Noite dos Sabores Internacionais

In the days leading up to Saturday 16 May, we had of course seen the posters up around town for the Noite dos Sabores Internacionais (literally "Night of International Flavours"). But it never occurred to me we might actually attend such an event until one of our neighbours - PL of the burning 4WD alluded to passim - e-mailed to ask if we'd like to go as he was going and could give us a lift. Well that put us in a bit of a spot because we're not normally Noites dos Sabores Internacionais type of people. However the clinching factor was when I looked again at the flyer I'd picked up:-

As my scanner's on the blink that's a photo of the logo for the event which is an outline map of the island with the foreign flags plonked roughly where the corresponding ex-pats live on the island. You'll note a Union Jack at about 9 o' clock approximately over Faja Grande where we stay. We're the only Brits on the island so the Grand Vizier of the Perola do Ocidente ("Pearl of the West") lodge of the Lions Clube (Porto. equivalent of Rotary or Round Table) - the organisers of the event - knows where we live.

So resistance being useless, we agreed to go in accordance with the following strategy: PL's driving so we'll deal with it by getting drunk - a bit of a flash of genius on my part, I think you'll agree.

The next problem we - by which I mean Carol - was faced with was that everyone was expected to bring along a dish or a drink from their homeland. I was all in favour of just getting a bottle of Scotch from José António's. As it's so much cheaper here, we could even run to one in a presentation box. But C felt more effort was required although with ingredients for haggis being thin on the ground, what to do? Until she came up with the brilliant of idea of oatcakes. (Which would not have been thought of were it not for the fun which ensued from when a friend of ours - you know who you are - was out here last year and said in JA's shop "Oh look, oatmeal, let's make oatcakes!")

So, posh bottle of Scotch and tupperware full of oatcakes (triangular this time instead of round if you're reading this oatcake friend) in hand, we mounted up on PL's 4WD (for the last time as events would turn out). A fellow passenger was Tino, a Finnish chap who lives in FG (Finnish flag duly represented on map above at quarter past nine) who'd gone to the trouble of making some sort of Finnish dish although its name escapes me now.

Anyway, on arrival at the village hall at Lajes, I'd expected to find about a couple of dozen of the mainly German expats who live here but was surprised to find half the island had turned out:-

After dinner (fortunately the Lions Clube had had the foresight to lay on a buffet in case the offerings of the foreigners were as meagre as ours) there was a concert of impromptu musical offerings with an international flavour. And at this point I want to totally stop being my usual flippant, glip, cynical self and say how nice and good quality the performances were. They were a lot better than similar amateur shows I've seen in Scotland. Just two photos:-

The lady on the left is French (she had earlier done a routine with her very young kids) and the lady on the right is Brazilian and they did a very clever routine whereby you thought it was going to be cringingly awful until they brought it up by degrees to being a Susan Boyle moment.

These two above were a chap from Cape Verde (I'm sorry I don't know your name) and his daughter (ditto) who brought the house down. Cape Verde is a country almost no English speakers have heard of. It's an archipelago of islands off the coast of West Africa colonised by Portugal but, with an overwhelmingly African population, they've been an independent republic since 1975. CV is to Portugal what Jamaica is to the UK.

The bottle of posh Scotch went down a storm (and the oatcakes disappeared without trace so we're taking that as no news is good news) so I'm brushing up my High Roads and my Low Roads for next year.

Oh, our Italian cousins!

One of my favourite moments in Blackadder is when he's strolling in Traitors' Cloister with the Queen making conversation and says in an ingratiating tone "And in Genoa, 'tis now the fashion to pin a live frog to the shoulder braid, stand on a bucket and go "bibble" at passers-by." To which the Queen replies in a tone of indulgent mock exasperation "Oh, our Italian cousins!"

Which is by way of introduction to a post, not about an Italian cousin, but one of my Italian neighbours. And at the risk of the usual digression, I use the term "one of my Italian neighbours" advisedly because, notwithstanding that this is a small and remote Portuguese island, I have two (unrelated) Italian neighbours. And there was a time when I had three but that's another story.

Anyway, that's a picture of the chap in question. We call him PL and I took the picture a week past Saturday as he was driving us to Lajes for the Noite dos Sabores Internacionais (International Cuisine Evening - I'll tell you about that another time). The vehicle we were in was one of these 4WD, SUV type jobs. Diesel. Two gear levers. PL has a guesthouse and he uses this car to give guests tours of the island and transfers to the airport etc.

Anyway, see that dark smudge on the road there? That is all that remains of said vehicle! The bloody thing only went on fire whilst en route from the airport with a couple of guests and burnt to a cinder!

