I have now been in the middle of Sao Paulo state for just over a fortnight. Lessons learned:
- It is hot, like Africa hot, like you could fry Sally O’Brien on an egg if you had a stone hot.
- There are two big black cats around here that look as if their mammies were interfered with by jaguars.
- Brazilians eat a lot of meat. Round here Desperate Dan would be considered a perfumed ponce for having that effeminate pastry nonsense.
- Sliced, grilled cow hump is very tasty.
- Do not cross the woman with the machete who chops the ends off the unripe coconut so that you can drink the coconut water. She has a machete and she chops the ends off coconuts to make a crust.
- There is at least one person here who believes a chap can put coconut water in whisky and remain a gentleman. Such a man probably cheats at billiards.
- Everybody knows somebody who has been to Dublin, except for the people who have been there themselves.
- Brazilian academics will cheerfully go on strike for three months in pursuit of an above inflation pay claim.
- Brazilian academics have had their pensions slashed: they can no longer retire on full pay after thirty five years service.
- I might need to do a t-test on my sample size, but there is only one vegetarian in Sao Paulo state. Or all of Brazil, quite probably.