Busy Busy Busy...

As ever I am feeling ridiculously busy at the moment. Just a little summary for those who care, here is where my life lies at the moment:

• Internship at an EU agency;
• Doing a research degree;
• Volunteer researcher for the International Drug Policy Consortium;
• Teaching English;
• Portuguese lessons twice a week;
  
• Running and DJing an indie clubnight;
• I'm the new Spotter on Lisbon's SpottedByLocals;
• Maintaining my blogs

It feels like I have my fingers in quite a lot of pies at the moment - I mean it's good to keep busy but it's going to take me a little while to get all this in some sort of manageable state.

My visit to the UK last week was amazing. It was great to see everyone and to visit my beloved Manchester again after 10 months away but I was strangely glad to get back to Lisbon and try and get my affairs in order.

I'll hopefully write more about the UK visit soon.

It's been too long...

It's been a little while since I posted in here, I've just been far too busy with other things...(urgh, I nearly wrote 'projects' then, I hate it when people say that, it makes them sound like such dilettantes.)

Anyway, since I last wrote in here we have a new, same government. The election of last week went smoothly and, amusingly for me as an outsider, produced a result that managed to please no-one (probably with the exception of Paulo Portas).

As expected Socrates' PS lost a load of seats, relinquishing their majority in parliament but still being the largest party and so forming a minority government. PSD gained a few seats but after a major case of mishandling the ball didn't pick up nearly as many as they had hoped to. They had tried to play some dirty tricks involving leaking emails and communications about government spying but it was all so badly done that it ended up back firing on PSD, and the President, Carvaco Silva, and making them look a bit incompetent. It's nice to see that doing things 'em cima do joelho' extends all the way up the government.

As far as the smaller parties went there were mixed feelings. The communists were replaced by Bloco de Esquerda as the main left wing opposition but early exit polls had put BE with as many as 22 seats so their eventual 16 was a bit disappointing (even though this meant they had doubled their tally from the last elections).

The really big winner was Paulo Portas' CDS-PP who went from 12 seats to 21, a worrying swing to the right.

All this means that the next few years will mean muddling through and trying to make friends with people who have just been stabbed in the back. It should make things a little interesting at least.

Roll on the municipal elections.

Em cima do joelho - the Portuguese way...

It's nice when nations have idioms which succinctly and vividly paint such an accurate picture of what that nationality is about.

Of course in English we have "stiff upper lip" which describes well our reputation for coldness, aloofness and stoicism. The Portuguese have, "Em cima do joelho" which literally means "on top of the knee" and perfectly describes the attitude here of doing things in a last minute, rushed fashion without thinking of the consequences.

In everyday matters if often hits you, "who would put a bus stop at the corner of a busy junction?", "Why do most bars and clubs only advertise their attractions the night before", "Why is this website so beautifully designed yet never updated". And these thoughts are repeated sources of amusement - until they happen to you.

So yesterday I get a phonecall and the chap whose bar I was supposed to be playing at on Saturday rings me to tell me he was just doing the week's agenda (on Wednesday!) and he's double booked the night. I had booked it two weeks ago and been doing my best to promote it myself, even been to the place twice to meet the guy and he tells me this now.

Now obviously these things happen, they happen everywhere, and I don't blame the guy, he's really nice and friendly and was genuinely sorry, even giving me 2 dates in October to replace the one that's canceled, but as I rang round everyone I had invited the reaction of people was extremely telling - how typical!

September brings ghouls and lesbians...

With the now inevitable end of summer firmly upon us (even though today, just to rub it in our faces, is a beautiful day with barely a cloud in the skies) this means the return of two of the most unwelcome styles of dress.

Now that the students are back at university we are now starting again to see the tunas on the street. These are traditional musical groups/choirs comprised of students and each university has them. They all dress identically in black suits (women wear suit jackets, skirts and thick tights) and capes covered in patches and badges (collected a bit like the scouts) and can be seen wandering all over the place, occasionally strumming a guitar or singing some traditional songs. There's something so obviously and overtly geeky about this (especially for people in their late teens, early 20s) that I can't help but to cringe when I see them on the street, thinking of the kind of stick they would get in the UK. Unfortunately I think this says more about me than them so if you are visiting Lisbon (or wherever in Portugal) then you should definitely take advantage of this strange sight.



It's now getting a bit nippy which means that thousands of young Portuguese women are putting their open toed cork monstrosities back in their shoe closets and dusting off that old hiking boot/jeans combo. Whoever convinced the women here that this look was attractive/flattering/advisable was obviously playing a huge joke on everyone. The only effect this look really has is to make it look like thousands of lesbians have descended on the streets of Lisbon (not that there's anything wrong with that).

Cork

The Portuguese are mad about cork. It’s one of those facts that the Portuguese like to drop on the unsuspecting foreigner,

Portugeezer - “Did you know that Portugal is the world’s biggest cork producer?”

Me – “No but I will store that in the part of my brain only accessed during pub quizzes and the annual family Christmas Trivial Pursuit Deathmatch. Thank you!”

If you actually live here then the love of cork slowly begins to seep into your everyday life. At first you begin by noticing that pretty much every woman is wearing cork wedges. This slowly builds and builds, next you might notice an attractively cork tiled floor. Head to Alentejo and most things there seem to be made out of the stuff.

There’s a novel by Jose Saramago called The Stone Raft in which the Iberian peninsular breaks off from Europe and floats into the Atlantic. If the unlikely happens and life imitates fiction then Spain is screwed but Portugal will just bob happily along.

Portuguese shoes



Portuguese handbag



Portuguese umbrella



Portuguese cap



Portuguese tie



Portuguese chair



Portuguese car

Multicultural Lisbon...

This weekend was pretty jam packed full of activities and so I've only just had chance now to write about them. Friday saw me visit a wonderful bar, O Século, for the first time. Located on the edge of Bairro Alto it is something of a cultural centre, offering tea and coffee with art in the day and beer and music in the evening. We went there on Friday because I had approached the owner, Manuel, about putting on my own DJ night. He was very enthusiastic about the idea and we arrange to put it on on the 26th September, so there's a date for your diaries.

The space itself is wonderful, it has a really informal atmosphere, something like a school disco. The night we were there they were hosting a birthday party held by this group, who were mostly African. When we got their they had their tables laid out and had been having dinner and then at about midnight they put all the tables and chairs round the edge of the room, turned up the kuduro and kizomba and had a dance. There were some really good movers in the group.

I'm really looking forward to the night but I'm also pretty nervous, I'm just hoping whoever does turn up will have fun.

On Saturday S and I met an old friend of hers, P, in a great park in the north of Lisbon, A Quinta das Conchas.

Now one of my big complains about Lisbon is that there isn't much grass but this place is amazing. It was a revelation to S and I. The picnic we had was very nice, just 6 or 7 of us. We chatted and P graced us with probably the best Tyra Banks impression I have ever seen. He's a talented chap.

When it started getting a bit tired and cold we decided to make an evening of it. We made a small pitstop back at the flat to get warmer clothes and then headed over to one of my favourite parts of the city - Martim Monitz. Now this area has something of a bad reputation amongst a few Portuguese. Mainly because the place is, what the UK press would diplomatically call, 'multicultural'. It is basically one of the poorer areas and so where a lot of the immigrants from Africa, India and China have come to live. There is a certain dinginess to the place but I love it. In the daytime the area has some of the best Indian, Chinese and African shops in the city as well as my favourite Indian restaurant in Lisbon, Palacio Indiana.

When we arrived at the square we re-encountered the other guys, this time with a couple of other friends and we went to the nearby esplanade. It was a really nice place with pumping African music, a friendly crowd (and a very friendly barman from Cabo Verde) and S and I have already promised ourselves that we will return. Most people are so nice round there and the Praça itself is one of the nicer in Lisbon and it's with a sense of incomprehension that I have heard some guys here talking about having to pluck up their courage before they go or recounting a night out there as though they had been to Iraq. Strange.

The main course of the evening was a big multicultural festival that had been taking place over the weekend which was being rounded off with a large free concert in the Largo do Intendente. Well now if Martim Monitz is like Iraq for some people then Largo do Intendente must be like walking through Bagdad with an "I hate Muhammed" t-shirt on.. It is the roughest bit of the roughest area but I used to work near there, know the area pretty well and I really like it. S and I spent a good while in awe of the apartments around there which must be huge and dirt cheap.

The concert was much better than I had dared to expect, I'm not the biggest fan of 'World Music' but the guys we were with helped me get in the mood and the band were surprisingly good. They were the typical mixture of umpteen different nationalities and styles but it was nice to have a dance and was definitely worth the free entry.

I have to say not everyone enjoyed it as much as we did though:



This guy had obviously had the foresight to bring a chair but not to stop himself from getting absolutely hammered on red wine that he kept in that coke bottle. Unfortunately I woke the chap up taking the next photo and then had an embarrassing and hasty walk away.

The concert was wonderful, it didn't finish too late but S and I were completely knackered (It's one of the things about Portugal, the night before, even though we didn't think we'd been out that late we actually went to bed at 03h30) so we headed home and to bed.

