Xmas Party - Part III

Oh Xmas in Lisbon! Going back home, where I belong to be with my people, and so on and so forth with that shit.
Lisbon was - as always - the most beautiful city in the whole world. It is even more so during xmas, all the lighting and cold and roast chestnuts.

Xmas was good, spent at the grandparents' house in Alentejo, in South West inland Portugal. Cold as if hell had freezed over. But as we say it, cold hands warm heart. Great to see my parents and sister and nieces and all the rest of the family. Family is cool. Good food in abundance as well, I ate like a pig.

Xmas Party - Part II

Friday night, the Office Xmas Party - not David Brent’s Office, my office.


The Office Xmas party, wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. There was no embarrassing binge drinking or office colleagues getting off with each other. Gladly, in my case it would be difficult as “you see I am the only gay in the village” (I’m not, but I wouldn’t touch the rest of the G population of the office, not because I’m special but because I’m wise beyond my years. Office romances are a bad idea; it’s like pissing on your own door step, as Gareth Keenan said once. And well, I wouldn’t touch them anyway)

I ended up having a good time, mainly due to the fact of spending the last working day with Julie. So, we danced a lot, drank a lot and had a great time. We gave the DJ a CD I had made for Julie while we were in Italy, “Dirty Slags Vol. 1” with Peaches, Avenue D, Princess Superstar, well basically all the slags. So we played and danced to “Do I Look Like A Slut?” in front of almost the whole office people, which was nice. I drank 12 G&Ts and kept quite sober throughout the night.

Now can’t wait for the real Xmas party with family et al on the 24th. It’s going to be at my grandparents’ in Alentejo, on the Southwest of Portugal.

Xmas Party - Part I

Thursday Xmas party at The Retro Bar (do I talk too much about this bar?).

There was good music dj-ed by DJ Lush, nice people around, mainly regulars who had to buy a ticket beforehand to get in. I got a bit drunk but not that much. Lots of Christmas crackers and poppers and other Christmas sh*t. There was an exchange of presents, I gave a box of jelly willies and got a box of mint willies, I guess no one was with that much imagination this year. At least I wasn’t.

Good start for Xmas parties season.

Morrissey

The man is an absolute star and that’s that.

PJ Harvey was good but not as good as I was expecting. She played lots from her last album, “Uh Uh Her” (although she missed my favourite tracks from there, “shame” and “you come through”), had two guests playing with her, but as I was sitting in the last row of the SECC (Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre) and they didn’t turn on the big screens during her concert, I couldn’t actually see her that well. Besides she didn’t play many of her old hits either, but then again she was only doing an opening of someone else’s concert.

Now Morrissey. Everyone knows he is brilliant, I wasn’t expecting him to be as good looking in his 50s as he was in his 30s. Then the man starts with “How Soon Is Now”, one of the best (the best?) song from The Smiths so the crowd goes wild. He played loads from “You Are The Quarry” (one of the best albums of the year), everyone knew the lyrics for “first of the gang to die” and he kind of apologized for playing “Irish Blood English Heart” (I had forgotten we were in Scotland) and it was quite funny when he said he was quite surprised for not having received a Glasgow kiss yet.

The last comment goes to his band - where did he get those men? Very good looking and brilliant musicians. But that drummer – oh the drummer - looking like Edward Norton in American History X even got me distracted from the concert for a few moments.

It was a great night in its overall. And I didn't see Jeni because she watched the whole concert first row (bitch!) and left her mobile home so we ended up not saying goodbye.

Glasgow

Glasgow is cool. A mix of dark and gloom post-industrial city with xmas madness spree city centre. Houses are very spaceous with high ceilings.

Boys are friendly cute and reserved.
Girls are as descreet and quiet as hen nights in Leicester Square.

Saturday was a good night - drinks, dancing, friendly people (too friendly some times, "oh just bugger off!") and seeing Jeni was cool as well. She is looking good.
We'll meet again for Moz tonight. It's gonna be Cool with a capital K.

Always have to ask to repeat everything these Scots say. :) Sexy accent though.

Saw I Heart Huckabees yesterday. What a fantastic movie! It's all about spiritual guidance babe! Good to see Lily Tomlin, Dustin Hoffman and Isabelle Huppert playing such characters.

Off to see George Cukor's "The Women" now at the GFT.

Another Eurovision Night

Yesterday another Douze Points night at the Retro Bar, and I was asked to go and work for the night, as they were short-staffed. I love working there anyway, and especially on a Eurovision night.

