more publicity?

Yeah.... THIS is a book, by my lovely e-friend Renato Carreira who has been a supporter of the Ite since he stumbled upon it after a few days after it was born.

He writes lovely things about Portugal, like I write lovely things about Portugal, in his e-magazine, Inépcia. And now, selected texts from Inépcia have been put in a book with a lovely bottom on the front. I'd like that bottom. But I'm afraid I was born with the one I was born with and they don't do bum grafts... yet.

He tells me it is readily available in Bertrand and Fnac... and I'm off out this avo to get one.

Now, Inépcia is in Portuguese, obviously, but Renato is so kind that he also wrote a guide to Portugal in English...and mighty informative it is too. HERE.

SO BUY THE BOOK! (also, please note who wrote the preface - god and cavaco silva... who else is there?)

p.s. I'm doing a bit of guest blogging at zed's this week along with some other gurests (gosh, I'm so rude, but I was rushing when I did this... the other guests are anna, aunty marianne and mike, the troubled diva) while zed starts to get better.

an auntie at last

Now, that's a strange sensation. Being an auntie. Anyway, it means I didn't have to give birth again. ouch.

Oh, sorry, to explain, my little sister (in the real world, real sister) has given birth to a REAL baby (oh, yeah, actually mine are real too)... his temporary name is Spike. At least the rest of us are hoping that his temporary name of Spike is only temporary. It's a tough world out there when you've got a different name, and he's got a silly enough surname... same as mine. But you never can tell what Letitia will do.

Congratulations sis, welcome to the world Spike, you are very very cute... but I'll give you a cuddle in August when you're even cuter.

the process - part II

So, here's part II.... obviously, as this is blog, go down the page for part I if you missed it .

So, I took the black and white drawing from yesterday and started to recolour it. This time I did a screen dump every two or so minutes. To see the whole image, just scroll to the right and you'll see the tool boxes and colour palette thingies.

Painter actually records every session in vector form, so that I can watch myself drawing in a playback. Unfortunately it only works within painter. I can make a movie out of it, but 'llI have to work on that, it makes for enormous movies.... but, sometime, I'll make a movie from painter, because it is really groovy to watch.. (Duane Keiser has a movie of himself painting one of his "paintings a day"...it's marvellous. .... after all that, I've made a tiny tiny TINY movie, another fatty opera singer: here


























(it should say "texture" not "text")










Okay, so she's no oil painting... but that's forty minutes work for you. Any questions, just ask.

the process - part I

Recently, I've had quite a few questions via email and comments about how I do my drawings for my blog. When I tell people that they are completely electronic they either don't believe me or are keen to find out what the hell I'm talking about.

So, in a two part posting, I'm going to show you.

Personally, cos I'm that kind of gal, I don't want to see how people's work is done, but then, that's because I usually know how an image has been created just by seeing it, like any of us in the "drawing of the pictures" business ... showing me a photo of a pencil drawing eked out painstakingly then another of it inked in and another where it's filled in with colour is about the most boring thing I can imagine... but hey, that's me, and though, as we all must know by now, I am easily entertained, I am also easily bored (blame the stars for that one... it's pure gemini-ness) and I just require quick fixes, quick answers, junk food, and don't want to know the nitty gritty if it's not interesting and of use to me... I haven't got time... my life is going past.. pá. .... ... sorry, that was just a gemini-esque stream of conciousness.

So, here is a drawing that I did this morning, between 8.45 am and 9.00 am. I did it entirely electronically, with my wondersoftware, Painter (corel own it now, though my version is as old as the hills and I can't upgrade until I get a new machine ...grrrrr... ) and my wonderhardware of a tablet and pen (wacom intuos a4 extended... a bleedin' MARVELLOUS contraption)

I saved a version every minute and put it together here. I shrank all but the last two to half size to fit it in better.

I have no idea why I did this drawing.

In the next post, I will show you how the software works and how I can cheat physics and mix watercolours with oil pastels in one drawing.... ah hah ahahahahahahahaha! (shrieking of an evil genius at work).

Yeah.

some days are better than others.

grrr

some days it's probably better that I don't write a post, and just post an apt drawing from my hard drive instead.

some days...


grrrrrr...


I think I may have to restart today again. Everyone back to bed.

Happy feriado, if you're in Portugal.
If you're not, GET BACK TO WORK!

wasp - vespa - utter bastard

european_wasp2

if you see this little bastard... SQUISH HIM.. he stung me in the eyelid last night, thereby causing a minor panic as my eyelid swelled to twice its normal size. Purdy!

Thankfully I is back to my gorgeous self.

I hate wasps. Please ignore everything I've ever said about abitrary killing of bugs, bichos and everything. I want that wasp dead.

waggle it, just waggle it!

If you have ever known any man, been married to a man, lived with a man because you simply can't face the horrible meringueness of a wedding and all the ghastliness that would go with it, been the daughter of a man, or just had a man as a friend and have ever gone shopping with him, you will know the universal truth that "man cannot approach a piece of furniture or vehicle that is for sale without waggling it". It is not possible for any man I have ever known to go to, say, IKEA or Habitat, without going up to every stick of furniture, whether he even considers buying it or not, putting his hand on top and giving it a good shake.

They go into car dealerships and stand next to a brand new car, put their hand on the roof and wobble it. Why? to see if the suspension is any good? Will this brand new mercedes withstand a good shaking from a bloke?

I have even seen men shaking trees in garden centres.

They can't help themselves.

It is an illness. Contained in the Y chromosome.

