http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/ Welcome to Been there. Your tips on the places you know - that you love, live in or have just visited - are what make this guide. http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9257 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9257 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9256
On Sundays in the square, there are often art fairs and you can buy yourself a comic from the legendary Makoki comic shops - I recommend 'El Bueno de Cuttlass', a hilarious stick cowboy who has a girlfriend called Mabel and an obsession with Kraftwerk.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9256 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9202
Corinthians, nicknamed 'Timao' were actually given to me by someone I chatted to about which team I was going to support. The conversation I had on arrival in Brazil for the first time in 1995 ran roughly as follows: "What's your team over here then?" "I don't know, not decided yet" "What do you mean?" "My team in England is Manchester City, and we only really have extreme success or failure - we won 4 major cups in 3 seasons in the late 60s/70s but we've been relegated loads of time and we know how to screw up a game we should have tied up - and the fans are 'muito fiel' (very loyal) I want to support a team like that here." The upshot was that the man basically told me that only Corinthians could fit the bill becuase their support is known as 'O Fiel' and because they too regularly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I asked who their famous players were and he said Socrates, Rivelino and Casagrande. My dad used to gush about Socrates and that nailed it for me. As an English lad doing a year of his degree in Brazil it further enthused me that the club's home ground is the Parque Sao Jorge (Saint George Park). However, the club mainly plays home games at the Morumbi Stadium, home of one of their hated rivals, São Paulo (the other rival being Palmeiras, the former team of Roberto Carlos and, later, Luis Felipe Scolari).

It's said of Corinthians that where most football clubs are followed by their fans, Corinthians is a set of fans who happen to drag a football club in their wake. Their most controversial group of supporters, the organised supporters network 'Gavioes da Fiel' (Hawks of the Faithful) organise a massive carnival parade and if football were banned, then as long as there was anyone left in Brazil in the first place, the Gavioes would celebrate Corintianidade ('Corinthian-ness') with drums and dancing anyway. They also famously invade other clubs' grounds and make away games feel like home matches, as they did in the 70s with a legendary clash with Flamengo at the Maracana in the Rio-Sao Paulo Cup.

Brazilian club football has taken many batterings over the years with corruption and low attendances, but if you want a team that will never provide a dull moment, this is it. And their kit looks cool.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9202 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9200
Manchester Art Gallery on Mosley Street has a couple of his panoramic paintings in its permanent collection, and the Lowry in Salford also has some of his work. Spencer's work has been reproduced in some limited print formats and is available from Wendy Levy Contemporary Art in Didsbury. While there, it would be worth a meal at the The Lime Tree restaurant in nearby West Didsbury, which also has a panorama painting of Salford Quays but the most unlikely place you would see a Spencer work is the reception to the Accident and Emergency section of North Manchester General Hospital in Crumpsall, which has a huge panorama of the hospital itself, at a worryingly low height given the agitated states I've seen some of the clientele in. Let's hope your visit to Didsbury's bars and restaurants doesn't cause you to visit the final stop on my Liam Spencer tour!]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/9200 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/8926
After that, you could go further up Tib Street and drink in Centro and then have another pint in the Copper Kettle, a pub whose restoration ran out of money - look at the ceiling on one side of the pub, and then the other. One side was restored, the other remains as it was when the building was almost derelict. However, if you choose to hit Great Ancoats Street at this stage, all there is from there is street and no canal. Instead, after Yadgar, I suggest you go back towards Piccadilly and locate the Mother Mac pub, on a side street off Oldham Street. This, I imagine, will remain like something out of Victorian times even long into another era in which Manchester aspires to make its eastern central section resemble a damper, rainier New York.

From Mother Mac's, you could stock up on samosas at Marhaba, one of the other remaining low-price curry houses in the city centre, or maybe buy some bread and head towards the canal - there's an entrance on to the towpath on Ducie Street, which is the road bearing left as you reach the ramp leading towards Piccadilly Station. Once on the canal, the geese are very 'people-friendly' - in other words, mind your fingers.

Continuing up the canal, you'll reach steps at Great Ancoats Street. Following crowds towards the ground, my final stop is the Bank Of England pub. It's not just a no-frills pub - it's a no-stitching-at-all pub. The toilets are signposted by a male and female pointing figure silhouette shapes, but the male silhouette says 'women' on it and the female one 'male' - everyone turns the wrong direction the first time, like one of those psychological tests where they write 'blue' on a red-coloured board. Once you've survived this delightful obstacle course, remember, you've still got a football match to watch, and the return leg into town afterwards to negotiate. As is often said of Manchester City, it's the 90 minutes in the middle that ruins the experience.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/8926 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/7670
The town itself is a wonderfully relaxed place to go to either after the tropical buzz of Salvador or, if you're coming in from Brasilia or another place in the interior, it's a great point to stop off before hitting Bahia's state capital. One of the walks to Fumaca allows walkers to stop at the 'Escorregadeira', an exhilarating natural rock waterslide which may or may not make your local osteopath a few quid in years to come, as well as some stunning pools that precede an under-reported classic experience of travel in Brazil: showering under a waterfall.

The land is known as Chapada Diamantina because it used to be a hunting ground for diamonds. The boom is over, with eco-tourism now a main source of wealth for the region; diamonds aren't forever, but my memories of walking up to Fumaca will be with me for a lot longer.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/7670 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/7660
At night, you need to be a bit streetwise, but there are the clubs and bars in the Recife Antigo area and the Patio de Sao Pedro and it's a great night out, but in the daytime, Recife city centre's more mundane sights are something that for some reason captivate me. It's not one thing in particular - it's the whole place. At certain times of the day, you get old men selling decrepit vinyl albums lined on the walls of the square to the side of Avenida Dantas Barreto. Near Igreja do Carmo, you'll find men singing Embolada, a mesmeric poetic duel that'll make you wonder how the hell they can summon the power to make you lose sense of where you are using just their voices and a pair of tambourines. You'll find people barbecuing meats and cheeses in unlikely corners and men fishing for crab off the bridges.

The oldest law faculty in the Americas is here, cheek by jowl with some of the best and cheapest lunch restaurants you may ever find; there are some faded Deco-style buildings and plenty of Portuguese colonial-style architecture too, with wrought iron British-designed bridges connecting the three islands, as well as a former prison that doubles up as a craft centre.

Among the narrow streets, men use makeshift sound systems to promote the clothes or radios or cutlery their shop is trying to sell you. This sort of thing would be considered noise pollution in most developed countries, but it makes for a strange sort of music in Recife; "Clothes shop MC on the M-I-C", said my friend.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/7660 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5850 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5850 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5188 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5188 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5187 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/5187