Well I have successfully managed to start writing up my first substantive chapter. It’s been slow work but at least I have started it and hope to finish off the first section I started writing by the end of today. It’s scary to think that I am planning to write basically an undergrad or masters dissertation over the summer but that’s what I’ll do! And I’m chipping away at that 100,000 word thesis final word count.

So while the words are flowing and I am able to write, what I don’t need is distractions. Nice June sunny days make things difficult, particularly with the computer giving off heat as I try to work. It makes things difficult but I can work through that. I will doubtless do some of my writing on my laptop in the garden over the summer which will be nice. Already had two test matches of the summer too but we’ve made fairly easy work of beating Bangladesh. While it was good to sit and watch some cricket on the telly it wasn’t a huge distraction as I still got meaningful work done while that was going on. And me and my mates are going down to Lord’s in August for the first day of the third test against Pakistan. That will be something to look forward to and to make sure I have my work done by then!

But I think the football World Cup will be too big a distraction to resist! To be honest I can’t wait for it and it’s nice, if a little annoying, to see World Cup fever gripping the nation once again as England actually qualified and look pretty decent for getting to the semi-finals at least. I’m definitely going to make time to watch the opening ceremony and first matches on Friday and then England play their first game on Saturday. So I shall have to develop a routine which allows me to work (especially in the mornings) and watch the games, but most matches, especially in the latter stages of the competition, are in the evenings so I don’t envisage too many problems.

Let’s see how things go. I’m sure after England go out, doing work will seem very appealing as a way to forget. I only have one wish this time – please, please, please can we not get knocked out by Portugal!!! The last World Cup and Euro 2004 we were knocked out on penalties by the Portuguese. This makes things very difficult for me and I’m getting sick of it. So I don’t mind if we go out to the Germans or Argentina again but please anyone but Portugal!

This week I was supposed to be starting my Brussels fieldwork. I left for Brussels on Tuesday morning and returned back to England the following day! Why? I shall explain…

While I was in Lisbon I thought it would be a good idea to sort out my Brussels fieldwork arrangements, book my Eurostar tickets and sort out somewhere to stay. I looked on the classified ads and found somewhere that looked suitable and made enquiries. I arranged it and paid the rent and deposit in advance. I was promised that I would hear something nearer the time and have the keys couriered to me. As I left for Brussels I had fears that I would be heading there to discover that I had been conned. This was the case! I got to Brussels and set about locating my digs. I turned up at the door to discover multiple flat numbers (I wasn’t told which) and none of the names on the doors matched. Also the big banner advertising rooms to let looked very different from the photos I had been given. It was clear that I had been dealing with a bogus landlady and the money I had paid I will probably never see again. Ouch!!!

Now, this is quite a lot to take in! Especially in a city you’ve never been in before and my French is a little bit rusty still. While I tried to make the effort some words came out Portuguese still! Anyway I thought I better drag my stuff around Brussels and find somewhere to stay for the night. Eventually I got somewhere but it was pricey! The room was ok but there was no way I could afford a second night and I had to start to consider the possibility that I would have to turn around and head for home.

Brussels is certainly a nice place and I needed to make the most of it before arranging a Eurostar home. I went to Grand Place and had a nice Belgian meal of moules frites (mussels and fries) and I had a waffle for afters. I also needed to have a nice Belgian beer while I was there – lovely stuff! I took some photos but really couldn’t do anything other than briefly be a tourist before having to return home.

But I will return to Brussels at some point and will do the fieldwork I have been planning. I had made arrangements to meet with people but they have been understanding when I told them I was postponing my fieldwork for the time being. This is very frustrating because if it were not for the mishap with my accommodation I would be there now and probably making good headway in getting my fieldwork done.

Due to this rather sudden change of circumstances I was actually in the country on General Election day. I thought that 2010 would be the second polling day running I would have been out of the country and unable to vote but in the end I went out to exercise my democratic right. The real fun of course comes in staying up all night to watch the election night coverage. I didn’t stay up all night but stayed up until the point where I could be sure we were heading for a hung parliament and that even by the morning there would be no clear winner!

So I am at home in Suffolk and am planning to lie low for a bit and spend as little money as possible. I have things to be getting on with so it’s not so bad. I need to go up to Newcastle at some point but at the moment I don’t know exactly when. I’ve got a bit of explaining to do I guess!