So, yesterday, I was standing at the checkout in the supermarket which has an electrical store contained within its aluminum walls. And outside the electrical store they put a display of a pile of stuff... depending on the season - heaters and dehumidifiers in the winter, air conditioners in the summer, televisions for the end of the football season. And I was watching this bloke, while I was waiting for the person in front of me to remember that shopping actually needs to be paid for, who acted surprised to be asked for money, then looking for her purse at the bottom of her bag as if it was the first time. And this bloke was looking the tellies up and down, and then, of course, waggling them. And of course, the stacks of tellies wobbled, for they were stacks of tellies in cardboard boxes. So, what, did he decide not to buy one because the stack wobbled?

Please. If you are a man and you understand compulsive waggling tellies, tell me. So I can laugh at you.

W.O.W.

just make sure you BUY Público today if you are in a position to do so. If you are at all interested in illustration, just buy it. It's wonderful... today, except for the bloody adverts which always ruin everything for me everywhere, there is not ONE SINGLE PHOTOGRAPH... instead every page has an illustration by different illustrators. There is a big exhibition of illustration and BD (comix, graphic novelness) which began this weekend and to celebrate this and the catalogue that Público have produced they have made special illustration only edition.... and it is splendid. Can you imagine any other national daily newspaper in the world doing this?

So, I just want to say WOW! WOW, WOW, WOW. Nice one, Público. You done good.

Now, here's a drawing by my lovely Afixe.net buddy, Monty and lovely wife... they weren't around for the Ite's Blogday, so did it for my birthday instead.. thanks luvs, I luv it!

hmmm... that part of my webspace has disappeared.... go see it at afixe for now.

the fruit of the supermarket...

... is people like this. What was I saying yesterday about growing old disgracefully? (and thank you THANK YOU for all the parabéns and happy birthdays.. it really made a crummy day worthwhile. thank you)

If growing old disgracefully means wearing strange tight black nylon dungarees with big white buttons and zips that don't quite reach the boob area, worn over a skin tight tshirt and vertigo-high patent leather stilettoes OR pure polyester artificial brown and tan skin tight everything, nasty gold jewellery and corn yellow hair, destroyed by the bleach, held together with hairspray... then count me IN!

Who wants to be ignored in the street? Who wants people to say "oh, yes, she is just the height of elegance" or "Who, Vitriolica? the graceful one with grey hair and a little chanel suit? Oh, yes, she is a paragon of ageing nicely"... ?

NOT ME.

This is what makes trips to my beloved Intermarché worthwhile when I haven't slept because of snot ridden children who wet the bed, have work to finish and there isn't enough caffeine in the world. People who can't have looked in the mirror for ten years, that's what. Fun, fun, fun, fun.

So, come on girls, when you hit your fifties, like my two friends up there, come shopping with me and we'll see who we can thrill.

1970

Quite a lot of things happened in 1970: the most traumatic was the Beatles' break-up, causing Wings to happen, thereby ruining my life years later with "Mull of Kintyre", but other things happened too.

There were still shed loads of hippies, hairy people were everywhere.

A few memorable films came out:

Airport (holy shit, is that why I'm so scared of flying?)

M.A.S.H. (Donald Sutherland AND Elliot Gould in one tent: what's a girl to do?. later spawning the TV series which brought Alan Alda into my life....*sigh*... no, Sutherland and Gould didn't spawn Alan Alda...gah)

Love Story (the cheesiest thing I've ever seen, I mean come ON)

Little Big Man (Dustin "I'm a short arse, but I'll be vit's forever" Hoffman dressed up as an injun - other short arsed men vit's always had a thing about: Tom Conti, Jack Dee, Al Pacino... look, if Al Pacino walked into my kitchen right now, I'd drop everything... and run off into the scarry scarry night with him... er...)

Woodstock (the film about Woodstock festival... not as good as the film of another festival just after woodstock which was far more evocative - or maybe I was just more off my head when I saw it..anyone enlighten me as to the name of that other festival? - but still great to watch)

and other stuff:

Adidas Superstars shoes (can I tell you now, how much I DESPISE the word "ténis" (lit. tennis) for one's trainers... it sounds so utterly ridiculous. sorry. but it does.) were born/created/designed/invented... wooo wooo I hear you cry unanimously.

In 1970 a whale was blown up in Oregon

Some TV shows began:

Josie and the Pussycats... shite from Hanna Barbera with the inimitable Casey Kasem (you know... Shaggy!)

The Partridge Family...shite... that brought the world Keith Partridge aka David Cassidy.... SCREEEEEAAAAM!!!!

The Mary Tyler Moore Show... shite

The Odd Couple... funny but not as good as the Neil Simon play or film.

Play for Today on BBC1.... great but a bit dull

It was one of those odd years in the music business:

The Monkees lost Davy Jones...gasp! (gosh, whatever happened to Michael Nesmith, that's what I want to know)

The Supremes lost Diana Ross... hmmm.

A Bridge Over Troubled Water won every grammy in sight... great but a bit sick of it after 35 years.

Woodstock was sung by Crosby, Stills and Nash...but I still prefer Joni Mitchell's version

The Tears of a Clown was sung by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles only to be released again about fifteen years later to irritate the crap out of me.

The album Let it Be was released and Long and Winding Road was the Beatles last number one single.

Karen and Richard Sublime Carpenter did a splendid number on Burt Bacharach's Close to You.

Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin died from over-dosing on life, both at 27.

and

Willi and Willy met up
Harold Wilson was hit by an egg in the days when politicians still wore thick black rimmed glasses and smoked copiously.

Dana won the Eurovision Song Contest, knocking out Mary Hopkin and Julian Church (as Terry Wogan calls him).

some people I class as quite funky were born:

Beth Orton ...great moody songwriter, bit odd.

