Things I love about Brazil #32: Great Wall Art. That last photo is very bad, I took it out of the back window of the car as I couldn`t really stop. But, the reason I took the photo is to remind me of the group of artists I saw painting this mural. Presumably sent over by the council (who have, it has to be said, a good eye for presentation) several blank or grubby walls have been turned into works of art. You can just about make out some of the themes in the piece above - pollution, war, colour.

Things I miss about England #43: Museums. There are museums in Natal, but they're not very good. One famous one is the blue angel gallery (pictured above) which is around the corner from my house. I`ve never been but I haven't been able to find the door behind the monstrosity in the front yard. A great museum can be found at Parque de Cidade (Things I love about Brazil #38: Parque da cidade). It's a state of the art museum at the top of an impressive piece of architecture which looks like an eye on a pole (pictured above). We've been several times. Only problem is - when the new town council were elected they didn't spare funds to keep the museum open. A crying shame! In any case, I miss museums. There are hardly any up in the north-east of Brazil.

Things I love about Brazil #37: Orange. Orange (see above) is an amazing establishment. It's a diversified video store. It includes a kids play area, a fast food restaurant, a bar and a takeaway service. It's definitely the closest thing we have to "a local" (see TIMAE#10). We're now friends with the staff and they know our kids by name. What I really like about Orange, though, is their brand is a great example of how Brazilians encorporate English and then surround it with Portuguese. The Orange menu is full of such delights as "Orange dogs", "Orange Eggs", "Orange pizza" and even "Orange juice". At least its better than their local rivals Pittsburgh who offer "Pitts Chicken". Hmmm, yummy. Or, several hundred yards away their other rivals "Playburger" (see above). Eeewwwww. It's amazing to me that in the age of multinational brands, there are a few homegrown Brazilian brands which are fiercely resistant and continue to draw the custom of the local population.

The strange people we left behind: part 1. Moving to a new apartment block was definitely for the best, but I'm sure we'll be sorry to see the back of our neighbourhood as it certainly had some colourful characters in it. In particular, we will probably miss the employees of Palader Satanejer. PS is a small delhi which sells authentic Natalense meat, cheese, cakes, bread, alcohol, beans, nuts and sweets and a lot else besides. It's extremely well-run and is worth a visit just for the colours, flavours and smells. Nelson is always is in awe of the various things hanging from the ceiling - a stuffed cow's head, a bottled crab, a side of dried beef, a large bunch of some unknown fruit...

Anyway, the other day I paid them a visit and under the premise that as we had moved I wanted photos of the shop that I missed, I waltzed in with my new camera and after asking permission started snapping away. What I REALLY wanted a picture of, though, was the framed headshots of some of the employees that were propped up on the counter. The reason being, one of them is named Keith. Not so unusual, I hear you say. But, wait for it, SHE'S A LADY!!!!! Let me repeat that again. In the shop near to where we lived is a WOMAN NAMED KEITH!!!!! How funny is that? So, I was delighted I managed to get photographic evidence of a picture of the bizarrely-named female in question.

My father-in-law thinks that probably she is called Keith becuase her parents wanted to call her Katie but misspelt it - or rather, spelt it phonetically as you would say it in Portuguese. When presented with the written word KEITH a Brazilian would probably pronounce the name as KATIE.

Dad is 60, not out. Well done Dad on another milestone.

Danny is 28, not out. And congrats to my ol pal Danny "My Son" Byrne on becoming 28 yesterday. As it would happen the Byrnes sent us not one, not three, but TWO huge parcels from the UK which arrived yesterday too. So, now Nelson has a bowling game, I have a CD and curry and Rach has some cosmetics... we're very grateful indeed. In fact, seeing as I forgot it was Danny's birthday yesterday, I feel doubley indebted to our good friends from York. Voçes estão demais!

OK, OK, we get the idea. I'm carrying my new birthday camera around everywhere which means its handy for any slightly odd or obscure thing I see. Actually, Rach and I often chuckle at the frequent occurrence of random things we come across just from driving around - a donkey standing in the middle of the road with nobody around, a man taking 15 dogs for a walk, a man juggling fire for money at the traffic lights, a huge hole in the road when there wasn't one there yesterday, a strike or protest of something or other... Anyway, we saw this picture above at a petrol station. They seem pretty adamant about not accepting any sort of payment by cards, don`t they? I wonder if they accept cash? If so, I bet they don't have any change.