We heard about this yesterday, the day it happened, second hand (as you can imagine, it was the talk of the town) but I met PL today and got the full story. Apparently, he was driving along when he began to notice a smokey smell. Then there was the appearance of smoke in the cabin. He stopped, opened the bonnet (hood) to find a small fire burning. Emptied the fire extinguisher into it, then a 5 litre bottle of bottled water but even after that there was a still a persistant small flame feeding on melted wires. He reckoned that if he'd happened to have bought a second bottle of water, all might have been well but he hadn't and it's been very dry lately so no nearby streams to get more water from. So with no further fire-fighting opportunities to hand, it was judged prudent to promptly remove the clients' luggage from the boot (trunk) and repair to a safe distance. Apparently 10 minutes later, flames were shooting 10 metres in the air with a plume of acrid black smoke visible in Long Island as the tyres (inc. two spares) took hold. (No dramatic explosion as the fuel tank went up because diesel doesn't really burn at room temperature and, anyway, that's just Hollywood).

Anyway, this is the "Do you like border collies?" moment of this post: Thinking that if I'd been one of them I would have paid extra for this performance, I enquired how the guests - a couple of British honeymooners - had reacted. PL told me he'd said to them - and here you have to realise that he speaks English in a comedy "Just one Cornetto" Italian accent: "I told zem eet was zer passion, eet was zo hot, eet burn my car." I bet he did and all! Only an Italian could get away with that!

By the way, if anyone had passed as I was taking a picture of a dark smudge on the road this afternoon, I think the only reasonable thing to have done would have been to go "bibble".

History of Scotland Part II - Broken Pots

I like museums and I can't resist going in to them. The best ones are those which have working exhibits in glass cases with a button you can press and the exhibit - a Newcomen engine drawing water out of a flooded mine shaft or something like that, ideally - starts working.

But if there's one thing I can't be doing with, it's museums which turn out to be full of bits of broken pots. This is the era of Scottish history we've arrived at - the Pot Age.

I'm being flippant of course (moi?) because what I'm actually referring to here is the transition from the Mesolithic Era (Middle Stone Age) to the Neolithic (New Stone Age). It is the most seminal moment in the history of mankind because it's when we moved from acquiring food by hunting/picking wild animals/plants to harvesting domestic animals/plants: farming. This was a bigger step than the Industrial Revolution, the internal combustion engine and Microsoft Windows all rolled into one - it was verging on tomato ketchup in squeezy plastic bottles instead of glass ones in significance as a milestone in the development of human civilisation.

The Neolithic revolution started about 5,000BC in the Middle East. Of course, it didn't just happen on a single day when everyone was invited to drop off their wild boar hunting spears and berry picking - er - picking implements - and take away a sack of seed and a couple of lambs and a calf in exchange. Farming took time to spread out around the world with old habits dying hard. It reached Scotland in about 3-4,000BC (give or take the usual milennium or two), a couple of thousand years after it had been invented.

The two greatest Neolithic monuments in Scotland are:-


That's Skara Brae in Orkney - an archipelago off the north coast of Scotland where the geology is such that the rock splits very nicely for building purposes so it's a kind of Stone Age paradise. Skara Brae is a bit of a broken pot as major league international archaeological sites go (Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, et al can sleep easily) but it is reckoned to be the best preserved neolithic village in Europe. (I dread to think how dull the second best preserved one must be - it's probably in somewhere like Tubingen in Germany that, with luck, I will be spared ever going to.)

The second most famous Neolithic monument in Scotland is a bit more interesting:-

These are the standing stones at Callanish (or Calanais if you prefer the Gaelic spelling. I don't.) This is the "Scottish Stone Henge" on the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. I also have the pleasure to be able to record that, unlike Stone Henge, Callanish is not plagued by dirty, hippy, druidy types and you're still perfectly able to go there unmolested on Mid Summer's Day if you wish ...

And at this point - as this is history without looking any of it up to check - I've realised I may be talking out of an orifice which is not the one I normally talk out of and that Callanish may be later than Neolithic and may actually be Bronze Age - another couple of thousand years on. Sort of roughly 1-2,000BC-ish. Still a bloody long time ago by anyone's standards.

The Neolithic move to farming as opposed to hunter gathering was not all good news, however, and had two unpleasant side-effects: (a) war - the theory goes that the extra food generated caused a population explosion which led to pressure on available resources and a "get off my land" attitude. Anthropolgists reckon that they have never yet found a pointed or a heavy thing designed to kill another human as opposed to a seal or a wild boar dating back to hunter gathering days: so John Lennon would have been in his element in the Mesolithic; and (b) people started making pots, the broken consequences of which are still haunting us to this day as well. There was, indeed, a race known as "the Beaker People" after their distinctive beaker shaped pots. Whether they were Neolithic or Bronze Age, I forget but it's an ignoble soubriquet, I've always felt. It would be a bit like us being referred to as the Condom People or something like that ...