Macy Gray ... bonkers

Beck ... sublimely bonkers

M. Night Shyamalan ... bonkers director/writer of great thriller/horror movies

Uma Thurman ... odd but sexy

Minnie Driver ... odd but english

Matt Damon ... cutish in an ugly sort of way

Ben Chaplin ... cuteola but not as cuteola as his replacement in "Game On", Neil Stuke, but I digress...


some people I find exceptionally irritating were also born:

Naomi Campbell ... so fucking sue me, you horrible ego on legs

Mariah Carey ... oh, just shut UP

Jennifer Lopez ... get rid of that bloody walking stick to dance with love, IT'S INORDINATELY TACKY!


People born in 1970 are well and truly part of generation X.

click here to meet a bunch of bloggers who were born in 1970. (via ageless)

Oh, and that includes ME. today.

22nd May 1970 7.15pm
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
35 years ago.


Which means that it's my birthday, and that, in my own head at least, I am officially a grown-up (or a groan-up as Dem who will be 36 soon would say far more aptly). I shall from today no longer care what other people think of me. I shall speak my mind and grow old disgracefully but without plastic surgery. So there. Happy birthday me. and happy birthday to the prof. cos we have the strange misfortune to share a birthday (and extremely scary psycho star sign) a few years apart (but he doesn't have a blog... should do, but doesn't... so he can't cumprimentar himself... HA, that'll teach him to not have a blog) and to share that birthday with the Eurovision Song Contest which is always held on our birthday weekend. The Cheesy Bastards. Yes that does mean we are Geminis. Which probably explains a lot. Doesn't it Madge? Doesn't it Violet? Yes, Vit, it does.

And for my birthday present, when you read this post, would you just leave me a comment? Even if you've never commented ever ever ever before? Even if you have absolutely nothing to say except ug? Really... anything. No, not a nasty comment. Just any comment to say hello. ah go on.... you will won't you ... and no cheating, I get to see ip numbers!

Go ahead, punky people, make my day.... cos I won't be able to go for my habitual birthday treat of my fave Thai restaurant in Cascais for a little while, so I'll be sulking and missing my Tom Yam. Really. I will. and a whole load of comments will cheer me up.

By the way, I apologize for this list being almost entirely anglo-saxon centric... but it's my birthday and I can do whatever I like. nyeeugh!

ok, so here's the eurovision post:

What was with all those drums? was it obligatory to do bad BAD impressions of "stomp" et al?
Hysterically bad, as usual. And the Ukrainian girl presenter will go down in history as having the shriekiest voice ever in the Eurovision. I don't even know who won, because I can't bear to watch the cringey "Malta, can we haf your wote pliss?" "Yes, and we're haffink a splendid evenink here in Malta, ve are zo exciting about this incredibull evinink of singink, I shall go on and tell you how lovely you both iz lookink before I am givink you the scores..." with all the associated two second satellite delays.... ghastly cringe making stuff.

That is all.

Shittlings' Olde Sense of Humour Plant

ahahahahahahahahahah

This is my Saturday post.

Because I can't be bothered to wait until this evening to do a post about bloody Eurovision.

I'm sorry, if that's what you were expecting, I've let you down.

It's just such a hateful waste of time, money and good taste and I don't want to encourage the bastards.

IF you enjoy the entertaining crapness of Eurovision, do watch the BBC version, which always has Terry Wogan doing a ripping good piss take over the top of it (BBC Prime will have it live from 20:00 WET). it's very funny.

So, instead, you get my sense of humour plant ... which is like a ginger beer plant (I WANT A GINGER BEER PLANT... anyone know how to start one?) ... but ferments to produce a GSOH instead. Please feel free to use it if you're having problems with humourless types... something I haven't had recently, but you never know.. it's always best to be prepared.

Happy Saturday.

almost.... ALMOST

Almost ? Yes, almost, almost a whole day without a post... *gasp* well, sometimes a girl loses the will to stay awake and then loses her bloody phone line for a few hours and then loses the will to make dinner... (although, I did it in the end, and it was worthwhile... my beautiful clever witty funny five-almost-six year old can finally use chopsticks, PROPERLY, on her own... gosh the things that make a mummy proud - see, I knew I couldn't keep off the mumsy crap for long - now where was I? er....) but I'm finally at it... blogging I mean.

And what to post? I couldn't think of a thing. Really. I mean, most days I can manage something pertinent and interesting (*cough cough bull shit cough cough*) but this evening there was nothing loitering in my forehead to dribble out onto the electronic page - gosh my prose gets worse, doesn't it?

so, I nipped outside to get the washing off the line. And I saw two things. Hooray! something to blog! I ran inside, with the washing, dumped it somewhere... where did I put it? er... I'll find it later.

But I had to choose... would it be the beautiful miniature rainbow that was made by the sun striking an aeroplane contrail that was almost evaporated but not quite?

No. Because I have a strong antipathy towards rainbows in pictorial form. A. because one can never reproduce their absolute beauty in paint, electronic or otherwise and B. becasue rainbows are terminally linked to crappy paintings of unicorns and pixies and elves with tits on motorbikes and all that horrible rubbish... we all know how I feel about bad pixie art, don't we? (if we don't, I'll tell us one of these days).

So, the only thing was to record the first porcaria of the summer... my first dead lizard in the garden. crawling with tiny ants who were sucking out its innards little by little, all monitored by a great big fat woodlouse. Groovy. I took a photo of it before the girls got to it, because a dead lizard and ants is too much of a temptation for two little english girls with sticks.





