I must have had a dram or three one night when I posted some hot-headed remark – all exclamation marks and frothing at the mouth, no doubt – proposing to neutralise institutional religions by my arguments in a forthcoming piece of writing. Of course the mere assumption was arrogant on my part in the extreme […]

Read more "On obscurantism"

Our two families coincided, I seem to remember, as guests at Sandra’s in Reguengos de Monsaraz sometime in June or July of 1997. I must have told Bernard I had a summer to spare before going off on a course in Florence in September. He owned and ran the Casa Velha, a reputable, excellent restaurant […]

Read more "La Pérgola"