Thought I’d start today with a possible submission for Viz’s Top-Tips;

“Ladies and homosexuals, save thousands of pounds on expensive skin products, beauty treatments and the like. Simply agree to play in a football tournament in Costa de Caparica, agree to meet at some ridiculous time in the morning, wake up late after a night of partying and forget to take your sun cream. After a couple of hours of playing, exposed to the unforgiving midday sun, you should have achieved a healthy radioactive incandescence. Now simply wait a couple of days, ignoring any laughter – it’s just jealousy. And here comes the science bit, by now your skin should have hardened and flaked slightly to resemble one of those casey balls that scratch your face off when you try an audacious, yet misguided glancing header. Ignore the irritable itching sensation for now, but once the top layer starts to peel, a quick shower and scrub should do the rest. And voila! You have a beautiful layer of baby smooth, shiny skin, without a single penny of your hard earned cash making its way to the pockets of the robbing b@stards who call themselves cosmetics companies, which might just possibly prevent them for inventing new ridiculous faux-latin names for active ingredients like Bifidus Digestivum. One can only hope, but at least you can hold you’re slighty tender but beautifully shiny head held high, knowing you did your bit.”

Arthur Brain , Lisbon  

Apologies for the language, just wanted it to sound authentic, should Viz want to accept my letter, perhaps I will submit it after all. And to quote Alan Partridge “Please don’t write in complaining that that was offensive, it wasn’t.” The only difference being that AP had preceded this, with a string of blatantly offensive discriminatory remarks, whereas the above comments aren’t mine – he’s called Arthur Brain for a start, so who’s the joke on? Ah Memories of the infamous Brass Eye Paedophile episode and ensuing media furore.

Unfortunately however, Arthur’s Top-tip is based on my actual experience. The tender skin doesn’t hurt half as much as the fierce sting of embarrassment at confirming a stereotype. Oh the English abroad, or ‘Bifes’ (Steaks) as the Portuguese like to refer to us as due to our ability of cooking a deep shade of red in the sun. It’s the ‘helpful’ comments that really get to me, yes it was stupid of me to forget my cream, but once I’d forgotten the cream, the dye was cast. Everyone forgets things, but in most cases we don’t have our forgetfulness tattooed all over our faces for 4 days afterwards. Thank God, I’d permanently have a long list of names and birthdays scrawled all over mine.

Ok, so following the festival antics in Coimbra, Santo Antonio in Lisbon was next on the agenda in early June. I volunteered myself for a bit of an ambitious round town, whistle stop tour with Dan and Amanda, hoping to join the rest of the gang back at Bica around midnight. Some people were working but for others it all started in the afternoon. There was a sound system up at the miradouro at Santa Catarina with DJ’s playing from 4pm. They started on time too; I wasn’t there but could feel/ hear the bass from our house. So, I stuffed a few cold beers in a cool bag and wondered up, settling on a bit of grass in the sun, admiring the view over the river. Yeah a pretty blissful afternoon was in store. I popped home after a couple of hours for supplies and dragged Ivana back with me for more of the same, meeting Dali and friends up there. The hours passed pretty quickly and it was soon time for me to leave. I met Dan and Amanda on Avenida Liberdade to the ringing sound of gun fire. Fortunately gun culture hasn’t really arrived in Lisbon yet, it was part of the ‘Marchas Populares’ that were proceeding down Avenida, as processions tend to. A couple of beers and sardines down and we headed for Alfama. Timing was crucial as everyone heads there once the procession finishes, and once you’re stuck in the crowds that’s that. We made it up there in pretty good time, and managed to get more supplies, although they seemed to be adding a special San Antonio-Alfama weighting to the prices. The tough bit was getting back down the hill and across to the Bica, as most of the crowd were still coming up. Fighting against the current was impossible, but there was the odd trickle of people heading down, but getting across the river and into the stream was no mean feat. Finally arrived back at the miradouro, to meet the gang who certainly seemed to have imbibed the party spirit, or had Wendy had it all? When the music finished we tried to meet up with others down in Bica, but that was no walk in the park. Phone calls, text messages, and dodgy directions and drunken misunderstandings are all par for the course and dare I say all part of the fun! Canadian Wendy might not have agreed, despite only being about 100m away from us, it’d all been too much, she gave up, but sounded like she’d had a good night.

Arrived back at home with a  small group in tow for a nice cup of tea at a rather civilised 5am. Thankfully(?) no repeat of last years antics with Nuno and Juan, walking home from Alfama around 9am whipping each other with our t-shirts, like kids in the changing rooms. Nice memories, but you can’t beat a nice ‘cuppa’ can you?

Next up: Sao Joao in Porto, African Music Festivals & the soon-to-be-legendary Boavista Social Club

Also thanks to Emma for convincing me, but I have a new favourite website/ tool-thing, Last fm, which magically, logs what music you are playing on your laptop through media player, i-tunes or whatever, and has it available on your page, with lovely info about events in your area, recommendations, weekly charts, what your friends are listening to, and even a neighbourhood of people with similar tastes. If you’ve got one already, add me as a friend, the link is below. If you haven’t, have a look anyway. I was reluctant too at first.

http://www.last.fm/user/gouldinho  

Toodle Pip!!