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Monday 30 May 2011

More weather woes

The mosquitoes seem to have gone, finally. But as we enter June our flat has turned icy cold, helped by non-existent insulation around ill-fitting old windows. We have no running hot water, apart from the electric shower (normal in Brazil for non-rich), no central heating (normal in Brazil for everyone I think) and, so far at least, no portable electric heaters. While the UK worries about a possible summer drought, I and my son spend the day, let alone the night, dressed in our warmest clothes. I'm convinced that our flat is, much of the time, actually colder than the street outside.

Quality control

Does this phrase even exist in Brazil ? Seemingly everything made here is substandard. Matches break in half while you are trying to strike them; cling film becomes tangled and impossible to unwind from the cardboard roller; sachets of ketchup, mustard etc. are impossible to open. Many other similar daily hassles I've previously mentioned.

PS: can't seem to write a comment via my iPad so in answer to the first comment, which I'm guessing is from you, Jon, yes, don't get me started on can openers, or cork screws !! The washing machine, which cost more than many in the UK, is horrendous, made even worse by no hot water ... All baby clothes or toys made in Brazil are just staggeringly rubbish.

PPS: add to the list napkins in cafes, bars and restaurants that are like that old toilet paper in UK schools, transparent and smooth as sandpaper.

PPPS: yup, have received mild but scary electric shocks in showers. Toilet flushing, thank god, has been ok without the need for separate toilet paper disposal.

Thursday 26 May 2011

Bom Retiro Tribes

Shopping in the local Thursday food market today with my Jewish mother, my half-Jewish son and his new, non-Jewish nanny, I began talking to a Charedi Jewish woman with a child in a push chair. She was from New York but had lived here with her Rabbi husband for 18 years. It was as usual only a matter of moments before the unkosher reality of my life here was uncovered. The real downer was when we checked if the fish we had just bought, as a pre-cut fillet, was kosher - we thought it was. She replied that indeed it was but we would know that since it had fins and scales. We said well actually we didn't see it in all it's fishy glory. She expressed horror: you are not allowed to buy pre-cut fish from the goyim ! There were a few more harangues about the untrustworthy goyim and within seconds our apparently innocent encounter with a fellow Jew was in terminal meltdown. A case of goodbye and good riddance.

Readers' comments

I never used to read letters to the Editor in newspapers or magazines. The section seemed like a dead zone. But I'm now addicted to reading the readers' comments on online publications. The main reason is the ability to vote on whose comment is best or worst, meaning I can go immediately to the "best rated" comments and see how most readers felt about the article. Of late I have been reading the Daily Mail's iPhone and iPad app, which are superb, and the readers' comments have become as important as the story itself. I am amazed that some publications, such as the Guardian online, still don't offer a way to read the best rated comments, forcing you to wade through all sorts of tedious cr*p - which I just won't do anymore. Life is too short for all that unfiltered noise.

Wednesday 18 May 2011

Groupoff

Many moons ago my mother used to shop at a Cash & Carry. It seemed a bit dodgy for our family, albeit larger than the average 2.4 kids, to be frequenting a store designed primarily for business customers, buying at wholesale rather than retail prices. But somehow we had our ticket to ride and it felt good to be buying at a big fat discount, even if it meant buying ten times the usual quantity of any given product!

Nowadays, the likes of Costco and cut-throat competition among supermarkets have brought bargain basement prices to the masses (obviously, I'm not talking about Brazil now). Online, we have companies like Groupon, which effectively hand the buying power of businesses directly to consumers. Group buying websites have sprung up everywhere, yes even in Brazil.

Monday 16 May 2011

The time-traveller's tale

Amazing what you can get used to - no, not just a country like Brazil, which I hope to escape before I really get used to it, if it's not already too late - but being locked in your own home. Not for the first time, I find myself without my set of keys, P having taken them alongside her own by mistake. We live in a two-storey building without the usual doorman. But getting in and out of the flat is a minor military operation, involving flights of stairs, long corridors and several doors to be locked and unlocked. When this first lock-in happened, I was in a panic: what about health and safety ?! What if this, what if that ? But now, I just slink back to my usual room, annoyed that I will have to postpone my chocolate fix but wearily resigned to my fate. It's a sh*tty old building we live in, spacious, yes, but suffering from terminal underinvestment by the owners who obviously are just waiting to sell it to the highest bidder, now that the area has become a Korean boomtown.

Friday 13 May 2011

BRICs and mortar

The slowest and dodgiest build in the world continues next door. Can you spot the flying brick ?

PS: We were all woken up at 3.30am this morning by a truck unloading bricks, and it's occupants shouting loudly to each other. Apparently trucks are not allowed into certain areas during business hours so obviously it makes perfect sense for them to come in when all the residents are trying to sleep.

