FRANCO DOESN'T DESERVE ALL THE CREDIT:

"Because maybe / You're gonna be the one that saves me / And after all / You're my wonderwall," the pink-haired Portuguese busker sang, channelling Oasis's 1995 Britpop classic in the city of Porto shortly after Christmas Day. British pop songs seemed to dominate the playlist as those of us listening at the café tables opposite nibbled on Portugal's fabled Pastel de Nata cream custard tarts, and masked Portuguese thronged the shopping thoroughfare of Rua Santa Catarina.

Never would I have thought that lyrics spun by the unruly Gallagher brothers could prove so moving and pertinent to our muddled times--"And all the roads we have to walk are winding / And all the lights that lead us there are blinding"--but neither had I expected to find myself taking refuge from the UK's cycle of lockdowns and quashing of civil liberties on the Iberian Peninsula while hiking an ever-lengthening Camino pilgrimage. Though perhaps it isn't such a surprise: Portugal is the UK's oldest ally, after all.

The Portuguese deserve more credit of a different nature to the purely financial kind

The friendship between the two countries goes back to 1147, when English crusaders helped King Alfonso I to capture Lisbon from the invading Muslims. And as the actor Sean Bean aptly demonstrated playing the fictional British soldier Richard Sharpe in the 1990s television series based on the Bernard Cornwell novels, the Anglo-Portuguese alliance came to the fore during the Napoleonic Wars. Portugal, isolated in a Europe usurped by Napoleon, continued to trade with Britain despite French restrictions; and after Portugal finally was invaded, British fighting power helped it regain its sovereignty.

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