Portugal

Yeah.

So thank you, and thank you to Charlotte, who is producing this, and to all the other people who've been involved and, uh, behind the scenes as well at Crowd Network, and to the irrepressibly brilliant, uh, producer, Joe, who is currently at a stag do in Portugal, and right when it mattered, he's just deserted us.

Um, but in that sp- [laughs] in that spirit, uh, thank you all for listening.

Thank you all for watching, and we'll be back on it very soon.

He went to sea at 14, which was common, and he had a very rough beginning.

He sank in a battle off the coast of Portugal.

He managed to paddle safely to shore on a piece of wreckage.

And as a Genoese, he joined a colony of expatriate Genoese sailors in Portugal.

Later on, he was exploring the coast of West Africa, and actually aboard another ship made it all the way to Iceland.

So even as a young person, Columbus had been around, mostly as what we would call a merchant marine.

It's just one of the many ironies.

He spent a lot of time getting backing, uh, for the voyage.

I just love the fact that Portugal can become old in you very fast.

Where I live, I go maybe to three or four restaurants and everybody knows me and it's not because I'm famous.

They know me like they know because I'm not famous, it's about knowing.

People say, how are you? You go to the restaurant and they go like, oh, it's the usual.

And that's a great feeling.

And I think Portugal is a place where I feel that.

And I don't think I would feel that in any other country I've been, even if I lived there for a long time.

Portugal.

I would have loved to have travelled to go to Holland and go to the Netherlands.

We've got Belgium, Portugal, obviously Milan to play as well, and Poland, where we're playing Lech Poznań.

So the spread's been pretty good.

It could have been a lot worse.

So, yeah, not –

not starting in Portugal.

Got a five for their spots, which is what Papa said last week, and that's hopefully, if it all goes well, going to improve them as players.

Going to have to take opportunities.

Just looking now, Nesta got 15 minutes off the bench in a 1-1 draw with Familical, which will be a disappointing result, I think, from a sporting perspective, given their relative dominance in Portugal.

And Benfica struggling to find

their game.

I was pissed for you.

So, recently, I was lucky enough through work to go to Porto, Portugal, which...

For fuck's sake, like, okay, I love every city I go to.

I just, I think it's dumb that people think that there are good and bad cities.

Three record stores, nothing on Nuno Betancourt.

Nothing.

I was like, surely Nuno would be fucking everywhere in Portugal, right? I would hope.

I would have

And now it is time for my guest, Whitney Snydman.

Whitney Snydman is a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, a board member of the Corporate Council on Africa, the founder of his own Africa-focused consulting practice, an advisory board member of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art, and the author of Engaging Africa, Washington and the Fall of Portugal's Colonial Empire.

During his extensive career, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Clinton administration, where he worked on the peace process in Angola, South Africa's transition to democracy, and the passage and implementation of the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

He lives in Alexandria, Virginia.

And then I was at this meeting and I got to I met Susan, I introduced her, and we sort of hit it off.

She had just finished a PhD at Oxford on Zimbabwe's transition to independence.

I finished my PhD on U.S. policy toward Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, and we just sort of hit it off.

And I said, I really want to join the administration.

I think the great irony of it.

I mean, I went to Portugal once and at these this seafood platter and there was something on there that did not agree with me.

Oh, man alive.

I was like a factory outlet for about three days.

They must attack petition.

He's done well in Portugal.

He's done well in Kazakhstan.

He's done well in Japan.