Independent but mentally unstable

The chronicles of O Independente never published in book form. With a preface by Paulo Portas and an afterword by MEC.

How have the ideas put forward by MEC more than 30 years ago, in his highly anticipated chronicles in the weekly newspaper O Independente, survived? The author is now nearing 70, but at that time, he predicted that, due to time lost, he would reach 60 having only lived 30. And, although he was already making predictions and promises, he also already said that what mattered to him were restaurants and love.

What did MEC say, in 1989, about the fatwa decreed by Ayatollah Khomeini against Salman Rushdie? And what was the letter he dedicated to Álvaro Cunhal like, two years later, which begins with “My dear comrade” and ends with “a hug, from your admirer and friend Miguel”? Did he know that, in that same year of 1991, “the year of depression,” Miguel Esteves Cardoso dreamed of Paco Bandeira’s imprisonment, 21 years before he was convicted of domestic violence? And what does he know about geography? Did he know that Belize is the land of Álvaro Size? Or Burundi, the land of imundi? Or even that Switzerland is the country of feijoca and chouriça? And what does he know about international porn-toponymy? Find out all this, as well as MEC’s 101 promises for the year 1992, in this Independente Demente.