THE NEW KAISER CHIEFS

I AM FULLY AWARE of the fact that when one writes about the recently deceased Nelson Mandela without swelling fulsome with praise there will be a flurry of criticism similar to what happens whenever I write stating the fact that the absurd "global warming" protesters are just that: absurd.

 

NO ONE CAN DENY that Nelson Mandela suffered for his beliefs and stood defiant in his wish to see a new Republic of South Africa, and his acts were in many ways on the level of those carried out by the great Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was also given a hard time in South Africa by the obscurantist chaps who ran the country in the nineteen forties.

 

BOTH GENTLEMEN, so I am led to believe, went on to "improve things" in their countries and approached something near to sainthood in the eyes of those who grant credit to such entities as saints and angels.

 

SO WHY DO I SEE, when watching the week-long "celebrations" of Mandela's passing, images of young black children barefoot in ghettoes? Why did I see hardly any white faces in the 90,000 stadium which is the jewel in the crown of this "rainbow nation"?

 

AND WHY IS MANDELA'S natural heir, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, now President of the Rainbow, booed each time he appears in public? When even the true hero of the liberation of South Africans, President Frederik Willem de Klerk, was not given any prominence during the ceremonies? As I write, it looks like the nation may slip back into something worse than Mandela may have envisaged or even lived through. The time of the dictators seems to be returning.

THE BASHAR STREET KID

I HAVE BEEN MORE OR LESS UNABLE to keep up with my commitments of late due to a series of factors involving excess of work, illness to my good lady wife and a lack of anything out of the ordinary to write about, given that government incompetence and economic failure have become our daily bread, No one in their right minds expects to see a "recovery" (whatever that might be) for the next twenty years or so and so most of us who are living off accrued income and investments are forced to simply watch our income be reduced.

 

HOWEVER, ON THE FOREIGN FRONT, I have been paying some slight attention to the activities taking place in Syria. When, when what seems years ago, the soi-disant Arab Spring began, there were foolhardy journalists in the left-wing press in the United Kingdom, the openly socialist BBC, and the occasional article in the United States press (just to show balance) who heralded a "new dawn" of democracy in countries that had previously had a dearth of rights for the common man.

 

THE CURRENT SITUATION SEEMS to suggest that the new aurora has not been a great success. Tunisia has no apparent government at the moment, Libya is utter chaos with the only law being dictated by firearms, Egypt is a mystery even more unfathomable than Russia used to be, and Syria is, as I suppose everyone knows, a disgrace beyond belief in present times.

 

PHOTOGENIC BASHAR HAFEZ AL-ASSAD, the current leader of Syria (above), is relying on the fact that there has to be some limit on how many 19-year-old boys the United States of America and the United Kingdom are prepared to sacrifice in order to depose vile despots. This is particularly sensitive after we have seen over the last ten years that "the new guys" in power are usually not much better than the ones that we sacrificed thousands of our soldiers to replace.

 

YET, WHAT HAS PROVOKED me into writing this is the fact that Bashar stated last week to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that he deserved to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after it was granted to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) watchdog currently destroying his regime's massive chemical arsenal.

 

AFTER THIS STATEMENT, EYEBROWS WERE RAISED, as we sometimes say, but not mine. I cannot see any reason why the bloody hands of Bashar should not be given a Nobel Peace Prize. After all, last year it was given to the European Union, a much-hated organisation that has been destroying the lives of over a hundred million people through its idiotic Euro currency and common policies on agriculture, condemning most of southern Europe to poverty, misery and -- increasingly -- suicide or emigration to Germany, which is more or less the same thing.

 

BASHAR, IN MY OPINION, WOULD BE a worthy successor to the sinister Barroso, the vague and incompetent Von Rumpoy and the hated Angela Merkel at the EU, although at least Bashar and his assassins put their victims out of their misery very quickly.

EVIL REAL REVISITED

HAVING ONLY ON TUESDAY DECLARED my lifelong intent to never set foot in the vile city of Vila Real, it is a tribute to the powers of persuasion possessed by my wife that I found myself there once again, early last Wednesday morning. The justification was easy to understand: we travel without the burden of the modern automobile* – something which has ups and downs – and the stinking city of Vila Real is a major road (and previously rail) hub.

