The other day, I was in the car driving the way I always do, like a bat out of hell with rocket boosters.  I was in the virtually traffic-free fast lane on the ring road and needed to get into the lane next to me, which was completely stationary but had access to the empty turn-off.  My lane was short and ended in a wall. What I did would have been really cool, if it hadn’t been ridiculous.  I continued in the fast lane until the last moment, touching my brakes intermittently, pretending to be lost and unsure.  Then, at…

Liver with fava beans and a good chianti, or a good Amarone, if you prefer the literary version to the film.  Classical literature, especially Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Goldberg variations of Johann Sebastian Bach, the beautiful city of Florence – all seem like the choices of an extraordinarily cultured and sophisticated person.  In fact, they are. Incredibly, these are also the interests of one of the most famous fictional villains.  The psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, who appears in films like Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, would almost be the perfect gentleman if it weren’t for one minor detail,…

I recently dreamt I had gone to a party in pyjamas.  In case you don’t follow, let me explain – it wasn’t a pyjama party, which would have been pretty weird at my age.  It was a regular party, except I was wearing pyjamas – yes, those good old classic blue-striped pyjamas. In the dream, I seemed to be the only one aware I was in nightclothes, which was really embarrassing irrespective of the others’ opinions.  I tried to convince myself that it could actually be worse – I could have been in fancy dress… dressed up as a pimp…

Rivalry.  The feeling of restless and prolonged animosity.  Certain rivalries are only destructive.  Others, however, are pretty beneficial and drive you to do things that you never would if it weren’t for the insatiable desire to beat your rival.  A classic example is the war of the currents – the main players being Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. The (literally) electrifying rivalry began in 1884, when a young Nikola Tesla began working in Thomas Edison’s laboratory. In case you didn’t know, Edison was the guy who invented continuous electric current (DC), the light bulb and lots of ‘graphs and…

Do you know what Feis Ile is? Feis ile is the biggest annual festival on the island of Islay, famous for production of peated whiskies. Feis Ile celebrates the culture of Islay. There are Gaelic classes, traditional plays, golf and bowling championships and endless whisky tastings. There is also a myriad of curious activities, such as birdwatching and a fly-fishing championship as well as folk-rock music performances. None of this is very important, though… what really matters is the commemorative bottles. For Feis Ile, the Islay distilleries often launch commemorative limited editions – highly sought after by collectors, and certain…

Manners make a man. This is what the British writer William Horman wrote in his book Vulgaria in 1519 – a compendium of quotes and proverbs from his day. In the archaic original, “manners maketh man“, the aphorism may seem overtly polite and outdated, but its meaning is as simple as it is contemporary. He says that courtesy, upbringing and good manners are essential to living in society. ‘Man’ here, is in the broader sense – it means all mankind. All this is by-the-by though, the important thing is that Horman’s quote, which is actually not his but Colin Firth’s…

My daughter is studying Brazilian folklore at school. Yesterday, she came to tell me that her favourite folk character is the (one-legged) little menace, Saci Perere. It makes sense, since she doesn’t sit still and can be quite a little rascal. Then she asked me who my favourite was, and in order not to give an uninteresting, generic answer and also to teach her something new, I decided to do some research. I ran straight to Google. Isn’t our folklore rich!? As well as the pink dolphin, Curupira (a dwarf-like little man, whose feet are turned backwards), werewolf, mule and…

Hiraeth. I couldn’t start this post any other way, but with ‘hiraeth’. The Welsh equivalent of our untranslatable Portuguese word ‘saudade’. Hiraeth has a little extra meaning – it also refers to that existential emptiness caused by the desire for something you have never had. The saudades (longing) that an only child feels for a sibling never born or that I feel for a 54-year-old 1957 Bowmore. Oh, how I miss that Bowmore. In a way, hiraeth is a bit of a paradoxical feeling. It is the nostalgia for everything we can’t see and can’t have. Even worse than…

Ah, the White-headed eagle – a beautiful, strong and fierce animal, at the top of the food chain, feared and respected by all. No wonder it was chosen to represent the United States of America, the greatest military power in the world and a country completely obsessed with power. Even before this though, the eagle, along with other different sized birds of prey, was used as a symbol of strength. The Eastern Roman Empire had a two-headed eagle as its emblem, which was later adopted by Ivan III of Russia. In the Middle East, the Eagle of Saladin became Palestine…

Today, on the way to work, my car told me it was up for a service. The electronic dumping control – or something like that – wasn’t working. When I got to work, I called the garage while I made a coffee with a new machine. Just as I was adjusting the temperature and selecting whether my coffee was long, normal or ristretto, the garage answered and I got confused. I ended up with a scolding hot coffee. I booked the car in hurriedly and, feeling irritated, went to the cafeteria. I ordered a coffee and a typical Brazilian chocolate…