WAGS/APAPS: A Commercial for the Silves Tourist Board

 

This was how Rod presented the concept:

“Subject to the co-operation and fast breaking digestive capacity of the chief and fellow breakfasteers, I would like to propose a combined WAGS / APAPS perambulation for next Wednesday. This will be an urban and sub-urban walk with some cultural overtones, but worry not it won't  spoil our record by being excessively cerebral.
Starting point, although unlikely to be a source of coffee, will be the Cafe Chapim, which is a green (ish) prefabricated , even quite attractive from within, structure to be found beside the river in the main Silves car park, somewhat beyond the rather more illustrious Burger King. Alongside it you will find some equipment of physical training torture. This is available free for those that may need a pre walk warm - up , or even post walk for those who might feel they have not achieved their required exercise level. Mindful of darkening and cooler mornings we shall set off at 08.00”.

Cultural overtones indeed! The not very-well-known story is that Silves Camera have a vacancy for a mutli-lingual town crier-cum-tour guide (honorarium top-secret) and Rod hankers after the post. He wanted to hone up his historico/histrionico skills on a tame group, i.e. us APAPS, before putting in his application. So this week he switched from being an Inspector of Walking Standards for OFSWAG to being himself inspected. What will the verdict be?

Well, there we were at 08.00. The rest of the commentary is Rod´s – in blue ; the photos are by the usual suspects; editorial comments will be minimal(I think).

A few comments re Wed's walk ......

Present: John, Hazel, Paul, Myriam, Ingrid, Janet, Rose, Maria, Yves and Rod

(Statistically, 6.75km distance; Moving Time: 1 hr 52 mins; Total climb: 245 metres.)

Although announced as a walk for APAPS and WAGS  it seems membership  overlap is ever increasing.  Urban, sub-urban and cerebral was advertised, but after gathering in Silves car park on what was still a particularly warm day the absence of a caffeine fix might have had something to do with the cerebral element being rather less than evident. This was particularly so as far as the leader was concerned as he expected to count on a healthy dose of bullshit in his commentary about his home territory. Unfortunately for him the presence of Maria with her 35 years of residence in Silves and consequent local knowledge kept  him a bit quiet. (Excuses, excuses!)

 First stop of note was the city 'pelourinho'...although clearly had Myriam been so condemned then she would probably  have  found it more like a gallows!

                                                                                                                                                    PaulaDev Images 2016 TM

 

Yes, that´s a Manueline window, Paul

We wandered on up to the castle walls and gateway, of course making our obeisance to the mighty statue of  the great Dom Sancho 1 (no photo yet).

Dom Sancho 1 finally joins us                                                                         (picture added 04.09.2016)

 

                                                                                                              PaulaDev Images 2016 TM

 

We left the city past the cemetery , past the shameful shell of the once much vaunted Piaget Institute University and on to the base of the hill surmounted by the "Silves Windmill'. The thought of this challenging ascent was evidently too much for Ingrid, sympathetically supported by Maria, but the rest sumitted despite the now searing heat.

 

The windmill itself no longer deserves any pride of place amongst Silves' points of interest. The sails are but shredded remnants, most unlikely ever to turn again as one of the arms is firmly anchored to the ground. There is little that can be done, however, to spoil the rather splendid view.

                                                                                                              PaulaDev Images 2016 TM

 

(Good Lord – a WAPAPS trig shot !)

Returning  via Monte Branco  we re entered the city by the Church of N. Sra. dos Martires then ambling back up to the city heights by the Hospital and the old Misericordia complex, then down the steps past the Camara and away.

(The name of this statueified dignitary slipped our Tour Guide Presumptive´s memory for the moment, as it has that of your Blogger.) 

Back at the Cafe Chapim, in a tranquil corner of the park by the river we had a breakfast of modest choice and proportions compared to APAPS norms but adequate for the late hour lest it became lunch and therefore  presumably outside APAPS regulations.

Quotations to be seen at the end from Sappho (on the river bank) and Thomas Hardy and Lao Tze ( less salubriously in the café loos! ), all fluent in Portuguese.

And the verdict on the aspiring Tour Guide?

Fair to say, the jury is still out.