PPS: This adjacent building site was mentioned in my very first blog post. It was frozen recently when city officials slapped a notice on it for unsafe practicies etc. Now it hobbles on once again, a future disaster in the making.

Idolweiss

The marketplace of "ideas". Weren't all the idols supposed to have been smashed up by Abraham a few thousand years ago, as a prerequisite for monotheism ? Perhaps the news never reached Latin America ?

Update: on reflection, an unfair comment since religious trinkets and icos are a global phenomnon.

Mind the electric fence !

Just another "normal" apartment building in Sao Paulo.

Thursday 12 May 2011

HigienĂ³polis hypocrites

Suddenly Sao Paulo's upmarket area of HigienĂ³polis, whose shopping mall features such obscenely high prices, is all over the news and social media networks. It's powerful residents have prevented a metro station being built there so they can keep the riff raff out. But Facebook campaigns are already underway to stage counter-protests. Someone has mentioned that these NIMBY residents are quite happy to use public transport during their frequent travels to cities like New York or London. Will this be a social media milestone in Brazil, as the optimists hope ? I am not so confident. But it certainly throws into stark relief the massive challenges in trying to create a real middle class in this country.

Update: on further reflection, I don't entirely blame the campaigning residents of HigienĂ³polis. The country and culture is to blame. There has been absolutely no feeling for the Greater Good instilled in people, just a dog eat dog world of private, paranoid bubbles. You can't expect any one group to buck such a strong trend. It needs vision and leadership and a belief in society as more than just an empty word. All the talk of Socialism in Latin America but still no real understanding of how a functional society works. It begins with the sidewalks and the street lights and the metro stations. It's about interconnection, the whole being more than the sum of it's parts. Slogans and cheerleading do not a society make.

Also, HigienĂ³polis is well-known as a Jewish area. There is no excuse for antisemitism, which sadly seems to be creeping into some of the comments on Facebook and Twitter. Dysfunctional societies will always look for scapegoats rather than looking in the mirror.

Wednesday 11 May 2011

Dengue !

A man just came to our door to inform us that there have been two cases of Dengue Fever on our street and that we should make sure not to leave water sitting around the house. Adds a sinister twist to my recent nights spent fighting mosquitoes in our bedroom.

Brazilian royalty

As a confirmed anti-monarchist, I'm not sure I should have attended this evening's event in honour of Princess Michael of Kent. But as a former journalist I'll go anywhere for a free canapé (wonna pay) and a bottomless glass of decent Champers. So thanks again to the well connected Luiz for my second opportunity to get pleasurably merry in Sao Paulo.

The minor royal with dodgy German ancestry spoke briefly about her book on her Brazilian ancestor Leopoldina. It had been published a mere 25 years ago in English and was finally appearing in Portuguese. The photographers clicked away. I looked for Mark, the ubiquitous British IT journalist but couldn't see him. Amazingly, or perhaps not in Brazil, there was no security on the door, I could have been anyone (and indeed I was).

The event was at the Museum of the Brazilian Home on Faria Lima. A choir from Cultura Ingles sang a few ditties. Travelled there by tube and bus.

Tuesday 10 May 2011

How much ??!!

A book of blank pages for writing recipes. Yours for 140 Reals. About £53 !

Street sweetcorn, very nice (apart from the excess salt)

What a strange name

What a strange name

Keep the sun off my son

Keep the sun off my son

How much ??!!


About £8.50

Death-wish pizza at San Remo, Bom Retiro

Mind the (bl##dy massive) gap at Lapa station !

Uptown girl

Went to Faria Lima this afternoon to babysit our son while P went for another job interview, with a well-known investment bank. The new metro line, the yellow one, took us some of the way. It reminds me a bit of the Jubilee Line extension in London but the stations, for all their modernity, are once again far too noisy. Why doesn't anyone pay attention to acoustics in this country of engineers ? I have been on some tube trains here which make it impossible to talk while moving, such is the raucous background din.

Monday 9 May 2011

Savour the spice of life

Went today to Shopping Patio Higienopolis. US influence gave Brazil the ubiquitous term "shopping center", even though there are no such words "shopping" or "center" in native Portuguese. It was nice once again to use the free, deluxe baby changing facilities, sponsored I think by Johnson & Johnson.

We ate at McDonald's on the top floor. Since it is Mothers Day in Brazil I gave in to P's unhealthy craving. The fries were not just regular McD salty but Brazilian McD salty, or as a documentary maker might put it, Super-Salt Me ! It made me think again about how in English we talk of "savoury and sweet" but in other languages it is simply divided into "salty and sweet." Sadly, Brazil is this latter par excellence. I have eaten some wonderful food here, no question, but the general, default diet is depressingly, dangerously over-salted and over-sweetened.