All Eurofreaks from London and surroundings are there and it's a quite interesting anthropological study. Everyone knows the whole Eurovision trivial world. As soon as someone finds out I'm from Portugal I start hearing the usual comments, "oh Rita Guerra's song was quite good, she deserved better" or "oo meu corassao nao tem corrr..."

So, what goes on there?
It's like a normal Eurovision competition between 6 songs from different countries, each one represented by a team. The winners get a bottle of bubbly.
One of the countries was in fact Portugal, and the song was Adelaide Ferreira's "penso em ti (eu sei)". And not only they played the song, they actually showed on the video screen the performance Ms Ferreira gave on Eurovision night.

And what a performance that was - the year was 1985, and the hair and dress she wore are a clear sign of what was cool at that time. She could a be a fashion reference now for the usual clients of any of the electro London nights.



That was quite a surprise, and see it there made my night. That and the fact that I had to go on stage to say the results of the Portuguese Jury in Portuguese.

The night ended up with drunk Eurofreaks singing Celine Dion and other Eurovision crap, but also some Euro pearls like "La det svinge" or "Europe's Living a Celebration" (in Spanish, iuropes libin a celebreishon)

January marks the 6th Anniversary of the Douze Points night. Can't wait.

Nadia

I love our Nadia.
For those who don't know who Nadia Almada is, she's the Portuguese girl (ex-boy) who won the latest edition of Big Brother UK. She stood up to the whole set of macho bastards that were in BB, one of them would even call her Portu-geezer, which is not very nice. And I guess that's why everybody liked her. She won with 75% of the votes, which was the biggest margin victory for any BB winner in the UK. (Yes I know my facts)

She probably is just another celebrity wannabe, but she is witty and funny and sweet. She dresses well, is a beautiful woman, does cameos in television soap operas (eg Hollyoaks) and she is even going to do this year's Celebrity Weakest Link. :) [December 18th BBC1 7pm]

I found this amazing story about Nadia on The Observer website, very interesting and covers everything from her childhood to her life as a Z-List Celebrity. Click here to read it

Now she has a single as well. It's called "a little bit of action" and it's good fun. Yes it's rubbish music, but it's good fun and not as bad as I would expect. She even does "um dois tres quatro" halfway through the song. Got to #27 on the UK singles chart. And the video is quite good as well.



I like Ms Almada.

Christine's 30th

Ms Christine F. is 30 now.
She's the first of my group of close friends to get to that (hopefully) turning point in anyone's life.

The Talented Ms Pereira has had a weird tragicomic incredible year, as usual everything remotely strange that can happen to someone will happen to Chris.
Even so, she is an inspiration to us all. She is the most uplifting person I know, always in a good mood (or trying to), with a wicked sense of humour. She works two jobs day & night but still has time for a coffee whenever possible.

It's great to have her in London and I'm sure good things are gonna happen. She was sad for having turned 30, but I think that if she has made it so far, what can go wrong now?

As Princess Yazz once said, the only way is up.

Glasgow Moz Euan PJ and Jeni

Guess who's going to Scotland, our fellow country of the North? Me.
Doing what you may ask? Well, Morrissey is playing in Glasgow and PJ Harvey is opening his concerts in Scotland and the Northern England only. So not only I am going to see Moz himself playing songs from his fantastic latest album and others from the past (yes I bought his Best Of), as I am going to watch the sex & rock Goddess Polly Jean playing songs from her not-so-brilliant latest album (although some are quite good) and other old ones as well.

It is also a chance of seeing Euan, the Scottish guy I met a few months ago here in London - see From Miss-Shapes to Tate Modern from 2 months ago.

Another fantastic event is the fact that my dear friend Jeni from Barcelona via Burgos is also coming to the concert, so I will see her again and we'll go out for drinks and spread a bit of Latin looks and salero. (as if)

As Le Tigre brilliantly put it, I'm so excited and I just can't hide it.

I Heart Julie

Deep Vein Trombosis - I don't really know the name in Portuguese to be honest. That disease that people die from after flying long distance in economy class.

My friend Julie was diagnosed with that thing and I panicked. I didn't want her to die, she's one of the few good British things that I've come to love here in London, and the best thing that happened in Italy.

But worry not, it is not a death sentence, because you can actually get a treatment for it, we only hear the news about the people who die instantly. She's doing the treatment. Yes, it is complicated and painful, but isn't life itself?

I'm really happy that I will be able to do the "the computer says no" sketch with her at work.