 

THUS WE BRIGHT AND EARLY LEFT THE HAVEN of the Upper Douro at Sabrosa once again; once again we boarded the bus with the gentleman who has been our driver on so many occasions recently, in the company of the same schoolchildren on their way to do exams as boarded the bus yesterday. Our bus driver, a man with the handlebar moustache of a master of ceremonies at a Victorian music hall performance, gave us our last feeling of comfort before we entered the hated “civilization” of sinister Vila Real.

 

WE PERHAPS DID NOT FEEL so comfortable about this gentleman last week, as we waited outside the railway station in the little riverbank town of Pinhão, where, feeling lucky after a good lunch, I left my wife stationed with the suitcase and bags and went off to a bar to try my luck at the new-fangled “Euromillions” lottery-style betting event, as well as to sneak a little glass of Port wine.

 

THE CHANCES OF WINNING THE PRIZE in this lottery are basically nil; but the chances of drinking an excellent, homemade Port Wine are one hundred percent in our favour in this region. Next to me at the bar in the tavern, having been served an enormous glass of red wine, was the man whom we soon after discovered was our bus driver. He then drove on a route unknown to us through mountains and on the edge of ravines that would probably make a Tyrolean sick looking down. Hearts still in mouths, we bade him farewell.

 

THAT WAS LAST WEEK. TODAY, HEAVY-HEARTED, we did the same as we arrived to change horses in the evil city at Vila Real bus “station”, with just over an hour to kill before our trip home to our country residence in Celorico da Beira, passing through Régua, Lamego and Viseu. The trip was wonderful, but that one hour and twenty minutes in the hated Vila Real was more than I could take.

 

MY DESCRIPTIVE AND ANALYTICAL POWERS are more than enough to relate what happened during that short time, but I would rather adopt a Brétonesque, Woolfian or Joycean cop-out style of writing to give one an idea of the events:

 

BUT INSTEAD: WE HAVE:

 

No left luggage office (which left us almost immobile)

No ramps outside the station for those with luggage

Imperfectly cobbled streets which were a chore for a wheeled suitcase

Spitting in the streets to a scale which suggested there might be some kind of municipal prize for the best spitter

Milk watered down with water at a breakfast café

Margarine instead of butter on toast

No air cooling system in the station

Mis- dis- and lack of information about bus times

Panic after our bus left empty and without us – without anyone explaining that there had been a change in plans and another one was on its way.

 

IN THE END, I CHECKED THE EUROMILLIONS results in a little tobacconists shop while we were still at a roadside café watching and listening to people spit on the pavement. Ostensibly I won nothing, but in the end, when the bus started moving, about to leave Vila Real behind, I felt like a millionaire.

 

*(My wife has her own view of life under these circumstances: www.acarlesslife.blogspot.pt . My picture shows the head offices of the local governor -- on the left) 

LAND OF GREATS

 

WITHOUT BEING FULLY AWARE of what was in store, I have found myself of late on a journey throughout the wine-rich lands of the River Douro in the north of Portugal. I have lived in Lisbon on and off for over thirty years; yet this area is a novelty for me.

 

THE TRAIN UPRIVER FROM OPORTO, then the short boat-ride to the waterside hotel at the confluence of rivers in the Porto Antigo hotel in Mosteiró, where the only sound that could be heard was the lapping of waves, the clanging of metal rope fixtures against flagpoles as the wind hit them, and then – in the late evening – the porcelain and steel noises of the waiters and cleaning staff in the restaurant below us as they washed up and closed down for another day.

 

THEN THE CHEERFUL HAPPY-SLAPPING and giggling of two couples of otters, coming to see what was going on after lights were dimmed, and to find out whether the restaurant had served shellfish for dinner today.

 

THE ORGANISATIONAL SKILLS involved in all of this was in the able hands of my good lady wife, who had wished to surprise me after almost six weeks of intense work, which is why I have not been writing of late. Despite being utterly and totally against this in my view unnecessary trip, I am grateful to her for being able to enjoy the stunning scenery, the wonderfully honest and real food, the spectacularly fresh white wines and the renewed tenderness that can only be brought about when one is away from reality and only hears otters and swallows during the early morning period when we wake up in a queen-size bed.