I took a photo of the rainbow too. I'll put them up at flickr in a bit.

And only after that did I find something that may help me immeasurably... a Portuguese newspaper in English... HOW have I missed this? I dunno, I just don't go out enough.... anyway, this is the online version of The Portugal News.

It's not that I can't read or speak Portuguese, you know that I can. And I try very hard most days to read at least some of Público or DN (we´re a mixed bunch in this house) but lorks it is always hard work - I've never had lessons in Portuguese, so I never got into the habit of reading a lot - and sometimes I would just like to read some news quicker... I do miss an awful lot of stuff in the news because I can't speed read in Portuguese. I haven't even tried reading it yet, though, so let's just wait and see.

The blooming prof SWEARS he told me about it. HAH! He must have told me in PORTUGUESE! Seven years ago. Before I could speak more than three words. Bugger.

Ouch

Sometimes you have to wait till I've been out for a post, when I've been to Lisbon on a hot late Spring day, when Lisbon is coming to life and everyone is getting their kit off... and at every corner people are doing the universal spring activity... at least young people are: SNOGGING.

And I swear that as I was trying to get into the metro on my way back that these two were sucking each other's faces so hard that the whole of Rato could have imploded from the vacuum they were creating. Quite terrifying.

Now, I've always liked a good snog, as much as the next..erm.. person.., but it irks me when the snoggingpeople (that is what we shall call them, snoggingpeople) are standing in front of one of few turnstiles that are going in my direction at the begininning of the rush hour. It would have taken a crow bar to prize them apart, the poor dears... so, beware, don't snog in front of a metro turnstile when I'm around, for I will arrange myself a cattle prod and I will prod you with it, cattle like. snoggingpeople.

YUCK! (that's me shouting)

If I was a less careful driver...

...I could have killed this dog this morning. It ran out in front of my not very zippy Saxo and I was going slow enough to be able to avoid it. It was either a fat doberman or a skinny rottweiler, so let's call it a doberweiler.

WHAT THE HELL WAS A DOBERWEILER DOING OUT ON ITS OWN ON A RESIDENTIAL (OR ANY, FOR THAT MATTER) STREET, WHERE CHILDREN, ELDERLY ... hell... ANYONE, MIGHT BE WALKING?

I'll stop shouting now. And I'll stop wishing that I had just knocked the horrid beast off its feet (not killed, just painlessly stunned, so I had a good reason to find the owner and shout the crap out of his ears) for I don't want any animal to suffer, except maybe the owner of the dog.

In the eighties, when Britain became a repulsive swarming mass of yuppies who cared nothing about anything but money, it also filled up with a style of being known as the "Yob". There obviously had existed a form of yob before this... but he was a less dangerous beast, as he had no money and had to restrict his activities to rioting on Brighton Beach or pub brawls. But, suddenly in the eighties there was money swilling around (in some places, at least) and there emerged a fashion for owning dangerous dogs... rottweilers, dobermans, pitbulls and boxers were everywhere. Every month there would be an item on the news where a child had been killed or mauled by one of these dogs. And there would be an outcry when the dog was ordered to be euthanased... I always thought it would be better if the owner were euthanased. Finally legislation came in to make muzzles obligatory for certain breeds of dog, but of course, children are still being mauled by the dogs of their parents in their own homes and I hope the parents suffer for the rest of their lives.

And now, here in portugal-land, every day I see dogs such as these roaming around with their dick head owners (or without)... funny how the owners all look the same... spotty pastey men, with baseball caps and a mean look in their eye.

Well, let's just say I hope the dogs eat their owners, not the children. What else can I say?

oh george.

bbc

hoje acordei assim:

apologies to bomba ;)


Actually, I didn't (it means, "today, I woke up feeling like this:") ... I just felt like posting one of my more offensive drawings. In this renewed mode of contrariness...(it won't last) I thought I'd drag this one out of the archive box from last year and I can't for the life of me remember if I have ever posted it in the Ite...it was in inimigo publico last summer and not nearly enough people took offense to it... but then maybe slathering great eejits with plastified and bleached wives who have smoking goats in the back of their Mercs don't read inimigo publico. I dunno. What I wrote with it was even more offensive.... I think that one can stay in the archive box... driving instructors might take out an injunction against me.

It's funny that without a great deal of effort one cannot be what one is not for long. That's why I always end up drawing cuddlepie (and snugglepot) drawings of my babies, when I'm supposed to be living up to my vitriolic name. But, I suppose, it makes it easier on people when I meet them for the first time, when they've only know me as Vitriolica before... for they are not so expectant of a dominatrix in cavalry boots with spike heels, with pointy tits in shiny patent leather.... and are not so surprised at the bumbling shy, grinning eejit who worries terribly that she's just said something really stupid in Portuguese to someone, because she missed exactly what they just said.

I don't know if this is what it's like for everyone who has to talk in what is not their mother tongue, but for me it's like talking while being profoundly deaf... the feeling of not actually knowing what is coming out of my mouth. And then, and this is a real problem... I cannot remember what I said in Portuguese... for as I say it, I translate it immediately BACK into English for hard drive storage in my head. If you have a conversation with me in Portuguese, I will only remember what I have translated into English... so even if you speak beautiful Portugese to me, in my head you probably speak stuttering translated English.

"But, I TOLD YOU!" - "No you bloody didn't!" - "I told you in Portuguese!" - "Oh, bollocks"

So. What? Who? Oh, I dunno. Bleurgh.

I ain't called Vitriolica for nothing, you know!

