Obrigado, Tchau

Thanks, goodbye. My two favourite words in Portguese, probably English too come to think of it. I say obrigado, tchau as frequently as possible, often at quite inappropriate times. I love the way tcau feels as it leaves my mouth, it makes me want to swing my hips.

This morning I watched a documentary on the Rory Peck Trust. He was a freelance journalist who was killed in crossfire in an attempted coup in Moscow. The documentary was on an award ceremony the trust holds for outstanding freelance journalists. Obviously Ive forgotten the names but there was some outstanding work there from some journalists Ive seen before covering stories such as the tsunami and Iraq. It was a really inspiring programme. It put my stupid little self-indulgent life into perspective. These people do such great work and what a feeling it must be to witness important events first-hand and to tell the world about them. How proud they must feel to play such an important role and to do it so well. Lots of things to tell the grandchildren too. I have loads of stories, but my grand children certainly aint gonna hear them.

I think I´m leaving for Rio tomorrow by, wait for it, BUS. It´s only 6 hours by bus and bus journeys are so much more satisfying than plane journeys. Sao Paulo was very different than I expected, feels much more like a modern first-world commercial centre than any other city I´ve seen in Brazil. I wouldn´t recommend going out of your way to visit SP though, but it suited me as its on the way to Rio from Buenos Aires and I have a friend, Malu, here too.

Malu has a young son from her first marriage to a Japanese guy. This child, lucky sod, is blessed with Brazilian and Japanse parentage hence he´s an absolute knock-out and will be a heartbreaker in ten years time, if he isn´t already. Sao Paulo has had a large Japanese population for quite a while and many Paulistas have oriental features. Yes, pretty hot.

My brother´s child still hasn´t popped out, it´s 5 days overdue now (is that a big deal? Probably not, but I´m sure Clare will fill me in). I had a horrible dream this morning. I was in my apartment in Macau sleeping. My brother was in a room overlooking my bedroom shouting my name and throwing things through the window. Half-asleep, I was shouting ´Come in Keith, I´m here´ but either he didn´t hear or he was ignoring me. After what seemed an age, he eventually burst into my room, his face contorted with rage and went at me. I awoke at this point. I don´t think I want to spend too much time analysing this dream.