Legião Urbana (Urban Legion). Back in Recife, Rach managed to dig out two CDs for the Brazilian band Legião Urbana for me. I'd first heard their music when it was playing on the loudspeaker at the Maracajau water park. Rach rolled her eyes when I said I liked it. This was the band all of her friends were into at school but she obstinately refused to listen to. They're kind of the Brazilian Smiths, and I think some of their songs exhibit a heavy REM influence (no bad thing). In many ways the band were known for being anti-religious or anti-church, but my current favourite is the ballad "Monte Castelo" from their album Os Quatro Estaçoes (The Four Seasons). It's a well-known song of theirs from circa 1989 based on the famous words of 1 Corinthians 13 from the Bible. You can watch a performance of it here.

James Blunt. Speaking of music, one of the worst imports of music here from the UK has to be James Blunt's tepid and squeeky vocal performances as sung over the top of predict-a-chord dirgey songs. Unfortunately for us, (but darned lucky for him and his publicity machine) a James Blunt song is being used as the theme to a Brazlian Globo TV soap opera called Duas Caras (Two faces). Now, James Blunt can count among his fans every middle-aged housewife in Brazil as well as every middle-aged housewife in the UK. Ana, the lady who helps in our house, listens to a radio station that plays only Brazilian popular music and James Blunt. Caramba! The song is all over YouTube, but someone has helpfully put Portuguese subtitles over this video of Mr.Blunt perfoming the number in question.

(Small fact: did you know that the Globo's soap operas are so famous and widely watched and Globo is itself such a huge a corporation that they can insist on late kick-offs for any domestic or international Brazilian football fixture so the match doesn't cut into soap opera time. This annoyingly means all major evening games, including Wednesday's Libertadores Final, start at the ridiculous time of 9.50pm!!! If the game goes to penatlies, as it did on Wednesday, it finishes after midnight. I'm always asleep by the second half).

Congrats to cousin Simon and wife Katie on the arrival of Lucie Iona Payne.

Things I miss about England #71: General administrative competence. OK, so it's debatable if this is even such a good thing in England given the numerous horror stories we have in trying to secure VISAs and passports or sign up for a new phone deal or phone the DVLA, but Brazil, on average has to be a lot worse. Don't get me wrong - it's not all bad. My ID arrived in one piece (after 18 months) and we recently got Gloria her Brazilian ID relatively painlessly. But, trying to get Gloria registered as a British citizen is not proving to be easy given there is a postal strike on at the moment. Furthermore, moving house and trying to switch our cable and internet providers and trying to get a spare key from the estate agents is proving to be a jumbled mix of red tape, conflicting stories and loopy administrating for poor Rachel who is burdened with sorting it out.

Things I love about Brazil #87: interesting city names. Our recent travels to Joao Pessoa and Recife and my plan to travel to Fortaleza this month have reminded me that Brazil has some excellent names for cities. Those three I mentioned translate literally as John Person, Reef and Fortress. Of course, we live in Christmas (Natal) which is close to the beach towns of Kite (Pipa) and Chicken Port (Porto da Galinhas) and down south there is Saviour (Salvador), January River (Rio do Janeiro), Saint Paul (Sao Paulo) and Happy Port (Porto Alegre). These names aren't like the ones we have in England are they? There ain't no Skegness, Cricklewood, Blackpool or Ponders End round here...

Oops, I've just noticed I have two entries for "fresh milk" in my things I miss about England list. Why didn't anyone tell me? I must really miss fresh milk to place it at both number 16 and number 48. In it's place (at number 48) I think I'll put celery, another food related item that I really miss...

This post has grown and grown to become another monster entry. Sorry folks.

Things I miss about England #34: People know how to park (mostly). I've been wanting to post a picture of some of the abysmal Brazilian parking I've come across but I never really have my camera handy when I'm pulling up at a supermarket. Fortunately, today, I did. See above and take note of the direction of the painted car parking spaces and then laugh at the way the car is parked perpendicular to the spaces in question. I think I've quoted Prince Philip's infamous and unpolitically correct quip elsewhere on this blog: "That box looks like its been wired by an Indian" but I frequently find myself saying, "That car looks like its been parked by a Brazilian!". Altogether now, to the tune of "walk like an Egyptian" lets all "park like a Brazilian!". But then again, who said the English could park a car.

