Swan Lake

I'm not one for sending circular emails, especially when they are about ballet of all things, but I received this one last week which I thought was absolutely fantastic and at 4 minutes long was just about the length of ballet that I could stand.
It really is amazing, give a go and click on the link below;

http://www.nzwide.com/swanlake.htm

Portugal's Ace Reporter

Whilst the local English newspaper, the Portugal News is not the bestest writ, like wot my blog is, news offering in the world, it does offer us expats a modicum of an insight as to what is happening in Portugal, especially if you want to know about the weekly diary of Milo the dog, or about the many dogs and kittens are waiting to be re-homed or in this case, the increasing crime that is sweeping across the Algarve. This latest story caught my eye;

A British citizen who until Tuesday morning this week had been presumed dead by the police has emerged alive but reportedly mutilated and tortured after managing to escape from a house in the Algarve where he had been held captive for the past two weeks over an unpaid drug debt.

The British national, who has been identified as James Ross, 26, reportedly a married father-of-two from Wicks, Caithness, was kidnapped by a group of fellow Brits immediately after he landed at Faro Airport on October 5th.

Prior to his escape the case was being investigated by PJ police and all indications pointed to the man having been kidnapped and murdered.

After managing to flee from his place of captivity (a house near Boliqueime, Loulé), with the help of a passer-by who found him stumbling throughout the streets of Alfontes village, he was taken to an undisclosed hospital for treatment. The man is believed to have been kept “tied up and very mistreated.”

National newspaper Correio da Manhã (CM) claims Ross was held captive after being lured to the Algarve to pay off a £10,000 unpaid drug-deal debt owed to a man identified as John Mclean.

He was allegedly told he could pay off the debt by working on a cannabis farm, but was subjected to the horrific ordeal practically straight after touching down in Faro.

Police will question him about the circumstances surrounding the incident during his stay in hospital.

According to a PJ source the man was partially mutilated on one ear, Lusa News Agency reported.

A different source told Lusa that a Scottish man was being treated in a regional hospital for a partly-cut ear and a wound to a finger, and that the man had been escorted to the hospital by GNR officers.

Regional newspaper Observ-atório do Algarve reported the man, who they identified as a 26-year-old Scotsman, had had an ear, finger and 3 toes amputated, two broken legs and that he has been tortured.

...... "and that he had been tortured", bloody hell, I think that was a bit of an understatement.

Sorry about the glitch in the best joke of all time, I've fixed it now, keep scrolling down for joke.

The Man Who Never Was

I was surprised to hear whilst on our recent trip to Spain, a number of our friends had never heard of "The Man Who Never Was" or Glyndwyr Martin to give him his proper name.
It is a World War II story, code named "Operation Mincemeat", that has always fascinated me about how the Brits launched a man from a submarine carrying Top Secret information about invasion plans, in an effort to deceive the Germans.
Glwndwyr's body was eventually washed ashore near Huelva Spain, where he was subsequently buried after much investigating and meddling from the Spanish and of course Herman the German.
I had wanted to find the gravestone for many years, so on the way back from Spain and very close to Huelva, I set out in search of the cemetery and then the gravestone.
Finding the cemetery was easy, the gravestone was like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. The cemetery was pristine with row after row of headstones and crypts all kept in wonderful condition.


Obviously looking like a tourist and standing out like a sore thumb from those tending the graves of loved one's, we were about to give up and was approached by a fellow Brit who knew exactly what we were looking for as he had spent the last hour do exactly the same thing. He in turn had been spotted by yet another Brit who knew exactly where the gravestone was. So he escorted my new friend who in turn escorted me, result, the gravestone of Glyndwyr Martin, "The Man Who Never Was".





The full story can be found @ http://www.themanwhoneverwas.com/

Best joke of all time

Best Joke of All Time

As reported in the Daily Mail the other day, this joke was voted the best of all time;

A woman gets on a bus with her baby.

