the blog is dead, long live the blog

please go here

sigh

*big sigh*

the time has come. I knew it would. You knew it would.
Some blogs have a life span. And this blog has lived her life to the full.
Vitriolica Webb’s Ite is retiring. She wants to go out with a bang and not with a damp squelch. She feels she’s been treading water for a bit... not really being the grumpy old tough knickers that she used to be... (aaaaah, remember the old days? if you don’t, Miss Vitriolica insists that you read the archives from April 2004 onwards)

This is the last post.

Of COURSE, there’ll be another blog.... and of COURSE I’ll be maintaining blogstory and bloguehistória from there... it just won’t be THIS blog. Vitriolica just seems to have turned into a pink fluffy poodle puppy recently. That’s just not right. There’s still plenty to say. But, the vitster is just too energy consuming. I just can’t dedicate the time and energy to her bilious nature that I used to. I’m too bloody nice. And if she and I can’t do something properly, we don’t want to do it at all. I'll be blogging something just a bit different with more drawing, more illustration, more art, more funnies, but as ME, Lucy. And Vit is going off to pastures new.






Ironically, it’s entirely her own fault that she’s being retired. Because of Vitriolica I am working on loads of projects. Even though I live outside of the city, only moved here a few years ago and am profoundly shy and deeply unfunny in Portuguese (in English I’m a loudmouthed fishwife... as vitsma and papavit are only too happy to remind me), people and editors (ppm, lp, you're people too...hehehe) have been able to see my work.

Without her, I wouldn’t have got back to work so quickly after having the two small people. I wouldn’t be drawing every single day, something I hadn’t done for years. I wouldn’t have been working on the two magazines and several book projects that I am. I wouldn’t have met dozens and gazillions of great e- and real people from all over the world. I wouldn’t have had an absolute riot.

Now you know that neither Vit nor I do slush... so I just want to say THANK YOU for coming and participating and nominating me for stuff and especially to you portuguesie-types for having a sense of humour about these bifas being really fucking rude about you. In a nice way.
And Madge and Violet say a shy ta-ta too.

(when i know where/how/when/what the new blog is, in the next few days, I’ll post the new address here)

But before we retire Miss Vitriolica, let her just remind you of a few things.

The roads of Portugal are still populated by morons.

Tias. NO!

Betos. NO!

Portuguese snobbery sucks rotten eggs and should be pilloried at every opportunity. (British stupidity/snobbery is one thing, Portuguese stupidity/snobbery is a whole other story)

Molho de ovos, ovos moles, fios de ovos should all be made illegal.

Fado is miserable.

Favas aren’t

What the fuck is that Portuguese “sod you” attitude all about? The attitude that makes people, for example, run to the zebra crossing then cross the road extra extra slowly just because they can and to piss everyone else off.

The Brazilians are the best import ever.... give Vit a Brazilian waiter in a restaurant ANY DAY!

Too many people believe too many old wives’ tales.

Football is fucking stupid. Even if it is a war replacement.

Two hour lunch breaks are just taking the piss.

Lisbon is a fantastic city.

Porto is better.

Setúbal is getting there.

GNR Bigode. hahahahaha.

NO-ONE in the world needs to shower twice a day.

This orgy of consumption of crap in the developed world makes her sick and if we REALLY don’t start taking it seriously, we’re all going to hell and hell will just be a big landfill.

Morangos com Açúcar is rotting the brains of the already rotten brained. We are all going to hell. And hell will just be a big landfill full of rotting strawberries.

You WILL have to give up your car in your lifetime because of fuel shortages and global warming ... get over it.

But most importantly of all, Vit’s buying herself a bata at the feira this weekend.

Beijos.

don't be SCARED

no, it's NOT my new glamourous avatar...it's for Sparky McTorta Donatello's flippin' idea: a self portrait marathon. I mean REALLY. And Natalie's not much help either, with her egging me on and all. What's a girl s'posed to do? Give in, that's what. At the drop of a hat.

Well, I need the painting practise.

Good ol' oil pastels (electric ones, that is).