Things I miss about England #45: Breakfast. I just can't seem to find a quick, tasty and filling way to have breakfast here in Natal. When I ask my students in class about what they ate for breakfast most return blank stares and say coffee, water, milk or maybe bread and cheese. Breakfast just isn't done here like it is back home.

So, things I miss about England #s 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 and 52 are: fresh mushrooms (not available in Natal - surely, a crime!), baked beans, fresh milk (for tea and cereal), good quality cereal (the best cereal here is extortionately priced, doesn't even taste too good, especially with non-fresh milk), fresh bread (Brazilian bread is OK, but it still doesn't beat a loaf of Tesco no frills white) and lastly sausages (Brazilian sausages are in the Vauxhall Conference compared to English Premier League sausages). Like Mev used to say when he was here, the first thing I'm doing when I get home is having a real fry-up with real bread and a cup of freshly brewed tea...

Things I love about Brazil #46: Breakfast. OK, OK, somethings about Brazilian breakfasts are OK. In fact, I contradict myself if I say I dislike Brazilian breakfasts as I positively sang their praises back in November 2006. The main problem for me is that they it's usually accompanied by an inordinate amount of faff in order to get things ready and also fresh fruit, although nice, often goes off quickly. However, if one has the time one can make juice from frozen pulps (Things I love about Brazil #85: frozen fruit pulps) then you're onto a scrumptious start to the day, especially if the fruit in question is Açerola (Things I love about Brazil #30: Açerola) which, according to old Brazilian fishwives packs more vitamin C into one small cherry-sized portion than is present in a bag of oranges.

On the subject of food and drink but not breakfast, where would be without cachaça, the alcoholic spirit made from sugar cane, (Things I love about Brazil #67: Cachaça) to make caipirinha (Things I love about Brazil #29: Caipirinha), the national cocktail? A bottle of Pitú brand cachaça only costs R4 - about 1 UK quid. This filled me with glee when I discovered that such a famous drink could be assembled so cheaply (just add chopped limes and sugar for caipirinha) but as my father-in-law points out when spirits with 40% alcohol content are sold for less than milk, something is wrong and someone, somewhere is going to get hurt. Fair enough. As for caipirinha itself, I'm slowly discovering that this drink is somewhat viewed here the same way Guiness may be viewed in Ireland. Yes, we're famous for it but no we don't drink it ourselves - it's for the tourists.

Things I love about Brazil #88: Bolo de rolo. Quality traditional Brazilian treat of rolled pastry filled with guava jam. Good for breakfast, thank goodness.

Things I love about Brazil #98: Baton chocolate. So, it's not Cadbury's, but it will do.

Rachel is superwoman or "no babies were born during the making of this conference". I knew there was something good about my wife when I married her, but I had no idea about her special abilities to run a full-blown conference when 9 months pregnant. The Cultura Directors Conference which drew over 100 delegates from Brazil's four corners seems to have passed very well (save for the hired bus drivers bogging off just before delegates were to be taken to a Saturday night drinks do). My duties mainly involved baby-sitting Nelson and one or two of the other kids of the other delegates. I'm exhausted today but the one who really deserves a break is Rach. Next on the agenda for her: having a baby.

Things I miss about England #84: Custard. Especially when it's lavishly poured over a pub-menu sticky toffee pudding.

Things I love about Brazil #58: Puddings. There's an oft quoted maxim that says Brazilian go to restaurants for the desert trolley and not the main courses. That's because they have the sweetest of sweet tooths (sweet teeth?) in recorded history. A Brazilian recently asked me, "Dave, are you like me in that when you're eating your main course are you just thinking of the desert to come?". I replied: "No, when I'm eating desert, I normally wish I had had more main course".

The Brazilian deserts are an acquired taste - I would describe many of them as sickly sweet. Unlike British deserts which tend to be made out of pastry or eggs or flour, Brazilian puddings look and taste like a bowl of left-over icing or thick milky syrup. It's as if they've discovered that what people really like is licking the spoons that stirred the cookie mix and, so, geniuses that they are, they skipped the part where you have to cook anything and just put out the cookie mix to eat. Many popular puddings - such as doçe de leite (literally, "sweet of milk") or brigadeiro (pure chocolate balls) - are runny or pasty and extremely rich. The strangest one might have to be my wife's favourite, the local delicacy called cartola. Banana, cinnamon and melted cheese swimming in sugar served hot. Hmmmm, are you sure those combinations really work?