What a way to start a day!...

If I see another chubby legged girl in 'wet look' leggings I am going to scream cry.

North/South divide...

Much is made in the UK (and here in Portugal) about the North/South divide. That is the differences (economic/social/cultural/etc.) between the towns and populations of the North, which are comically (if a little romantically) described here by Lucy Mangan.

I've said it before that the relationship between Manchester and London is somewhat similar to that between Porto and Lisbon. Having lived in three of the aforementioned cities I feel that not enough is made of the similarities. It would perhaps be a bit of a huge job to compare all of the cities so instead I'll concentrate on the biggest geographical divide, Lisbon and Manchester.

Much has already been written about the Portuguese in Manchester. But aside from the Baron de Sousa Deiró and Earnest J Soares there are many other distinct similarities:

We both love sausages made from blood:



Our men wear flat caps and do no work:




...and we let our women do most of the work...which can take its toll:

Pears

I just nearly bought a pear. I don't like pears very much but I was ordered to buy one by a scary looking, bull-necked woman outside the train station in Cais de Sodre.

She just sits outside the station all day behind her box of 6 pears, staring people down from under her impressive eyebrows and yelling, "pêras" as they scurry past.

I don't think I've been as scared of anyone since I moved to Portugal.

Worrying times...

Last night S and I had dinner with our favourite Portuguese judge, F. He's a great guy who amusingly talks at about a million miles per hour both in Portuguese and English, a trait which belies his roots in Alentejo. F's a really nice guy to be around and because he talks so fast we usually get through many topics. On of last night's most interesting subjects was politics. There is that old saying that politics and religion are not suitable subjects for the dinner table but we forgo these little in our house in the hopes of stimulating a little debate and quickening the blood.

The current issue in Portugal is the fact that there are elections at the end of the month for the legislature (27th September). Currently the ruling party is the Partido Socialista (PS) headed by José Sócrates, a centre-left party whose popularity is somewhat on the wane (as many ruling parties across Europe are having trouble). Their main rivals are the Partido Social Democrata (PSD) a centre-right party headed by the (eerily reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher) Manuela Ferreira Leite.

(Here's a wonderful sketch of her by the comedy group Os Contemporâneos - for those of you whose Portuguese is up to it)



Now obviously any right minded person would be horrified by the prospect of a centre-right government but here the prospect is heightened by the odd Portuguese voting system . Here we have proportional representation which allows a number of smaller parties to flourish. the main ones being Bloco de Esquerda (BE) (literally 'Block of the Left') who are a more left wing group of smaller issue (sometimes even single issue) groups who people here fear know aren't ready to rule. Then further left you have Partido Comunista Portuguesa (PCP) who are grouped together with the Greens, enough said about them but they still get the odd seat in parliament and then you have the 'far' right, Paulo Portas' Partido Popular (CDS-PP). Now there is some question as to how far right they actually are. I don't think they're quite calling for the expulsion of the Jews but they're as far right as you get here in Portugal and so they obviously attract their fair share of nutters (usually seen with 'right wing hair' and monarchist stickers on their cars).

At the moment the polls are pretty even but what this means is that should PS win they surely won't have enough seats to form a government and they've annoyed enough people over the past few years to make forming a leftist coalition next to impossible. If PSD win, which is likely, they are bound to form a coalition with CDS-PP meaning a return to right wing government, something I thought I had left behind in the UK.

S is quite worried, being a civil-servant because we all know what it means for the public sector when the right is in power, it would be really very sad if the best we could hope for was that CDS-PP weren't given influential ministries.

We'll have to wait and see but in the meantime I'm off to plan a revolution.

Lies, damn lies!...

Oh and I might as well clear the air. This weekend was also when I uncovered a lie that S had been living for the better part of 16 months...

I thought I was living with a true Portugueezer but it was all lies!!!

We made the shocking discovery over the weekend that because S was born in London before 1983 this means she is automatically a British citizen. She's also a Portuguese citizen because of her parents and so I'm now going to be marrying a PortuBritlander

Planning, plotting & scheming

OK so the big news of the weekend was not, as I explained earlier our trip to either the wedding or even Festa de Avante! but rather the news that me and S have now (almost) got a date for our wedding.

I really don't want this blog to turn into one of 'those blogs'* and at least recently I've tried as much as possible to avoid it just being about me and my life and attempted some kind of more general impression-giving blog. Almost an anti-travel blog if you will - not that this is in anyway supposed to dissuade people from visiting Portugal, quite the opposite in fact, but rather it's supposed to be something of an antidote to those fluffy, romantic travel guides. Even those 'hip and happening' guides like Le Cool and Wallpaper naturally tend to hype a place and I just want to document my view from the street. This is the travel blog equivalent of Bill Hick's 'The People Who Hate People Party'.

Anyway, S and I have been engaged for 9 months and we really didn't want it to be one of those engagements that go on forever as some kind of semi-permanent state that is meant to avoid any real kind of commitment. In the back of our minds of course we have always had the thought of the Portuguese Wedding and all that that entails and we're really not very traditional so it was until this weekend something like an unspoken agreement that when we did it it wouldn't be a traditional affair.

All the thought of weddings this weekend brought the whole thing to the front of our minds and considering that we don't want a traditional wedding we accept that there will have to be a hell of a lot of planning involved. Not least getting my crowd over from the UK, a job which it's best to give as much notice as possible. There is also the small problem that we don't want to do it in Lisbon. We figured that if we do it out of town, in the countryside then we can invite a bunch of people for whom the travel and fuss will be too much and therefore only those who really love us will make the effort.

There are other general aspects of weddings that we want to dispose of too, there will be no 'top table', everyone will sit around together and can talk together so there will be no sense of 'the chosen few'. We also don't want the usual starter, main course, desert meal preferring instead to have a big barbecue with enough food to feed a small army. Our wedding will have to have speeches too, which although traditional in the UK isn't here in PT. There's also hope that we can get some friends to play a few songs with their band as well as having a DJ (it will have to be someone I trust implicitly otherwise I will be doing it myself).

In terms of dress code we're desperately trying to think of how to word the invitation so that everyone doesn't turn up in suits and their Sunday best. This is a fact that S's dad was very happy about. S says she has her dress already planned and so I'm going to have to start thinking about mine soon.

I'm sure I won't be able to help adding the odd thing in here about this whole process which is unavoidable but I'm sure it will give me opportunity to have many more insights into Portuguese life and culture.

*By one of 'those blogs' I of course mean those tedious blogs full of, "Thursday - washed my hair", "I wonder if she really loves me", that kind of rubbish.

Public Transport...

I have a confession to make here. I know it's not fashionable and in some ways it's a little grimy but I love public transport, especially buses.

The second thing I have to confess at this point is that I don't drive.

That simple statement is enough to raise eyebrows in the UK, here in Portugal you get almost complete incomprehension. "Wait, you're breathing, what do you mean you don't drive?" I have mentioned before that the Portuguese love their cars, I should, for the sake of accuracy, extend this to all private motor vehicles because there are plenty of motorbikes and scooters around here too. As if to stress that disability should be no hindrance to exercising your right to pollute the skies and cause traffic jams I even see, on a regular basis, a man with no legs riding his specially made tricycle around the Saldanha area. It's as though he's trying to rub in the fact that not driving here is something worse than a disability.

All this means that those left to ride the buses here really are something special to behold. I've only been catching the bus here regularly for two weeks now and already I've had more surreal experiences than the previous two months. I've already seen a woman so pissed she got up to dance and sing to some Rolling Stones music for the entertainment of the other passengers, I've seen huge arguments erupt over things as trivial as an empty seat, I've seen a bus almost emptied because one man's hair smelt so badly.

Riding the bus also affords you the opportunity to observe those things outside the windows that you just miss when you are gliding past in a car. Yesterday for example I watched as one man (drunk or mentally ill, I wasn't sure) took off all his clothes and through them in the fountain at Rossio, an act I would've completely missed if we hadn't had to stop to pick up passengers.

S is now piling on the pressure for me to learn to drive and I do think it's a valuable skill that I will have to learn but I don't see it curbing my bus riding, especially in the city where there's so much to see.

Salty bits of goodness (Portuguese food #1)...

Portuguese food is a wonder. Not a modern wonder like a skyscraper or a bridge or a dam but more like an ancient wonder, the Pyramids for example, which is essentially a simple structure but which was conceived and constructed over time.

Portuguese cuisine has been centuries in the making and, most people would say, there is little room for innovation. The dishes are generally pretty basic but always well done. I will come back to this theme again and again because I have been wondering how to approach the subject of Portuguese food for a long time. Not only am I someone who loves and appreciates food on multiple levels (not just the taste but I appreciate the artistry that goes into it) but also because the Portuguese are unusually touchy when it comes to food.

Just as the weather is a constantly safe topic for conversation in Britain the same can be said for food here (as long as you are complimentary). The British have a strange relationship with food, working with people from all over Europe I am often subject to people deriding my national cuisine but I usually let it wash over me and let them enjoy their ignorance. What people don't realise is the huge variety on offer in Britain, both in terms of restaurants and for buying ingredients (in fact a Portuguese acquaintance of mine now living in London described Borough market as one of his favourite places). It only really hits home when you do move abroad.