And yes, my ears are that small, my neck is that thick and that is my bright red nightie.

technorati tags: Art, illustration

Chegou!

Bloguehistória capítulo UM!

Spread the word. :)

metatarsal

The anticipation is too much.

Will he? Won't he?

Wayne is having his foot CAT scanned today in Manchester, with three doctors assessing him. Sky News has heard reports that he has left his hotel in Baden Baden and is on his way to the Airport. It's all so .... so.... so....




...UNBELIEVABLY BANAL.
I DON'T GIVE A FLYING MONKEY CRAP!
I'M SWITCHING OFF THE TELLY, NOT READING ANY NEWSPAPERS FOR THE NEXT MONTH.

Well, they must be useful for SOMETHING

(a series I started last month in Atlântico...you'll get one a month. no more, no less!)

Now, a friend of mine has a started a blog (after I insisted that one has to do such things in the twenty first century, and kept insisting and kept insisting until she gave in!) afotografia is Marjan's blog. Marjan is a professional photographer who has lived in Portugal for a years and takes really gorgeous photos, specialising in kids and animals. Do go and visit her blog and her flickr and her website

Now, COME ON.

The tension is building.

Day by day I feel myself getting closer to erupting, the summer ever nearer, bearing down on me.

I don't know how much longer I can bottle it up.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep my gob shut this year.

I think I'm going to exp........


YOU WILL NOT DIE IF YOU GO IN THE WATER AFTER EATING, EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN LESS THAN AN HOUR. NOR WILL YOU DIE FROM HALTED DIGESTION. NOR WILL YOU BE SICK IF YOU WET YOUR HEAD AFTER LUNCH. Addendum: Ms. Beverly Trayner reminds me of my lapse here: YOU WILL NOT DIE IF YOU TAKE A SHOWER/BATH AFTER EATING. NO. NOT AT ALL.

Unfortunately, by virtue of your reading this blog, you are a sensible and intelligent being and hopefully you don't need to be told this.

Unfortunately this blog is not QUITE as popular as I think it should be (ie. I believe EVERY citizen of Portugual should be reading it by now and at least half of the rest of the world where there is electricity, even the old lady next door who doesn't know what a computer is, let alone a blog) and so this message will go unheard amongst the people of this land who will still tell my children and me this year on the beach that we will die instantly if we even THINK about water after eating.

We do not live in the dark ages. We understand the human body a bit... we aren't all humours and spirits. We should understand at least a LITTLE physiology after the education we are all entitled to (listen, when you're digesting a big lunch, much of your blood system is being put to work in your insides, therefore, less oxygenated blood reaches your limbs. So, if you've eaten a big lunch and then want to go for a hearty, heavy swim, you are at a slightly heightened risk of drowning because you may not maintain your strength in the water OR because you might get cramp and you may sink....but eating a sandwich doesn't mean the kids can't bloody well go and paddle or granny can't put her feet in a bucket, or I can't have a little swim in the swimming pool).

And while we're at it (and yes, I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again until they drag me kicking and screaming out of the blogosp-here), you CAN'T get a cold from getting rained on or walking with bare feet (at any time of the year).

GODDIT? GEDDIT!

STAND UP TO THE OLD WIVES AND THEIR TALES THIS SUMMER AND JUST SAY "NONSENSE, mother/ mother-in-law/granny/busy-body-next-to-me-on-the-beach (delete where applicable)! I'M GOING IN!"


I have spoken.


(and now that you've been told, I've posted Julie Oakley's very funny illo for chapter 15, thanks Julie)


technorati tags: death, swimming

dia pela vida

The final day of Dia Pela Vida (a Day for Life), a six month stint of fund and awareness raising in our village for Liga Portugesa Contra o Cancro (Portuguese League against Cancer) where phosperescent "candles" were dedicated and lit for people who have died from cancer. If Dia Pela Vida comes to your town/village, get involved. As well as raising shed loads of money, it has done wonders for this very fractured community we have here.

bit fat maggot...

...'cos sometimes on a friday morning there's nothing better to say.

So, today, to get you all out of the commenting closet, here's a question for you:

what totally irrelevant words do you mutter to yourself for no reason when you're on your own?

