Over the course of the past several hours I have been: accosted by a couple of mad women in draggled party dresses and flip-flops wanting me to buy diapers for children they conspicuously didn't have; returned home to discover that the power cut which I believe to have been caused by the same gentle rain that so disarmingly misted the faces of my assailants was ongoing; accessed my apartment through my neighbour's back door (don't); acquired a deeply unwanted appreciation not only for my neighbour's extensive collection of wall-mounted plates, but also her easy-clean psychopath's rug with the laminate cover; rendered the evening meal utterly inedible because I couldn't see what I was doing through the crepuscular gloom; served a makeshift dinner of Fruit Loops with a Power Pop dessert (the latter being another brand of cereal, as opposed to a digestive complaint); skipped bath time because there was no hot water; and, finally, with the totally invaluable assistance of my wife who had by this time returned from work, got the kids into bed and ready for lights out at 7:30pm, at which point the lights promptly came back on.
Reading through a shipping company’s insurance form kind of makes me feel like my life should be a lot more interesting. Who are these people insuring, James Bond?
(i) This insurance covers your personal property and valuable articles against war, insurrection, unlawful expropriation, sabotage or terrorism. We highly recommend this coverage in today's turbulent global environment. (ii) Coverage is "All-Risk" including theft and mysterious disappearance. (iii) Coverage will pay for legal defense costs (when applicable) from the first dollar.
(They also agree to cover electronic and/or mechanical derangement. I empathise strongly with these appliances.)
I first created this wish list of things I might like to do when we returned to the UK in 2010, after having been in Brazil for just over a year. Now, six years, two children and an explosion of crow’s feet and grey hairs later, I've dug it out to see how it stands the test of time.
The general consensus is that it was a Brazilian wandering spider which wandered into the garden at my daughter's daycare this morning and was promptly captured and sealed inside a plastic box. In case you didn't know, the Brazilian wandering spider is the most venomous spider in the world. In addition, the venom gives you involuntary priapism which is, however, excruciatingly painful, so your loved ones don't even get to say you went out with a smile on your face, even though, by all accounts, you should have done. It is hard for me to reconcile myself to the presence of such a creature at my daughter's daycare, because I love that place with a passion that borders on mental. It's a tiny, brightly-coloured utopia with a swing and coloured flags strung everywhere and amazing food and a little jabuticaba tree that grows shiny black fruit on its trunk every few months, thereby winning it the award for weirdest tree in the world. I like to think of it as a microcosm of what the world would be like if it wasn't run by dicks and there was a much higher percentage of three and four year olds running around covered in paint (which would surely be a good thing).
It seems to me that the mother and daughter team who run it have harnessed all the most exuberant, warm-hearted and joyful characteristics of Brazil and married them to a sophisticated intelligence that makes it playful in all the best ways and rigorous about the things that matter, like caring for people, being creative and having really nice coffee. So, like I said, it was hard for me to reconcile myself to the presence of a Brazilian wandering spider in the garden because my natural response as a father was to run out there and napalm the garden then demolish the house and run like shit for the nearest shopping mall, where the only nature is in the passion fruit scrub.
To any Brazilians reading this, please understand that this reaction originates in the fact that I am English, which means the most poisonous creatures we have in our country are several geriatric adders with lifelong contracts at the BBC documentary department and UKIP politicians, who only recently emerged from the Protean swamp to gurgle into a proper English pint glass. I'm not sure where I'm trying to go with all this, except to say that it was a strange morning. (The video is of a forró band playing at last year's festa junina party, which I include here specifically to offset the bladder-loosening effect of the picture above.)
There is a strange melancholy in finishing your work for the night and then, because you're on your own that evening and aren't ready to go to bed, logging onto the server of a multiplayer shooter which was very popular ten years ago and which you used to regularly play with your brother as a means of staying in touch while you were living overseas. The server's empty now, the players have all moved on. But you're still bored and at a loose end, so you log onto the same old deathmatch you always used to log onto when the game was full. You wander around for a while in the generic Middle Eastern market square where you remember calling in a hundred heli-strikes and taking a thousand head-shots, and it feels a little bit emotional, this walk through a deserted make-believe place, this fantasy gleaned from the imaginative parameters of a server that has been left running out of sheer indifference, quietly consuming its megabytes of bandwidth in nibbles and pecks all over the world like some vast indifferent mind. You explore a little, try getting to some inaccessible places you couldn't ever access before, because that's where everyone wanted to go and you'd always get shot before you even managed to lie down. You fire off a couple of rounds, and they echo back at you from the surrounding buildings, perhaps a little mournfully. You switch weapons, wonder who's haunting who. Up in the eagle's nest, you gaze down at the main thoroughfare and think about the good old days. And then – then some total bastard sneaks up behind you and cuts your throat.
Monday, June 15, 2015 at 08:13PM 