The quality of Portuguese ingredients cannot be argued with, the meat, fish and vegetables are all of top top quality, fresh with lots of flavour. The only problem is that there aren't a lot of them. You're lucky in most supermarkets if you get a choice between more than 6 or 7 vegetables (and no, a potato isn't a vegetable), I'm exaggerating here but there is seriously nothing to compare with what we get in the UK. It's simply because most things are grown here, they import very little. This is great for taste but leaves you little option when it comes to dishes to cook (The same can be said of cuts of meat too).

This is the ultimate problem with Portuguese restaurants, 9 times out of 10, probably more the food will be great, huge portions and cooked well, but if you're here for long you just get a bit tired of the same 5 or 6 dishes on the menu everywhere (and I mean everywhere) - bacalhau à bras (or asado or whatever), secretos de porco, bitoque, etc.

I'll have to stop there as the purpose of this post really wasn't to whinge but actually praise and today I am in praise of something the Portuguese do very well...salty snacks.

One of the great Portuguese passtimes is sitting (or actually more usually standing) in the street, drinking beer, and watching/talking about football and they have two of the greatest aids for doing this: tremoços and pumpkin seeds. Tremoços are lupin seeds, stored in brine. many bars you go to will provide you with one glass of beer and one glass of tremoços and the method for eating them is to grasp betwixt forefinger and thumb, bite off a side of the tough outer skin and with finger and thumb pop the soft inside into the mouth. It's tasty and fun!

Pumpkin seeds are a rather newer discovery but I seriously cannot stop eating them. They're so so salty that you can't help but take a few big gulps of beer after them. You are ideally supposed to crack open the outer shells and only eat the seed inside but I just gobble down the lot and think of it as added fibre. My health I think is starting to suffer and I will have to start rationing myself but until I get my blood pressure checked I'm going to carry on eating them

The marxist struggle of my weekend...

As has been the theme for the past few weeks the invitations and plans have been coming in at such a rate that there is simply not enough time in the day to do everything that S and I would like to, never mind the fact that we both have work (I have my fingers in a few pies actually) and study (we're both either doing or preparing Masters). This all leaves us not only with an almost permanent sense of exhaustion but also the feeling that we're not fully experiencing everything we could.

This weekend is both a perfect example of this sentiment and also how our varied tastes can leads to some interesting choices that we have to make. The choice we have to make this weekend is to attend the wedding of an old colleague of S or go to the annual festival organised by the Portuguese Communist Party, Festa do Avante!

S and I both have some knowledge of Portuguese weddings, in fact that's where we first met, and know how traditional they can be. my main objection is that I would have to wear a suit, something which I hate so much I can't put into words. We would have to put up with the families from both sides and the kisses from bristly grandmothers. I feel incredibly uncomfortable on these formal occasions and one of the things I'm most glad about is that they way we are planning our wedding is to avoid all the stuffy formality and just have a big party for our friends. There is still some debate as to whether we can totally ban the suit (I'm currently winning this argument and it has now reached a stage of shirt but no tie, with a possibility that I might be allowed to wear trainers) as I see the clothing as the complete antithesis of fun and 'letting your hair down'.

There's also the fact that weddings, being a family affair and the Portuguese family being what it is (based on a model between the mafia and a medieval feudal system), means that it is an opportunity for the family to show off (down to the little boys dressed like their fathers, something which makes every fiber of me shudder), and/or complain and generally make a fuss. Most of this I will happily miss but there is always an atmosphere at these kinds of events like a sense of obligation hangs over it. There are unwritten rules that I am not privy to, I'm commonly excused from them being a foreigner but it still leaves one a bit on edge.

The alternate choice would however mean coming into contact with lots of Communists, a group of people that I have little time or sympathy for. My own political persuasion is pretty far left, I think everyone was born equal and deserves the same opportunities but there's nothing I love more than baiting those so stuck to their own ideology that they effectively use it to remove the logic from their own argument.

S assures me that the festival is a lot of fun, she has been before and says you get a real sense of community spirit and everyone helps out and gets involved and that does sound like a real plus. You get the typical festival entertainment, music food, dancing and as much or as little propaganda as you can take. But I still can't get over the fact that Portugal has an active and popular Communist Party!!!

In the UK the far left is something of a joke. The UK Communist Party exists in little more than name and one of its many offshoots, the Socialist Worker Party is only really the province of students and guys with dogs on string trying to sell you their paper. Here there are signs everywhere (in fact I can see one from my office as I type) and they actually do well in certain working class and rural areas, they even have people elected to Parliament.

We will just have to see what happens at the weekend, nothing is decided yet but I'm sure whatever we do it will give me something to write for this blog.

Holidaysick...

I have just returned from a wonderful weekend, hidden away from the outside world in Mora, Alentejo. The house we stayed in was wonderful, large and air conditioned with 4 double beds and a pull out sofa bed, so plenty of room for the seven of us plus the baby. The house had an amazing swimming pool and tennis court and we spent the whole weekend alternating between browning ourselves in the sun and then cooling off in the pool. I attempted one game of tennis with S but as soon as she was confronted by my formidable skills she felt a little embarrassed and claimed the heat was too strong for her. Entirely understandable in the circumstances.

We had some great meals and I increased me repertoire to include barbecuing now. I left the first one to R and he murdered the already quite dead meat so the second one I did to a slightly less crispy consistency. It was all good though and it was really nice to have everyone together and (more or less) relaxed. It also afforded me the opportunity to test out a little theory of mine. I don't think the circumstances were quite right, it being a holiday period, but I went for it nontheless.

There is undoubtedly a formula out there, somewhere, which will accurately predict the amount of time it takes for a group of Portuguese people to make a decision and act upon it. Between us, S and I, we do not have this problem - we're one Portugueezer and one Britlander and we decide things all the time in mere seconds, from dinner plans to what films to watch. (The latter here being less a joint decision and more a diktat from me.)

I am very much used to quite a regimented and ordered variety of relaxation. It's the same with going on a night out - we meet at this time, we drink here then, at this time we do that, etc. My holidays have always been so well scheduled and planned that there is no chance of wasting a second of fun!

I noticed how different things are here in the first morning: there's a consultation period, everybody slowly gathers in one area where all opinions are sought and evaluated. Everyone's feelings are taken into consideration. There is an informal (and silent) round of voting done mostly through special glances and raising of eyebrows and then this is evaluated. Any decisions that weren't popular are then discarded and the next round of deliberations take place. Any feelings that might have been hurt in the previous round are also placated here. And so on until a decision is reached diplomatically and through consensus and we can finally sit down and start breakfast.

When we have to leave the table it starts again.

I have of course known Portugueezers for many years now and grown accustomed to this decision-making process but this was an opportunity to see it in a large group which is always enlightening.

We were extremely lucky to have with us probably the calmest baby in the world. M is now, I think, about 3 months old and we barely heard a wink out of him. He seems to spend his day sleeping and eating and really, all things considered, what does he have to complain about?

It was sad to see the weekend come to an and, as I write now my office is filling up with the returning masses and it starts to feel like the end of summer. Soon things will have returned to normal and the old routine will start up again. The coming months will be quite busy and should this be, as I expect it, the end of summer then I can look back and be happy with it, it was my first in Portugal and my love for the place has grown and continues to grow. It is indescribably different to experience a place by living there as opposed to visiting it and now I am here for good settling back into the routine is almost comforting.

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A big sign that summer is coming to an end here, as it is everywhere, is the sudden appearance of all the adverts proclaiming that school is starting up again soon. I have never worked in the stationary trade, nor do I know anyone who has, but this period must be incredibly exciting for them. It's pretty much the only time of year that pencils and protractors are at the top of anyone's shopping list and I can imagine at stationers conferences they must talk with knowing nods about the 'Back to School' season targets.

Here in Portugal we have been presented with an advert that makes me chuckle every time I see it:



It can't just be me who thinks that this girl advertising a return to classes looks suspiciously old!

Alentejo...

I won't be updating over the weekend. Not that I usually do but now I have a reason so I might as well tell you about it.

S and I and a few friends are taking the cars, our books and enough food to invade Spain with and moving ourselves over to Alentejo for the weekend. Alentejo is a lovely region of Portugal which comprises the southern half of the country except for the Algarve. It's a very beautiful place with rolling plains, a breathtaking coast and so very interesting towns and villages along the way.

The region is also the butt of several Portuguese jokes due to the inhabitants' legendary slowness and dimness, in much the same way as the Irish are to the English, (the Portuguese are slow enough in general (physcically that is) so I found it difficult to imagine something slower but it's true!) my favourites include:

• How do you know when a worker has finished for the day in Alentejo? He takes his hands out of his pocket.
• Did you hear about the farmer from Alentejo who tried to teach his donkey to live without eating? He was so exited, but then it died.

I had one S's father told me too but I went and forgot it and S can't remember it (she is also useless at comedy, being a girl).