And I have been being far too nice recently. Honestly. All this mumsy crap I write... where's the vitriol? where's the nastiness? What happened to me snarking about batas and fado and stupid car drivers and sterotypical women and men in dear old Por-tu-GAL? When did I stop arguing with people in the comment boxes (I even regretted responding to some git-face yesterday "dissing" my drawings in another blog) Why did I call myself Vitriolica in the first place? Why did I have to invent Madge to counteract the vitriolicaness of it all? I've been going soft. Why, why, WHY?

So, forgive me, as most of you have, for playing that nasty trick yesterday. Honestly... a girl needs some fun sometimes.... and then she needs to feel terribly guilty about it later.... and zed and Q were in on the whole thing from the start... I promise. (if you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about... start here)

contrite

tags: illustration

holy mcChicken Litigiousness

I get a lovely surprise in the post every week, called "The Week". It is a british magazine, that condenses all the week's british press and some world press into a one hour read. It is fabulous, makes me happy when it gets here and it means that I don't have to watch Sky News or BBC Boring World so often. Plus it sums up things like the storyline for last week's Archers and "Boring but Important" things. My favourite is the PC Watch column, sometimes now called the Litigiousness Watch, as it chronicles stupid things people are prevented from doing due to political bloody correctness, or get sued for doing in these ridiculous modern times. It's hysterically funny (my favourite was a women who got in trouble for advertising a job for a hard working somebody. Apparently, she was discriminating against lazy people)....anyway, we have all heard about people who have lost their jobs because of blogging... now it's getting litigious.... I read somewhere the other day that some bloke somewhere is being sued by the TOWN he lives in because he had been criticizing it in his blog.... well, it's getting nasty out there and it seems that the madness is getting closer to home everyday... I have heard from extremely reliable sources that my e-buddy, Zoe, My Boyfriend is a Twat is facing AN INJUNCTION taken out by her very own Twat.

You may have noticed that Zoe stopped blogging last week. It was a very enigmatic withdrawal from blogging service, but we all assumed she was just a bit tired and blogged out and needed a blogrest. But what is now apparent is that Mr Quarsan Twat with the nasty polyester tracksuit bottoms has been living in Brussels for too long and has been taken by the bug for suing on the human rights card and has taken out an injunction against Zoe's extremely popular, thousand reader a day blog, effectively banning her from blogging, since the mere name of the blog is demeaning to him and the posts about him some way infringe on his human rights.

Holy Poop! What next? Snooty parisiens banning petite from blogging? the people of Azeitão refusing to talk to me in the street...oh, no, that happens already?... the prime minister of Portugal ordering me to leave the country because he didn't like my caricature of him in Atlântico last month (P.L.U.G. P.L.U.G.)? Andre being sued by President Tony for taking photos that make Britain look a bit run down? Natalie told off by God for misrepresenting him?

I'm waiting for further news on this front, and I'll be producing a "Free Zed" badge before the end of the day. Stay posted!



update: look, it was sunday morning, we were bored and from different ends of Europe we (me, zed and Q) came up with a silly prank... we are sorry, we didn't mean it... but if it put a smile on Zed's face, it was worth it. Honest. I promise I won't do it again. Everything you normally read in Vitriolica Webb's Ite is the truth (*cough cough*). Forgive us?

some people ...

... think it's my fault that my kids won't go to bed. Hmmm. I just put the music on.

It's really the fault of the Kaiser Chiefs and the Scissor Sisters and Badly Drawn Boy and the Black Eyed Peas. Honest.

I am such a bad mummy... and I'm terribly jealous that if you type "bad mummy" into a google.com or .fr search my buddy petite anglaise is the first on the list.. I'm NOWHERE to be seen.

This should even it up a bit. hahahahahahaha.

After a horrible week of not getting enough work done because of a horrible headache (whet the hell is wrong with me these days?), I'm taking the girls out for a birthday party in lisbon... only to discover two bloody grinding-lisbon-to-a-halt events are happening today... a sporting benfica match (oh joy.... reporters are asking little old ladies on the street "who's going to win?"... I wish they'd ask me "who gives a damn?????") and the burning of the ribbons (I'll work that one out of my system for you later) so, manel... we might be a bit late (that'll make a change!)

FWANGOO!

In two years of blogging, one and a bit of those spent here doing illustroblogging (new word) I don't think I've ever EVER mentioned fwangoo, I mean, frango. I suppose it's because I'm usually droning on about the crappy bits of Portugal, the funny bits of Portugal or the downright stupid bits of Portugal and forgetting the sublime bits of Portugal, such as frango no churrasco. Small chickens, spatchcocked (that's flattened out to you if you're not a culinary goddess), marinated in something yummy, grilled slowly, over charcoal preferably, and sold with chips and stuff to everyone .... and the sure fire way to get madge's children to shut the hell up... frango for supper? YEAH! They are tiny people. They can eat a frango and a half between them, like piranhas stripping a cow to the bone... it's a terrifying sight.

The frango shop is as ubiquitous as the britenglish chip shop though in a different league of eatableness (before I get you all sniping at me going... eeeugh, you english don't know anything about food, bleugh, we portuguese are the only ones who know about foooood, you inglishies just eat chips and boiled beef.... right, well, yeah...whatever... I was trying to be nice for a change (but you're wrong anyway... I AM Nigella! HA!!))... where was I? Oh, yes, frango shops are everywhere and we've got one near us that emits wonderful charcoally smells every evening except when they close which is generally on holidays when they'd make more money than they could shake a stick at because there are ten times more people around who don't want to cook but this is the time hey choose to not want to cook and miss out on shed loads of chicken sales and cash. nutters.