APAPS Interim: Motus and Elevated Thinking

That there is no need to have had a walk before putting out a blog was demonstrated last week when we were encouraged to check the weather forecast beforehand. No doubt you all have looked at it but, as a reminder, the app. can be found at:-http://hopejohnh.blogspot.pt/2016/08/wapaps-weather-app.html.
I have to admit that I was somewhat surprised, knowing how Paul delights in being provocative, that the young(ish) lady in the video which he introduced us to didn´t take all her clothes off  because of the heatwave, but let´s be thankful for small mercies. Anyway, the possibility of interim blogs having been established, here goes, because there are a couple of things to deal with and get out of the way now before we get seriously involved culturally in Silves (as Rod´s walk tomorrow promises we will) and we forget about them.
The first of these topics is the use of the word “Motus” in the heading of last week´s waffle-free edition. I had thought that either Ingrid or Yves might have commented on it, because it is a strange word – it doesn´t seem to be a normal part of speech and it appears (according to my urbane French dictionary) solely in the phrase “Motus et Bouche Cousue”, there and nowhere else.
So I was in the end forced to consult Aristotle who, in addition to being able to think on his feet as befits a peripatetic philosopher, is also a French scholar. And this is what I got as a result of my enquiry:-
“Bonsoir John,
“Allons-y : ça va être long et érudit mais libre à vous d’abandonner le navire en perdition quand vous le souhaitez…
“ ‘motus’ appeared at some point during the XVI C as a pun on ’mutus’ (mute) and some attribute this neologism to The Bard although no direct link can be established… It is a semi-clever play on words and a pretence at some Latin etymology. That said, or not, it soon became an admonition: ‘Motus!’, i.e. not a word! With the passage of time the ‘M’ became the an accepted form of demanding silence, particularly when expressed while holding up an index. From there, it evolved into ‘Mmmm’ indicating a need for silence while someone thinks, or while giving someone else the opportunity to think, or meditate. Eventually, it developed into the well-known phrase “Mum’s the word” that has sod-all to do with maternal instincts but a lot  with the aforementioned raised digit… The phrase ‘motus et bouche cousue’ is a combination of that etymology and the practice of sewing traitors’ mouths before doing away with them (quite recently, you may have seen in the popular press and on that new-fangled Interwebs device lifelike pictures of soi-disant refugees in Northern France, somewhere near Calais, of men with stitches holding their lips firmly joined. Old habits die hard… “
He had also promised to provide me with an authentic French word for waffler and this is what came out –I don´t quite get why the French and the Belgians always  seem to have to have a go at each other, but laissez ça passer:-
“Now, on the subject of ‘gaufres’ and waffle: gaufres originated as the by-product of overcooked batter from pancakes and such delicacies. These burnt offerings were given to scullery children and servants who soon made them more palatable by dipping them into wild honey; so far, so good, Mmmm! As the practice gained popularity and gaufres became a festive fayre for poor people during celebrations well before Bastille Day, our Belgian cousins latched onto a good idea as they saw one (they are a tad too slow to have their own good ideas…) but the hard fricative ‘g’ became a soft labial ‘w’ under the influence of strong dark beer: natural erosion completed the transformation into ‘waffle’. At this juncture, another old French word came into play: ‘gouailleur’ as in someone who possesses a lot of ‘gouaille’, namely a ‘big gob’ in another dialect…gouaille is directly derived from ‘gueule’ designating an animal’s mouth and some argue that the sounds emitted by a drunken Belgian are similar to the eructations of a poorly beast; with me so far? The sad concoction of mixed etymologies and corrupted pronunciations led to the creation of yet another word: bagouilleur (as in someone who possesses ‘bagoût’ or the art of boggling (le bagouillage) an idiot’s mind with useless (and untrue) verbiage. Put all these ingredients together and you have ‘waffler’: absolutely nothing to do with the original waffle or gaufre but still in use in remote areas where modern idioms such as ‘bullsh*tter’ have not reached yet…
“Here endeth the lesson!
A.”
Thanks for that and now moving swiftly on the the second topic, that of climb statistics, you will appreciate of course that these are only put in for the few readers who are actually interested in them and that that “few” seems to be Paul and no one else. So when I had put in that we had climbed 400 odd metres, Paul couldn´t resist taking the bait. He commented:-