(Unrelated, but does anyone remember the Bleakers? 60s sci-fi comic strip - I've a notion it was in the Blue Peter annual of all things - Yes, No?)

... but I couldn't eat a whole one

Yesterday - 23rd May - was our third anniversary of arriving on this island. To us it's now a more significant anniversary than our wedding - which, in fact, was always less significant than the anniversary of our meeting which, as it happens, will be 20 years this November...

But I digress as usual. To celebrate our third "Flores anniversary" we decided to go out for dinner to the new Casa do Rei restaurant. This was notwithstanding two important factors - 1. We're feeling a bit "recessioned" financially-wise due to collapse of £/€ and interest rates; and 2. You have to drive to the CdR as it's about 15km from our house and, due to point 1, I'm reluctant to hire a taxi. So no after dinner ports and Irish Coffees for me. However it was well worth it as the Casa do Rei is very different from all other restaurants on this island. It's run by a couple who are the ex-pats who've been longest on this island: 30 years - he is Belgian, she is Swiss and the food and general presentation is sensational.

Now, here I feel I'm being a bit disloyal to the Costa Ocidental snack bar here in Faja which doesn't do spring onions and humous (sp?) in wee square bowls as an aperitif. But it does do steaks and huge piles of chips and salad (with mayo). And I'm a steak and chip kind of guy (with mayo), let me tell you. And the really nice thing about the CO is I just have to put my head round the door and Ligia knows that means an espetada de porco with batatas fritas for me and an espetada de frango (chicken) with batatas cozidas (boiled potatoes) for Carol and a cold bottle of Casal Garcia vinho verde at 8.30 sharp. Then an Irish coffee for me after - i.e. a cup of milky coffee with one of their customarily generous helpings of Scotch tipped into it. Different styles of eatery, horses for courses (if you'll pardon the pun), variety the life of spice and all that ...

Anyway, back in the Casa do Rei on Saturday, André (who has a comedy French 'Allo 'Allo accent) emerges out the kitchen and we talk away about food and meat and good things to eat and availability thereof on this island - not always to be taken for granted - seasonal - things that can be imported - etc... until, almost in the middle of a sentence he says "Do you like Border Collies?" And we're like that! - look at each other for a moment before I find myself saying "Well, they're OK - but not to eat, surely?"

Turns out he'd clocked we're Scottish and wasn't imagining for a minute dishing up Medallions of Lassie drizzled in a jus of whatsname but rather he was interested in training dogs to run sheep (and goats) - I should explain that cows are much the most prominent farm animal on this island, with sheep (and goats) being in such a minority, you tend to forget their existence.

Yes, well, you sort of had to have been there ...

History of Scotland Part I - Pure Rubbish

This is the first of a series of blog entries on the history of Scotland I'm going to try and write without looking any of it up.

This first chapter is rather dull because it's an era I know particularly little about - prehistory. Later chapters (Braveheart and all that) will be more interesting, I promise. OK - here goes.

10,000 years ago, what is now Scotland was covered in glaciers as it was the last Ice Age - the bonnie heather clad banks of Loch What'sname looked like the South Pole on a bad day. When the ice had melted about 5,000 years later (give or take a few thousand years) Scotland was looking a bit like northern Siberia - still a bit parky but humans were beginning to move in. Probably the closest modern analogy to these people would be Inuit (Eskimos) a couple of hundred years ago before they came in contact with Europeans. That is to say hunter gatherers of seals, dolphins, fish and in summer, berries, roots etc. A nomadic people moving camp according to the seasons. This was the Stone Age, of course (Mesolithic).

I think I'm right in saying that the earliest traces of human settlement (using that word in its loosest sense because it was maybe just a nomadic seasonal camp) so far discovered in Scotland are on the island of Rum off the west coast. These are carbon dated to about 4,000BC. Although it might be 6,000BC - I can't remember now, he says bandying millennia around in a way that's going to sound a bit odd in contrast to when I later come on to say things like "it's important to understand that this happened in the morning of the 16 April 1746, not the afternoon."

The main tangible remains these people left to us are their rubbish: piles of seashells and animal and fish bones. These mesolithic landfill sites are called middens which is a good Scottish word meaning a rubbish dump. It's most often heard nowadays in expressions like "This room is a pure midden" meaning it's somewhat untidy. It also needs to be explained that "pure" is a peculiarly west of Scotland way of saying total, complete etc. Anyway, as I don't have a picture of one (and I expect they don't look that spectacular anyway), here's a picture of the island of Colonsay off the west coast of Scotland where mesolithic shell middens have been found.

