Altogether civilised.

See if you can guess where I am before the end.

This is a shop in a city. In this shop, while you stitch and pearl and loop and miss, flunkeys attend to your every hot beverage need. This city has several other shops. Another notable shop is a book shop (a shop that is now a tourist attraction). This must be the best bookshop in the world. In it's restrooms, graffiti sprawls between the tiles. All include the word grout, for example, 'Grout is good', 'Let there be grout', 'Grout Expectations'. Behind those bookish exteriors lay wit, undiscovered.

'Grout Scott', sadly, was absent. For want of a pen, a crap joke went missing. Anyway, other shops include supermarkets which, disbelievably (I know!), meld into their surrounding neighbourhoods. This city's panhandlers eschew waving a rattling paper cup under your nose, in favour of snoozing on riverside benches. As they do so, the city's rowing community glide, serenely, yet furiously upriver. The Minor league baseball team, The Beavers, are, as we speak, scuffling with their upstate New York counterparts, the Rochester Red Wings.

Trees proliferate, as do the cyclists, who scamper joyfully amongst the City's yielding traffic. The City forms a W (sort of) between the Willamente and the Columbia river valleys (And when you check that out, you will wonder why you've never heard of the Columbia).

The train station is all polished wood and the lights are all working. They tell me that the trains run on time. Hmmmm. I'll find out when I take the morning departure to Seattle. Just outside is a restaurant, where a man named Wilf promises to sate your appetite. Up the road a bit, city workers are hoovering, yes hoovering, the pavement.

This is one of those places where you immediately feel that you know it. Within seconds, it's as familiar as your home. The book shop has led to book smarts which has led to a very smart city indeed. If you guessed it, you've cheated. If not, let me put you out of your misery. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Portland, Oregon - Go straight to the top of the class.