“Lies, damn lies etc. I would have been proud to achieve the climb claimed in the CB's Stats section, but alas my highly accurate komoot.de elevation profile only showed 200 m of climb and this was backed up by my extremely accurate Garmin Oregon. Distances and speeds were more similar. Perhaps The CB has managed to record an accumulated climb total whereas mine are simple calculations. But I doubt it!”
Well, he was correct; my “managed” figures were those for an accumulated climb total. The principle is quite simple. If one is to climb from sea-level to the top of a 300 metre hill by means of one straight-up ladder, the climb total would indeed be 300 metres. But if one were to walk towards the 300 metre summit and were to have to drop back down 50 metres after having made each  straight-up ascent of 100 metres, that lost 50 metres would of course have to be ascended again. And so on. By the time one does reach the 300 metre summit, one´s accumulated climb is 550 metres. And on the way down, there are of course interruptions to the downward slope – let us say in this simple case that there are now 5 little upward slopes of 50 metres. That´s another 250 metres of interuption. By the time one gets back to base having reached the 300 metre summit, one´s total climb for the day has come to 800 metres.
Last Wednesday we walked from Retiro dos Pescadores along a bit of tarmac and then gently along a valley path before we had to tackle the first real slope. According to Google Earth, at that stage we had walked 2.56 kms, had started at 36 metres above sea level and had reached 80 metres above sea level, all without breaking a sweat. But the elevation gain – the total climb so far – had already come to 163 metres, twice the altitude we had reached.All this before the first hill.
There is tons of stuff on the web about how GPS devices measure altitude and calculate climbs. A lot of that stuff is far too complicated for me to understand, although I´m sure some of you can, but the general message seems to be that they cannot be totally relied on. One page said that it´s not uncommon for your device to tell you, when you are walking along a beach, that your altitude is minus 40. Don´t worry, you are advised, you´re between satellites. Another page says that, if you´re trying to land your light plane relying on your GPS altitude dial, the best thing to do is make sure that your insurances are fully paid-up.
The conclusion of all this? Paul is much fitter than he thinks he is.

ADDENDUM. Unretouched stats from Garmin and komoot.de. A rather impressive 9.58 km but only 200m of climb. Of course if you add the descent you get something more impressive!

APAPS 8: Motus et Bouche Cousue or Mum´s The Word

The Preamble

“ On Wednesday 17th we will start from Café Retiro dos Pescadores  at 7 am. The walk will be a sort of revisit to the walk we did on 29th June, but with variations. Not likely to be much over 8 km, about 500 metres ascents but even so fairly gentle slopes. No cross-country scrambling (I think). The all-important breakfast will be at Retiro dos Pescadores of course, where we have breakfasted very well before with Kerrygold butter among other delights.”

The Statistics

Distance 8.84 kms: Total Time 2 hrs 31 min: Moving Time 2 hrs 7 mins: Av. Moving speed 4.2 kph: Total climb 434 metres.

The Track

Red line is our route along the valley floor and up to the ridge: the blue line our way back to base. And for those who are interested in that sort of thing, this second picture shows how this weeks´s walk overlapped briefly with the previous week´s Águas Belas walk which is shown by the yellow line: 

Closing Quotation

“ Among the flowers with wine beneath the sky
Alone I drink — no friend or kin, just me.
I raise my cup to toast the moon on high.
That's two of us; my shadow makes it three. “

(李白 - Li Bai, aka Li Po -  AD 701-762)

WAPAPS Weather App.

Since the WAPAPS Series of walks are early morning on selected summer Wednesdays outside the season, I thought we should have a reliable weather prediction App.

Please play the App when you need to see the weather for any particular walk.


 

APAPS 7: Orthographics or The Songbird in the Teapot

The pre-walk publicity went out as follows:-

The next APAPS walk will start at 7am Wednesday 10th August on the Agua Belas tracks. Breakfast will be at Snack Bar Terinho Pêra e Fica afterwards, approx 9.30 am. Those of you who had breakfast there on 6th July will remember how good it was. I think that we can be reasonably confident of it being just as good again.

A walk of some 8.50 kms, in two parts – 4.15 kms on the flat, 4.35 kms climbs up and back down about 200 metres of steady ascent. If anyone doesn´t fancy doing the ascent bit, there is an opt-out whereby they could stay on the flat and meet the climbers on their way back; a map will be provided on the day.

No sooner was the notice out than the corrective emails began to come in. Some people might categorise them as being pedantic, but your blogger prefers diplomacy and calls them erudite  (!!!!!). Basically, I was being taught that the place names should have been Águas Belas and Pára. On the photographic evidence, I have no grounds for complaint.

 

But more of this anon.

The Starters assembled on a cool morning perfect for gentle strolling,

 

although it has to be said that the ladies´ choreographic technique was less co-ordinated than in the past.

 ( From the Archives )

More practice required.

The Track

The Statistics

Total Distance: 8.40 kms.  Moving Time: 1 hr 55 mins. Average Moving Speed: 4.4 kph. Total Climb: something like 448 metres. All completed the full track, the easy option being spurned once more.

