I just realised that today marks the eighth anniversary of the launch of the cphrc.org.uk website, which, as I am sure I have already told you, was getting over 70,000 hits each month at its peak. Not bad at all when you consider that it dealt only with Portuguese history and politics, and that it peaked in the days of dial-up. Back then (and it was only three years ago), it was recommended by several universities, was noticed by diplomats and politicians and was even included as a curriculum source by the Portuguese Ministry of Education. They were heady days indeed, resulting in the organisation of two international conferences - the first in Edzell, the second in Paris - culminating with an invitation to Edinburgh to meet and have a brief conversation with the then Portuguese president, Jorge Sampaio. It was a lot of work, consuming just about all of my time, what with seeking out material and actually maintaining the site (designing, writing the HTML, maintaining the database, etc.). At first I didn't mind doing it (and it was all being funded out of my own pocket - although I did receive an awful lot of free books for my troubles). In the end, though, it was becoming a bit of a chore, and the constant promises of funding never seemed to materialise. To be quite frank, I got fed up with it. The cphrc lives on, however. The place-marker page is still there, and perhaps it will be resurrected on a smaller and less altruistic scale, and develop it into a full-blown publishing company that will actually be capable of putting food on my table. I do miss it, though. It was my baby for all those years (and we were the first to publish the results of Portuguese elections on the internet - beating the Portuguese government's official portal by two years!). In the meantime, this is my thanks to all these people who benefitted from the cphrc's existence without actually contributing towards it. Just to think... Google launched the day before the cphrc, and look what happened to it!