TEN THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT LISBON

I was in Lisbon last weekend checking on my port wine vineyard. Things in the city haven't changed much since I was there last, except for the opening of the National Museum of Toenails, I feel it's definitely the way forward in heritage - you should see the gift shop!
Anyway, I'm buggered if I'm going to be able to piece a half decent blog together for this week - so instead here's a couple of field drawings I did, along with ten facts you probably don't know about Lisbon.

In Lisbon breakfast consists of strong coffee and a deep-fried pigs snout.

LISBON THE FACTS:

1. The iceberg that sank the Titantic was built in a Lisbon dockyard by an enclosed order of nuns. When they heard God couldn't sink the ship they reckoned the least they could do is give him a hand.

2. King Carlos, the last King of Portugal, was shot dead in Lisbon by loyal subjects who could not bear to watch him die slowly of corpulence. Afterwards they honoured his memory by establishing a republic.

3. Queen Maria Pia, mother of Carlos, suffered dreadfully from colic and bad taste. Her end was expedited when a girder supporting her buffon haircut shattered and punched a hole the size of Humpty Dumpty through her nut.

4. When Summer temperatures exceed 38 degrees Lisbon becomes invisible.

5. Icelandic poet Snorri Sturluson (1179-1241) is Lisbon's longest serving mayor. At eight foot two it's unlikely a longer mayor will ever be found to replace him. He is currently serving herring in a brine sauce.

Lisbon Cathedral from the rear. Or bits of it - and a nice tram at the far right.

6. Trousers are not fruit and Lisbon is no exception to this rule.

7. The great earthquake of 1755 threw Lisbon a thousand miles North to Denmark. The Danish government took the city apart and mailed it, block by block, back to where it came from. The city was never properly reconstituted.

8. You couldn't make this shit up.

9. The population of Lisbon is the square root of B minus.

10. The capital of Ignorance is Bliss.

And that's everything I know about Lisbon . . . And now for some illustrations and unfair assumptions I made while waiting in the airport.

NEXT WEEK MAYHAP DARLINGS?