Portsmouth and Queen Mary share a motto - Heaven's light our guide - which in Portsmouth's case I assume relates to Navigation. I don't know why Queen Mary (nee Mary of Teck) had it or who had it first.
Portsmouth is always quite an exciting city guided by heavenly light or not. It has a large naval population and a large student population too. The pubs are certainly lively, and the swearing from the Navy girlfriends and wives is quite surprising to hear in the pubs and clubs. There are lots of coöp stores in the town but you'll have to see the other blog for those.
The conference dinner was held in the shadow of the fairly new Spinnaker tower
in one of the boathouses in the historic naval dockyard. We had a very good (cold) dinner and entertainment by a local band. The DEFRA delegation strolled back to the hotel around midnight.
Portsmouth is worth going back to.
