Big in Portugal?

Sadly not.

Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 3:23 AM
Subject: interview about your books, Portugal, website conspiracy

im from Portugal, i have a website about conspiracy a new world order, website with more than 500 pages , more than 30.000 visits per month,
here at Portugal, europe.
www.realidadeoculta.com

im making interviews by email, to some author's, i already interviewed the disclosure project, and some authors.
may i make you an interview by email, about your book « the new World Order»
?

Don't knock it - it's better than my Portuguese.

At first I just notice key words like "interview". Wow, I think, I didn't even know there was a Portuguese edition. On second reading, terms like "conspiracy" start to sink in. I realise I can make a stab as to what "oculta" might mean, and even the full "realidadeoculta" isn’t hard given the Iberian habit of saying "-dad" where we say "-ty", hence, libertad, natividad, universidad ... Might be worth a peek at the site.

... Right. All I know about Portuguese is that it derives from Galician and the vowel combination "ão" is pronounced like a very foreshortened "ong", stopping just before you get to the "g". Hence their Lisbão becomes our Lisbon. However, I don’t really need Portuguese to get terms like Illuminati and Nova Ordem Mundial.

And so I write back to express my appreciation at being approached, and, yes, willingness to be interviewed (media whore? Moi?) but to save anyone’s time being wasted I also point out that The New World Order is a science fiction novel aimed at young adults set during an alternative English Civil War.

The slightly ambiguous response: "thank you, I hadn't realised it's science fiction". Clearly there are some things that even conspiracy theorists won't touch with a bargepole.