Welcome to the delights of Coimbra

Drop your panties, Sir William, I cannot wait till lunchtime!
I am fascinated by the "Pensao International Residenial", which I translate as "Hotel in another country where residence is denied". Coming straight after the comment about it being in the same "ball pack" as other hotels, I can only conclude that your hovercraft is full of eels.

History of the town
OK, so now we’re in Coinbra. I had to look this up on a map of Portugal and I’m surprised to see that it’s inland and not seaside where I thought you preferred to find your digs. I did some research on the city and discovered that it’s a city containing important archeological remains of structures dating from the time when it was once a Roman town. Apparently there’s an aqueduct around there somewhere. Coinbra is also a major cultural centre and is home to the University of Coinbra. This uni is one of the oldest in Europe. So you can close your eyes Lloyd, and imaging that you’re back in 1975 at LaTrobe except that there are more Frodos. I also was able to find out how the town got its name: ‘Coinbra’. During the middle ages there was an annual competiton held in the town. The women of of the town would all stand with their backs against a wall and the men and boys would toss small coins at them with the object of landing one in the cleavage area. This is also where the phrase ‘tosser’ comes from, sadly, now pejoratively used. The winner of the ‘Coinbra’ was allowed to take his pick of the women to take home with him. Some felt that the prize was more a ‘booby’ prize. In recent years, the spelling of the name ‘Coinbra’ has become corrupted and you often see it spelt incorrectly as ‘Coimbra’ but most of the locals still refer to it by it’s original name. Listen carefully when they pronounce it and you will hear ‘Coin” rather than ‘Coim’, as the word coim obviously makes no sense at all.

Noise Abatement Issues
I just knew that your dinky attic room with rotating hatch window was too good to be true! Damn! Obviously the reason why it was so cheap was that it formed part of the local soccer training pitch. I’ve been reliably informed that there’s a large sign at the top of the stairs which you may have missed, Lloyd. It reads: ‘Matches commence here at 10 PM every night. Players please be considerate of hotel patrons but because they’re getting rooms el-cheapo, feel free to make as much noise as you wish.’ And Lloyd, here’s a tip, when you ask the price of a hotel room in future you should ask if there’s a noise abatement regulation in force after 10 pm. I can just see the Hotel Manager, a ‘la Basil Fawlty, explaining it to you thus: ‘Sir, you may have the room for twelve euro per night. And, if you wish to sleep during the night, then of course there would be an additional charge. Also, if you prefer no loud noises around 6 am, then a further fee is also applicable. Of course, I cannot take any responsibility for other Hotel guests moving large pieces of furniture around in their rooms at 3 am. I trust this policy this meets with sir’s approval?’, as he rubs his hands together and smiles greasily. Now, just when are you going to get a break for crying out very loud? Somehow I feel good things are just around the corner for you, Lloyd. YES! Your run of bad luck is about to change. A lucky break is coming your way. Something good is about to happen. It may be only a small thing like getting on the right bus but it will happen sooner or later. And when it does Lloyd, you should punch the air in victory and let out a triumphant whoop, ‘Correct Bus, Yes!!’. And here’s a another tip: Make sure you have an adequate stock of Bock stashed away for those 3 am furniture moving sessions in the room directly above yours.

The Blind Tourist
Lloyd, you know this blog of yours is very quirky. Very quirky indeed. It’s definitely not your usuual travel journal. In fact, some people have made a good living (e.g. Bill Bryson) writing the very kind of stuff you’re tapping out right now. Have you thought of gathering up these musings into a novel ‘The Blind Tourist’? Probably sell like hot cakes. Forget that screenplay! You’ve already got enough words here already for a small novella. Paste it all into Microsoft Word and send it off to McMillan in the UK, then sit back and wait for the royalty cheques to flow in. And don’t forget my spotters fee.

