[inter]National Poetry Day

After a hard day's work on our big European research bid, the eight of us (one Danish, one Irish, one Portuguese, two Norwegians, one Swiss, one English and one Welsh) retired to Belem for dinner, and then to this library/printing press/cafe/bar where a poetry group was in full swing. After half an hour we were pressed to join in - Dympna could not remember any Seamus Heaney so I volunteered Prévert's Alicante, learned for seduction purposes when I was 18 and still fresh in the memory. Afterwards I was given another poem in French to read, and asked for my autograph.

I was tempted to enable my smartphone and treat them to RS Thomas' Welsh History, which Plaid Cymru's leader Leanne Wood had posted on Facebook that morning, but it seemed apt, having no Portuguese, to do the French thing instead.