Monday, December 17, 2012 at 09:09PM Here's a story about failing to help someone who clearly needed it through diffidence and reserve and all that English bullshit we can really do without. I can't be more elaborate than that, I'm afraid, as it's late and I'm knackered and it took longer to finish this than I had hoped. That's no. 7 of the 12 Blogs of Xmas. As ever, hope you enjoy.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 11:15AM 
'Pinheiros is named after a river that's no longer a river, which was named after some trees that are no longer there...' In which I count the ways I love my neighbourhood.
O Brasil Friday, November 9, 2012 at 11:12AM 
Forced bonhomie? Yes, we can!It’s a bit fucking rich, presuming to comment on something as big as a country. I mean, how do you know the country you’re talking about bears any resemblance to the way someone from a different socio-economic group, or race, or sexuality sees it? Plus, if you’re a foreigner like me, you almost certainly don’t have the same depth or subtlety of perspective as someone who’s lived there all his life. Then there’s the problem of unreliable narration, which happens whenever you sit down in front of a computer screen and have to keep fighting off the urge to reduce the vast swathe of contradictions which defines your subject into a single, cogent and patently untrue account, because that always sounds so much better, doesn't it?
Having said that, I'm now going to go right ahead and make that same mistake. What a tool.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012 at 08:21PM 
Rua dos Pinheiros. Glamorous like Slough.Some weeks ago my wife and I went into a shop selling beachware to look at some Havaianas. It wasn’t a trendy store on Ipanema or a boutique on Oscar Freire. No, it was a nondescript, slightly shabby shop on a typical São Paulo street – which is to say dirty, congested and ninety-five kilometres from the sea. Given the banality of the circumstances, it was strange, then, to walk inside and see six young women moving about in the shadows at the back of the shop in various states of undress, giggling with excitement.
Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 08:52PM 
Marginal Pinheiros.We drove for an hour to get to the restaurant. Out along Rebouças, south along Marginal, right into the face of the storm that was blowing in from the coast a hundred miles to the east.