tenancy
I hate to admit it Lloyd, but I'm afraid Terry is right. That poor 'Gun Waitress' in Lisbon is no doubt heartbroken. She clearly had been making very special arrangements for you at great personal risk - employment opportunities are somewhat rare in Portugal for attractive young women outside the sphere of TV comedy sketch shows - and I think it rather churlish of you to treat her so. Her plans for a blissful future with you are now obviously in tatters. It really is too bad. If I recall correctly, I may have already offered you advice regarding young Euro women. You must take notice and take care Lloyd Smith. On the subject of tenancy, I am not surprised you have had trouble with some of your accommodation staff. Alas, tenancy never was your strong suit. It seems you have never really recovered from your less than idyllic relationship with the Mary Ave slumlord who went by the name of Williams. Even now, I feel your blood pressure rising as I mention the name. Perhaps your intercontinental experiences might temper your attitude to some of the erstwhile land slags who took such miserable advantage of you, allowing, if you will, a more worldly perspective of such creatures. Or not. Onward, my itinerant hero!

Magoo Musings
Take no notice of JC, he’s just hanging off your illustrious coat-tails Lloyd, trying to get a free ride without the associated inconvenience; just as he did in Adelaide in 1977. And take no notice of ME. He’s just after his own little slice of the action when you become rich and famous. Also take no notice of me, either. I just rabbit on and on saying nothing, making feeble jokes, playing with smoke and mirrors, trying to fill up space in this yellow bit down here at the bottom of the screen. Let’s face it we’re all green with envy at the only one, true World Traveller among us. We’re not worthy, Lloyd. Your blog shines like a brilliant beacon to armchair travellers across the globe. There are literally thousands of internet landlubbers who daily devour your highly-wrought prose and accommodation insights. These same readers return again and again to these prodigious pages seeking knowledge, redemption and the occasional giggle. And lo, I’ve thought of a new name for your new book ‘Migration of the Magoo’?

The Schlock Boat
You and your big mouth, Lloyd. You just had to keep highlighting that scurvy dog of a sketch comedy show. Now that 'Big Brother' has been canned 10 will be looking for a replacement to fill 120 hrs of programming. Sounds like their Portuguese counterparts have plenty in the archives they can off-load. With the Olympics about to dominate our screens, they could do worse than put The Voyage of the Double Entendre on against a certain ratings winner. Good to see you are starting to get locals leaving messages on your site. You might even alert them to sights they are not even aware of. Must try and track down some of this fabled Bock you speak so highly of. If I do and end up in the headlines, I'll merely 'Blame it on the Bokanova.' By the way, you must try a Portuguese custard tart. The local Safeway started selling imported European pastries recently and said sweet was the pick of the lot. Also, you never passed judgment on the local port you sampled not long ago.

readership
On the other hand, at least ME has shown grace by welcoming aboard new blog correspondent ASDF. To that person I also extend a welcoming hand. Wonder what the poor sod makes of all this. As for GA ("Be Prepared"), I have no doubt that he will be sufficiently organised to catch up on his reading toute de suite. There is something decidedly fishy about a lately arrived "Canadian" RO'C ("Fares Please"), but I suspect he will have better luck deciphering this nonsense than ASDF.

Your daily routine
Lloyd, let me try to summarize your average day in Coimbra. It’s up at the crack of 9:30 am. Downstairs for the usual two small ‘micro-coffees’ (At the micro price?) Then around 10:30 am it’s off to the Internet Café. The guy who runs the joint has your favorite chair and cushion ready for you. He plugs you into cyberspace. You check your email and tap out a few words to update your Blog, then it’s off to look for food. You find a restaurant, sit down, get ignored and leave. You find another restaurant and point to anything on the menu that looks remotely familiar. It arrives with bread on the side. You eat it all even if you don’t particularly like it because, logically, you’ve paid for it? While you’re there, you knock back a couple of bottles of Bock. Then it’s back to your room for your usual three hour afternoon siesta. Siesta over, you head downstairs looking for food. You find a restaurant. Nobody serves you. You get up and leave. You take a seat at another restaurant and tell the waiter ‘the usual’. Some kind of food arrives. You’re not sure what it is, so you decide to finish that bottle of red first. Then you polish off the food. You ask the waiter what it was and discover you’ve just eaten ‘Goat Guts’ or some such. You decide to round the meal off with two or three more Bocks. You wander back to your room just in time to catch up your favorite sketch comedy show. You chuckle away quietly while easing into a fine glass of Scotch, or three. Then it’s lights out to join the fairies. Now, for me, that would amount to the perfect holiday! By the way, when are you planning on leaving Coimbra?