It's a shame that we plan on taking so much food with us really because one of the things that the region is really famed for is the food (which reminds me I really need to do a full post about Portuguese food soon), the wine and pork are especially delicious, but there is some reasoning behind our methods. The weekend will consist entirely of reading our books and lying by the swimming pool with the occasional break to grab another beer or put some more picanha on the barbecue. If it sounds idyllic that's because it will be. It's the perfect way to see out this hectic holiday season.

It's not yet the end of August, the temperature rarely drops below 26-27ºC and already the shops are full of winter clothes and it's pretty much officially the end of summer.

A blast from the past...

It has often been said (perhaps most often by me, but not exclusively) that one of the interesting things about Portugal, and indeed one of its great charms, is that in some very striking ways it reminds us of our country of origin but from a distant time.

My frequent refrain has been, "it's like Britain in the 50s/60s/70s" and comfortingly this sentiment has been expressed by friends and colleagues alike who have come to Lisbon from a variety of cities and countries. It was also echoed by Paul Theroux, in the book The Kingdom By The Sea, who says that certain countries exist in a certain time. If Britain and America are now then Japan is 5-10 years into the future and some countries inexplicably in the past.

This thought obviously only comes to me when confronted by certain situations - in many ways Portugal is an extremely advanced country, it leads Europe and possibly the world in things like renewable power and it's still a mystery to me how the metro system in such a hot country can consistently be so cool when London's is stifling in half the heat. But the thought does come, invariably, once or twice a day and today I have already reached my limit, but today i'll just tackle the one that comes up the most.

Spitting

In the UK spitting (the expulsion of saliva, possibly liberally mixed with phlegm from the nose, from the mouth) in public is exclusively the domain of 'yoofs' and professional footballers, two sections of society largely linked by haircuts and IQ if nothing else. It's not something socially acceptable and in fact is seen as something distinctly antisocial and threatening. Here in Portugal though barely a head is turned and seemingly the majority of people with grey hair will spend much of their daily constitutionals clearing all oral and nasal passageways and depositing the results spectacularly on the pavement.

It's quite disconcerting to see some, otherwise respectable looking, person engaged in such a disgusting habit and, startlingly, it's not limited to men. It is also fact that most of the elderly here are still dressed like I imagine people in black and white films to be dressed. The men in sharp suits with brightly polished shoes whilst the women are dressed like movie stars from the 50s complete with huge, insect like sunglasses, so to see them hawking up goo is quite a sight.

It all reminds me of the story I have heard many times since my childhood of when my grandma first got an electric fireplace fitted in her house (in what must've been the 1960s) and her father, my great-grandfather, had up until then only ever had coal fires and so my grandma had to patiently explain to him that this was one fireplace he was expressly forbidden from spitting into. A request, much to the annoyance and disgust of my grandma and mum, he would often ignore.

Portuguese 'utilities'...*UPDATE*

In a startling display of efficiency we had our gas switched back on at 21:30 last night...and the man who did it also flooded our kitchen!

Portuguese 'utilities'...

As I write this the shivering is finally subsiding. This morning I was forced to take a cold shower because we were without gas, as indeed was the entire building, and had been since the evening before. What had happened will probably never be discovered, all I can say is that when returned home with S, after our shopping, we found a fire engine parked in front of the apartment building with a few surly looking firemen wandering about and a couple of police officers wandering around trying to look like they were doing something.

On questioning no-one really seemed to know what was going on but whilst we patiently waited in the hallway that was filled with emergency personnel and a couple of confused looking electricians, shopping bags and all, it finally became clear - the electricians had been working and then smelt gas, they had rung the emergency services but now no-one really knew what to do. As a precaution(!) they switched the gas off and we were later told that it wouldn't be reconnected until some point today. We were told that it would be on again this afternoon, call me a cynic but I won't hold my breath...actually on second thoughts maybe that would be a good idea.

All this trouble with these services reminded me about a great blog entry I read a while back on the An Englishman In Lisbon blog here. This entry hilariously (and most importantly truthfully) describes the situation of electrical wiring in Portugal. S and I's flat for example has some beautiful, retro, light switches, which for some strange reason each have two switches, the second being entirely superfluous. We have ourselves suffered the tripped switches when we try to run the hairdryer and the microwave at the same time, and don't get me started on the basic two-pin plugs which give, according to S who I think is protesting too much, a 'satisfying crackle and flash' so you know when the plus is in.

Those are the dangers inside, outside we have to walk past installations like this on a regular basis:


It wouldn't be so bad, you could laugh at the absurdity of something like this still being allowed, if you hadn't seen one explode like I have. It happened early in the year when the weather was particularly bad. There was torrential rain and I had just dropped S off at the university. I was walking back down Avenida de Berna in Lisbon and the rain has turned the street into a river. It was obviously too much for one junction box which exploded in the street. Again the firemen looked on, surly and confused, it really doesn't fill me with confidence when I read "Bombieros Voluntarios" on their trucks, I want professionals!

Sandblasting in the sun...

Well the weekend has now arrived (for me anyway it began on Thursday afternoon when our office began being dismantled for the big move to Cais de Sodré) and so the only great decision to make is which beach to head to. The choices for us, having access to a car and not minding a bit of travel, come down to three:

• The Estoril Coast
• Costa de Caparica
• Guincho

Before I came to Portugal I was not a beach person at all, not that I have anything against the sun or the outdoors but my objections came down to two fundamental issues: I hate shorts, I hate wearing them and I hate seeing them, any man over the age of 12 in shorts looks a fool unless playing some form of sport, and in that case you'd better be a profession or you still look like a fool but now a sweaty fool; and, sand, I hate sand, I hate the fact that it gets everywhere, it sticks to you and you can feel it on you and in your clothes hours after you are no longer near any sand. That combined with the fact that at the beach not only are you supposed to expose your lower legs to the sand but first you must cover yourself with a sticky substance that attracts sand. Senseless!

Anyway, after a few sulks and strops, threats of physical violence and threats to embargo sex (all from both sides) S got her way and got me onto the beach. After all the fuss it wasn't as bad as I feared and there are indeed many plus points: I discovered that swimming in the sea is actually one of my favourite activities, a fact that S discovered to her embarrassment when she tried to get me out of the sea and I turned into a 5 year old.

So this weekend, as most, the choice comes down to 3. The current favourite is Estoril, not my first choice I have to admit, the main reason being is that the beaches there are so small that the people are packed in like sardines (another reason that I wouldn't admit to S is that Estoril is also lacking in the...ahem....young crowd that go to Caparica, the view is much better there from what I have seen). But for us the deciding factor for us today is, sadly, wind. Being located, as it is, on the edge of Europe, Portugual gets its fair share of wind which turn the beaches into a sandblasting experience. Guincho is famous for this and is in fact a bit of a surfing hotspot because of it. Usually Caparica is ok but last time I lost a layer of skin and today it seems pretty windy in town so it must be quite bad there. Estoril is relatively sheltered and plus there are so many people acting as windblocks that I think we'll be ok.

Off we go to Estoril and I will try and find a space for my towel and try and not to step on anyone.

Portuguese hair...

Prompted by my previous post in which I mentioned the local phenomenon of 'right-wing hair', and also my own impending need for a haircut, I have decided to concentrate today's post on the more general phenomenon of 'Portuguese Hair'.

As demonstrated previously, by the charming photo of Paulo Portas, right-wing hair is largely a matter of letting ones' hair grow to a reasonably long length before swinging it all over to one side. This is not to be confused with the comb-over (the traditional mask of baldness in the UK which is sadly going out of fashion since the days of Sir Bobby Charlton), as Portuguese men typically have strong and vibrant hair.

N.B. This article does refer primarily to Portuguese men but some aspects are applicable to men and women.

Neither should 'right-wing hair' be confused with the much more general (but sadly no longer ubiquitous) phenomenon of 'Portuguese hair'. 'Right-wing hair' is an extreme version of the general style. I first came across the subject in a purely theoretical manner when researching the term 'portugeezer' and mixed amongst the terms I came across 'Portuguese afro'. According to the Urban Dictionary this is defined as,

"Found on Portuguese males thick nappy like hair, that maintains the same style no matter what kind of hair cut you get. It tends to puff and curl back on the front."

After reading this definition the more I looked around the more I saw there to be a glimmer of truth behind the course generalisation. The style is particularly common in certain social strata here and living, as I do, in somewhat of a business district, near Saldanha, I see more than my fair share of it. Other places that I have found where this style is common would be around the ministries and parliament (can sometimes be confused with 'right-wing hair) and, of an evening, those bars and clubs frequented by those referred to (by some) as betas (who will later grow into tios/tias, they are all slightly mocking terms for a certain type of middle-class Portugueser who follow similar social conventions, shop at the same shops, attend the same bars and clubs, dress in a similar fashion etc.), often in and around Cascais/Estoril.

After a (very) quick trawl of the web I can provide you with something of a visual aid to help you get a better picture in your mind and also to illustrate some of the subtle differences:




We have here four shining examples, whilst different they are all united by a lustrous thickness of the hair (a quality I share with these men) and also a rather cavalier approach to parting. I don't know but I believe that the ultimate aim is for the hair not to look brushed but rather
sculpted from one piece. The added bonus of having such hair is that, unlike the hoi polloi who often attempt an imitation of their beloved Christiano Ronaldo (and who have been purposefully ignored in this examination of Portuguese society and culture), no additional products are needed to keep the hair in place. Countless money is saved on spray and gel.

