Slow Dogs

There is a spy in the valley.

A grass in the long grass, a leak in the lake, an informer on the farmer, a mole who’s out of control.

We haven’t yet established who the information is being sold to, or even what value it might have, but everything we’re doing is apparently being recorded and uploaded to the cloud.

Before you think off-grid living has got to my head (it hasn’t, the tin-foil hat protects me from that), or that I’m getting over-excited about the new series of Slow Horses, let me set out the evidence.

First we were tricked into “rescuing a puppy” by a German friend (perhaps with links to August Hanning) – I mean now it’s obvious: six siblings, cutest one pushed on to us...just happens to be available...immediately.

We take him home: he’s smart, starts taking over, pushing the other dogs around, winning our confidence. At first we laugh at how “he’s learning so quickly” and is “so observant,” but then reality dawns.

Our snout has a snout, our tail has a tail. There’s a four-legged tout about.

It’s the way he stares.

There’s a fine line between cute/inquisitive and creepy. Ronnie crossed it the other day.

He stares at things and at people as if he’s searching for their soul. He watches everything then plays dumb by chasing his tail. You don’t fool us.

That “play-fighting” with the black dog Albie is apparently more than it seems – the “not now Cato” ambushes are about honing his combat skills – learning how to go for the week spots as he trains for global dog-ination.

On a car trip to Lisbon we joked about the awkward way he was sleeping, only realising too late that his nose was pressed up against the USB charger. He was extra-energetic and even more observant on arrival.

Most of the time he’s a sleeper agent, but Ronaldo Romulus the First has been selling our data to some form of “Super Intelligence” which apparently it’s now called. Sleeping time is uploading time.

As an aside, I’m actually good with the name change – mostly because A-I looks a lot like A-L when typed.

Every day I’m reading how AI is responsible for this, and AI has done that. I have done nothing.

Thanks for reading Off-grid and Entertaining in Portugal! This post is public so feel free to share it.

In LA I had to change my Starbucks name from Alastair to Al as they just couldn’t get their heads around it. Missing calls for Alison and Aniston (as in Jennifer), left me with cold coffee and a necessary alteration, but now I have to change it back.

I cannot write my name as Al on Zoom calls – everyone thinks I’m made up, or that they are being spied on (which is ironic isn’t it?).

In Portuguese, an “-air” ending is pronounced aye-EAR (like the verb Sair to leave or more appropriately Trair to betray), so until everyone accepts the fact it is now S-I, and not A-I, I will be Alast-aye-EAR.

Then the Simons will be left to deal with it.

Thanks for reading Off-grid and Entertaining in Portugal! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

The obvious link to Ronnie’s espionage and the clear connection to the cloud is the new data centre being built in Sines – the port town and entry point for Europe’s main undersea cables.

Last year I visited the first of six buildings for a possible story – when data centres were cool and interesting – as opposed to being evil and destructive.

It’s amazing how quickly a useful novelty chatbot has become a threat to humanity, but with robots fighting a war in Europe and “Si” solving every mathematics problem known to man (maybe) what could possibly go wrong?

Technology is moving so fast that I can’t even work out how to share our Microsoft Office files...or is it just me getting old? ChatGPT suggested I turn it off and turn it on again – something we used to be able to do to them.

And it’s Microsoft who use the Smart Campus data centre in Sines for lots of secret things justifying more security than an American embassy.

By 2031 there will be six buildings at a cost of €8.5bn which will use 22% of all the power Portugal used on its national grid last year, according to a sustainability group.

Quoted by Zeynep Tinaz Redmont in the Substack Lisbon Diaries, ZERO (Associação Sistema Terrestre Sustentável) says the 1.2GW centre operating at full capacity will use two and a half times more water every day than the whole of Greater London consumes.

What impressed me was their plan to use the seawater cooling system from the now decommissioned coal-fired power station which used to be next door – and that more than 80% of Portugal’s electricity generation is renewable.

But what concerns me is that all our data is now being harvested and uploaded to their servers by our small dog. He’s six months old – imagine what he’ll be capable of by 2031.

Maybe I could ask Ronnie to help us with Microsoft Office...if he’s not too busy chasing his tail or using geo-location data to calibrate his LIDAR scanner.

And Ronnie being rumbled obviously puts pressure on our GDPR privacy responsibilities.

We’ve had to keep him indoors this weekend as our whole place has been taken over for a yoga retreat.

As much as we love catering for retreats in the Valley of the Stars, it’s also great when retreat leaders bring their own chef and leave us little more to do than making sure the power stays on and there’s enough toilet paper.

After a hectic summer and with my injured foot getting better by the day, it’s been nice to have a little thinking time.

We have another big group coming at the end of October – a Tai Chi master from Japan is bringing some of his students and we’ll be all hands on deck to keep them well fed.

It really is a wonderful time of year to visit coastal Alentejo. For the next ten days or so we have some rooms available if you’re looking for a sunny getaway.

And we’re also plotting and scheming for Christmas.

Sadly we said goodbye this week to our daughter Oda after the three wonderful months she’s been here helping us run the place and hosting not just fabulous cocktail nights, but also gourmet dinners.

She’s in Poland on a rock music tour with her boyfriend Derek and although we’ll get a few bonus days with her in Lisbon on her way back to LA, we’ll miss her at Christmas.

We’re not sure what we’ll be doing as yet, but we’ll be here and we’ll be open to festive guests.

So if you’re interested in escaping a northern winter, or want to survive Whamageddon by avoiding cities, shopping centres and music being piped through lamp posts, we promise not to play Last Christmas here until at least December 25th.

(I don’t believe I’m talking about this already – it’s only October – but there are only 76 shopping days left until Christmas...or 65 excluding Sundays...or so Ronnie’s search engine tells me).