Anyway, Brazilians do not eat (and can't endure) spicy food at all - I think it's because all available taste buds have been harnassed into coping with the endless tide of sugar passing through their lug holes and over their tongues. But, like curry, it's possible to get accustomed to it, and after 18 months here I admit to being partial to the odd thing of three from the afters menu. And, due to the CDC conference with the all-inclusive hotel lunches, I've been making sure to visit the desert trolley to sample some of the delights on offer including passion fruit moose, cashew nut pies, cheese cake, chocolate cake, tapioca pudding or, my personal favourite, pudim de leite.

More extraordinary music. Did you listen to the songs on YouTube which I posted a few days ago? Well, I suggest you do (the first two are actually good) but no matter if you didn't, thanks to Felipe, one of my students who is a fan of forró music I was able to track down the clip I really wanted to post. I don't know why this makes me break out into fits of laughter. Maybe it's the cheesey and amateurish video which includes views of Recife's main tourist attractions, maybe it's the larger than life lead-singer with the flowing hair and the motorbike, maybe it's the way the "girl" reads the comic book on the sofa or maybe it's the butchering of the music to Robbie Williams' song Angels by the never-ending accordians and badly-played piano. Either way, it's a little window into what Brazilian chavs like to listen to. The outfit are called Desejo de menina (Desire of the girl) and the song is Minha alma gêmea é você (My soul is twinned with you). Click here and brace yourself to be impressed.

Chad part 2. Just spoke to Mum this morning on Skype. She is in Southampton with my Uncle and Aunt. Things have quietened down steadily through the week. Today, Dad was able to call her from their own house which, surprisngly and wonderfully, hadn't been looted. Still lots of unanswered questions, missing people and chaos. And it is possible the rebels may try to re-enter the city at some point. But, all in all, the news coming out of Chad has been better, thank God. Be in touch if you would like more news about this.

Marcelo Alves. My lawyer friend (see last week's post) was accepted for his PhD at King's College. Wahey!

Edson Careca. It was carnaval this weekend which is a good time to get together with the family and hit the beach. The sun was beating down and everywhere was obscenely crowded but we had a good time nonetheless. For the fourth time, I went on the sand dune buggy ride, this time with Rachel's brother and girlfriend. In a moment of insanity we chose to go with the driver Edson Careca (see last week's post) who seemed hell-bent on raising his own ridiculously high bar for driving like a lunatic. Nelson complained about a sore bum the next day and Marcella vowed never to do it again.

Things I miss about England #28: Cycle lanes. Steve and I cycled out to Genipabu beach from north Natal (inspired by Theo who walked there in a morning) on Monday. It was fairly flat and the scenery was beautiful - a recommended excursion for any gringos, as long as you have sundown layered on with a spade, shades and a hat. The only thing was in the short stretch on busy streets it was really a case of us battling the buses, the buggies, the pedestrians, the animals, the motorbikes and the potholes with no protection except your wits. York cycle paths this was not. At one point, I was distracted by the sight of a small town car close to scraping the floor under the burden of the 9 people it was carrying. That's 2 in the front, 4 in the backseat and three kids sitting in the boot, with the hatch open and their legs dangling out over the bumper waving at the cars behind.

Things I love about Brazil #39: Carne de sol and macaxeira fritas. After our cycle ride I was famished and couldn't wait to order my favourite snack. Carne de sol is sun-dried, cured meat which is included in many of the dishes of northern Brazil. It is often cut into strips or shredded and has a very salty taste. It is usally fried very simply - probably in soya oil - and comes with some tomatoes, onions and lettuce if you're lucky. The local deli sells it and today I bought a kilo to make for lunch. Macaxeira (Manioc in English) fritas (fries) are a good accompaniment, very filling and so nice when they are crispy and fresh. Nelson loves to get a long Macaxeira frita, dip it in ketchup or Mayonnaise (or both mixed together) and suck the chip soggy.