 

THE SECOND STAGE OF THIS TRIP was to here, where I am now, writing this, in the little village of Sabrosa, the birthplace of Ferdinand Magellan, the first captain to circumnavigate the world, and whose (ruined) house I can see from where I sit, on the second floor balcony of the Solar dos Canavarros hotel. A little further along the main road has brought me to the house of Miguel Torga, one of the most famous Portuguese poets and novelists of the last century.

 

BOTH OF THESE GREAT MEN are remembered by the local people through plaques and monuments of varying taste and quality, but there are other men of renown who hail from this region, and it would be wrong of me not to mention their names.

 

YESTERDAY MY GOOD LADY WIFE AND I took a trip to the city of Vila Real, often termed the capital of the north of Portugal. My opinions about the city of Oporto have been made clear in Sunday Mornings passim, but nothing had prepared me for the nightmare of the view of this soulless, centreless, heartless and, in the end, useless city. It appears that every local handyman, mechanic, plumber and electrician had been granted a plot of land on which they could build a construction of their choice, but never imitating their neighbour’s work.

 

THE RESULT IS THE WORST MISH-MASH of construction and urban planning I have ever witnessed over three continents. Without wishing to be didactic, I would like to suggest to anyone who reads this: Do not go to Vila Real. It appears that no one there has a clue about what is going on: we asked for directions to the centre. A young lady in a shop said she had no idea. We then found out we were less than 200 yards away.

 

THIS CITY IS THE HOME to the current Portuguese Prime Minister, Pedro Passos Coelho. You ask him from one day to the next what his policy is and he has no idea. You ask him the way to the future, for Portugal, and he will say it depends on the situation in the future. Or not. Thus we have a leader who is a reflection of the shithole from which he comes.

 

ON ANOTHER OCCASION MY WIFE and I decided to take a little excursion to Alijó, a small town close to Sabrosa which was the base for the famous Baron de Forrester, an Englishman who helped grant such greater visibility for the Port Wine trade that he was made a Portuguese noble. His table wine is delicious and costs about £1.50 even in restaurants. The best white wine I have ever tasted.

 

BUT I WAS NOT SO HAPPY about, on this journey from Sabrosa to Alijó, passing through the little village of Maçada do Caralho, which is the birthplace of the previous prime minister of Portugal, José Pinto de Sousa, also known as José Socrates.

 

THESE LATTER TWO GENTLEMEN have probably done as much damage to Portugal and the name of Portugal as the generations of explorers, poets, writers and chroniclers did it good. I am not sure what picture I should use to show the combined effect of Passos Coelho and José Socrates, but whatever I think of will be displayed above.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN

DAVID CAMERON'S INABILITY to keep in touch with the people who have put him where he is will no doubt lead to his downfall sooner or later. As the situation is, of course, he will just have to put up with the rather considerable swathe of Conservative members who are not happy with "Johnny foreigner", "Johnny-come-lately" or even "johnnies" in any shape or form. With the ribbed ones for extra male-to-male stimulation being both taboo and unknown to these good party faithful activists.

 

YET EVEN THE MOST OBVIOUS BENEFICIARY of the blanket abandonment of the Conservative Party, particularly after dour yet dependable Jeremy "the" Paxman has today stated that the term "mad, swivel-eyed loons" was and is in regular use by the upper echelons of the Conservative Party to describe the hard-working (and misguided) chaps and ladies who spoon out the party's politics, may want to watch his rear. This beneficiary is the UKIP leader, Nigel Farage.

 

IF HE PLAYS HIS CARDS RIGHT, FARAGE will probably disturb politics in the United Kingdom in a manner unseen since 1911. Yet he will have to deal with some of the more extreme elements of a party which, after all, is built on the sharp end of The Daily Mail and on drunken discussions after closing time by people who have either no money to go on to a club or have a beer gut so large that they would feel uncomfortable; added to this are the Surrey Sect of people who have never really seen a foreigner, "unless one means that swarthy chap who does the roses".