So now you know, have fun spotting and for the real professionals see if you can tell at 100 paces the difference between 'right-wing hair' and 'Portuguese hair'.

When in Roma...

My nightly run through Lisbon (partly to keep fit and partly to avoid the traffic intent on running me over) usually takes me to one of the most popular area in Lisbon for that purpose, the university stadium. Lisbon University is situated largely in it's own little enclave, to the north of the city, along with a few autonomous faculties, in an area appropriately name Cidade Universitaria. In the centre of this are the various sport pitches, running tracks and other facilities that exist to remind students that man cannot live by books and pastais de nata alone.

As you can see from this shot it provides a nice little complex to run around and is a welcome retreat from the honking cars and unsure paving:


View Larger Map

Despite these advantages the main drawback for me and S was that getting there was both boring (running through Entrecampos and up Avenida Forças Armadas is hardly interesting) and knackering, with a pretty steep climb to make, not that I minded. Anyway after a bit of discussion we recently decided to vary the route of our run and I am so glad we did.

Rather than making our way to the university we have, of late, been exploring the area nearer to us, around Roma. This has only served to strengthen and deepen my love for the area in which we live. I've always known we were very lucky to live in this area, surrounded, as we are, by a host of cultural and architectural delights: Culturegest, Campo Pequeno, the Gulbenkian, not to mention being in walking distance of most Lisbon cinemas. On top of this there's a whole host of great cafes, restaurants and bars and I love the atmosphere which is lively but not too busy.

On our recent runs S and I have discovered a whole load of new places to try, cafes with beautiful esplanades, delicious looking restaurants and, my personal favourite, a cheesy looking bar called Cockpit which is alleged to be patronised largely by pilots and air crews. These next few weeks are going to be pretty busy.

The view from the streets...

I don't know when this finally came online, I saw the car a few weeks back, but finally Lisbon is on Google Street view so for those who want to see the streets I walk every day then give it a try.

It's just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right...

First things first, as should be apparent to those of you even slightly curious, I have a new blog that I will be writing in conjunction with this one. The link for this blog has been for the past few days located at the top right of this page but for those of you disinclined to turn your head lest you lose your place the link is also here:

Burn The Jukebox

This blog will continue to contain my musings on life in Lisbon and in general whereas the new blog will primarily be music related (and, as today's post shows, provide some film reviews). This will be largely music in general but also contain news and reviews of the 'scene' in Lisbon and Portugal.

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My post today concerns a little change I have noticed in Lisbon in the short time that I have been here.

As anyone who knows me well can confirm I have something of an obsession with the right-wing of politics. Not an agreement, I think that their ideas and policies are anti-social and just plain wrong, but it's rather like watching a car crash or those 'real FBI' shows about serial killers. I like to know what the enemy is thinking and despite it being often repulsive I just can't tear my attention away.

Now I reserve my real fascination for the extremes, the Daily Mail and Fox News provide me with hours of laughter mixed with horror, but there is a pervasive evil of the mainstream right-wing that is perhaps more alarming because anyone can dismiss cranks and loonies but when the arguments and the people who deliver them are seen as reasonable then that's when we start to have problems.

Here in Portugal society was summed up pretty well for me by S not long after I moved here. She said, (and here I paraphrase) "we're not a nation of extremes". Whilst being obviously a wide generalisation, I have begun to realise the truthfulness of this statement and therefore when elements of extremism do raise their heads it is done in a rather Portuguese fashion.

Now I will admit that I am not an expert on Portuguese politics, I am reading more and more and getting some impression of the players and systems but there will be plenty of people out there ready to correct me should I go too far, I would just remind them that these are purely my own impressions as an outsider. There exists here in Portugal a political party, the Centro Democrático e Social - Partido Popular (CDS-PP) which, is probably as far right as is acceptable in Portugal (a country which after the dictatorship largely shies away from the far right). Now I can't comment in too much detail about the policies of these guys, but what I can say is that they must have recently got rather a lot of funding because their adverts have shot up around Lisbon like I have never seen before.

Before I moved to Portugal political advertising had been the reserve of those late-night party political broadcasts on TV that were seemingly designed to make one reach for the remote as quickly as possible. Here though at every junction in the city and, in some areas, on 50% of the lampposts there is a political poster. I was originally under the impression that the parties bought lots of advertising space on these signposts but I recently discovered that they actually buy and erect the signposts themselves.

Usually the adverts on these signs spew the usual self regarding, idealistic political rubbish, or occasionally will attempt to tackle some immediate political problem (like the crisis or swine flu) with perky political rhetoric but the CDS-PP posters spew a different kind of political rubbish, not the sort that can be dismissed with a roll of the eyes and a sigh. It's the kind of lies that fill the Daily Mail on a daily basis but at least there one can choose to search for it for the laughs. It's quite different to have it pasted in foot high letters at every junction in town. The most popular bits of idiocy I have seen include (roughly translated from the Portuguese):

• Why do criminals have more rights than the police?
• Why save BPN (the national bank) when you allow small businesses to fail?
• Is it just to give the minimum income to those who don't want to work?

Now to those of us not crazy those questions, out of context, appear silly. Complex problems and issues reduced to talking points to create fear and resentment - a typical political tool you might say but not one I want to see on my way to the beach!

What Portugal needs is a return to honest politics and it could take the lead from a Brazilian politician I read about recently whose campaign slogan was disarmingly honest:

"Roubo, mas faço!" (I steal but I do!)

Despite all this there is one glimmer of hope - the right-wing here in Portugal, whilst perhaps benefiting from the Crisis and a general European disenchantment with the left, is at least easy to spot. There exists here such a thing as 'right-wing hair' perfectly demonstrated by the leader of the CDS-PP, Paulo Portas:



If you see this kind of hair, you'll know!

Raindrops keep falling on my head...

Today's post was going to be about Portuguese food - inspired by a rare disappointment in a restaurant on Wednesday night - but the pros and cons of food here is a massive subject and requires more thought. I will need to break it down and digest it properly. Instead I have a much more pressing and immediate situation to report.

As the temperature of Lisbon hovers around the 36-37ºC mark even walking along the streets can seem something of a chore but those of us who have lived here long enough know that there is at least one relief to be had from the baking heat - the gentle spray of liquid from the balconies above!

The first number of times this happens to you, as in most cities, you assume that it is something related to an air conditioning unit and you hope, as you feel the trickle roll down the back of your neck, that pigeons weren't using you for target practice. In Lisbon, however, you hope and pray for air conditioning drips because the alternative (at least in my eyes anyway) is almost as bad as the thought of pigeon shit.

As I have mentioned before, and as anyone who has been to Lisbon can confirm, Lisbon is very much a living city. By this I mean that the majority of spaces in and around the city are very much multi use. There are apartment blocks everywhere and most of these conform to the same rough design - with the verandas at the front all having the same handy drainpipe flowing straight onto the street.

In a style evocative of medieval waste disposal (throw it out of the window and hope no-one is passing below) the dregs of cleaning those apartments more often than not ends up dripping out of these spouts and onto the heads of those unlucky enough to be walking underneath. (We even have a device in our apartment to unblock the pipe when it gets blocked with...whatever.)

So bare in mind, here in Lisbon relief from the heat comes at a price!

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In a move which shows I am, at least in some ways, developing Portuguese traits yesterday, as the temperature reached 36ºC I bought a new jumper. (Well S bought it for me - she's obviously a driving influence.)

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I have, of late, begun watching an amazing Portuguese comedy show 'starring' a character called Bruno Aleixo. Here's one of his great bits of advice:




Roughly translated: "Men with earings: they're drug addicts!"

Lisbon: O mito é o nada que é tudo...

Lisbon is a city that survives on the myths it and its inhabitants create for it and despite some misgivings, in certain specific instances, it's an attitude that I have a lot of sympathy with.
That said I much prefer the gritty realism of a decaying city, where the myths are put into perspective by those who have to live there, day in, day out. Manchester had it in the pre-gentrified red brick factories around the north of the city and in the small 'satellite' towns like Bury, Bolton and Wigan where the population seems to be made up of pensioners and pregnant teenagers. Parts of London, where I lived, had it in the South East, around Peckham and Deptford where the art students haven't yet reached and where walking the streets at night still gives a rush of adrenaline...but then again this perhaps myth making of my own...it is my own though and it is based on experience.

If you know where to go in Lisbon that same gritty realism can still be found but it's quite off the beaten path. The city is chock full of Fado joints where you can hear the songs of saudades for a time or place that exists no longer or hear and read the stories times when Bairro Alto and Alfama were area full of prostitutes and their pimps. Even the main flea market, Feira da Ladra (Thieves Market), has a romanticised name - although in this case there is something of a truth to it (the edges are full of suspiciously new looking mobile phones and digital cameras and the central touristy bit is pretty low on bargains).