The bus driver says: 'Ugh, that's the ugliest baby I've ever seen!'

The woman walks to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her: 'The driver just insulted me!'

The man says: 'You go up there and tell him off. Go on, I'll hold your monkey for you.'

Gonzalez Byass

During the trip to Spain, Jerez to be more precise, I thought it was important that we should sample some of the local vinho. So all 20 of us enjoyed a trip to Gonzalez Byass, the home of Tio Pepe and now also Croft Original Sherry.
It appears that some of the crowd are secret sherry drinkers, and I thought it was a drink that only grannies had.
Do you remember going to the local Berni Inn for a treat on someones birthday, "What would you like to drink granny, oooh, I'll have a schooner of sherry please and make sure its a large one young man", would I dare do any other.

Our tour guide fancied himself as a bit of a comedian, he had a sense of humour that was dryer than the Tio Pepe he was talking about. He told us about the little Spanish mouse who comes out each night from behind the sherry casks to sample the latest brew of which they leave him a glass to drink from and a ladder to make it easier for him to reach the top of the glass, and of course a few peanuts to help it down, sad buggers.

More interesting was that when they had a famous person visit the bodega, they dedicated a cask of their recently brewed beverage and got them to sign the barrel, there were hundreds of them, here are just a few, the first one is the famous dummy spitting Spaniard, Fernando Alonso, the second is my hero and a far better racing driver, Ayrton Senna and the third one is everyone's hero, unless you are a German that is, Winston Churchill.

We enjoyed a nice trip around the vineyard on the Gonzalez Byass Express, finishing off with some sampling of their finest, which their were very tight with, we needed more samples.

Monetcastillo, Spain

Sometime back in July we decided, we would like to go to Spain to play some golf at the end of the holiday season. That being the case, we asked a couple of friends if they would like to join us and they said that they thought it was a great idea and would love to come.
So we searched the interweb and found what we thought was a fantastic deal, which turned out to be around 50 euros a night, full board and unlimited golf in a 5 Star hotel in Jerez, Spain, brilliant.
With such a great deal on offer, the word spread and our couple of friends turned into a dozen and a dozen soon turned into 20, that was when we had to close the door and say no more.

Unfortunately the time we chose to go away was about the time that the golf club captain has his golfing trip away, and we were being dubbed by some as the "Alternative Captain's Away
Weekend", but the original 6 were never joining that party anyway and it was never meant as an alternative, my apologies to Mr Captain if it was ever seen that way.


Just 2 days before we were due to leave, the tour operator Golf da la Luz, emailed us to inform us that the hotel had doubled booked and we would not be staying in a 5 star hotel but in the 4 star hotel, part of the Montecastillo resort next door. This turned out to be a total rouse, I later found out from the hotel manager, that we were never intended to stay in the 5 star hotel, we were always staying in the 4 star one and Golf da la Luz knew this all the time. Strangely, Golf da la Luz did this to us 2 years ago at a different resort, again using the same ploy. So if you choose the same company to organise any trip for you, beware, Dan the man at Golf da la Luz is about as much use as a bike in San Francisco and not to be trusted.
However, away we went, all 20 of us to Montecastillo near Jerez, Spain. I had been there twice previously about 10 years ago and at the time the course was on the European Tour as part of the Volvo Masters series and obviously was in fantastic condition. Today, perhaps due to the economic climate, the course and the whole area is a shadow of its former self.







Allan Pooley offering Lynette some advice, yeah right

Having said that, everyone played some good golf, some better than others, some found the course very long, which it is. The greens were lightening quick, which suited me, but obviously didn't suit me enough as I could only manage second place in the better ball with my partner, Gloria Pooley.

This is me with Gloria, can you spot the village idiot.

Winners of the pairs better ball competition,

Linda Anthony & Dave Bredo

...............and if all else fails, try table tennis.


David Haddon & Steve Collingwood closely watched by the net cord judge and umpire, Glynis Bredo.