It's only a flesh wound!
Hints and vague references in the blog, combined with prior knowledge and an almost uncanny sense of the inevitable have led me to conclude that some time within the next few weeks you will touch down in Darwin, kiss the ground, get yourself photographed with a stuffed koala as evidence of residency, and bounce back to South-East Asia almost as suddenly as you arrived. Am I right? Thence, obviously, to Chiang Mai. Are you aware that Thailand and Cambodia have had something of a "skirmish" along the border not far from there? Still, probably nothing compared to the coup d'état that happened the last time you were there. Poor little Cambodia really has no chance of winning any kind of conflict with a nation that has ten times its population and fifty times its wealth.

What have the Romans ever done for us?
As I said earlier, I think that Coimbra looks like a very attractive place. The hilly streetscapes are, of course, specially designed to raise the demand for Bock, as is the climb up the hotel stairs, as evidenced by the photograph of the vertiginous view from the top. How do you negotiate that after six or eight Super Bocks?. On a technical note, I must say that I'm not sure that Portugal was ever under the sway of "Stalinist" architecture (however badly spelled). There must be another explanation for that building. I love those aqueducts. Can you climb them and is there actually any aqua in the duct?

I drink, therefore I am.
Home brand tawny port. Words fail me. If you're drinking porto in Coimbra, what are you going to drink in Porto? And why has Terry gone all gooey and sentimental, overturning the practice of a lifetime (two lifetimes, really, considering his age)? He turned in a blinder (at least two puns in that if you look for them) with his "Lloyd's Life In One Paragraph" entry: now he's apologising for it! Is he angling for MORE than 35%? Cynical minds want to know.

Holing up in your room
Lloyd, you’re not helping! I’ve apologized for my part but I believe I’m now owed an apology in return. In yesterday’s PM to me you graciously agreed to my demand for 35%, but you’re making my job very difficult, Mr Smith. I have to hawk these jottings to the publishers of the world and you holing up in your room isn’t exactly the stuff of best sellers! I’m going to have to put in some real spin when I pitch these ramblings to McGraw-Hill tomorrow afternoon. Accordingly, my fee has now risen to 40%. I’ll assume this is OK with you unless you add a special comment of your own down here in the comments section. I’m also dismayed to discover that your daily word count continues to dwindle? Barely 300 words for yesterday’s effort? And most of that about peanuts? Lloyd, you’re making me earn my dough here man!

Pingo Doce
See if you can find out from a staff member at P.D. if they have any plans of invading Australia. They would be a welcome addition to the supermarket scene down under. Imagine: Coles, Safeway, I.G.A., Aldi and Pingo Doce! With a quaint name like that and stock which seems to exclusively consist of pastries and booze, how can they fail? (Especially in a nation soon to overtake the U.S. in the fatty boombah stakes.) No doubt you have read by now in The Coimbra Tribune how the tigers have sacked Greg Miller. What's the world coming to? First they threaten to make the eight, then they sack Miller. Of course all this happens when you're out of the country. Stay out of the country long enough and they'll win the flag. I agree with J.C. ; why should we back home be deprived of missing out on an Iberian Benny Hill. Tape the infamous sketch comedy show. Failing that track down bootleg copies or go to Pingo Doce. They haven't let you down yet.