Nowadays in Bairro Alto and Alfama you are just as likely to see trendy refurbished apartments sold or rented to foreigners, for much more than the locals can afford, than you are old women hanging their washing out. This is of course a familiar story in so many cities but what makes it especially sad in the case of Lisbon is that firstly it is happening so late when compared to other European cities and secondly because Lisbon resisted this for so long it is a charm that it blindly hangs onto despite reality.

Not that I am criticising the areas for this change, change is important and change is good. One of the great things about Lisbon is that it is still alive but sometimes the feeling is that it is evolving despite itself. These areas have deservedly become now part of the tourist trail, they are beautiful and interesting and, in the case of Bairro Alto, lots of fun. But for a real taste of Lisbon as it is lived you have to take a little walk behind those areas.

Now, as ever, this whole post hasn't just been plucked from my brain at random, there is usually an incident or experience that sparks these long thoughts and this profession of love the dark underbelly of cities had been prompted by the imminent move of my office. We are now in the process of moving from one of my favourite areas, Avenida Almirante Reis (Anjos) to one of my least favourite, Cais de Sodre.

It is almost unheard of for anyone in this city to shun a river view but as part of my role as the eternal contrarian I am left somewhat bemused by them. Of course there is the theory (maybe it's fact, i don't know) that the sight of water has a soothing effect on the soul but in my honest opinion the view of the River Tagus from Lisbon isn't one of the great sights. It's a little too industrial and to be frank a little dirty. (This however is not true for the views of Lisbon across the water from Almada which are amazing) Anyway, what I am giving up for the privilege of seeing container ships on a daily basis is walk through one of the liveliest neighbourhoods in Lisbon.

It is no exaggeration to say that every day I smile on my way to work because of the pleasure of the sights of the city alive. It's also true that every day I walk past the same group of prostitutes every day to the point where we now smile and nod at each other and it's also true that more often than not I have to take a little skip over a dried pool of unexplained blood somewhere along the route. But it is making this route every day, seeing the same people, even the junkies bumming cigarettes outside Casa Santa Maria, going into the pastelarias, the tascas and even the supermarket that I feel part of the city. Every city has its museums and its monuments but only Lisbon has my whores and my junkies!

Portuguese builders/builders in Portugal...

The subject of today's post is builders. Well let me expand on that somewhat...by builders I mean all those engaged in manual work somehow and as the title of the post suggests a great many of those working here happen not to be Portuguese but more likely Brazilian, Eastern European or African.

Take my own example...below S and my lovely apartment, in one of the most beautiful (and surprisingly peaceful) areas of Lisbon there have been works taking place. The apartment black we live in is not new, it's one of those concrete jobbies put up sometime probably in the 1940s, but it does have its own charm - from the old creaking lifts with their manual doors to the old creaking porter of a similar vintage. Recently the apartment below us was bought and the new owners wished to refurbish it. That may be fair enough - I don't know but chances are that the previous owner was probably close to 100 and it hadn't had a lick of paint since the place was built - that is until whoever was in charge of the hiring managed to get hold of two guys whose only tools appear to be a hammer and a drill. Added to this is the fact that they apparently hate each other because they can't go more than half an hour without screaming at each other.

This combination of a lack of tools (and perhaps knowledge) with a complete inability to work well with each other means that the project of refurbishing the flat has been going on now for over 3 months. That is 3 months of banging, drilling and shouting from 8:30 to 19:30, Monday to Saturday (yes, Saturday!!!). I cannot begin to wonder what kind of palace would await me after 3 months of work (an estimated 1600 man hours for those who can imagine it) baring in mind my own experience of such works was when my old house had a new roof, central heating installed, double glazing put in and a damp proof course, all within 2 weeks. Yet it was only yesterday that they got delivery of the kitchen!

Anyway, after months of having our weekend peace disturbed enough was enough and last week S went to have a word with them. As a man I promised her any backup she needed, from the safety of our flat. To the builders' credit it was at least 30 minutes before they started up again but thanks to my love's training in the law she whisked out the right directive, gave a quick call to the local constabulary and shut that noisy operation down, all without me having to lift a finger! (For those of you in Lisbon faced with noisy neighbours I will post the law later and you can quote this at them, after an initial warning they face a €2500 fine.)

So after our successful confrontation with Portuguese builders it got me thinking. Coming from the UK I'm quite accustomed to health and safety procedures, things like safety barriers, warning signs etc... things that haven't quite made it to Portugal yet. When seeing building work in action here there are a number of points that it's hard to miss:

• Typically if there's a hole to be dug this will take 5-8 people - 1 to dig and 4-7 to stand outside the hole and advise how it is to be dug.
• Barriers/signs to protect workmen and the public are expensive and often get in the way (of people giving advice to the one man working) so why bother - of course the public won't come too close to your pickaxing/pneumatic drilling/welding.
• If you're digging a hole in the pavement don't worry, people are probably too busy avoiding the others to mind yours.
• Of course scaffolding is supposed to look 60 years old!
• Remember the one and only Portuguese Health and Safety rule - no smoking on the job (that's reserved for the 5 people outside the hole telling you how to dig).

The sight that really summed up the attitude to health and safety occurred last week on holiday. We were driving through the town and were on our way back to the house when the street was blocked by a pick up truck. (I will have to write another post about Portuguese parking, perhaps as no.2 in my series on driving.) Onto the back of this pickup truck was being loaded a fridge/freezer. As you can imagine this appliance was around 190cm tall and therefore the most sensible thing in the world would be for two people to put it on its side. But no! Of course not! Instead we watched with a mixture of amusement and horror as onto the back clambered a typical Portugeezer (all 165cm of him) and he held onto this thing as the truck trundled off over the hills at 40kmh...

...all I could think of was at least he's not smoking.

The things you see when you haven't got your gun.

Ferias do Verão...

Well, for me at least, the summer holidays are over. Just as Portugal is entering its yearly period of torpor (seemingly the whole country is ‘fechado’ for the month of August) I am starting back at work after two weeks spent reading, visiting the country and generally avoiding anything that might be construed as ‘useful’ or ‘improving’.

The holiday in fact started rather hectically, S and I had been invited to a barbeque thrown by our new good friends ‘the boys from Brazil’ (TBFB from now on) in their wonderful apartment near São João cemetery. TBFB are in rather a nifty band who are undergoing somewhat of a radical change. In an attempt to gain a larger audience they have begun to sing in English and they had enlisted my help to write some songs in English and develop an authentic English accent whilst singing them. I think on both counts we were much more successful than any could have imagined and as such we had become good friends. I had previously been to one of their barbeques which was mightily impressive. Their apartment is amazing with an absolutely amazing terrace at the back, complete with lemon trees, the fruit from which went into many a Caipiroska. F’s picanha skills are immense and so these parties are inevitably lots of fun.

The Friday in question (the 24^th) was particularly hectic, it being the last day of work and coming, as is typical, with that usual dragging feeling that anticipation of holidays brings. I was this night, however, due to provide the music at TBFB’s barbeque and so after many coffees and pick me ups I lugged my DJ gear over to the flat and proceeded to amaze all those gathered with my disk spinning skills. I slipped in a few Brazilian classics along with the typical indie fare and some unusual additions and I think I played the crowd pretty well. The night ended with some acoustic singalongs and invitations for TBFB to come and sample my famous Arroz de Pato (duck rice) on Tuesday.

Saturday, as has been the habit of the past couple of months, was the day devoted to the beach. We have become fans of the Costa da Caparica which is a bit of a change for S who was originally an Estoril girl. The beaches of the Costa are much better though, cleaner, bigger and less crowded (in fact a visit yesterday to a beach in Estoril to see friends showed just what a meat market it is, the bodies looked like a butcher’s shop). The big problem with the Costa is the journey although this problem is somewhat psychological – the trip takes you over the bridge but if timed well it really isn’t much longer than that to Estoril and it’s well worth the extra time. The beach this Saturday was fun but the weather wasn’t as warm as it had been and the sea especially was pretty chilly, I only took a couple of dips myself when usually you can’t get me out of there.

After the raucous nights out of previous weeks, combined with plans for the Sunday, meant that Saturday night was spent relatively quietly.

Sunday brought an overnight trip to Porto to see our friend X defend her thesis (that me and S had helped quite a bit on) at the University of Porto. At some point I will have to dedicate a separate post to the joys of Porto but here I will just say a few important things about Portugal’s second city.

I am in love with Porto, I think most cities have an essence that is immediately apparent to those visiting them (after living in a place for a while you begin to take some of that essence into yourself and give a little back to the communal essence) and the essence of Porto is one of relaxed self assurance, a ‘coolness’ if you will.

Porto is the essential counterpoint to Lisbon in the way that Manchester is to London in the UK (and so many other ‘second cities’ must be in their respective countries). The people are more friendly and outgoing (qualities that although not absent in Lisbon are so noticeably unorthodox that I have heard, on a number of occasions, people from Porto called rude) and there is an unselfconsciousness that is seen in the far greater freedom with which people act and dress. There is much more of an apparent and obvious alternative culture in Porto.