 

FARAGE HAS TO FEND OFF the probably orchestrated attacks suggesting that Lincoln UKIP Councillor Chris Pain had described illegal immigrants as "sandal-wearing, bomb-making, camel-riding, goat-fucking, ragheads". Mr Pain has taken pains to point out that his Facebook page was hacked.

 

WHILE ACCEPTING THAT HOMOSEXUAL ANAL AND ORAL SEX could be termed "disgusting" if anyone wished to see it this way, thus allowing us to at least feel what we like in the privilege of our own minds, Farage was keen to point out that racism will not be tolerated in his UKIP Party, now two percentage points behind David Cameron and his "college kids coalition".

 

(My picture shows UKIP Councillor Chris "feel the" Pain)

SWIVEL-EYED LOONS

I AM PLEASED TO SEE that I am not the only person to have a strong opinion about the unfortunate state of the British Conservative and Unionist Party. According to both today's Times and Daily Telegraph, a close ally of David Cameron has called party activists "mad, swivel-eyed loons" who are forcing Conservative MPs to take reactionary positions in Parliament. The unnamed "ally" suggests this is ridiculous, and that Conservative MPs should follow Cameron's lead.

 

THIS PRESUMABLY MEANS that Mr Cameron's friend is unaware of the British electoral system, under which elected MPs are supposed to do what their constituents and local party activists want them to do -- that is, an MP elected for a constituency in rural England, if he or she wishes to be returned to Parliament, would be best advised to vote for a return to fox hunting, vote against gay marriage and vote in favour of leaving Europe. As well as lower taxes for the upper-middle classes, etc..

 

EQUALLY SO, AN MP ELECTED in a run-down, working class urban area in the north of the country would be wise to support a robust social policy. What, I wonder, is wrong with that?

 

MANY CONSERVATIVES ARE UPSET with Mr Cameron's "modernising" (ie, leftish) policies, and would like a return to stronger, more traditional values, with over half of Conservative MPs voting against the government last week in Parliament. This obviously means that Cameron will have to get his act together and behave more like a Tory, or he will be facing unemployment at the next elections.

 

(My picture shows David Cameron and George "Boy George" Osborne showing contempt for the swivel-eyed loons who are members of their party)

FARAGE TAKES THE HIGH ROAD

IT IS BY NO MEANS A SECRET that I would vote for Britain to leave the European Union in any referendum even though I have never voted in any elections in my life and feel in no way political. The fact is, however, that I am attracted by Nigel Farage's UKIP party for two reasons.

 

THE FIRST IS THAT THEY PROMISE to leave Europe and put Britain back where it should be; ie splendid in isolation and with close ties to Switzerland and our former colonies, including the United States of America. How this could be worse than a financial and economic agreement with the likes of Slovenia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Romania I fail to understand.

 

THE SECOND REASON IS THAT THEY appear to be a group of well-minded buffoons. Indeed Mr Farage himself is the closest I have seen to a likeness of Hugh Laurie when he played the public school-educated upper class twit Bertie Wooster alongside Stephen Fry's Jeeves.

I AM SOMEWHAT DISTURBED, however, at the fact that some sections of society are happy to call him 'racist'. Proof of the fact that this is not true is his recent visit to Scotland, and his willingness to accept the Scots within a future 'independent' Britain. The very fact that his party is charitably called the United Kingdom Independence Party is testimony to this.

 

YET I AM NOT QUITE SURE he will be making an early return to Scotland. On his well-intentioned trip to talk to the angry hordes of spittle-mouthed Picts he was attacked to the point of having to be escorted by two anxious policemen and barricaded in the Canon's Gait pub 'for his own safety' as the anti-English racist natives were far more than restless.

 

I AM SURE THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME that Farage has enjoyed a stay-behind, but the serious point here is that the Scots have no idea what their future will be. It may well involve being independent from a Britain that is no longer in the European Union, which would leave them with a future sharing poverty with Iceland.

 

BUT MY OWN HOPE IS that Britain leaves the Europe and Scotland gains its independence but remains in the hated European Union, just like the idiots in the Irish government ended up doing. Scotland would go straight into bailout territory, particularly after the oil-rich Shetland Isles vote to reclaim their independence or join Norway under the buy-out clause established by Christian I of Norway in 1469. Then we will see hordes of Scots taking to the low roads again and looking for work.