Inspiration

…over here at Ben P towers.

I imagine that the combination of ‘readers of this blog’ and ‘people who are interested in football’ must be about the smallest venn diagram in the world.  I always feel a bit sorry for Rob, in the architectural office, who is the only person in our entire team who has a serious knowledge of or interest in the beautiful game.  Every time we make a new hire, I think Rob vaguely hopes that he might have a football buddy to discuss last night’s match with, but it just doesn’t ever seem to work out that way.

So perhaps it was Rob’s cunning plan to somehow or another conspire to give me Brazil in the world cup office sweepstake.  I was out at the time – so I think it was Ruth who picked on my behalf. I got back to the office that evening to find these three little tags stuck on my computer.

Not bad, when you think about it, although I think I rate Iran’s chances slightly higher than our own.   But obviously I was quite pleased about Brazil.

Now I know this might make me sound like Baroness Morgan, over in the House of Lords this week, who also admitted that she’d picked Brazil in the office sweepstake… and you will be glad to hear I’m not turning up to work in a T-shirt like hers just yet…

…But it is true to say I’ve been in favour of all things Brazilian for a while. One of the things I love most of all about living in London, is, um, how can I put this? The number of lovely Brazilians who’ve made our great city their home. They are very friendly indeed.

For instance, our cleaner Fernando in the office. Every now and again Fernando brings his beautiful little daughters to the office after school.  Mainly, they have a fun time colouring in that day’s discarded elevations picked out of the recycling box, but from time to time they join in to help.  (okay, this is not actual child slave labour, before anyone complains). And on Friday evening… world cup fever had definitely hit.

CUTE huh?

A lot of the culture vultures, I note, have been writing about the beauty of Brazilian architecture or design just now.  It’s been an article I’ve read in a few papers as the literati desperately struggle to keep up.

Over here at Ben P land we’re not quite so subtle. The girls sure are cute, but not quite as cute as my favourite Instagram feed of all time: Ricardo Baldin. I recommend you follow him now, alongside 43,543 others.  So Ricardo, you get the last word. Or, at least, the last look.

Happy watching. Viva Brazil!