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Yet another image from Lisbon. Sorry, but all inspiration has deserted me. I must need a holiday. Most of my time today was spent translating an article about Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who was Portugal's Consul in Bordeaux from 1939 to 1940. In defiance of the instructions that he received from the Foreign Ministry in Lisbon, telling him not to issue visas to 'undesirables'. Sousa Mendes spent much of his two years in Bordeaux feverishly issuing Portuguese visas to refugees from all over Europe who were fleeing both the war and Nazi persecution. The lives of many thousands of people - mainly, but not exclusively Jews - were saved, and they were able to make their way from Lisbon to start new lives in the new world. For this act of humanitarianism, Sousa Mendes was rewarded by being recalled to Lisbon and sacked. For the remainder of his life, he was treated as a pariah by the authorities in Lisbon, until he died, impoverished and forgotten. It was not until very recently - certainly within the past 10 years - that he has been rehabilitated and honoured by the Portuguese State - and not before his memory had been honoured in the United States and Israel. I also took some time this afternoon to listen to Portuguese radio's coverage of Álvaro Cunhal's funeral in Lisbon. While I am no communist, it was still refreshing to hear some old (and young) comrades stay firm in the belief that we are entering a new ideological era, and that the left must find its voice again, or we will be lost. I fear that we may be too late, yet I tend to be a bit of a pessimist. As they say, 'a luta continua'. It was also nice to hear so many of Cunhal's old adversaries and political enemies praise him for his constancy and determination to fight for what he believed in - whether the rest of his comrades (or even the Portuguese people) agreed with him. At the end of the day, the Portuguese Communist Party remains one of the few in Europe that has had a continuous presence in national politics since its foundation in 1921: firstly within the trade unions, then as a clandestine and intransigent opponent of the authoritarian regime and latterly within the Portuguese and European parliaments. For most of the party's life, Cunhal was at the helm, so he must take much of the credit for the PCP's successes. The remainder of the day was spent listening to the sound of the Scottish summer as the rain battered off the windows - ironically, just as an item came on the Antena 1 news talking about how the Spanish are responsible for the seriousness of the drought in Portugal. It would seem that when Spain is dry, the Spanish authorities close the dams on the international rivers, cutting off much of Portugal's water supply; conversely, when there has been a lot of rain, the Spanish keep the dams closed until the reservoirs are full, then they open them, sending a rush of water into Portugal where it promptly floods low lying areas. I don't know how much of this is true, and how much is Portuguese exaggeration, although there is never smoke without fire, and, as the Portuguese are fond of saying: 'De Espanha nem bom vento, nem bom casamento...' Perhaps we could build a pipeline that would supply the Portuguese plenty of sweet Scottish water.... Mmmm... Maybe I'll ask one of these Nigerian emailers to invest in this scheme! BTW, here's a shameless plug for my friend Charles's blog which is a dryly humorous take on life in the Lusitanian capital - certainly worth 15 minutes of your time. Sue me if I'm wrong!

The sun shone last year