MARIA THE BIG LESBIAN

It would be quite wrong to suggest that December heralds the start of the party season in Brazil, as since Carnaval people have been pretty much in the swing of things. The Christmas period merely increases the frequency, volume and festivity of knees-ups.

Show's septuagenarian aunt (who, incidentally, has recently been crowned Miss Senior Citizen both for our town and for the state of São Paulo, with the Miss Senior Citizen Brazil contest taking place in Natal early next year) organised the first of what will inevitably be many parties on Saturday night, a typical affair which followed the usual pattern - everybody standing around eating with relish, everybody standing around drinking in moderation, then everybody dancing with total abandon.

To be honest, I wasn't really in a party mood (something Show was quick to point out to me from between clenched teeth), but I have to admit that my back's still giving me jip from my entry into the collective hysteria into which Brazilian galas invariably descend. It was when the DJ (Show's aunt) put on the Marchinhas de Carnaval things really got going. The lyrics hark back to an earlier, stranger time, with such classic lines as:

Mamãe eu quero,
Mamãe eu quero,
Mamãe eu quero mamar

Mother I want to,
Mother I want to,
Mother I want to breast feed

and the delightfully non-PC “Maria the Big Lesbian”:

Maria sapatão, sapatão, sapatão,
De dia é Maria,
De noite é João.

Maria the big lezzer, big lezzer, big lezzer,
By day she's Maria,
At night she's John

continuing in a similar vein,

Olha a cabeleira do Zezé,
Será que ele é?
Será que ele é?
Bicha! (everybody shouting)

Look at Zezé's hair,
Do you reckon he is?
Do you reckon he is?
Poofter! (everybody shouting)

Ah the innocence of past epochs.

I am consistently amazed at how Brazilians manage to do parties, family gatherings, in fact anything collective, with such genuine joy. All the grandmothers were dancing. A mother was dancing with a sleeping babe in her arms. Even an ex-con with a history of violence was getting it on.

It's a far cry from British assemblages, where only the youngest and least self-conscious / drunkest venture into the limelight. I once had a girlfriend who recounted how her Irish father used to ruin her chances at every wedding reception by suddenly appearing in front of her performing his own unique Irish dance, arms firmly clamped to his sides, all frenzied kicking and hopping, this in the days long before Michael Flatley made such practices hugely profitable / socially acceptable.

I could be on a different planet. And I'm rather glad of that.