(or is it just me?)

Another Vitriolica Fab Thing

I promised last week that I'd tell you about a wonderful restaurant we found in Lisbon the other day... the drawing is of our fellow irritating diners.

When we accidentally found A Flor da Laranja in Rua da Rosa, a Moroccan restaurant, I couldn't have been happier. I was starving. And grumpy. And tired. And in need of something different to eat.

The food was a-mazing. I urge you to try it if you're passing. And you might even get the free floor show that was these three. Well, these two and their friend who spent the whole hour and a half on the same phone call on her mobile. The other two were having a lovely canoodle at their table... don't know if they ate a thing... except each other... but they kept at it, and so ferociously it got rather boring. But the worst was that one kept taking flash photographs of them, half watching ther camera, half watching where her friend's tongue was going, while being tweaked and licked and garrumphed (i think I just made up yet another word, sorry)... FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH... while I was trying to eat a deep dark romantic meal with grumpypants... FLASH FLASH FLASH.... oh, isn't this food effing wonderful? FLASH FLASH EFFING FLASH! Bloody hell fire.... STOP with the FLASHING!

Last night was also irksome enough when el grumpy prof and I sat in our favourite indian (he didn't mind... boom, boom) with about ten future tias and betos, thinking themselves terribly funny, grand, important, interesting, intriguing to the rest of us as they shrieked their terrible shrieks and wailed their terrible wails - oh how they will sadly never be disabused of those ideas, a whole life ahead of them thinking they are better than everyone else - and told jokes worthy of a Morangos com Açúcar script (guy,
did I ever thank you for that Reuters snippet?).

Oh, did I say it was going to be a quiet week? oops.

just so we're clear

there WAS a four foot long stripey blue and white willy, two forklift trucks and two bob the builders playing giants. Honest. It wasn't just me that saw them, was it?

There was MANY a tia who did not know what to do when the four foot long willy came out.

Oh, and there was a toad and a warhead.

cool.

No more about that opera, now, honest.

I was on the stage at São Carlos!

But I was joined on stage by about 400 tias and their husbands/yes-men, for that was where the seating was, turning São Carlos, a pros. arch theatre into an in-the-round. Very odd. Very exciting. And as I walked in I tried to capture ten seconds of BEING ON THE STAGE AT SÃO CARLOS.

And WHAT an opera. The hate part of my love/hate relationship with opera (see below, somewhere) has waned a little after last night.

But opera for me will always be difficult. I WANT to get involved with the story, understand what's going on, be carried away with the plot and the characters and the music and the motifs and the drama of it all. But without understanding the words they're saying it's very difficult. I can read the libretto before I go which helps. I read the Portuguese (or even English) subtitles, but one's (my) eyes have to leave the action for a few seconds to see them, and it gets broken up.

Wagner wrote his operas to envelope the audience in the story... I'm sure he wasn't thinking about LED subtitles at the time.

What we're supposed to hear:

Boss-man troll/niblung/gnome bloke: Ooh, ooh, ooh... let me shag one of those mermaids with my enORMOUS blue and white stripey willy (it's true, I saw it)... they're fantastic... but what's that I hear? They talk of the Rhine Gold? Gold? I want the Rhine Gold! and I want it NOW!....I may shag a mermaid or too while I'm at it!

Mermaid-Fairy things: lalaalalalalalalalalallalalala.... we're so pretty and silly and dim.... lalalalalalalalalllaaaaaa and HOLY SHIT! Who's THAT ugly bastard? He must want the Rhine Gold, so we're going to tease him and pretend we're going to shag him (don't ask me why that should make sense)! lalalalalalalalalalal alallalalalalalal.

Boss-man troll/niblung/gnome bloke: HOO-FUCKING-RAH! I got the gold! Now I can forge myself a magic ring and bollocks to anyone else... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH HA!

Mermaid-Fairy things: OH BUGGER.

...later...

Some god or other: I WANT it!

Another god: BUT SO DO I!!!!!!

A giant: I'm going to have your sister in law

The other giant: phwoar, yeah, she's GORGEOUS! Give 'er one!