Parrot Sitters UK Branch

Meet Paul (little Jimmy) & Alison, who flew in from the UK to parrot sit while we went on a jolly to play some golf in Spain.
We have known little Jimmy, literally from the day he was born 30 years ago when he came into the world as our next door neighbour. As he grew up Paul would inevitably get in to trouble and his mum would tell him off. We always knew when this happened as we would see this little blond head bobbing up and down across our bay window and one of us would comment, "Jimmy's in trouble again, he's on his way round", where he would find comfort in a few custard creams and a bag of whotsits.
As soon as he was big enough, I enrolled him along with my boys in the (Nottingham Forest) Junior Reds. Paul never grew in height until much, much later on and I was still shoving him through the Junior Reds gateway at half price when he was 18, happy days, Forest even won a few games as well, how times change.

Pink Ribbon

It's October, that can mean only one thing, it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month across the world and Portugal is no different.
For the past 10 years, we have been raising money for Breast Cancer Awareness in the Algarve and this year very poignantly, the Pink Ribbon Golf Tournament at Parque da Floresta was held on 10th of the 10th of the 10th and if you are reading this too early in the morning, I mean 10th October 2010.
Over the years, in conjunction with the Parque da Floresta Charity fund, we have managed to raise over 80,000 euros which has all gone to Mamamaratona, Associacao Oncologica do Algarve.
Checking the weather forecast 7 days before the competition, it didn't look good. However just as at Celtic Manor last week, for the Ryder Cup, there is nothing that we could do, we just had to get on with it. Checking the forecast every day didn't help as it never changed one bit and sure enough on the Friday before the Sunday competition, it bucketed it down followed by the same on Saturday.
On the Sunday we began with sunshine followed by several sharp bust's but nearly 80 golfers were supportive enough to brave the conditions, after all its only water and you can only get soooooooooooo wet.
At around 11am in glorious Algarve sunshine, the golf got underway, with the format being a better ball stableford competition. Finally at around 6pm and several downpours later, the final group came in, the scores could be checked and the results announced.
Yours truly and the chief organiser of the Pink Ribbon, Mrs Lynette, managed to follow up last years second place with third place, winning a fabulous set of lead crystal glasses, probably the same set that we won for second place last year. My good friend Bob Kelly suggested that if we put the glasses as a 1st place prize, we could finally get rid of them as we had no chance of winning, well he used to be a good friend.





In second place this year, with a score of 44 points was Pete & Debbie Lanario who was over the moon at winning her first golf prize.
The winners with a fantastic score of 45 points was the formidable Portuguese pairing of Julio Marcela & Chico Borges, I think they both looked pleased as well.
Along with raffles, auctions and name the Doggie, which spookily was won by the same person as last year Louise Gemmell, (who kindly donated the Doggie back for auction), the total money raised on the day was just short of 3,000 euros, another fantastic result for Breast Cancer Awareness in the Algarve.

Thank you to everyone for taking part and very generously supporting the day.

It's Raining

It's October the 8th and we have just had the first rains of the winter. It couldn't have come at a worse time as it's the Pink Ribbon Golf Competition of Sunday 10th, tomorrow and the forecast is not good.
As usual in Portugal, when it rains, it falls by the skip full and I have just found out that the one flat roof I have, has 100mm of water trapped on it because the drain is blocked, always wanted a roof top swimming pool.
However, its still 23 degrees and we still haven't put the heating on.

The kittens managed to find a dry spot and decided to sleep the storm out, until I came along with the camera that is and disturbed their siesta.

Red Palm Weevil

Red Palm Weevil

There is an increasing number of Phoenix palm trees in The Algarve that are being killed off by the Red Palm Weevil, in fact palm trees across the whole of the Iberian peninsular are in danger of becoming infected, so far mine are weevil free.
Apparently the little bug(gers) arrived in 1994 and has been destroying Phoenix palm trees ever since. Now it has increased to such an extent that the local councils have started to put pheromone traps in the trees to try to catch them.