Good News and Bad News
Lloyd, I've got some good news and some bad news. First the bad news. McGraw-Hill weren't interesting in your scribblings. They said something to the effect that 'tedious travel diaries are a dime a dozen. We’ve already got Bill Bryson.’ This was very disappointing but I had better luck at 'Dave’s Do-It-Yourself Publishing Emporium and Video Hire'. Dave was not available but his assistant, Brooke, liked your blog heaps! Must admit I was surprised because she had only read the ‘Melbourne To Coolangatta’ entry. Brooke actually only read a few lines, but she said she liked your opening sentence: ‘After a tiring and stressful pre-trip I embarked on my journey back to Europe.’ Brooke said ‘Great opening sentence’! Now, here’s the good news, Lloyd. They’re willing to publish your blog! There are three conditions however. First, we have to pay for all publishing costs. Secondly, they take a 45% cut of any sales from the book and their final condition is that you rewrite ‘certain parts’ of this blog to ‘inject sexual tension’? Now, I don’t believe this last condition is really necessary but it’s not every day you get a book published, is it? So, with my 40% and their 45%, this leaves you with only 10% of the profits. I assume you’re happy with this deal? OK, then please send a cheque for $1,500 made out to ‘Brooke’ and we’ll get the wheels in motion, pronto! Told you I knew how to hustle. And, Lloyd, keep on churning out the gold!

thank you
Lloyd...if Bieres Sans Frontieres is your greatest gift to humanity, then nobody could say that you don't deserve to win the Nobel Peace Prize. A noble, selfless act which could bring an end to the suffering of countless millions worldwide. You are a great humanitarian Lloyd and, on behalf of the species, I offer you my deep gratitude. Salut

Oh dear, did somebody say mattress to Mr Lambert?
Terry's memory blanks appear to have gone beyond his normal bodgy recollections of stuff that may or may not have happened twenty-five years ago (and of WHO exactly it might have happened to). Now he's imagining recent phone converations that never occurred. Still, I'll accept credit for ‘Europe On The Smell Of Half a Shoestring’, because it's not half bad. On the evergreen topic of Lloyd In A Restaurant Attempting To Order Something He Can Identify, I am currently being haunted by the image of LS and an Iberian Michael Caine agreeing on the word "mooooo" as a way of identifying the concept of "steak", each of them doing charades of the herding of cattle while imitating the Blues Brothers singing the "Rawhide" theme. Rollin'. rollin', rollin'.................

Your screenplay.
Lloyd, great to hear you've got yourself into a nice productive rut. And you've only got fifteen more pages to go on your screenplay? I'm amazed that you know exactly the number of pages you haven't yet written? You may be blind but you are far-sighted in a very different way. Dave said to send him a copy of the screenplay with or without those last fifteen pages. Unexpectedly, he had to fly up to Darwin on some sort of immigration business, so I've been dealing with Brooke in the meantime. Yesterday, I popped into the video store to return some DVD's and I discovered that the name of your book is almost finalized. The working title is: ‘Lloyd Smith's Sexy Travel Blog’. Catchy title, eh? And Brooke wants to know if there's a part in your screenplay for a young, kooky blonde in a mini-skirt? I told her that if not, then you could re-write the screenplay to sqeeze her in. Can you do that ASP?

Bonking Backpackers
Lloyd, I have this mental image of you eating your way into a cask of cheap wine while bonking Norwegians in the next room are taking forever to orgasm. The scene unfolds before me thus. You are feeling the urge to shout and scream at them: ‘Shut the f**k Up!’, but you’ve forgotten the words to use. Your mother tongue is rusty from lack of use. Your English has withered on the vine and has deserted you. In recent weeks you’ve had to get by, by pointing, gesturing and gesticulating. So, in desperation, you wave your arms about and use a shooshing motion with a finger to your lips but sadly this has no effect and the bonking continues unabated. Finally, in defeat, you pull a pillow over your head and by sheer force of willpower you turn your thoughts to things more soothing. And then that old, familiar, reassuring image of a plate of nachos comes in view. A smile flickers on your lips.