January is the month of my birthday. I turned thirty-three, with the liver of a sixty-something year old. And I realised something: My last thirty years were no way near as important as my first three. I notice this in my daughter, the little pup. My puppy is three years old, with social skills I didn’t master until I was twenty. I don’t know if it’s because she’s an incredibly sociable creature, or if I’m completely socially inept. She can talk to anyone, question, lie, make small talk and order cheese bread at the bakery in an extremely charming way…

When I was a child I didn’t really care about the latest fad. I never touched a tazo and I never collected Coca-Cola bottles. But one thing always got me – Kinder Surprise. Looking back realistically, perhaps I didn’t even like the chocolate that much. What I really wanted was the surprise. Although that’s funny, because if I had found the surprise without its delicious, traditional casing, I probably wouldn’t have been interested in it either. The genius of the Kinder Egg is the combination of those elements. The two things together – coupled with the expectation of what’s inside…

I’ve been thinking a lot about time. Not the portuguese perfect homonym for weather. because everybody knows that this weather is crazy, and sometimes it’s cold in the morning, it’s hot in the afternoon and it rains at night, and we go out with a wardrobe of something we will not even use. I do not mean this “time”. I refer to the passage of seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. That time, theme of the famous refutation of Borges. The essence of which we are made, the river that robs me, the tiger that devours me, the fourth dimension. Such…

When I was born, my dad had a gold Puma car. From my earliest, tender childhood years I loved that car. My dad probably did too, because he kept it for a good five years after I was born. The problem was that the car only had two seats and I was only a child, I wasn’t allowed to sit in the front seat. This, of course, didn’t stop my dad from putting me on the hard ledge behind the passenger seat to take me for a spin around the block. In the eighties, seat belts and common sense were…

Once I mentioned the Ariel Atom, a car that can hardly be considered a car.  There is no radio, no windscreen, certainly no air-conditioning, no roof, no doors and don’t even think about a boot.  The Ariel Atom reminds of a funny Brazilian children’s song about a house that has nothing.  Like the house in this song, the Ariel Atom doesn’t even have a pot to pee in – but it actually should have, because it scares you that much.  The Atom has a steering wheel, a strong engine and the power to rip the skin off your face, Ghost…

If you like cars, you must have heard of the Nissan GTR. The Nissan GTR is the heir of Skyline, a super-sporty Japanese car although produced by the Prince Motor Company. In 2009, the GTR entered the Guinness Book of Records for having the fastest acceleration from 0-60mph for a four-seater. This however, isn’t so important. What is, is that the GTR (and its parent, the Skyline) is one of the most sought-after and talked-about cars by any auto-geek. It might be because the car has starred in some video game, or gained fame by outdoing much more expensive cars…

Queen of the Night smells like a broken tooth. Not to everyone but it does to me. Whenever I smell the scent of the flower, I discretely run my tongue over my teeth as I feel a mismatched sense of relief. Phew! It’s just the flower, nothing fell out this time. At the age of eight, I broke a tooth. I was running in my Grandmother’s garden near some pots of Queen of the Night one evening. I clearly remember the twilight, the smell of jasmine, tripping and falling, passing out and the taste of rust in my mouth. To…

Thursday, 2:30 p.m. Three whiskey glasses set in front of me. In the adjoining room, bartenders prepare cocktails with whiskey for guests – among them, a variation of a mash, created by Paulo Freitas, Brazilian ambassador for Wild Turkey and Campari. Given the ome of the day and the ethylic assemblage, this is not a normal day of work. But there’s a reason. Robin Coupar, the global ambassador of Wild Turkey, arrived in Brazil to guide a series of tastings, and this Dog had the pleasure of participating in one of them. During the presentation, Robin – who is Scottish…

On a winter night in Oakland 1905, an eleven-year-old boy named Frank Epperson accidentally left a glass of water, soft drink powder and a stick he had used to mix the two outside his house. At that moment, he had no idea what he had just created. The next day, the boy found his frozen drink with a stick conveniently standing upright in the middle – perfect for picking it up. The world’s first ice lolly was born. Some years later, Epperson himself set about patenting his serendipity. A century later, Epperson’s creation can be found all over the world. …

We form sentimental relationships with a lot of things: with the car that we drove on an incredible trip, the film we watched that time with someone special and the song that helped us overcome a challenge. It’s not necessarily good or bad, but it’s a feeling that something is special to you, however trivial it may seem to others. They are things that are part of a moment of epiphany, or that mark some sort of change in our lives. One of the whiskies that holds a special place in my memory is AnCnoc. AnCnoc was my favourite in…