But at least I am back and can draw a line under this episode. Proof that all PhDs have their setbacks, but these things are sent to try us!

I feel I ought to update my blog now and provide an account of how I spent the month of April 2010 after safely returning from Portugal.

It was a month where I made a brief visit to Newcastle but also attended two conferences and had to prepare my documentation for my annual progress review.

Starting at the beginning of April, I landed back at Heathrow and made the journey back to Suffolk to spend the Easter weekend with my parents and girlfriend. Once it was back to work on the Tuesday, I had to set about reorganising my life again and transferring all my books and papers I acquired in Portugal from my luggage into my bedroom. My suitcase actually weighed in ok for the plane back, but good job they didn’t weigh my hand luggage as that was probably heavier!

Coming to terms with being back in the UK meant firstly dealing with the inevitable email backlog, but then organising a visit to Newcastle to see my supervisors and whoever else was hanging round the department at the time. It was nice to return to the office again after four months away and it was good to have a catch up with my supervisors. They seemed to be pleased with my efforts in Portugal and from what I told them they felt it had gone well.

The middle of the month of April was spent preparing for the first of the conferences I was attending and presenting at – ‘The Cold War and European Integration 1945-89’ at the University of Reading. I got my paper ready before I left Portugal but I needed to sort out my powerpoint and spiel for my presentation at the conference. I took the train down to Reading from Newcastle and stayed over with my cousin. This was nice and he showed me some of the local ale pubs!

The conference itself was good, a diverse mix of papers some from historians some from political scientists and it was a relaxed, friendly atmosphere. The conference dinner after the first day was nice too! I was down to present on the second day, which meant I had to stew all through the first! I was down to present alongside a Spanish girl presenting a paper on Spain similar to mine on Portugal. But this conference was at the same time the volcanic ash cloud was wreaking havoc on Britain’s airspace and she was unable to attend. This meant that I was the sole presenter in the panel and this was a good thing as I got the full attention of the audience as well as not having to hurry through my paper or skip bits!

In the two weeks that separated the Reading conference from the Bath conference I had to put together all my documents for my progress review and crucially write my paper for the Bath conference! This is the reason I have been too busy to update my blog recently!!! But I got it all done and took the train down to Bath for the two day conference. I had a look round the city and took some photos – it’s really nice! The conference itself was stimulating and again the conference dinner was a good opportunity to chat to fellow research students. Again, my paper was scheduled for the second day – this time in the last panel in the afternoon! I was presenting in the same panel as a Portuguese student who I had met before who was presenting on a similar topic. This was really useful as there were lots of links between the two papers, and we were able to give each other useful feedback.

Those were my first presentations outside of Newcastle and although I was a little nervous I didn’t feel too panicky. I enjoyed the experience and didn’t feel too daunted. But I’m glad the busy month of April is now over and I can use the feedback I have received to improve my research as well as use the presenting experience to improve my skills for the future.

I have less than a week left in Lisbon now. It’ll be nice to be home again for Easter of course, but will be sad to leave the city I love so much. I need to make sure that I make the most of the time I have left before my plane leaves on Wednesday afternoon.

It feels like Spring now and the clocks go forward this weekend, so clearly summer is on its way. Although, being in Portugal, I haven’t seen a daffodil yet! Not long until I can sit in the garden writing up some chapters on my laptop this summer.

So an update on what I have been up to…

I have been busy getting myself organised. Sorting out trains and places to stay for my various conference trips in April and organising my flying visit to Newcastle next month too. I have also sorted out my next fieldwork trip to Brussels! I will leave on May 4th and go through the Channel Tunnel for the first time in my life and return home again on May 29th. I have sorted out a place to stay in Brussels too so hopefully it should all turn out ok and everything should fall into place.

I have also been busy finalising my conference paper for Reading. I have given a bit of thought to the paper I will be presenting in Bath also, but want the Reading paper finalised and submitted before I move on to the next one. I will have time to sort my Bath paper out over Easter as well as preparing for my progress review. I’m looking forward to my conferences and although I have attended a couple of conferences over the last few years, I’ve not presented at one yet so it will be nerve jangling but I’m sure it’ll be fun. When I go to Reading I have arranged to stay with my cousin, so it will be nice to go out for a beer with him one night. And, of course, there will be ample opportunities to socialise and network with the other conference delegates, which I’m sure, will be fun.