What the hell has spatchcocked (I just love that word) grilled chickens got to do with those two at the top of the page SCOWLING at me... I hear you scrittle (another new word.. just wait and see... there'll be gooooooooogle searches looking for scrittle and I'll be at the top of the list... I was at the top of one for gooooooogle the other day, how's that for freaking weird?)...*gasps for breath* well, I'm not going to attempt to draw said frango... it just wouldn't look nice, a picture of me, madge and the girls drooling over greasy garlicky chargrilled chicken.. really... so I though today would be a good day to show this season's must wear items for the lady of a certain age now that it is generally accepted that the summer is on it's way:

On the left we have the strangely clingy polyester tshirt, I believe only available in the market, with tiny suggestions of laciness at the sleeves and neckline, generally grey or pale insipid blue.... worn over the upholstered scaffolding booblifter and black pencil skirt worn just at the knee. Odd sandals, also from the market, made from string.

On the right... of course, it's the Pure Polyester Bata, worn on it's own as the temperatures soar in all the colours of the 1960s rainbow...either a shitty blue or shitty green.... very rarely a shitty red.

It is obligatory to wear these outfits with a scowl on one's face at all times, in case an english women is to say "bom dia" to you.


snark snark

tags: illustration

Watch it, you flies!

With the warm air come the flies. and with the flies comes the fly poop, that strange substance that sets like concrete and colours everything with dots of molasses. (the screen doors will have to wait ANOTHER year... too many projects.. too little time).

And we all know by now that this drippy sod doens't like killing things nor filling the house with noxious substances (except my cooking). So, I have found the perfect solution. Vitsma and Papavit brought us this flygun, a springloaded plastic contraption. And being the dreadful shot that I am... I couldn't hit an elephant with an elephant gun... I shoot... I miss... the fly gets a little worried and buzzes off.... yes, with fag and chartreuse in tow... and doesn't come back... at least until after lunch.

See? humane fly control. I must persuade the professor that the flygun is not, repeat NOT, for shooting at my backend while I'm not looking and while he's on the phone to a colleague so that I can't volubly tell him to fuck OFF because the colleague might offende-se.

must work. more fly poop later I expect.


tags: illustration

the best ever google search to get to here:

are portuguese men really bandy legged?

There are a few things that make me smile gently in front of my computer.

There are fewer things that make me snigger quietly.

There are a couple of things that make me snort with mirth.

This made me fall off my chair and induced the prof to ask me what the hell was the guffawing all about.

If this was your search term... PLEASE email me, and tell me WHY?

a public information announcement

Beware: motherhood can do this to YOU!

Or rather... motherhood, several years of staying at home a lot, never drinking more than half a bottle of super bock at one sitting and THEN five years later going out for lunch with a fellow english mummy expatriate thingy who has as disgusting a sense of humour as one's self and drinking just one (pathetic but true... it was a very large) glass of wine and several dozen bicas (espressos, non pts) and talking solidly for a whole afternoon...gives one a head that is incapable of much today other than an illustration of itself stuffed with cotton wool.

Although, I suspect that if I had met her five years ago (they've been here the WHOLE time!) I wouldn't have needed my blog to desabaf about portugal (desabafar: to let out the steam that bubbles up when one can no longer take being stared at by em-bata-ed old women at the bloody supermarket) and vitriolica webb's ite would probably not be.

now there's a thought.

plugged in

Ever felt like this? Always connected by not many degrees of separation to the rest of the world?

I was listening to the radio the other day, a programme about the end of the war (radio 4 is running a series of them this week, called "coming home" to commemorate VE day... must listen, very good)).

There was an audio montage about soldiers being demobbed and getting back to their homes, to their parents and families. Some of them turned up at home having been locked up in a POW camp for six years. Their families didn't know they were alive, let alone just about to arrive on the doorstep. And there they were. Back at home.

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine being found or coming home after a terrible ordeal? What would be the first thing you'd do? I bet it would be to call home, ring your ma, "I'm coming home, Ma! (I'm on the train)". Or you'd send an email or an sms.

I think it's ten years since I bought my first mobile phone. It was the greatest thing. It was always on. It never left my side. It felt so exciting to have it ring in the street in the City ... who's it going to be? a job? my secret lover? a wrong number? It was before caller display, so a girl always answered it and this girl spent long happy hours feeling important talking on her phone.

Nowadays, it is unthinkable for most of us to leave the house without a phone. Though mine is rarely called, it is always there, JUST IN CASE. Even if it's left switched off, (which frankly, it is mostly, nobody rings it) I've got it, JUST IN CASE. When I'm going out on my own, the other 'arf says "got your phone?" and I say "yes" just so that he doesn't worry. But, where we live, I'm about fourteen seconds from finding a house/garage/shop if I break down in the car or get lost and need directions.

And some days I try to remember what it was like to be able to disappear and not have people worry that they couldn't contact me at all hours. Remember that?

Today, though, I have a blind date (I've found another englisher! in azeitão! I'm terribly excited... we're having a blogger meet up... though I'm the only blogger... ) and if we can't recognise each other, we have arranged that we will ring each other's phones...loudly. (SV, my phone plays Scotland the Brave... !)

So, mobile phones are a good thing really. Don't need to wear a carnation in my lapel.

Wally has been wondering about mobile phones too.

tags: illustration

to counteract the nasty...

... sometimes you need to post something nice...

tags: illustration

OW! My retinas are hurting!

