23.03.21 - Gratiluz

Hallooooo,

Hope all well witchu and you've had a good birthday season. Over here we're almost done with Gabi's course after an all-day shoot on Sunday, and we went to see our first new prospective stopgap flat but it turned out to be a bit rubbish (despite having a bathtub and a fireplace, which I didn't think was possible).

Otherwise work continues onwards, lockdown shows no sign of easing up, and they keep adding floors to the gym being built next door, but at least we've got the pool back, which is handy as it's absolutely boiling at the moment. 

I've made a new mix, and my phrase of the day (a portmanteau of "gratidão"/"gratitude" and "luz"/"light") is currently being used to make fun of people - usually jetset influencers - who are annoyingly overly-positive on social media, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

Speak soon!

Super Freddy Animals

16.03.21 - Desgraça pouca é bobagem

Halloooo,

Hope all well o'er there. 

We've both been under the weather recently, prompting a rare trip out of the house on Friday to get our noses swabbed in a hospital garage, followed by a prolonged spell indoors as we waited for the results, which as it turns out are negative. 

The whole thing has thrown off our timetable for the course, which was due to wrap up next week, but otherwise we didn't miss much since everything in the city is on full lockdown for the next week at least.

In other news I've made another mixtape, and my (rather timely) phrase of the day is "desgraça pouca é bobagem", which I guess translates literally as "there's no such thing as a little disgrace" ("bobagem", of course, meaning "a load of rubbish"), and basically means "it never rains but it pours".

Speak soon!

Fredch Toast

09.03.21 - Dar uma de cachorro magro

Hallooooo,

Hope all well and lovely to see you on the old Zoom the other day. 

We are hard at work churning out hours of knowledge for Gaby's course which is now in full swing, with its first live webinar taking place on Friday. Just as well since there's sod all else to do at the moment, between lockdown shutting everything down again like it's March 2020, and the rain setting in to mark the end of summer. 

In other news, I've made another compilation, and my phrase of the week ("to make like a thin dog") refers to people who turn up for a meal and leave straight after eating. Quite niche but effective, I say.

More to follow as we have it.

Oprah WinFred

02.03.21 - Estou de saco cheio

Hallloooooo,

Hope all well down in Antibes. 

Over here Gaby's course has been a roaring success so yesterday we launched it and now we have to actually finish the damn thing, over the next month or so. On top of all that, our landlord decided last week would be a good time to kick the bucket and have his kids repossess the flat (he was quite old and it was always on the cards, to be fair), so we're trying to figure out how long we have to up sticks, and where to up them to, which should be a barrel of laughs.

In the meantime I've made not one but two new mixtapes (one of which features a Brazil/Wales crossover track, so see if you can spot that... OK, it's the one with the Welsh title), and my phrase of the day is a perennial favourite - when people here are fed up, they say "estou de saco cheio", or "my bag is full". So "give me a break" becomes "não me enche o saco" / "don't fill my bag", etc. Not sure why or how, but it amuses me quite regularly.

Ciao for now,

Fred Up

23.02.21 - Vai dar pano pra manga

Hallooo,

Hope all well 'n that. In between recording and editing sessions we've been frantically getting Gabi's course ready for pre-sale, which kicked off last night with an official start date of March 1st, so it'll be interesting to see how that progresses. 

On Saturday I met up with my old bandmates for our first jam in over two years (albeit with a slightly different line-up, as our old bassist and keyboardist have retired) which was fun and surprisingly coherent - we even played a song from the '90s, which is about as modern as it gets with those guys (and one by Peter f***ing Frampton, but let's never speak of that again). I also forgot to mention that I was offered a role in a Bee Gees cover band earlier in the month, but turned it down as I only know about 3 of their songs.

We also went out for dinner down the road with some friends, which featured a guy wandering around serenading people with a glow-in-the-dark saxophone. Between all that and the weekly football last night, it's been an eerily pandemic-free weekend, not that the vaccine-related news is any grounds for confidence (neither is Brazil's vaccination mascot, for that matter).

Then there's this week's mixtape, and phrase of the day ("vai dar pano pra manga" / "it's going to give cloth for sleeves"), which is spoken of hot topics which look likely to inspire debate for the foreseeable future ("manga", of course, means "mango" as well as "sleeve", which confuses matters somewhat).

Think that's about it.

He Fred She Fred

16.02.21 - 对牛弹琴

Hallloooooo,

Thanks for tuning in yesterday, link to mum's birthday tune to follow. Hope you had a whizzy jolly day! Over here we're hard at work down the content mines, pulling an all-dayer on Saturday to record a fair chunk of Gaby's course which I am now in the process of whittling down and applying bells and whistles to, and which is due to launch on March 1st, weather permitting. We also went out for a stroll around Vila Madalena on Sunday, armed with our 2-for-1 discount book, after I got outrageously sunburnt in the pool.

Elsewhere I've made another mixtape, and my phrase of the day comes from China: "对牛弹琴", which means "playing the lute to a cow", i.e. "talking to a brick wall". Palmeiras' clown-car World Club Cup campaign wrapped up with an ignominious loss in the third-place play-off (bearing in mind that they would have finished in fourth place if they hadn't travelled to Qatar at all). And I've been enjoying http://radio.garden/, which is basically Google Earth that tunes into radio stations from around the world.

Ciao for now!

Fred Ringer for Love

09.02.21 - Tem mais passado do que futuro

Hallooooo,

Hope all well 'n that. We've had an action-packed week shooting and editing Gaby's course, which we're hoping to launch at the end of the month, weather permitting. That's been the main focus but we also got out on Sunday night to see some friends who live down the road for the first time in ages, which was nice and involved lots of dogs.

Otherwise it's another week another playlist, and my phrase of the week ("tem mais passado do que futuro" / "[x] has more past than future") is quite a stark way of describing someone or something as over-the-hill or on its way out. 

And as an update to last week's primer on Palmeiras not having a "mundial" - their wait goes on, as they were eliminated by Mexico's Tigres UANL before they even reached the final against Bayern Munich. Not funny at all, I'm sure you'll agree.

Speak soon!

Fredge of Tomorrow