Sunday 8 May 2011

Posh booze & street party

A cupcake, Jim, but not as we know it
Yesterday (Sunday) went with Luiz and his brother to a French-owned wine shop offering a few free sips of it's extremely expensive (ie probably extremely overpriced like other things here) French wines. Pleasant woman owner, clearly living a comfortable life here. Despite the problems she loves Sao Paulo and misses it when back in France. Then on to an annual street party in Jardin Europa. Well, not really a street party, more of a commercial event to promote the mainly interior design and furnishings shops there. Free Chandon (a local version of Moet Chandon) Champagne, cupcakes (pretty but tasted more like muffins), macaroons, nuts etc. Music, nice atmosphere. Reminded me of the endless functions I used to go to years ago as a journalist and how quickly you take for granted all the freebies Also made me realise again how the wealthy in Sao Paulo live in a different world. Price tags for tables, chairs and rugs were eye-popping, thousands of pounds. Still, it was fun to enjoy some crumbs from the feast.

More mosquitoes

Was up much of the night, though exhausted, on guard duty against evil mosquitoes, two of them, which as ever seem way too crafty and intelligent for such a minute brain. I still don't understand how they manage to disappear so completely when you try to swat them. Would love to see what happens in super-slow-motion. Did finally get them, which as usual at least satisfies the primeval hunter in me. But depressing that we still have them despite the colder weather. And uncomfortable that I have to keep the main light on in order to see them, thus upsetting my son's sleep.

Friday 6 May 2011

Keeping the sun off my son

The angle of the sun's rays here in SP is much more directly into one's eyes, or is it the lack of trees and greenery to deflect and disperse them ? For whatever reason I find myself often having to turn Sam's buggy around and pull it behind me so as to keep him in the shade. An extra challenge as I fight the sidewalks and precipitous plunges from curb side to road and back again.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Critical faculties

The comment on my "Baby steps" post got me thinking about why people blog or Facebook, Twitter etc. Much has been written about these new, so-called social media. Clearly, for many people this is a key part of how they earn their living, but it is also blurring, inevitably, into who they are. I began writing this blog for commercial reasons but soon changed tack. Now I see it more as a personal journal of a particular place and period - in my life and in Brazil's history. It also serves as a pressure valve - self-administered therapy. Which of course might give a distorted picture to others, prompting comments such as the one referred to above.

Whether we can talk to ourselves while being watched, in the same way as when we are in private is another matter. Perhaps I am guilty of "branding" this blog as a sort of "everything you ever wanted to hate about Brazil but were too afraid to vent" ? It would arguably be good "positioning" since the market for "wonderful, exotic, booming" Brazil is already overcrowded.

Tuesday 3 May 2011

An i for detail

The last few posts have been made with my new iPad 2 (thank you bro and UK). Sadly there are certain things I can't do via this input device (eg correcting some mistakes) and the over-zealous predictive texting can result in ridiculous errors. So apologies if current posts don't read quite as well.

Baby steps

"Brazil's not for you", some people say when they hear my complaints. Some but not all, since many value the glass half empty perspective, especially if they feel unable to say the same things in public. But there is one perspective which trumps all: looking after a baby.

As a first time father and, simultaneously, a first time visitor to Brazil, and not being here exactly for holiday or work but some other kind of quotidian existence, much of my time, like this morning, is taken up with parenting duties. My son is 7 months now and teeth are beginning to show, but it's not just teething agonies to deal with. He needs a lot more stimulation so that brings a different kind of parental pressure. And guilt. The cost and quality of decent baby products here is one of the worst aspects of Brazil, a country which otherwise shows so much easy affection to little people.

Pouring cold water

It is normal in Brazil not to have running hot water in your kitchen. In our rented apartment, we used to have an electric hot tap, but it was more like a death trap since it kept electrocuting us. We complained and found it replaced by a second cold tap. We also have no hot water for the washing machine.

When my partner's parents kindly sourced the expensive top-loader I was horrified by how impossibly slowly it operated, moving an inch to the right, then an inch to the left etc. But the news about cold water only was too much. And it still managed to turn an entire wash pink. The combination of cold water and rubbish washing machine ensures much aggravation, especially since the terrible quality Brazilian clothes will come out creased and shrivelled, or worse, requiring much ironing.

Monday 2 May 2011

In the name of the father, the son ...

... and the unholy bureaucracy of Policia Federal, we travelled again today to Lapa-land, another wretchedly dreary area of Sao Paulo, famous only as the birthplace of my son's mother. I have, for various reasons, overstayed my latest 80-day visa and am now being charged R$ 8 and a bit per day for the privilege of remaining in Brazil. Visitors to the UK can stay 6 months at a time, but then the UK is still a developing nation. Hoping to get my "parent of a Brazilian child" visa underway by the end of the week so that the punitive clock will stop ticking. Otherwise it's off to Uruguay, which I'm curious to see anyway.