It is a fairly universal law, though even more so in Portugal, that when the weather warms up, out come the extraordinarily nasty printed synthetic textiles on the backs of middle aged and, broadly speaking, broader women... (in portuguse, I love the way of describing a "big" girl as a menina FORTE, i.e. a strong girl... ain't euphemism lovely?).. mostly in the form of the very - square - but - still - bum - hugging - with - inexplicable - spaghetti - belt - short - sleeved - shirt. This morning, on one of my three dozen visits to the supermarket each week (as I am hopelessly forgetful when it comes to writing shopping lists and always miss off the most important things... like food... cleaning products... that sort of thing) I was blinded by the first of this year's nastiest prints all in one huge gaggle of huge women waiting at the fish counter.

Confronted all in one go by huge black and white lilies, vast bamboo (fortunately with no pandas), strange printed versions of geometric sick in browns and yellows, polka dots that would make minnie mouse proud.

Now, I've known a few textile designers in my life, and for the most part they are kind and gentle people. The textile designers who create the nasty over sized, over coloured, over synthetic fabrics that adorn enormous women the world over in the spring and summer are just plain sadistic. What are they trying to do to my retinas? Where did they learn this? I have my suspicions and they're not pretty.

So, I say if you have a granny, aunt, mother, sister who wears NASTY stuff that offends the aesthetic sensibility of the neighbourhood, have a word with her. Please?

tags: illustration

health freaks

Conversation overheard yesterday (and regularly) by these two in the cake and bread department of Modelo:

"Of course, I never eat cakes."

"No, nor do I. They're so bad for you."

"I'm on a strict diet where I only eat healthy food... you know, so many things make me livery... I really only eat soup and a little fish from time to time... never ate more than that."

"Oh, yes, me too. Everything makes me sick. All I can face is a salad and a little boiled rice."

"Of course, I'm allowed to eat a little leitão (suckling pig) from time to time. Not the skin, though, of course. But, a leitão isn't a very big pig is it? no much skin. And the doctor says toucinho's (belly pork) all right in very small quantities. And I'm not to touch cream, though if it's already in a birthday cake I can't say no, can I? I do have a lot of grandchildren with birthdays"

"No, quite. Ooh, I feel faint. I think I need some blood sugar. Shall we go to the café?"

"Of course, filha."

tags: illustration

What it means to live somewhere else

I am sure that many of our old friends in Britain think that this is what our life looks like in Portugal. We've all seen them on the telly... those Brits who have moved abroad, "to sunnier climes", to the less stressful continental life; who have a constantly full fruit bowl (of fruit from their own fruit trees in their own fruit garden), a constant supply of proscuitto waiting to be eaten; olives within handy reach at all hours of the day; an always full fridge, full of Vinho Verde or whatever the local booze may be and interesting cheeses; hysterically amusing neighbours of whom one can write a book, with all their hysterically amusing antics of foreign-ness, whether it's Portugueseness or Spanishness or Frenchness or Italian-ness or Greekness.

Well, I'm pleased to say, it ain't my life. Less stressful? Difficult when one has to learn a new language, deal with different customs, try to strike a balance betwen fitting in and remaining true to one's own nationality, live without marmite, HP sauce and decent marmelade (NOT bloody yucky marmelada, MARMELADE! and yes, before you say, I KNOW that marmelade is named wrongly after marmelada, that is made from marmelos, so blah blah blah) things that one might live for decades in Britain without even thinking about, but as soon as you can't get 'em... OUCH! I became a fan of HP sauce only when I lived in Portugal..(I'm sure these things are readily available in Cascais, but we're talking the OTHER side of the river here... d.i.f.f.e.r.e.n.t w.o.r.l.d.s)... get used to converting escudos into pounds to work out the value of things only to have the damned things changed into euros after three years (I still have to do a four-way conversion with big numbers... since everyone STILL talks in contos which WERE one thousand escudos.... Oh, that bloke earns 30,000 contos... meaning 3,000,000 escudos... meaning 150,000 euros... meaning 100,000 pounds (lucky bastard!)); the lemons I have in my fruit bowl came from the supermarket (the ones that did come from a tree da mother in law are there too, but they're just plain ugly, so I'm not going to describe them to you);. I get to sit in my garden (where there used to be a lemon, an orange and a tangerine tree, but they all died slow agonizing deaths) about once a month whether it's with a glass of wine or not, most likely not, since I usually get distracted from it by the children or professor and end up not bothering (my alcohol resistance since becoming a mother has reduced significantly); I work, I cook, I clean up (very badly) and I look after my girls. Just with better weather, less money, slightly more difficulty making my hliarious jokes understood by a portuguese family and shed loads of bureaucratic red tape crap every so often.

And I only own one diaphenous floral print dress.


tags: illustration

election day special

another drawing of "the mike and tone show" at o acidental - CLICK!

holy crap... though I'm sure I'm the last to notice... today is 05-05-05... now, that doesn't happen very often, does it?)


Whenever I see Teresa Guilherme on the telly I get the urge to draw her, but have never got around to it until about ten minutes ago. What is it about the strange looking people on Portuguese telly that compels me to watch (in horror)?... Manuela is sure to be next. And then that odd mincey stringy bloke with square glasses who looks like his pension is due who used to do "Praça da Alegria" (Daytime TV at its cheesiest) and was then mysteriously replaced by Jorge Gabriel, the housewives' favourite, *shudder*, and now does exactly the same show on another channel... Or that ghastly blob man who does "O Preço Certo" (yep... Portugal is the last remaining country in the civilized world to have "The Price is Right" on telly).

This is just a first attempt at teresa... I think I may have to perfect it.