As for fieldwork done recently, it’s dried up a little if I’m honest. But I have already got plenty to work with and have been busy buying lots of useful Portuguese books which still counts as useful research! But I did have lunch with the second in command at the British Embassy in Lisbon. He was very nice and enthusiastic about my research. He gave me the British take on Portugal and how they seem to see themselves and conduct themselves in international affairs. It was a nice day to have lunch outside and having a relaxed sharing of views and ideas. I also interviewed a Portuguese journalist who has covered Portugal’s European integration from the start and has an excellent understanding of the issues at stake. She was particularly helpful as she could give me the view of ‘the man in the street’ better than officials and politicians can. She was very knowledgeable and again showed enthusiasm for my research.

So in my time left I need to pack, of course, and revisit a couple of nice restaurants and make the most of my last few days to have some Portuguese food because I don’t know when I will be returning again. I have an interview with a chap in the Portuguese Air Force on Monday, which should be interesting. It’s good to get the perspectives of military people involved in the policy-making process, particularly those who have hung around Brussels quite a bit.

Well that’s it.
Goodbye Lisbon!
I shall return some day.
Hello again England…

The fieldwork continues and it has been an eventful week indeed!

I started the week with a cold, and am ending the week with it (although thankfully not as bad as it was!). I’m on the mend but it clearly held me back a bit at the start and had to clear my tubes during interviews but these things can’t be helped.

Monday: I had an interview first thing in the morning in the Foreign Ministry European Affairs Department. I talked to two officials who handle Portugal’s bilateral relations with its EU partners. A really useful interview and because the brief has only recently moved to their department I could talk about the transition and the rationale behind it. I think it gave me a fair bit to go on with regard to the ‘Europeanisation’ of the policy-making process. They were both lovely and very helpful. Later in the day I got drenched in the rain (which is not nice when you have a cold) so I went back to bed for a bit before going for my dinner. Knowing I had an interview the next morning I got an early night. Despite being up against it I had a good and productive day.

Tuesday: Still nursing the cold but the change in the weather to dry, sunny, genuinely spring-like conditions (which remained for the remainder of the week) made me feel much better. Another interview, this time in the Foreign Ministry but the section which handles Portugal’s relations with international organisations. I talked to a very nice chap about Portugal’s candidacy for the UN Security Council in 2011-12. A good chat and he gave me lots to think about.

Wednesday: After a bit of lie in and rabbit for lunch in the canteen (which was good!), I worked in the Institute on various tasks including writing up my notes ‘in best’ from my interviews that week as well as working on the conference paper I am giving next month. And that day I received the conference programme and it was good to see my name and paper title in black and white. Naturally, and not for the last time in my academic career I’m sure, I have been put into a panel with someone talking about Spain! I also received official notification that my proposal for another conference in Bath at the end of April has also been accepted, so I will need to prepare that paper. I also prepared for my interview the following day…

Thursday: I took it relatively easy during the first part of the day knowing my interview wasn’t until 5.30. But I knew I had to make myself smart as I was going to talk to a serving member of the Portuguese government – the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation. I sent a speculative letter to his office in late January and I heard back from them this week to arrange the interview. The secretary said I would get him for 25-30 minutes, but was in there for at least 40! He was really helpful and enthusiastic about my research. It’s so great to have a particularly distinguished person on my list of interviewees and he gave me lots of interesting things to think about and excellent insights.

Friday: So today, and this afternoon was productive once I collected my photocopies from the National Archive and had a nice cake, coffee and fresh orange juice. I got a couple of hours work on my conference paper done in the Institute library before calling it a day. I arranged to meet someone for coffee at 5 o’clock, someone who contacted me some months ago. He saw my Internet page and got in contact as he is a PhD student in Lisbon (by coincidence at the same place as me) and is doing a similar topic to me. So it was good to have living proof of someone who has read my project webpage. So we were brought together by our mutual interest in Portuguese foreign policy and the power of the world’s number one search engine!

Next week: Hopefully busy but a bit quieter. I would appreciate the time to actually just quietly work. I do have one lunch-meeting in my diary with someone from the British Embassy here in Lisbon to discuss the view of Portugal from outside.

