More Gatos, Even More Pingados

Second sighting of one of my favourite expressions: gatos pingados. I mentioned this one back on 2017, when I read it in a short story, so I recognised it straight away, referring to the Azov battalion (the bogeymen in Putin’s anti-Ukraine propaganda) as “half a dozen wet cats without the slightest influence in the country”. Wet cats, drippy cats, basically stragglers, lonely people. You’ve also got a second expression, much more familiar to English speakers “cereja no topo do bolo” (the cherry on top of the cake)