I often remark that the Portuguese, for all their charm, are in general still quite socially conservative, and this expresses itself perfectly in the way in which the youth dress. Here in Lisbon there is much more of a ‘middle of the road’ attitude where between the ages of 15-30 in most social groups people dress, if not identically, within certain social bounds. (The great example of this being that when the weather is cooler –Spring and Autumn – 90% of girls in that age group will be sporting the mysteriously ‘fashionable’ combo of skinny jeans and hiking boots.) This is not to say that Lisbon is not without it’s ‘fringe’ but it is to say that this is much smaller than you might experience in the UK and much less obvious than that in Porto. There is also a feeling that Porto is much more of a forward thinking city than Lisbon, something again linked to that ‘second city’ inferiority complex perhaps, but I digress…

I have much more to say about Porto, not least my addiction to their regional dish - the francesinha, but it will have to wait for a separate post. I will leave the subject of Porto by just saying that X’s defence went extremely well and we enjoyed our brief visit immensely. It was too short but I hope to visit Porto again soon.

Tuesday was spent cleaning the flat and preparing for the visit of TBFB who were going to be leaving for Brazil shortly and to whom I wanted to say goodbye. An entertaining night was had and my dish (Arroz de Pato) went down very well, as did S’s sangria, for which she is getting quite a reputation! TBFB will be moving to London soon so I have no doubt that our paths will cross again but it was quite sad to see them go. As a leaving gift we got a full rendition of the songs I had helped the guys perfect and I really feel quite proud of the work we’ve done together.

Wednesday was the day we left for our main holiday, a week in the countryside, in a tiny village called Alqueve which is half way between Coimbra and Serra de Estrela. It was a week with S’s family and we had an excellent time with trips in the battered 2CV that S’s uncle keeps there. We had a week of S’s mum’s amazing cooking as well a couple of pies from me which S loves and the others politely eat (a little exaggeration here, they all loved the cheese and onion one).

I discovered the thrill and joy of running in the mountains, which is ten times harder than the streets of Lisbon but infinitely more beautiful. I developed a little route which took me above the village (which is perched on the side of a steep, forested, hill) and then through the village, usually to the cheers of the villagers who seemed amused by the crazy foreigner. You have to bare in mind here that most of these villagers are over 60 (many over 80) and are fitter than anyone I've met before.

The week was very welcome but by the end I was glad to return to civilisation.

Back to the grindstone now though.

Night moves....

It's been a little while again but I really think my exploits over the past few weeks should be recorded for posterity. What I really want to talk about at the moment is Lisbon nightlife. Lisbon is rightly famed for its parties and the month of June is really when the city starts to wake up from the winter lull and it gets a little exciting.

Mid-June sees the Festas dos Santos Populares of the Festivals of the Popular Saints where for nights on end the citizens will gather on the streets in some of the older, more traditional, areas like Alfama and Graça and listen to music, drink and eat grilled sardines. S and I didn't get to experience much of the street festivities this year as we had agreed to go to a houseparty on the night of the biggest party, Saint Anthony's day, but we did get to experience something of the Portuguese youth there, a subject I will return to shortly. What little of the traditional Saint Anthony's Day experience we did get was walking up the Castle Hill and seeing almost a fog of barbecued sardines. At quite an early hour for Lisbon the streets were already packed and it was quite a struggle just to get through. Earlier in the week we has seen them setting up in Santos and Bica with stages for the music and that's where many of my colleagues had headed but in crowds as heavy as they where phone calls were impossible and we had to give up on our attempts to meet up that night.

The day after Saint Anthony's party is usually a day for nursing your hangover but for me and S it was the preparations for our own party that we were throwing that night. We'd already done the shopping and were well supplied with beers and wine and so S was left to prepare the sangria and I descended into the usual barely controlled rage with which I cook for many people. In the end, with some much appreciated help from J at the fryer and R1 & R2 at the barbecue we had plenty of food for everyone. There were beers aplenty and S's sangria went down a storm as usual...there is a recipe she will have to take to the grave, my French colleague who usually spends much of these events dismissing Portuguese wine even had to admit S had worked wonders with it.

It was really good to get the two groups of people, my new friends and S's old ones, together and it meant there was a pretty multicultural vibe going on there. One of the big problems that some of my colleagues here have is mixing with the locals and so this definitely went some way to helping this, next time we'll just have to make things bigger.

This problem of social mixing has come up again and again here and even more frequently lately when we have started going out more. Portugal is still, socially, a very conservative country. People here, when they go out of a night, tend to very much stick in their own groups. I would in fact go further than that and say that on the few occasions I have attempted to start up conversations it's met with incomprehension. This fact has been noted by most of my colleagues who enjoy going out and who have been here in Lisbon for much longer than me. It has, therefore, led to the sad state of affairs whereby until recently they had all but given up trying and resigned themselves to a form of internal social exile.

I have been lately doing all I can to try and instigate some kind of cultural exchange amongst the people I know here. It's not an easy process but I believe we are getting somewhere, slowly. There are however a few other problems with Portuguese society that do make this difficult. One of the extensions (whether it a cause or a symptom I do not know) of the general social conservatism here is the fact that most 'youths' (and by this I mean the age range 20-25) pretty much all live at home with their parents. There really isn't the movement as there is in the UK of people leaving home for university, but it goes deeper than that because even in the UK those people I knew who didn't go to university had by and large moved out by the time they were 25. Here it is not at all uncommon for people for 28,29 and 30 to still live at home. This of course entails all that you imagine it to, from clothes being washed to meals prepared.

One of the striking consequences of the majority of youths still being tied to their mother's apron strings is a remarkable amount of what can be described as immaturity. I was shocked to discover that at a houseparty I recently attended that most people were of roughly my age, give or take a year or so, when I would easily have put the average age at somewhere about 18. It's not that I am particularly ageist or indeed that I hope to spend parties discussing mortgage applications or the finer details of raising children but it is good to know that the people you are with have something of the same concerns as you rather than missing their curfew but this does also suppose that some conversation would be had. The only mingling achieved that night, other than with people I had formally been introduced to, was with a French guy (who thought S was 23!).

With these quite large differences in Portuguese culture it is sometimes difficult not to make comparisons with what I am used to but having come across a number of colleagues who have spent their time in Lisbon making unfavourable comparisons I have seen it somewhat as a mission to encourage them to come out more. Of course there are differences but one shouldn't let these stop one from having fun.

In this spirit the past couple of weeks have also seen my hit the beach. S and I spent much of the Saturday before last on a wonderful spot of sand on the Costa da Caparica. I was more than a little reluctant at first, never having been much of a beach person. but within an hour or so I had definitely entered into the spirit of things. We were lucky to be in a small group and we spent the afternoon chatting, swimming and raquetballing. Much fun was had by all until it came to the drive home and the, apparently typical, hour long wait in the car park. Fortunately we had a bit of inside information and made our way back to the bridge via a shortcut so what could have been an extremely long drive home was merely a long drive home.

Saturday evening was really one of the best nights out I've had in Lisbon to date. We started off, after our dash back from the beach, a quick shower and a hastily scoffed McDonalds, in Chapito with some friends. After spending a few hours there and just about the time they were kicking out, S, A and I headed over to Lux, time it perfectly, avoiding a queue but not being the first ones there. The music was varied but generally pretty cool. I think A would've prefered to have spent more time in the bar but we ended up sepnding most of the time on the roof which in the event was probably for the best. The only blemish on the entire evening was the lack of soup and pão com choriço afterwards but I could tell S and A weren't up for it and I didn't want to be pushy.

This weekend was again a hectic one. I had my good friend and ex-housemate from London, P, staying. He had arrived on Thursday and left yesterday and in those few days managed to pack in an amazing amount of sightseeing. Friday saw P left much to his own devices but he seemed to have seen about 90% of what any guidebook would recommend a visitor to Lisbon see. I thought he might be a little tired after this but we proceeded to have a pretty cool night in one of my favourite haunts, Crew Hassan. P really enjoyed this place and it's true what he said about it, you don't get anywhere like that in the UK and if you did it wouldn't take long to ruin. Of the 'cultural cooperatives' that abound in Lisbon I feel that Crew Hassan is possibly the most ramshackle and bohemian, to the point where you feel like most of the time there's no-one in charge and you have just found yourself in an old building in someone's house party.

Saturday was a crazily busy day that saw a trip to Sintra (with hotdogs in Guia on the way back) followed by a quick nap and then a lovely meal in one of the few vegetarian restaurants in Lisbon. After this we headed over to Bairro Alto for some drinks and the down to Lounge for dancing, timing our return home perfectly and just avoiding a huge down poor.

It was lovely to see P and I know he had a great time here but it has completely taken it out of me and S, I envisage a few early nights this week.

Memory smells...

Today I am surrounded by memory smell. This is a phenomena that I encounter on a regular basis but not particularly often and it is probably the first time that it has happened since I have moved to Lisbon.

The day is grey and cloudy, as it has been for the better part of the week. There are intermittent spots of rain and the air feels quite heavy. Lisbon is a strange city for this kind of weather, stuck as it is, largely between two hills (the legendary 5 others are a mystery to me) make this atmosphere quite oppressive, as is the whole sky is pressing down on you. To be honest, I really quite enjoy it, I feel more interaction between myself and the environment when the rain is wetting my skin than when the sun is burning it.