Has half of my PhD gone, vanished into history forever? Never to get back those wasted hours?

Is half of my PhD still to come? Exciting times? Stresses? Many chapters still to be redrafted? The printing and binding? The viva? The graduation robes?

Well both are true, March 2010 marks the halfway point. While I don’t in theory need to end my PhD in 18 months time unless I am ready to submit, but I will run out of cash by that point. So it is in my interest not to go too far beyond September/October 2011.

I do feel like I have come a long way in the first 18 months at least. I admit that a lot of the learning has been rapid during my time in Lisbon. I have realised my own naivety, had some of my suspicions confirmed and found no evidence to support other ones. If I look through my previous blog posts I will see lots of different experiences over the past 18 months, particularly the presentations, the teaching and the academic networking. I have enjoyed those 18 months, but I don’t quite feel like I am halfway to a PhD yet!

But the serious business starts now… I’ve got 100,000 words to write and every word has to be perfect and it has to all add up to a doctorate!

Naturally the time ticking on my PhD, and my time in Lisbon (less than 4 weeks left here now!), has kicked a bit of urgency into my day-to-day routine. However, while no-one should be working too hard on a Saturday night, I haven’t been working relentlessly today. I’m coming down with a bit of a cold so I have had to work in short bursts. Writing a few emails, doing some work on my paper and thinking about the overall course of my PhD, punctuated by watching videos on Youtube, Facebook, eating, checking the football scores, talking on the phone to Mum and Dad, and, of course, blogging!

Since my last post I have enjoyed myself, both relaxing and working. I have conducted a few more interviews with people involved in Portuguese foreign and defence policy and I have also had a look round the Portuguese national archive at a few records relating to Portugal’s role in the Marshall Plan in the late 1940s and Portugal and EFTA negotiations in the 1960s. It was good to handle some old documents, although impossible to decipher the handwritten notes scribbled onto various contact cards at dinners!

While my girlfriend was here I made sure I lived the high life, lots of drinks and nice dinners in restaurants. While I shall revisit a few of my favourite haunts alone again before I leave, the bulk of my dinning has been, and will continue to be, in the University of Lisbon canteen. For a mere 2.20Euros I get a bowl of soup, a main meal (choice of either meat or fish), a dessert/fruit/yogurt, a drink and a bread roll. Now that’s not bad! And there are five canteens and the menus are on the website, so you can choose what to do go for well in advance. This is a good thing, but when you see there is something you like and you look forward to having it all and you arrive at the canteen to discover that the canteen is closed because of the public service strike you get quite annoyed! This happened to me on Thursday. Now, I really like bacalhau a bras, and because of the saltiness of the fish it is quite addictive. So Thursday night I was wondering round looking for a restaurant doing that dish. I got what I wanted in the end!!! And it was good!

Right, I’m off to give my nose a good blow and probably have an early night. I need to be on the top of my game again by Monday morning for my next interview!

Will blog again in a week or two!

Greetings again, a day later than I planned to blog due to the whole thing being down yesterday. But it looks like the blogging is back in business so I shall write my update now.

The reason I was going to write yesterday is that it was a national holiday here in Portugal. Here, rather than tossing pancakes, the coming of Lent is marked with a Carnaval parade (I’ll spell it the Portuguese way). Of course you will have all heard of the lavish scale upon which the Rio de Janeiro carnaval takes place. I didn’t spend the day in Lisbon when I was here in my year abroad in 2005, so when I went down to the city centre yesterday afternoon I didn’t really know what to expect.

The carnival parade that takes place annually in the summer in my home town is a bit of a joke so I wasn’t expecting it to be as bad as that. And the Carnaval I experienced in 2005 in Caldas da Rainha was pretty decent with lots of floats of huge papier mache political figures. So I was hoping for a little bit of satire again this year, particularly as Prime Minister Socrates just gets himself embroiled in one scandal after another.

Yesterday the weather wasn’t great so upon my arrival down town it felt more like the national umbrella convention than a wild celebration (Rio’s being in summer they don’t have this problem). The parade was a huge disappointment. OK credit to those who dressed up in fancy clothes and had their faced painted but that was about it and some banging on drums. I don’t see what it was trying to achieve and there didn’t even seem to be any shameless advertising. No floats at all and it just seemed very poorly organised (even by Portuguese standards).