Sister in Law: NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

A giant: Too bad, you're coming with me on my forklift TRUCK!!!!!!!!

etc etc etc...

But, if one (me) doesn't speak German and tires of reading the Portuguese subtitles, this is what one (me) actually hears:

Boss-man troll/niblung/gnome bloke: I'm singing something, lalalalalalal...aaaaah! something something something something something SOMETHING..AHAHAHAHAHAHA

Mermaid-Fairy things: something blah blah blah blah

Boss-man troll/niblung/gnome bloke: SOMETHING HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA something I could be singing a shopping list for all you know you ignorant english dog (well, he WAS German) and your inability to speak any other languages something something something

Mermaid-Fairy things: lalalalalala

...later...

Some god or other: BLAH!

Another god: BLAHAHAHAHAHA blah!

A giant: blah, something something I hope you like my bright orange boilersuit blah something

The other giant: phwoar!

Sister in Law: Neiiiiiiiiiiiin!

A giant: something something something forklift truck something blah blah.

What's my point?

I have NO BLOODY IDEA! (to be sung in E flat!!!!!!!)



(that ain't his tail)

the life changing machinery... kissing aliens!

ever the foreigner

However long I live here (seven years so far if you're counting), I will probably always find myself in conversations thus:

Portuguese Person: My god, this heat is incredible.

Vitrischmolica: Yes, it really is very hot.

Portuguese Person: I mean, for May, it's really too much, isn't it?

Vitrischmolica: Yes, it really is a scorcher.

Portuguese Person: Really, it's unbearable. I don't know how I'm going to make it to the summer... I think I may end up sick because of it.

Vitrischmolica: Yes, it feels rather like August already, doesn't it.

Portuguese Person: I can't quite believe it. I feel like I might melt at any moment, I've never liked it when it's this hot. I'll never get used to it. Quite quite unbearable.

Vitrischmolica: Ooh, yes, it really is too much. I....

Portuguese Person: Well, you just aren't used to it yet.

*big sigh*

(and that's before we get into the fact that Great Britain lies under permafrost and the sun has never been seen there. ever)

LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Another "interesting" week to look forward to... what with work, weather and wingeing, madness, chaos, opera and stuff .... work: lots of (good) ... weather: extraordinarily hot and fuggy for May (hmmm, okay, but not great for brain function) and wingeing: girls at home still covered in scabs (love em, but boy, five days so far stuck at home and I'm ready to sell them to the gypsies... thanks for all the home remedy ideas), madness: el prof and stupid book finishing, chaos: as always... and I just hoping we manage to get to the opera tomorrow night. What with my love/hate relationship with opera, it SHOULD be a good evening, especially since they've swapped São Carlos round (Lisbon's stunning eighteenth century opera house, like sitting in a big bath of baroque) so that the audience sits on the stage and the action takes place on another stage that has been built on top of the stalls, and in the boxes. So I've started on another opera singer (above), though she is a fat Carmen rather than a fairy (oh god I HATE fairies) from Rheingold (tomorrow's opera).

I haven't forgotten to finish the neverending Life Changing Machinery, nor my new avatar, nor my illustrated contribution to blogstory... I'll get there in the end.

And then at the end of this "interesting" week, Saturday, I'm going to be painting faces at a big charity day for Liga Portuguesa Contra o Cancro... so if you're near Azeitãoland on Saturday, June 3rd, come to the last event in Dia Pela Vida, Azeitão at Aerset, 10am to Midnight. (blimey, I'll be knackered!)

So, if I go a bit quiet this week...

technorati tags: Art, illustration

1-2-3... BLOGUEHISTÓRIA!

I just did the bloguehistória lottery (as I was rudely awoken by a scratchy four year old at seven thirty on a saturday morning.. where's the justice?) and here's the list:

(btw, we all know that bloguehistória is going to be the next BIG thing... LUX, Caras, 24 Horas, Correio de Manhã, will ALL be talking about it... obviously. And as the word spreads worldwide, you non-europortuguese speakers will want to know how to say it properly. here it is: Blog-sh-TOR-ia. Goddit?)