But anyway...this kind of weather, that really seems to bring your senses into sharp focus, tend to lead me towards memory smell. This is a scent that I can't get out of my nose, I don't know if it's real or imagined but I like to think of it as an imagined scent from a long past memory. I sometimes get this experience when performing a certain task, reading a certain book or listening to a song, and sometimes it lasts all day. The smell isn't bad but neither is it good in the typical sense, it's not food or flowers or nature, it seems to be a composite that I find amazingly comforting.

I wonder if I'm the only one that has this experience.

In where I am at least 90% positive about Portugal...

It has been claimed, in the past week, that I am unduly harsh in my criticism of Lisbon and Portugal, and that my blog is filled with moans and whinges. This is a charge that I firmly deny and it has taken me a good few days to find a suitable riposte. Sadly I am without the incisiveness of the originator I paraphrase but as Dickens once said of America, 'To represent me as viewing Portugal with ill-nature, coldness or animosity, is merely to do a very foolish thing, which is always a very easy one.'

To that end this post will be filled with nothing but effusive praise, something which I can assure my readers is not forced and I am not short of. The past week has been a trying one for a number of reasons but has not been without its highlights, it has been in turn hectic, stressful, painful and nausea inducing.

Last Thursday was an almost entirely positive day, I had been having a rather productive week at work, my paper is coming on well and there has suddenly been an influx of resources for my subject matter. They're not particularly good resources, most of them are either badly out of date, overly specific or else American (urgh, they should not be allowed to write seriously on the subject of drugs!) and we also had a chuckle at the INCB report that came out and seemed to have been written from the stone age. It really was like a drugs report that you'd expect your grandma to write, absolutely no comprehension of the realities in the world and they even managed to get the name of this organisation wrong (using the word Abuse rather than Addiction, Abuse is a term rarely if ever used here). I also did a few bits and pieces for colleagues including editing an interesting paper on drugs policy analysis.

Late in the afternoon I had the pleasurable surprise of spotting a job that I would love. I wouldn't say I would be perfect for it as I'm hugely inexperienced and under qualified but in the spirit of 'nothing ventured, nothing gained' I applied. It's with the UN in Vienna in the human trafficking department of UNODC as a project coordinator. There was also a job in a higher grade that was specifically in the field of drugs but the experience they were asking for was 7 years and I thought this was asking a bit much plus the vacancy I did apply for actually had experience in drug supply control as an advantageous requirement. I will probably hear nothing from it but I would like to keep in the habit of applying for jobs and updating my CV as it's never an easy task and one can easily get out of practice. It would be great to get some form of feedback from the application but I am realistic about my prospects.

Friday was spent largely on errands, I had to go to the supermarket and pick up a few things but I also had to pop over to the Universidade Nova de Lisboa to sign up for my Portuguese language course. I felt it best to start at the beginning because even though I know a few phrases and can get by with some basics I don't want to carry on with any of the bad habits I might have picked up. Plus this way I can always be the first person in the class with my hand up, a habit I have never grown out of. My schedule now is quite good, there are two classes a week, each two hours long. I'll be there Monday 18:00-20:00 and Friday 18:00-20:00. The Friday classes are particularly convenient as soon S will be returning to classes and we can meet for dinner and chats, in fact we'll actually be in the same building which will be fun.

On the way back from the faculty I had the opportunity to take a photograph of one of my favourite bits of graffiti in Lisbon. This is a building which from the looks of it is still occupied, although possibly by squatters. It's one of the classic bits of crumbling Lisbon that I love, the faded decadence. I'm not a big fan of the renovations that you see popping up everywhere and even less the new buildings but these crumbling monuments are wonderful.



Someone here is evidently a fan of acid and wishes to proclaim it on one of the busiest roads in Lisbon. Over the next few weeks I'll have to try and grab photos of my other favourite bits of graffiti. The city is excellent for it but sadly the suburbs just seem to be full of scribbles and tags. As I learn more of the language I'm also finding more and more amusing and political phrases scribbled around so I'll try and get some of those too.

Friday evening was a break from the studying that had kept S occupied all week. We had planned a visit to the cinema to see Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky (the DVD of which I remember expressly planning on stealing from my mum's last time I was there but I forgot). We had invited a few people but in the end it was just J who responded so rather than the effort and expense we decided to have a chilled night in, I would cook and we could watch of the DVDs S had borrowed from her boss which were (ahem) completely legal!

As it turned out it was really quite fortunate that this was the plan as S had, in the course of the day, picked up some stomach bug. S has notoriously sensitive digestive system and I hoped it was just a case that she'd drunk some milk within 24 hours of eating an orange or something innocuous like that that had set her stomach growling but it soon became apparent that it was something a bit more serious. It was for the best that we decided to stay in, J and I shared a rather overstuffed ham, mushroom and goats cheese Calzone that I prepared and which S quite rightly didn't want to risk and then we set about watching Woody Allen's latest bit of fluff, Vicky Christina, Barcelona.

I never expected the film to be a masterpiece but neither was it awful. It did leave me wondering why on earth Penelope Cruz was nominated for best supporting actress at the Oscars (but it was no stranger than Josh Brolin's nomination for Milk). The girls of course swooned over Javier Bardem who is quite obvious in his Latin charm whilst I was left with a disappointing Scarlett Johansson who is becoming blander and blander as time passes and Rebecca Hall who looked much more awkward than in her (admittedly pointless but glamorous) role in Frost/Nixon. I was pleased to note, though, that some of the indoor action in Barcelona was shot in a bar I visited last summer at Primavera Sound, a very cool little absinthe bar which at the time was filled to the rafters with indie kids. (Incidentally the film also reminded me to give another listen to one of the most underrated, and sometimes mocked, albums of 2008 - Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head.)

Saturday and Sunday consisted of me doing a bit of cleaning and tidying, a lot of reading and actually making a return to running...something which on Monday I paid the price for dearly when my muscles were so sore I could barely walk. S on the other hand had to contend with food poisoning whilst writing a paper on European politics. I have immense respect for this women managing to get it all done. Had I written this on Sunday I would've made some comment about her not knowing the term 'suffer in silence', Saturday was a rough night in which stomach pains kept her awake and she in turn ensured I knew she was being kept awake, however as Monday arrived and S had recovered, thanks to a diet of entirely white and tasteless food, I felt the first rumblings of something strange in my own stomach.

Through the increasing stomach cramps and the severe muscle strain from the run the night before I managed to waddle my way to work on Monday morning looking like a cross between a cowboy after a long ride and Raoul Duke and Dr Gonzo entering the Casino. I soon realised I had made a big mistake, I stuck it out at my desk for a couple of hours on the off chance it would go away but it was here to stay and so I dashed back home to curl up in bed. Here again praise should be heaped upon S because despite my less than sympathetic dealings with her convalescence (which consisted of preparing her white and tasteless food) she was very supportive, kind and loving despite the downright awful timing of my own illness. It was Carnival time and I had taken the day off on Tuesday so we could go out dancing on Monday. It turned out that by dancing time I did feel a lot better but we decided that it wasn't worth the risk to my health, better to get well then have the fun than spend the week regretting it.

Tuesday was a holiday here in Lisbon but rather than spending it with the anticipated hangover we instead were clear headed and thankful for the rest. We spent the morning having a big lie in and chatting and then drove to Estoril in the afternoon for lunch with the parents. It had been for the plan for me to take it easy with the food for a couple of days but I simply could not resist the Cozido à Portuguesa that S's mum had prepared which is pork and sausages (chouriço and morcela) and vegetables (lots of cabbage, carrot and turnip) boiled together and served with rice and beans. I avoided the blood sausage but otherwise had a pretty healthy appetite after my enforced fast of the previous day. After the meal we went for a drive with J to get a drink by the beach.

This was rather a pleasant drive, if a little longer than anticipated. It seemed that all of Lisbon was at the beach that day and therefore the roads were jam packed. We were predicting that that will be the story of the summer because as the credit crunch hits then people are not going to be visiting the Algarve or going shopping, they'll stick near to home.

After tea, beer and scones were consumed we made out way back to Estoril. It was good to spend some time with J and you get the impression she really enjoys the company now that she's split up with R. We dropped her off at her dad's and returned to S's parent's to watch the football. It was Man United v Inter and for 90 minutes me and S's dad could be united in our hatred of Jose Mourinho. It was a fascinating match, one which I believe was a definite moral victory for Man United and I definitely think I'm making some progress in making the Manchester Reds an adoptive team for him, as Benfica are now mine here.

Yesterday was spent doing some rather stressful party organising. 2 many DJs are playing a bar in Belem and I managed to get a few colleagues here interested in going, as well as a few of S's friend. The venue isn't great, it's expensive and posey and full of betalhada and it's a school night but the opportunities to get a few people out sadly don't come around too often and I think think some people could do with a little unwinding. So tonight will consist of going for a lovely Indian meal before drinks and dancing. It's been quite a while since I had a proper night out and I'm really looking forward to it.