Actually, it's Colonsay in the foreground with Oronsay across the water and Islay and Jura on the horizon. Total Celtic heartland.

Well, as I said, that was a particularly dull introduction to Scottish history - mainly as it's not particularly Scottish and the same could be said about anywhere on the globe at the same lattitude.

Next time, I'll get on to something more distinctively Scottish like the standing stones of Callanish and the neolithic village at Skara Brae in Orkney. Also why Colonsay etc, as pictured above are not really Celtic at all but actually Scandinavian

The captain's table

One of my favourite bloggists is my mate Baby Chou @ Le Moulin. As she's always very foody, I thought two could play at that game so I give you ...

... some sort of fish. I spent ages pulling their guts out of their cavities (my fingers are still honking) but there they are looking photogenic, stuffed with fennel and drizzled with pretentiousness. Much longer in the oven than is desirable when you're hungry, the result was this:-

And that was actually the high point of the meal. Carol did a very nice potato and onion bake thing and a home made tartare sauce and, of course, there's nothing finer than a bottle of Malaquias Branco (retailing at €0.97 a litre on this island). But the fish were rubbish. Very fresh but if there's one thing I can't abide it's a mouthful of fish bones. Come back Captain Birdseye, all is forgiven. Still, the cats had a nice night. Biccies and cheese for us later, though.

Lord John Marbury

This is another thing which gets on my wick - Hollywood getting the British peerage all wrong.

Take, for example, the character in "The West Wing" who is the British ambassador. He's called "Lord John Marbury" and in one episode explains that his full handle is "John Marbury, Earl of Croy, Earl of Sherborne, Marquess of Needham and Dalby, Baronet of Brycey". It's hard to know where to begin with the list of errors and solecisms that contains but I'll try:-

1. Anyone called "Lord Christian name - surname" (as in "Lord John Marbury") is not a "lord" at all. This is the form of address of the younger son of a duke or a marquess. The most famous example is Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, a younger son of the Duke of Queensberry.

2. If Lord JM really were the Earl of Croy etc., then he would have listed his titles in order of rank - i.e. Marquess of Needham and Dalby, Earl of Croy, Earl of Sherborne. (The titles in the British peerage are, in descending order of rank, duke, marquess (in some cases spelt marquis), earl, viscount and baron.)

3. There is no such thing as being "Baronet of Brycey" (or anywhere else). A baronetcy is, in effect, a hereditary knighthood with no territorial connection. It would have been entirely possible for John Marbury to have been a baronet in which case he would have been Sir John Marbury, Marquess of Needham and Dalby etc. etc. But a baronetcy is not a peerage.

4. If you don't know the geezer well enough to call him plain John, you would call him "Lord Needham" after his highest ranking title. (Even the British aristocracy accepts that it's not necessary to call him "Lord Needham and Dalby"). Thus, if you're Mrs Landingham, you would say "Good morning Lord Needham, the President will be with you shortly ..." (I feel Mrs L would have known that or at least taken the trouble to find out.)

5. Calling a peer Lord X for short doesn't work if he's a duke. If you don't know a duke well enough to call him by his first name, there's no alternative but to call him "Your Grace". (Some say it's OK to call them plain "Duke" (as in "Good morning Duke") but I'm not sure. The only duke I ever dealt with, I studiously avoided trying to call him anything.)

6. As well as referring to peers other than dukes as Lord X, you can refer to them as "christian name-title" - e.g. John Needham. In practice, this is how an aristocratic ambassador to the USA would have styled himself: being a gentleman, he would understand that our colonial cousins would get confused over the niceties so would make it easy for them. Back in the real world, the British politician Michael Ancram was actually Michael Kerr, Earl of Ancram.

7. The eldest son and heir of a peer bears the second most senior title of his father while the latter is still alive. This was the case with Michael Ancram whose father was the Marquess of Lothian. However, having made his political reputation as "Michael Ancram" he continues to call himself that even after his father died and he became the Marquess of Lothian and thereby "Michael Lothian".

The main privilege of being a peer of any rank was the right to sit in the House of Lords, the upper chamber (the Senate, if you will) of the British parliament. But that right was removed in 1999 and now only 92 representatives elected from amongst the hereditary peers have the right to sit in the HoL. The remaining members are all "life peers" (senators, in effect), worthies appointed by the Queen on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. Life peers have the rank of baron. If Her Majesty were gracious enough to condescend to appoint me a life peer, I would be Baron King of Flores. You can call me Lord King.

I trust that's all quite clear now. It's perfectly simple really.

EDIT - I should make it clear that there are lots more serious things that get on my wick aside from the esoterica of the peerage - the abominable acting of Phil Mitchell in Eastenders when he's supposed to be drunk is one of them.