But despite the weather and the rather lack-lustre Lisbon Carnaval experience, life is still peachy. The research is going well and I am making more and more contacts. The plan is, of course, to get it all done in my last month. I am now at the half-way point of my stay and deserve a bit of a break as I really haven’t had any fun. Aside from watching a couple of Liverpool games in an Irish pub and occasionally going out for restaurant meals on my own, I have been stuck in my room either working or making the most of Youtube to pass my time. My girlfriend is making the trip to Lisbon tomorrow so I’m very much looking forward to chilling out and enjoying some of the nice places of Lisbon, but not on my own. I will definitely be taking her to the Port wine bar where I was when the picture of me on the blogs homepage was taken a couple of years ago.

I am meeting an important official at the Defence Ministry tomorrow and I am meeting another contact in the Portuguese Development Aid Institute on Tuesday. But am looking forward to the weekend and I have promised to take Lizzy around the zoo on Monday. Let’s hope the weather for that will be more like today (fine and with a bit of sun) than like yesterday (wet and horrible!). Although I gather I’m laughing in terms of nice weather compared to back in Newcastle!

Anyway I hope those of you that had pancakes yesterday enjoyed them. I will have some after Easter when I get home to make up for it! I’m not officially giving up anything for Lent, although I haven’t had a cup of tea for over 4 weeks. But this is largely because of not having the facilities and hating the crap fruit flavoured tea or green tea nonsense you get in these foreign places. But at first opportunity to get a decent cuppa I will go for it, so it doesn’t make sense to commit myself to a fast for Lent.

Well probably yes! It’s amazing what wearing a suit and tie and hanging around the Foreign Ministry can do to change people’s perceptions of you!

The fieldwork is still going well and I thought it was time to write an update today after I set foot for the first time properly into the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs for what I am cautiously going to describe as my first ‘interview’ with an official.

It was an interview, despite part of me thinking it wasn’t. I didn’t give him the Jeremy Paxman treatment and it was more an organisational meeting to help me get contacts inside the Ministry for what I will call ‘the interviews proper’. But all my meetings so far with academics, former ministers and now current officials have been really useful. I have been given lots of contacts and have already learnt a lot about how Portuguese foreign policy is understood by the Portuguese. Most but not all of my suspicions and hypotheses have been confirmed. The good thing about my research is that I am coming at it from the perspective of an outsider, but that does leave me open to potentially missing something major and obvious. But so far, so good.

It’s getting towards the business end at last, so lots of interviews to schedule. I only have 2 months left in Lisbon now, so will have to work fast. It’s also difficult to judge how many interviews I could realistically cram into a short space of time as I need time to reflect and analyse as I go. I have a ‘system’ where I scribble my notes down during the meeting and then write them up in ‘best’ in my field diary later. Usually there is still stuff in my head which I remember to jot down. So I am blessed with not recording and transcribing things, but it does mean I have the nightmare of trying to organise my notes into a logical order after the meeting has finished and picking out the key things. But it seems to work, although it is a little time consuming but I guess this is because I am mixing in analysis as I go. Some might say it is a methodological tightrope I am walking with no clear indication of what words are my interviewees and what are my interpretations. But frankly that doesn’t matter, I’m the one writing the thesis! If research training has taught me anything, it is that you can worry too much about methodology!!!

I also had a good trip up to Braga, only really a flying visit. But I got to sample Portugal’s high speed tilting train (and the superb amount of leg room!) and the views from out of my window as well as Braga city centre and all its old churches.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there for now. Doubtless I’ll have lots to update you on some time soon!

One of the best things about doing a PhD is that you get to meet people you have read and respected and can put a face to the famous name. What’s even better is when these people you respect react with apparent enthusiasm towards your own research!

Now in England I have already met with academics I respect greatly and who have written on Portugal. Jose Magone, Antonio Costa Pinto, Cristina Leston-Bandeira and others who I have run into at conferences who write on the EU. But now I am in Portugal I can rub shoulders with the great and the good.

I had lunch with the aforementioned Antonio Costa Pinto a couple of weeks back as he is director of the research institute where I am based here in Lisbon. Today I met with Nuno Severiano Teixeira, someone who I had actually met before as I was taught by him when I was in Lisbon for my Erasmus year. He was in fact quite an inspiration for me doing the undergrad dissertation topic and eventually this PhD. However over the past three years he has been busy being Portugal’s defence minister! But now he has left the government he has got a bit of time spare to talk to the likes of me again! But he was tremendously helpful and enthusiastic about my research and it helps me to have someone as well connected and known as him to help me through my fieldwork.