Anyway, I had ample time during the walk to learn more from my erudite friend about accentuation in written Portuguese ( eat your heart out, Aristotle, no ancient philosophy this morning). If I understood it correctly, "pára" was the official 3rd person singular, present tense of the  verb “parar” prior to the Acordo Ortográfico de 1990, but now the official word is "para". It seems that not everyone agreed that it was a good idea to drop the accent because now the verb could be confused with the preposition "para". Fair enough, I said, and asked if the accent had been  there before 1990 precisely in order to distinguish the verbal  “para” from the preposition “para”, or was it there for some another reason? The question remained unanswered. Never mind, and the walk otherwise passed without incident as far as I know.

Back at Café Terinho, dead on 9.30 am as planned, our breakfast orders were taken by the ever-welcoming Ana. While we waited for the food, Myriam sized people up for their Anniversary T-shirts and Paul added field notes to his Compendium of AWWWs´ Vital Statistics.

 

Considerable debate arose on whether to measure all the way round or just across the... ahem… front.

Food on the table, the meal was of course super – as delicious as it was colourful.

Janet, ever solicitous, gave Paul an extra egg to fortify him for his drive up to Lisboa that morning.

Since Ana has banned wi-fi from her Snack Bar, it is now possible to have a proper topic of conversation over a meal and for this we were indebted to Myriam who delighted us – whenever, that is, she could be heard over the frequent shouts of “more toast!” – with anecdotes drawing on  Chinese tea drinking practices. The first of these was the tragic story of the prized songbird whose owner, at a birdsong contest in a tea shop, popped it into an empty teapot for safekeeping, only for the tea boy to lift the lid and fill the pot up with freshly boiled water. So now serious Chinese tea drinkers prop the lid open to show when they want a top-up.

The second one instructed us on how to indicate gratitude when someone pours more tea into your cup at a Chinese dinner. This ritual derives from the time of the Qianlong Emperor (1735 – 1796). Now I don´t really have the heart to repeat the whole story here, because a leaked extract from the recent OFSWAGS´ inspection report on APAPS (as yet not published in full) (see WAPAPS blog for APAPS 6) included a remark to the effect that these blogs are long on waffle – (for heaven´s sake! “Waffle”? well, I ask you!) – but the gist is that the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty had the habit of  going around his country in disguise to find out what his people were thinking and saying. By the way, Qianlong is pronounced Ch´ian-lung and Qing is pronounced Ch´ing, but for reasons best known to themselves and the Russians the Chinese dropped the Wade-Giles system of alphabetical spelling in the 1960s and developed something called Pinyin. So Ch´ became Q.That was when Peking stopped being called Peking and became Beijing and the Giant Panda suddenly ceased being Ta-hsiung-mao and became Daxiongmao. The Chinese equivalent I suppose to the Acordo Ortográfico changes in Portugal. But, I ask you, how on earth can anyone expect the letter Q  to represent the sound Ch ?

Now, the Qing (the Ch´ing)  were not even (Han ) Chinese but Manchu Mongols – invaders from the North - and Qianlong was not even the guy´s real name (which was Aisin Gioro Hongli) but was the Era Name  for his emperorship - his ceremonial name if you like. He also had a third name, his Temple Name, which was Qing Gaozong, but that need not detain us. Because, you can read all about him at this link  https://g.co/kgs/lyH7NH a link which includes among other essential facts the information that he had no less than 2 or 3 Empresses, 7 Imperial Noble Consorts, 5 Noble Consorts, 6 Consorts, 6 Imperial Concubines, 13 Noble Ladies, and 7 First Class, Second Class and Other Female Attendants.  No wonder he needed to nip off in disguise occasionally to get away from it all. Which is what he did, and it was when he was away, keeping up the pretence of being ordinary when mixing with ordinary folk, that he would pour tea for his mates (his courtiers in real life). Of course, they could not respond with the customary kow-tows in acknowledgement of Imperial favour – that would have given the game away – so they would tap the table ritualistically, three times with the middle three fingers of the right hand – the 2nd and 4th fingers representing the kow-tow-er´s two hands on the ground and the 3rd finger being his forehead touching the dust.

Through time, there have been several other folk legends of rulers going out among their people in disguise. Alfred The Great when he was rehearsing for The Great Bake-Off, Richard the Lionheart in the Robin Hood stories, Harun-al-Rashid Caliph of Baghdad,  the Guidman o´ Ballengeich aka James V of Scotland and the father of Mary Queen of Scots, among them. In these modern times, King Abdullah of Jordan is reputed to be partial to donning his leathers and zooming off round his country on his Harley- Davidson.

But I find it hard to go on…that slur of “waffle” has cut too deep…………………………………………………. ”Me a waffler? Un remplissageur? Moi?.”

And the obligatory closing quotation:-

“The human mind´s ability to rationalise its own shortcomings into virtues is unlimited.”