Bloguehistoriadores:

ashitaka de ougado
renato de inepcia
lucy de vitriolica webb's ite
sara
polly de diotima
joão de prometeu agrilhoado
coffee addict de Nyasha's Coffee Corner
célia
pedro de /var/log
pedro de para português ler
bev de em duas línguas
paulo de ex-patria
luís de nova floresta
ana de palavras dos outros
paula
josé luís de bluesboy
vitor de blogovitor
ana vf de cantar de erva


bloguilustradores: vão ser nesta ordem, e se juntarem mais bloguilustradores, adicionam-se ao fim desta lista e continuamos assim até esgotarem todos! certo?

hedonista
nancy de full circle
patchouly de nao sei pra mais
ana vf de cantar de erva
pedro de para português ler
lucy de vitriolica webb's ite
jc de nao sei pra mais
xico de loja do xico


(se deixei alguém fora da lista, diz me já... mas acho que tenho aqui todos)

As regras... realmente, há só uma:
Continua a história do capítulo antes do teu.

Estilo, tamanho, etc, são contigo.

Quando vier a tua vez, emailo-te se já não reparaste que é a tua vez.

Escreve o teu capítulo, manda para mim para postear no bloguehistória blog (bloguehistoria.blogspot.com, but don't go yet, i haven't made it look pretty yet nor, obviously, is there anything to read yet!!!).

Depois, ou tu grava (digitalmente se for possível) o teu capítulo lido a voz alta, ou pede a um adulto/pessoa cuja voz gostas para te ajudar/gravar e manda para mim, mas diz-me primeiro e dou-te um sítio para uploadeá-lo se tiver mais de 10mega.

Qualquer dúvidas, DIZ.

Right. I'm going back into English. Good luck Ashitaka! :)

Get your pods ready!

As the podcast of Chapter One is (or should be) up. It's a biggie, so put your feet up, plug your pod buds into your ears and listen to the dulcet though slightly mad tones of Ms Clare Sudbery, novelist extraordinaire. She won't mind me saying that, cos she's gone into hiding for a week, so she won't be reading this for at least a week, by which time I can be in hiding myself!

There's a subscribe button on the blogstory podcast page, or you can manually subscribe with "itpc://rss.mac.com/lucyepepper/iWeb/Blogstory/Blogstory%20Podcast/rss.xml" through iTunes... it should work with other rss aggregators... I think/hope.

This will be bigger than Ricky Gervais.

Entrada à bloguehistória já está fechada. Vou fazer a lotaria durante amanhã. Temos um escassez de ilustradores... por isso, entrada para ser ilustrador vai se manter aberta.

Esta vai ser maior que Ricardo Gervaisão. (se Gervaisão é uma asneira muito má, fico contente).

ooh, we're getting started early this year...

Here we go again.

Brejos de Azeitão.

It's gonna be a long summer.

(more at flickr)

spotty, grotty and AT HOME

Sigh. A lovely hard working week planned and what happens?

They BOTH come down with good ol' Varicela Zoster i.e. good ol' Chicken Pox.

I had really forgotten how poxy chicken pox is... really repulsive pustules all over their poor little bodies. (have you had lunch yet?) And boy, are they miserable. As is their poor little mother who has been up for most of the last two nights with their itching.


Feeling itchy?

the inky pen is mightier than the wacom tablet pen

I hate to say it, but it's true. Real pens, nibs and inks (and on other days, brushes and paints, water, oil or acrylic) are so much cleverer, so much more controllable, so much sexier than anything electronic... (I'm whispering so my wacom can't hear me and get offended. I don't know where I'd be without real ink and real nibs... and why the hell do I have to get my nibs from Britainlândia? I have never managed to find any in Portugalia... if you knew where I might find some good (detachable) nibs in Lisboa you would tell me wouldn't you?

LOVE.

And bravo to all our latest mad volunteers to Bloguehistória... there's still time to join... till the end of tomorrow. Friday. And don't forget there are only two or three non pts joining in... COME ON, don't be scared, you expats! :)