I’ve met up with several other Portuguese academics over the past few weeks and they have been very helpful and my list of contacts is snowballing! I still need to get properly on the inside of the Foreign Ministry, but I will. And these meetings have helped me think about potential case studies to focus my research further. I am thinking about looking at development aid and Portugal’s role in peacekeeping missions.

On the subject of Portugal and peacekeeping (of course having a former defence minister in my contact book will help) but I will be going to see another academic who I have read and cited on the subject of Portugal and European Security and Defence Policy. I am going to take the train north to Braga on Thursday to visit Laura Ferreira Pereira at the University of Minho. Really looking forward to briefly seeing Braga, I’ve never been that far north in Portugal either.

In other news, I have been looking ahead to April – I have submitted my proposal to a conference in Bath and have been accepted to present a conference in Reading. I am also looking forward to presenting at the UACES conference in Bruges in September, should I be accepted.

But I am enjoying my time in Lisbon. It’s great to be back and it’s going quite well so far I must say.

Ola todos!

That’s Portuguese for “hi everybody”. God, I’m good at this foreign language lark aren’t I!?!

Well I’m finally here, Lisbon! It’s all been very exciting and a bit hectic.

The main thing is that I made it here and as I read the BBC news, it seems that lots of people have had enough trouble getting out of their front doors this week! So I’m counting myself damn lucky that the snow wasn’t as bad on Tuesday and I was able to catch my train to London and catch my plane from Heathrow without any delays.

So I landed in Lisbon on Tuesday. We had a bit of drizzle yesterday but it’s been nice and sunny, not hot but pleasantly mild for the time of year. Certainly a stark contrast to back home!!!

Quick tip for anyone wanting to fly to Portugal – Fly TAP! They are brilliant! BA are shit and ‘budget’ airlines are shit and more expensive than they say they are!

As I didn’t arrive until early evening Tuesday I knew I wouldn’t be able to get much else sorted so I just wanted to make sure I had a guaranteed hotel room bed for the night. So I stayed in a hotel, which was very nice! I dined in a nice restaurant a stone’s throw from my hotel and had the Portuguese national dish – Bacalhau (dried, salted cod), the particular dish I had was the one where the fish and potatoes are swimming in a pot of bubbling olive oil! Was delightful, I definitely felt I was back in my spiritual home Lisbon when that beauty arrived!

And then on Wednesday, after my breakfast, I checked out and wheeled my suitcase to the Metro. The plan was to find my residence and get myself set up there. Eventually I got there and discovered a really old building but a nice place and was met by Dona Rosa who runs the place on behalf of the University of Lisbon. There’s about 10 bedrooms and I have got a double room, but I’m the only person occupying it! So I’ve got lots of space and access to all the facilities I need – including wireless Internet in my room! Which is a real bonus, not only will I be able to organise PhD things and check my emails with ease, but I will be able to maintain my blog without even needing to leave my bed!

I should point out that I am sat at my desk writing this at the moment. I’m not that lazy! What do you take me for?!?!

Yesterday I also did a bit of shopping, so I now have a cheap and basic Portuguese mobile phone. And had a roam around the city to look at some old haunts and explore the new area in which I am living and will be based for the next 12 weeks!

Today, after a lie in and a nice shower, so not until this afternoon, I tried to sort out some of the organisational things I need to take care of before I can start researching properly. Namely, getting a Metro pass, organising my Portuguese bank account, getting a Portuguese fiscal number so I can open said bank account and get my grant money paid in, and registering with the University.

However, those tasks are not mutually exclusive and it transpired that I need documentation from the University in order to get the fiscal number. By which time it was too late to actually go and register, so I will do that tomorrow. I did however grab a Metro pass form and took myself to a cafe to fill it in. I then queued to hand my form in. But I should be able to pick up my card tomorrow afternoon which is handy.

So with lots to get on with tomorrow I think I better sign off now. Hopefully I can get started properly next week and meet some academics and case out the archives and ministries sooner rather than later.

Boa Noite!