If you have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry, neither do I. I only watch Portuguese telly as I flick through on my kitchen telly cos the remote is dead. And sometimes I get stuck on a channel just to soak up crap for a laugh. This really is lowest common denominator stuff. I may yet discover that Teresa Guilherme does more than grin wildly at her contestants in her version of "3-2-1"...( yes, another classic that has stuck in Portugaland).

Can you tell I'm supposed to be doing other things today?

hey hey hey... it's the mike 'n' tone show!

Please excuse my crappy caricatures of the two creatures of the night that are Tony Blair and Michael Howard ... these two odd men who will be battling it out tomorrow for Britain ... it could all go horribly wrong and Charles Kennedy might move into No10. .. actually, that would be very funny and at least he's a kind of bumbling nice bloke, unlike the other two. ... but anyway, back to Mike 'n' Tone. ... twaddling round Britain in the last few days, with their innumerable press conferences, slagging each other off for each other's negative campaigning (who ever said you can't be a hypocrite in politics) trying to out-smart each other then out-casual each other, tie and jacket, no tie, no jacket (is it just me or is there anything MORE ugly than a man in a shirt and jacket with no tie? Shirt, no tie. LOVELY. Shirt and jacket, no tie. HIDEOUS. Tony looks like he's just come off a night of binge drinking in the docks when he does that ... and him, the king of spin, kingspin. ... I mean, REALLY ... and Michael poncing around in PINK shirts (and Tony in BLUE... did they work that one out between them? Was it supposed to be their inter-party-campaign joke?) ... Tony seems to assume that he just IS God. ... Michael has decided to throw in some wild promises of things he will change within HOURS of assuming the throne. ... Charles is just trying to stay awake. ... oh, I dunno. The problem with politicians is that in desiring to be a politician one is very likely to be a megalomaniac or weirdo discontent with everything or a tosser (and I did forget to mention that if one is considering becoming a politician, one does need to foster a strange speech impediment or mannerism, such as Tone's "markut, targut...etc." and Mike's "peopullll, eagulllll, free willllll of the peopullllllll" and so on.) so I find it awfully hard to see how we in the modern world, what with mass-multi-media-broadcasting-networking - or rather, we know a lot more truth and lies than when we blindly trusted our politicians to be reds, blues, oranges, yellows, lefts, rights and above contempt - will ever be able to take politicians seriously again and trust them with our lives, our countries and our world. Oh, bugger. ... does that make me sound like an anarchist?

... and much more importantly, one day, just one day, could we have a real sexpot for prime minister, could we? ... because, really, Tone's gone to seed and Michael, well, bleurgh... and even José (socrates, you non-pts! socrates! pron. SOCK-rutch, not Socrateeees) has lost his looks in the last couple of years, hasn't he?

If anyone understood any of that post, please send me a postcard explaining it to me. I'll be waiting for the postman (now, HE'S quite a dish...)

tags: illustration

by the pure will of god...

...did these stones stay on the lorry that was carting them up the hill, over Monsanto, on the A5 this morning..(well OBVIOUSLY, I was on my way back from IKEA)...and a couple of rail sleepers per rock.

Er. Did I miss something? I drove extra slowly past it just so that madge could draw the lack of evidence.

I once drove up just behind one of those lorries that lug enormous rolls of steel off to wherever enormous rolls of steel are required... just after one of the enormous rolls of steel had rolled enormously off the lorry, and had unravelled just like an incredibly heavy and sharp edge roll of loo paper.

At least they try to strap the enormous rolls of steel loo paper on...surely, they can't just count on gravity for these enormous rocks?

I might colour it in later... then again I may just be enjoying myself making shelves too much.

friendly neighbours

Another of my delightful neighbours who resolutely refuses to smile at me, never has in six years, grumpy old sod. He has managed a mumbled "bom dia" twice, I think. He talks to everyone else, talks to the house professor a length about something to do with gardening about once a year over the fence. And now he has appeared with this ridiculous dog. It looks just like a black and tan version of Dogmatix (Obelix's dog) and it is completely out of proportion with his miserable owner. Dogs really should be in proportion with their owners... it upsets the aesthetic balance when they're not.

But don't worry. When Jorge (Sampaio, OBVIOUSLY) comes to call on me for my invaluable advice about the roads of Portugal, I'll mention it to him, and he can see to the grave problem of out of proportion dog ownership... and grumpy miserable old men who refuse to talk to foreigners.


BLEURGH!

tags: illustration

the green batas (the equivalent of the green berets)

Not really.

This is going to be a tryptic. Green Bata. Blue Bata. Red Bata. Not really. I'm messing with your mind. But I am thinking of turning Azeitão into my own version of Stanley Spencer's village Cookham, and making biblical allegories out of village/suburb life... with Paula Rego-esque twists of nastiness in them.

Or maybe this is a minimalist expression of what the village will be like today, MARKET DAY.

Or maybe this is pure one of my housework/boring-task avoidance tactics.

This week the president of the Republic (one can't just say the president here because it could mean anything from the mayor to the head of a company) is doing a thing like an "open house"... an "open presidency". He's going to spend four days on the road going to four big metropolitan areas, trying to work out why Portugal has the highest road deaths in Western Europe... and how to avoid this in future. Did you know that in Lisbon alone, last year, there were 14,000 accidents, causing 32 deaths 11 of whom were pedestrians? HOW CAN THAT BE?

ooo, oooo, (did you do that in school when you wanted your teacher to recognise your hand up in the air and going ooo oooo, like a baboon? maybe it was just an Ilfracombe School thing), Mister President, I'LL TELL YOU! me me me! Sometimes it takes an outsider to see things clearly. I see the road/death/idiocy problem clearly. Ask me Mister Sampaio! Please?