Random enough for you????

2008-09-15T10:01:00.000-07:00

OK, here's a twist you weren't expecting, I'll warrant...
HOMEMADE 100% WHOLEMEAL BREAD.
AN ANTHOLOGY.

Yes, since June , (when I hasten to add I did not suddenly become gay I hasten to add),
I have been baking what has gradually become wholemeal bread.
Look, baking, especially 100% wholemeal baking is actually quintissentially butch...
One isn't, after all, a BAKERRA or a BAKINNA, or a BAKINNI ...one is a BAKER...
You know, it's essentially very Masculine, lots of tough Kneading...and Cutting open bags with Tough and Dangerous implements like Scissors...with some pretty hefty Sprinkling and Pouring going on too...and don't forget all the Lifting as well...and the oven can be very Dangerous too as it is very Hot...
Well anyway, just fuck off...

Above on the right is my most recent loaf, which was excellent, and on the left was my last one which was shit...

This was around number 4, back in June, with a large tub of Ornella's amazing homemade marmalade made from our plantation oranges...

This was Number 4 at breakfast with toasted cheese and pooched eggs, which is eggs steamed by shoving them up a hot dog's arse...or else I mis- spelled 'poached' and tried to cover up for it with a cheap and unnecesarily crude distraction...
And a mug of Tetley's, the makings for which, horror of horrors, have nearly run out...
( I really mean that.)

Has he made 100% wholemeal bread in the likeness of rustic cooking pots and burnt it, you say??
No...
These are cheap clay pots bought at the roadside for mere pennies, and which produce amazingly tasty food if stuffed into the oven after being loaded with, for example, ingredients...
Of course, the oven must be Hot.

2008-09-15T09:59:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but I've started so I must finish...

Numbers 3, 4 and 5...
Which means the previous number 4 was probably number 6...
Does it really matter??
Of course it does...

Oooooh. this is Number ummmm, I'll say 9...
Loaf, rolls, and dwarf tomato bread, made with equal quantities of dwarf and tomatoes...
Homegrown of course, and a few samples from this years first crop from our orange plantations at Palmital...most get cut back so the trees put the energy into the erm, trees...

This is Number fuck knows....

Aaaah note the obvious use of a bread tin rearing it's
wholemeal head for the first time..., and more rolls...
Number ermmmmm...twelvety??

2008-09-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

This fashion shoot follows on from an early '06 post of me wearing underpants balaclava style on my head in an (admittedly unsuccesful) attempt to gain acceptance as a drugsoldier in one of Rio's infamous Favela drug gangs...
Here we try for some 'favela chic'...
Rather succesfully, I feel...

Pamela provocatively models one of Marks & Spencer's "Finest" range of single -sex multi-use garments in an 'over the shoulder' fashion, perfect for the more formal occasion...

Ariane, again with one from the "Finest" range, this time, still in blue...
Casual yet sophisticated, complementarily accessorised with a flower theme...

Pamela again, this time in exuberant mood...
Perhaps ready for the beach...
Or for that impromptu chic afternoon get-together
with friends by the pool...
Swinging!!!
Marks & Spencer have done it again!!!

And finally here's the lovely Ariane once again...
... this time in a teasing mood...
What is she thinking, we wonder...
Perhaps, "Oh Christ, they're in my mouth...
...I bet that fat pig didn't wash them ??"

2008-09-15T09:57:00.000-07:00

Well bugger me!?
If this isn't a bit of a hotch potch!!!

No it is...
Here a shot of Cabo Frio by the Sea-o...
When me and Rich Cooper were here in '87 it was two restaurants, a Bum Bum bikini stall, and a couple of houses struggling to reach the first floor...
Now just bloody look at it...
Look at the size of it...
It's Eeeenormous...

The sand hasn't changed much tho'...
Still so white and still the texture of snow...
Amazing...
Interestingly, back in '87, the waiter at the first restaurant was Radar from the TV series "Mash" ( not the film, I hasten to add, that would have been too wierd...), and the waiter at the 2nd restaurant was Jack Nicholson...
How odd...
And further up the road in a town called Valenca, we sold our fursca ( VW Beetle) to Phil Andrews of Moles fame. He was running a small cafe bar.
Funny old trip that one, always full of surprises.
We rented an apartment, in which the landlord's daughter was asleep on the bed.
He offered to throw her in at no extra charge.
We declined, not being sure what decorum required of us, and also she was asleep, after all.
Later Rich got caught in the rain and took refuge in a Bum Bum with two old ladies.
Alright, I was trying to be clever.
In a Bum Bum Bikini store.
But that was the name of the franchise.
Bum Bum.
There, I've said it..

Moving swiftly...
And extremely tangentially,
Here are some of my Dwarves growing...
The first seven are visible.
Grumpy, Dumpy, Lumpy, Swumpy (chained to the roots obviously),
Frumpy, Trumpy and Dave.
There's always one, isn't there?

These are my not-dwarves.

It's strange, but wherever I have planted or tended, there is nothing...
Like the Ukraine the Russians left for Hitler...
But wherever I do nothing, crops flourish, particularly in totally inappropriate locations like here on my path, within grabbing reach of the road...
Or round the back of my house, all over Nachman Reclamation Yard.
Ric wouldn't stand for it.
He'd shout and swear and kick the shit out of them until they
moved into a shop in Walcot Street called Nashers Fucking Tomatoes...
With a silent "Fucking" obviously.

(The real name of " John's Bikes " is "John's Fucking Bikes" in honour of just such tantrums by Ric.)

2008-09-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

My third trip to Buzios.
St Tropez of Brasil.
Discovered by BB in '64.
I love it.
So did she.

Ex Furniture store with post industrial interior...
Would make a beast of a night clube...

Another beast...she was my friend at the house I rented on my return last May...
She still remembered me this june bless her...

Here an ancient Galleon plunges through a shop roof into the street in Buzios...
Brasilian drivers eh...

Nice drapey things display a touch of colourful French design flare at
my fave pousada in Buzios run by my buddy Frederic.