Unthinkable things in Portugal.

I am emptying our house of crap this week. I've had enough of accumulated crap that hasn't been looked at in five years, let alone used. So, I'm crapping out the crap from this house.

Now, what to do with the crap? If you're British or North American or Ozzie what would you do (or at least consider doing and maybe getting round to finally, when the crap is too much)? you'd think "aaaaaah... car boot sale" (UK) or "aaaaaah... yard sale" (US/CA/AUS though I may need some correction... correct me correct me), wouldn't you. Because that's a good way to offload crap onto other people and get paid a few pennies for it. And as horrible as they are, they can be quite funny. And hey, where'd you buy all the crap in the first place? EXACTLY!

(just for clarification, a car boot sale is where people drive to a field or a car park at some ungodly hour in the morning, pay an entrance fee, which sometimes goes to charity, park up, and sell crap from the back of their car, sometimes from a trestle table. Some people do it once in a lifetime. Some people are absolutely crazy about them. Some people do it for a living. The ones who do it for a living are quite scarily good at buying stuff for 50p and selling it for £5. They're the ones who arrive at your car before you've even got out of it, looking in the back windows to see what you've got... shaking their heads, muttering loudly, nah, there's nothing worth buying here... here, I'll give you 10p for that ceramic dog there... YES, the tasteless one!)

But, sadly, car boots and yard sales just wouldn't, COULDN'T happen here in Portugalland....



Unthinkable is what it is. It's the sort of thing you wouldn't even be able to talk about. The sort of thing that would go down in folk legend.... "and once a strange foreigner did something extraordinary and cigano... she SOLD things from the back of her car!..." (You see, it is still socially acceptable to use cigano/gypsy as a term of abuse in these parts which I have to say I find distasteful for the obvious reasons.)

Portuguese snobbery is a thing to behold in its glory... an example: the lovely expression "a moda de Portugal é comer e dizer mal"... trans. "the THING to do in Portugal is to eat their food, then slag 'em off" - well, that would be the essex translation (it's the effect of the BB house, I swear). But it's true and everywhere... be seen talking to the right people, wearing the right clothes, eating the fashionable food etc etc etc and you'll be fine.

But, deviate from the acceptable and you's in trouble.

I think I may organise a BIG CAR BOOT SALE in the centre of Azeitão... see how many people never speak to me again.