English Port wine families

Fascinating short doc about the two english port-producing families (in Portuguese with a bit of English and footage of the lovely Douro valley).

My favourite Madredeus song with my translation

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Vem

Além de toda a solidao

perdi a luz do teu viver

perdi o horizonte

Esta bem

Prossegue la até quereres

Mas vem depois iluminar

Um coracao que sofre

Pertenco-te

Até ao fim do mar

Sou como tu

Da mesma luz

Do mesmo amar

Por isso vem

Porque te quero Consolar

Se nao esta bem

deixa-te andar a navegar

Come (Beyond All Loneliness)

Come

Besides all the loneliness

I lost the light of your living

I lost the horizon.

All right

Carry on until you wish

But afterwards come to give light

To a heart that suffers.

I belong to you

Until the end of the sea

I am like you

Of the same light

Of the same loving.

So come

Because I want to comfort you

If not ok

Let yourself drift away.

Translation experiment

It is urgent to love.
It is urgent to have a boat on the sea.

It is urgent to destroy certain words,
hate, loneliness and cruelty,
some lamentations,
many swords.

It is urgent to invent joy,
to multiply kisses, the corn fields,
it is urgent to discover roses and rivers
and bright mornings.

Silence falls on our shoulders and the light,
impure, until it hurts.
It is urgent to love, it is urgent
to stay.



É urgente o amor.
É urgente um barco no mar.

É urgente destruir certas palavras,
ódio, solidão e crueldade,
alguns lamentos,
muitas espadas.

É urgente inventar alegria,
multiplicar os beijos, as searas,
é urgente descobrir rosas e rios
e manhãs claras.

Cai o silêncio nos ombros e a luz
impura, até doer.
É urgente o amor, é urgente
permanecer.

Eugenio de Andrade

Have just uploaded some photos and restored the photo-album link on the right - check it out!

It sounds wrong but tastes so right

Port Wine after 250 years is reinventing itself with the Porto tonic -a tasty alternative to the Gin and Tonic! There are several variants possible like 1/2 white Porto ,1/2 tonic water, ice and lemon ...

Retrato de uma princesa desconhecida
Para que ela tivesse um pescoço tão fino
Para que os seus pulsos tivessem um quebrar de caule
Para que os seus olhos fossem tão frontais e limpos
Para que a sua espinha fosse tão direita
E ela usasse a cabeça tão erguida
Com uma tão simples claridade sobre a testa
Foram necessárias sucessivas gerações de escravos
De corpo dobrado e grossas mãos pacientes
Servindo sucessivas gerações de príncipes
Ainda um pouco toscos e grosseiros
Ávidos cruéis e fraudulentos

Foi um imenso desperdiçar de gente
Para que ela fosse aquela perfeição
Solitária exilada sem destino

Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen

Portrait of an unknown princess

For her to have such a slender neck
For her wrists to be a stem breaking
For her eyes to be so open and clear
For her spine to be so straight
And that she carry her head so high
With such simple clarity upon her brow
Successive generations of slaves were necessary
Of crouched body and pacient thick hands
Serving successive generations of princes
Still a little crude
Eager, cruel and fraudulent

It was an enormous waste of people
For her to be that perfection
Solitary exile without destiny

(my translation)

Trip to Portugal

Flying to Porto this evening, returning the 8th in the morning. Might be going to Aveiro and/or Lisbon on the weekend but do call or text if you want to meet up! Will have both my Portugese and English mobile on me