APAPS 21.7: This week, The Intended Trig Point

 

One of our regular readers commented the other day that last week´s blog was “an intellectual blog.” Wow ! It has no such pretentions. Mind you, there are those readers who do qualify as intellectuals. For example, when we put a competition into that last week´s blog to come up with a caption to this, one of Yves´ photos

I immediately received a WhatsApp message from one reader telling me to Google the name Fernando Pessoa (of whom I have to confess that I had never before heard ). I don´t know how many caption suggestions Yves did receive for his pic, but I do now know that Pessoa (1888 – 1935) was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher. Described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20^th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language, he also wrote in English and French. He wrote not only under his own name but also under 75 or so aliases or pseudonyms. He was a mysticist and an enthusiast of esotericism, occultism, hermetism, numerology, alchemy, spritualism and astrology.

Why Pessoa in this context? Because Yves´ photo had reminded my WhatsApp contributor of these images of the great man:-

True, there is a similarity of the nose in each.

I bet Pessoa could have written a mean blog too if he had got round to it. But enough of that; back to the walk.

This was to be a repeat, in reverse direction, of the exploratory walk done two weeks ago in which we revisited two of Rod´s famous Three Hills walks of the past. Here are the Three Hills seen from a distance. 

Hill 2 , that of the Unintended Trig is the middle one. Maria, who had missed out on the trig last time, was determined to get there this time.

The Starters, only four in number, had to share the starter photo with a fork lift truck.

 Rod had sent his apologies - a very late night or some such excuse. Paul, although he had walked the previous week, ducked out this time, no doubt deterred by the prospects of some 160 or more metres climbing.

We hadn´t gone very far when we had the first of many stops. First essential after setting off was to gather some figs – blue ones, I believe.

Entering the Serra by one of our favourite quiet tracks, we found it is now disfigured by a huge mound of recently bulldozed earth.

And a completely new track had been bulldozed up the hill which we, of course, had to explore.

In due course, we found ourselves at the base of Hill 2.

and we managed to scramble up to the top where, alas for Maria´s ambitions, she found that the top of the trig was already occupied.

After that, it was nearly all downhill. We moved at a fairly leisurely pace, stopping every now and then for deep discussion or to admire, or not as the case may be, various examples of traditional and not so traditional Portuguese architecture.

Then it was back to base along the canal for our breakfast. Paul who had texted to say that his attendance at breakfast was “a definite maybe” did in fact turn up but only for a coffee. We were also joined by Hazel who was full of news about her new kitten. John´s 15 years of steadfast “there will be no pets in this house” resistance having crumbled away in a moment of weakness when he found an abandoned new born kitten on his brita. He will probably live to regret his sentimentality.

Breakfast was the usual very ample offering prepared by Dona Fernanda and her daughter-in-law Ritinha. Plus plums and green figs from the Pescadores horta, the figs apparently being an unusual French variety.

The Track and the Statistics

And to conclude, our puzzles. Last week´s puzzler was “what is the connection between these four items:-

The answer, provided by Paul, is the ending “ian”

all four being names of Roman emperors (three of whom are quite familiar) and the years that they reigned.

Vespasian, for example, put down the Jewish rebellion of 66 AD, built the Colosseum in Rome, and also lent his name to that monument to French civilisation and practicality, le pissoir or la vespasienne, i.e. the loo in the street, which has been a relief to many a desperate Frenchman in their time of need. (Never mind the needs of the ladies.)

As for Diocletian, he is remembered for doing nasty things to Christians in his persecution of Christianity (303 312 AD) which failed in the end. But he was one of the few Roman emperors to retire voluntarily, maybe the only one, after which he spent his time growing vegetables in his gardens in Croatia.

Hadrian was of course responsible for building Hadrian´s Wall to keep the Scots out of England, a wall which may be needed again if Queen Nicola gets too big for her boots.

But Majorian is not a familiar name. He was emperor (457 – 461 AD) towards the end of the Western Roman Empire when things were pretty chaotic. He tried hard to reform things that were wrong but in doing so offended some of those who had put him in power in the first place, particularly a general called Ricimer who eventually arrested him, tortured him and then chopped his head off, all very much standard procedure in those days.

And so to this week´s puzzler:-

What comes next in this sequence?

Clue: you need to know what the mathematical symbol means.

P.S. We did actually take two genuine trip point photos.