APAPS 2: From Algiers to Brazil

 

 

“The stroller sniffs the smell of passing hay”  (with apologies to Thomas Gray)

The pre-walk instructions (accompanied by a map to boot) had, to the normal eye, seemed pretty adequate:

“From Silves Cruz de Portugal drive east on the Messines road for exactly 3 km and turn left when you see an old disused factory on your right. This left turn is not marked by any road sign. Café Elias is scarcely 200 metres up that road. That´s the purple track on the map.If you should happen to miss that turning, don´t worry. Just go round the block. After another 1 kilometre, there is another left turn, this one marked with a road sign Pedreiras Pinheiro Garrado. Take this left, go past a canning factory on your right, turn left past the Café Retiro dos Pescadores, go for another 700 metres, turn left again, go past a horse riding establishment and you will find Café Elias on your right. That´s the yellow track.

GPS co-ordinates for Café Elias are:

37*12´362 N 8*24´152 W in d.m.s   or

lat 37.209771* lon 8.401096* in d.d.

Post-walk we will have breakfast at Café Retiro dos Pescadores in Pedreiras where we have been before and where I am sure this time we can arrange for proper manteiga.”

But the morning did not start well for your correspondent who had arisen at the crack of dawn only to find his inbox swamped with curious messages. Someone, it seems, had hacked into Myriam´s email and had been sending spurious messages under her name designed to confuse and discombobulate. Did this hacker have some grudge, I wondered. The messages began:-

“Please sir,  what are the coordinates in degrees and decimal minutes (DD MM.mmm) as I have a proper GPS?”
and then continued as if talking to themselves:-    

“Myriam denies having sent the request for further coordinates!”

“Well she would wouldn't she.  I am merely trying to prevent Myriam trying to enter seconds into the GPS  when it is calibrated in decimal minutes.
“ I can't guarantee her arrival unless she pays my consultation fee.”

And then the hacker finally revealed his identity. 

“ Paul here Apologies for writing under the guise of Myriam but I was not included on the addressees and quite rightly so!  Seriously John, I have had a look at your coords with a view to converting them to GPS coords, and found several anomalies, the main one being that they are not at Cafe Elias.

“This won't matter of course as none of the putative audience have any idea about using a GPS. However, when you give a location in DD MM and SS, there are only 60 seconds in one minute so you would naturally expect the third set of digits in the  coords to only have two digits, not 3 as you have.  If you put your Decimal degree coords into Google Earth you find yourself in the Med off the coast of Algiers, as you omitted the crucial negative sign before the 8 making it an easting instaed of a westing.

“I went to GE and located Cafe Elias and came up with this set of coords in multi format

“http://boulter.com/gps/#N37%2012.594%20W008%2024.281 ( I kid you not! That´s what I was told.)

“When you put any (?) of these into Google Earth, they come fairly close to the terrace of Cafe Elias, if this is indeed the place.  Anyway, unless I hear to the contrary, that is where I am sending Myriam tomorrow.

“Cheers and hope you manage to have a great Brexit and Euro 2016 Exit discussion with all your ladies!

“ Paul”

And all that because I described some of the “coords” – one has to use the correct jargon – as “d.d” instead of “d.dm”. Oh dearie dearie me. So it was that with some degree (pun intended) of trepidation I arrived at Café Elias, fearing that I might have to send a search and rescue party eastwards to Algiers.

But thankfully, western values had prevailed and all the intending walkers, Lagos deputation included, were already there.

Paul, being a real technical expert, had even managed to send a Google Earth photo of the Café so that I was reassured that I was starting from the correct spot. (How on Earth does he manage to do that?)

as the Starter photo corroborates:-

The walk itself was fairly uneventful. Horses and guinea pigs presented photo oportunities early on.

Thereafter, the track was a straightforward climb into the hills and descent back again, 7.7 kms at 4.1 kph average moving speed over total time 2 hrs 15 min..

As is not unusual, conversation had replaced concentration as the trail went on and, at one point, a group of 4 were heading down a wrong track, when Hazel, ever concious of well-established safety guidelines and equipped accordingly, seized her alarm whistle to call them back, but found that she had clipped it to her trouser-belt and couldn´t pull it up as far as her mouth. What to do? We could hardly expect her to remove her trousers in mid-jungle, so JohnH gallantly stooped down to help.

The Whistleblower

Danger averted and walk over, we adjourned to the welcoming shade of the Retiro dos Pescadores for breakfast. Maria efficiently took the orders and helped the two good ladies of the café prepare the plates, all amply supplied with genuine Kerrygold natural butter, thanks to Rose.

All seemed to be going along quite normally, with Aristotle in full flow…………………………

 

Aristotle explains to a fascinated Hazel exactly how to calculate the length of a piece of string using π 

(π ≈3.14159…… the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, if you must know).

………………………when Myriam took out her latest mobile……………………..

………demonstrated its clever features to an admiring audience, and then sent Paul a photo…………

"Was this the dish that launch'd a thousand quips?”  (with apologies to Christopher Marlowe)

(Before I receive more cautionary letters from Ms.Bonte´s legal advisors, let me hasten to make it abundantly clear that in using the word dish I am, of course, referring specifically to her egg and tomaytoh breakfast to which she herself is pointing, and to those eggs and tomaytohs and to their supporting platter only. In the interests of brevity, I shall resist the temptation of asserting that I am relating the breakfast, the whole breakfast, and nothing but the breakfast.) 

To answer the query posed in the caption, this was indeed the fry-up that prompted a surreal outbreak of text messages[which Myriam has now reconstructed for the blog. Myriam wrote: “Don't know how to send the whole chain of chats in one go. Have to forward you one by one. You need to guess who said what!” if indeed you can follow the chain.]

First, Paul in Lagos responds to the photo:  “That will put hairs on her chest!  Looks nourishing.
    I am at the barbers now trying to effect a more streamlined look.”

Antje :”Too late I think but keep trying x A”

Anon: “Paul you can give me a chest wax”

Paul: “I don't know who is there but I would guess Yves.  I did Ingrid's last week.”

 Anon: “You mean my legs don't you ?” 

Paul ?: “Wherever! I have learnt how to do Brazilians on the Internet. New career opportunity!”

??? “How well you know me”

Paul ?; “I hope that is not John or Yves who sent that “

Anon: “Guess who”

Anon: “Ingrid actually blushed”

 

Well, all this texting saves one from having to write the complete blog, but what on earth are “Brazilians”?

Anyway,thanks for the photos and other contributions. Breakfast at the Pescadores was as satisfying as always, and there were fresh eggs for sale afterwards at 6 for €1. We will return.

Afterword

The solutions to this week´s  Spot The Allusion are:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,

The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

 

(Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray)

and:

           Was this the face that launched a thousand ships

           And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?

(Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe)