Groundfarce Lisbon

It is a long time since TAP outsourced its handling operations. Unfortunately, I have found that the current contractor is awful, and I mean awful.

Take the return from my UK trip last weekend. A fairly full TAP Airbus 319 was duly met, out in the sticks, by its bus and refuelling truck. But where was the baggage lift? We were already all on the bus when the lift trundled up, and took six (yes 1+1+1+1+1+1!) attempts to line the lift up with the baggage hatch. I didn't get to see the operator open the hatch because we were already on our way to the terminal.

Inside the terminal, passport control is much improved from the old days when the few non-Schengen (i.e. UK) flights used to face only two surly SEF employees, with huge queues and grumbling passengers, so it was off to baggage reclaim.

Fifteen minutes later the first bags arrived, one container's worth. And they kept arriving, one container at a time for 40 minutes! Did Groundforce only have one trailer available to bring the containers from the plane, or only one baggage handler to unload the bags from the containers?

And then there was the state of the baggage. Burst vanity cases, broken trolley handles. I was lucky to get away with a rather wet bag which had only lost one zip pull. It wasn't raining in either Heathrow or Lisbon, so I don't know where the water came from. I had never seen such a sorry set of bags going round a reclaim carrousel.

It's a good business technique - outsourcing non-core operations - but there has to be measurement of the quality of the sub-contractor's service. None of us would choose our airline based on the company that does the handling at either end of the trip, but that doesn't mean that the airlines should wash their hands of the question of customer service in this area.

Not many posts recently because life has been bit out of hand for some time now. To add to the studies (so far so good) and a major project at work, I've just got back from an unexpected trip to the UK for a grandfather's funeral. I'm not much of an eulogy writer, suffice to say that he will be missed by many (many more than I imagined) and was fortunate to go quickly and virtually painlessly, as he had wished.

The funeral was an opportunity to meet many of Mum's family members that I had heard of but never met, mostly hearty, friendly, down-to-earth Shropshire folk, although not without the inevitable twit, who will remain nameless but won't be on next year's Christmas list.

And if I had stayed until Christmas, I would probably have got to see the newest addition to the family, due on December 23.

I was tempted to witter on about the "circle of life", but what all these family members (and the twit) brought home to me is how few children people are having nowadays. I've done my bit for the continuation of the species, but the family members were mostly cousins of Mum's generation, hardly any of which have children, let alone grandchildren. And the twit wittered on about the invasion of the immigrants and their influence on criminality! If the "natives" don't have children and are not prepared to do certain types of work, who does she expect will do it? And aren't the vandals and petty criminals usually children of "natives"!

Anyway. Rant over. Back to my studies...

Imagem do Dia

RTP1 - Jornal da Tarde: Marques Mendes atrás de um pódio com a lema actual do PSD: "Pensar em Grande".

Excelente!

Home Concert Hall

Bang & Olufsen are making some startling claims with their Beolab 5 stereo loudspeakers, which apparently detect the acoustic qualities of the room they are placed in and have acoustic lenses to mould the sound for an optimal listening experience!

Well they certainly look good, if you're into Daleks. As for the listening experience, I will have to pluck up courage to enter one of their intimidating, minimalist shops, and make sure I leave my credit card at home.

Uncivil Servant

Sitting in the queue for the bridge this morning, a white car came trundling up the hard shoulder and pushed in in front of me. To show my total integration into local driving habits, I hooted at it.

The driver got out and walked back to me, flashing a wallet full of official-looking documents. "You can't hoot. Can't you see that this car belongs to the State?" I was gobsmacked, but bit my tongue, thinking, "Yes, because it's an unmarked white car DRIVEN BY A COMPLETE MORON!" If I had time, I would have tried to get details of his identification and workplace, so that I could complain to his boss but, quite frankly, what's the point?

I've complained before about this phenomenon. Until this sort of attitude is dealt with, Portugal will have problems convincing visitors that it is not a third world country. Fortunately the welcoming nature of the other 90% of the population goes a long way towards that goal.

Sexy Phones

OK. The first phone is an unsexy, but solid, Nokia 6021. It's what I'm using now, since I dropped my Palm Treo 650. The Nokia is a very good phone, not trying to be a camera or an MP3 player, just very good at what it does, with a huge battery life and a nice anti-slip coating that means it takes fewer tumbles than most phones.

The second is the ultimate luxury phone, a Vertu Constellation, about 4,000 euros, so they say, in its basic steel and leather version. Wouldn't surprise me if it has the same basic hardware as my phone, but improved software and an extra button for calling a concierge service - very useful!

The right-hand phone is my vote for the current sexiest "normal" phone - the Nokia 8800 Sirocco, which pushes the ultra-thin Motorola V3 into second place. Can't find a price for it yet though. I've never found anybody who is a staunch fan of the Motorola software yet, whereas Nokia's interface is frequently cited as the main reason for not changing brands.

So if I had 600 euros to spend on a new phone, what would I buy? Another Palm Treo 650! Not even remotely sexy, so no photo, but it functions (badly) as a camera or MP3 player and very well for storing huge numbers of contacts, appointments, tasks and emails and even surfing the net if in dire need. Have to get mine fixed...

CD of the Month

So much for CD of the week - I don't get through enough music to keep that up, even when I end up stuck in the car in the rain for hours on end.

This week, one of the classic albums from one of the best-ever bands - Supertramp's Crime of the Century. Their third album out of fourteen (so far) is mainstream 70's US pop, contemporary with the Eagles' Hotel California. I think it's the best of their albums, music that I never tire of.

I went to see them at the Pavilhão Atlântico in 2002 - a great show. The location is awful, due to the lousy acoustics, and the public, mostly kids who didn't know the music and spent their time chatting and making phone calls, didn't help at all. Now I'm really showing my age, I suppose.

Present for Grandma

When the Financial Times magazine reviewed a TFT photo frame in the Technopolis section of its October Interiors editions, I thought it was a great idea, though a 3.5" screen seemed a bit small. After a bit of research, I found that the product reviewed, while technologically advanced in being able to receive photos by Bluetooth, is far outshone by products made by such mundane household names as Philips.

This Philips frame is 7 inches across and will read photos from various memory card formats, easily outdoing the competing product, which has only 32MB of memory. It is also stocked by my favourite photo shop, which deserves a plug for its professionalism.

Guess what the grandparents will be getting for Christmas...

Risky Business

In an interview I saw on TV this weekend, a young British millionaire said "Those who are not prepared to take risks will always end up working for those who are". Obvious really!

So how is it possible for accounting firms to survive? Accountants are by their very nature risk averse. But within accounting firms, those who take more risks are likely to be more successful and thus be promoted to partner level. And it is at that level that they, because of their risk-tolerant nature, take risky decisions that sooner or later will lead to the demise of the firm.

Perhaps this phenomenon will be the downfall of the multi-national firms, returning to local practitioners in "real" partnerships where they personally know all their partners in the firm and accept their professional judgement on technical and risk issues. That, on the other hand, gives rise to scale problems where internal resources may not exist for technical and training issues. The fees charged by those smaller firms would have to rise in order to ensure an adequate level of quality.

It's a worrying scenario if I were to return to professional practice. For the moment I will let my shareholders take the risk and keep my risk-averse head down.

Rotas do Mundo

When I went to Rome last month I picked up two travel magazines at the airport, Rotas do Mundo from the TAP free newspaper counter and another, apparently better known publication, which I bought because it had a feature on Rome. (I might review that one too, if I ever get round to reading it.)


I was intrigued by Rotas do Mundo because of its style: first-person reports from people who appear to have travelled independently, not corporate free-loaders. It's hardly of Portuguese origin, with contributions of other nationalities and is simultaneously superficial and oddly focused. Reporters on Brittany, Galiza and Innsbruck dash from cafe to cafe. Those in West Africa, India and French Polynesia try to cover too much area in to little space.

If you are a "Lonely Plant" type of traveller, as I used to be, this may be the magazine for you. Personally I am reserving judgement until I have sampled others.

Unpopular Consultation

It is a fine democratic principle that important matters outside the scope of party politics may be put directly to popular vote. The problem arises when the politicians fail in identifying those matters that are important to the people.

Last time round, voters decided that abortion is unimportant - less than 50% turnout failed to produce a convincing result. I fail to see that anything has changed in that respect.

Personally, as a man of few strongly held beliefs, I have no firm opinion on the matter and have never had a personal experience that made it relevant to me. Just as in the European Constitution referendum that never took place, I don't like the "question" approved by the Constitutional Court; technical precision and clarity are not compatible here.

Above all, I hope that a majority of voters turn out, even if it is to spoil their ballot papers. Otherwise all we will have is proof that it was an "unpopular" consultation, allowing the politicians to waste time and resources on debating the timing of the next repeat, instead of running the country, which is what they were elected to do. Unfortunately, I doubt that there will be enough votes, so the saga will run and run.

Portuguese Losers

I feel obliged to "destacar" the awful headline from one of Lisbon's free distribution daily papers today - the Portuguese are losing millions on Euromillions! Over the last three weeks, the difference between the amounts bet and received by Portuguese punters is more than 64 million euros. Brilliant!

Lets see. If 20% of all bets are lost in tax and the jackpot has not been paid in that period, associated with a sharply increased level of bets due to the huge jackpots, where's the surprise? It would be newsworthy if the Portuguese loss ratio were higher than other countries, but that would have required some serious research. Even so, a little work must have gone into arriving at the 64M€ figure - shame it only qualifies as news for its sensation value.

Personally, I got a 11-1 payout last week - enough to keep me betting for another three months. I wonder where the big prize will finally go - luck of the Irish again, or Portuguese underdogs?

Quote of the Day

"A cynic is someone who knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing"

Oscar Wilde

CD of the Week (3)

Marillion: Season's End

This was the first Marillion album after the departure of Fish (who will be in Lisbon in a fortnight, by the way), raising questions as to whether the group's music could survive the departure of its muse. 18 years on, the answer is an emphatic yes!

This 1989 album reflects important issues of the day such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the armed struggle in Northern Ireland and global warming.

As ever, the band knows how to use musical textures and timings to support the lyrics and their messages - musical capabilities sadly lacking in 99% of modern pop. In fact, that must be the main reason that the CD has been in the car now since September 24 while other music has been swapped out.

Apparently the band will be coming to Lisbon in April 2007. I'll be there.

People & Business

Why does anybody read People & Business? Because it's free and delivered to their door.

Why is it free? Because everybody who is anybody in Portuguese property development advertises in it. Oh, and because if you don't buy the space, you don't exist.

It's a good scheme. Over the years, the editor has managed to establish such a wide web of contacts that he is invited to everything, with his photographer, publishing the awful photos of tipsy property boffins to fill the space between adverts and endorsements. It's a society magazine, nothing more.

I'm told, by somebody who should know, that the same editor has a value-added publication, which has to be paid for and contains useful research and statistical data on the Portuguese property market. If so, it's very strange that P&B has no adverts for that service.

Yes, I do read it, though it makes my skin crawl. The best part of the October issue? No photos of the editor's hat!

Worst Portuguese Ever

RTP has created an uproar with its poll of the greatest Portuguese, mostly because of the names missing from the list of candidates. It's a tough choice for any nation, especially remembering that great statesmen and reformers have the human trait of getting senile or just plain unpleasant in their old age. After only 16 years in Portugal and with my studies of Portuguese history only up to studying Year 8 with my elder son, I am going to abstain.

SIC's reaction was to launch a poll to discover the worst Portuguese of all times. That's easier for me. After all these years of observing incompetent, obnoxious public figures raking in millions for themselves without giving a damn for the public who put them there, there is one who stands out from the crowd: Pedro Santana Lopes.

Peter Drucker

Pela mão da Accenture, recebi uma biografia portuguesa de Peter Drucker, "o pai da gestão". Homem que não gostou de ser chamado "economista", preferindo ser considerado como intérprete da história, acabando por estar entre os maiores visionários do século XX.

O livro retrata a vida e trabalho de um homem humilde mas brilhante, através da história da sua vida, das suas obras e por relatos de diversos portugueses que o conheceram e/ou foram por ele influenciados profissional- ou academicamente. Por esta diversidade de fontes e estilos, o livro é, por vezes, repetitivo, mas os autores, Jaime Fidalgo Cardoso e Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues, procuram mostrar cada influência, cada citação, no respectivo contexto, abordagem correcta face à escala da tarefa em mãos, de condensar 70 anos de produção de um "workaholic" em 230 páginas.

Terei que reler uma boa parte do livro, para reencontrar as muitas citações relevantes para a vida, não apenas empresarial, mas pessoal e social, que se escondem nas suas páginas. Em particular gostei de:

"Saiba gerir-se a si próprio. O departamento de recursos humanos não é responsável por cuidar de si."

"Os falhanços são sintomas de oportunidades de inovação. Dedique-lhe, pelo menos, a mesma atenção que aos sucessos"

Ainda faltam pelo menos 98, muitas das quais demasiado relevantes face à minha situação actual para aparecerem aqui.

Em suma, um livro útil sobre um homem extraordinário cuja visão de longo alcance temporal o tornou o "pai da gestão".

Impressions of Rome

Despite being a 3x Inter-Rail veteran, I hadn't been to Rome before. It's an impressive city, especially as concerns:

• history: roman, medieval, renaissance, modern, all on show and one on top of the other (often literally) - Paris and Athens eat your heart out.
• buildings: truly massive structures, built over the centuries. Even today there would be logistical difficulties in transporting many of the columns and beams.
• pedestrians: despite the chaotic traffic, crossing the road is not that difficult. Just get out into the traffic and drivers will slow down enough not to hit you. Don't expect any nice lines of waiting cars at pedestrian crossings though.
• scooters: tens of thousands, parked in their allotted spaces and just about everywhere else.
• dirt: street washing teams clean the roads, but not the buildings which are generally very dirty. Pollution has apparently improved but cleaning facades is apparently not a priority.
• good food: considered fast-food elsewhere, pizzas are taken seriously. Pasta is the best part, with many shapes and varieties, sauces with a huge range of subtle tastes. "Bruschetta", toast with a variety of toppings as a starter, are considered a speciality in their own right.
  
• Awful beer, of the expensive, weak, German variety, but good wine at reasonable prices.
• Churches: not usually my cup of tea, the number and variety of churches is exhausting, all with some detail worth seeing. I was in sensory overload after three days.
• Tourists: if anybody can give me the visitor statistics, I'll go back when there are fewer tourists.
• Low-Tech: non-standard electric outlets even in 4-star hotels and wireless internet only if you pay for it.
  

Foot in Mouth

Quote from a Radio Renascença football commentator last night during the Sporting - Bayern Munich match, referring to a Bayern forward:

"This guy's good. He can shoot with whichever foot comes to hand"

Classic!

White Rabbit Syndrome

No time for anything at the moment! No blogging, no studying, no life! Aaaaargh......

Three days in Rome last week, on business I hasten to add. Some of the pics are already up on flickr.

Now for economic theory of the week: every day off work requires the equivalent amount of overtime to be worked in the weeks before and after that day. The theory applies to holiday, business trips but, strangely, not to sick leave.

So I'm stuffed. Just another quick post and then I'll be off to study, sleep a little, get up early to face the traffic in the rain on the way to my 9.30 meeting. YUK!

Rapid Reaction

After the bank raid and hostage situation in Setúbal on Wednesday, TVI's Thursday news stated that the would-be robber produced a gun in the bank at 2.30 p.m. The police were alerted immediately. Half an hour later the PSP arrived, followed soon after by the "rapid reaction team".

Half an hour! How big is Setúbal? It can't take more than 20 minutes to cycle from one side to the other. And if he had shot someone, how long would an ambulance have taken? As I have previously said, it's better not to need the UK level of policing, but this is ridiculous.

CD of the Week (2)

One of the first CD's I bought, back in 1983 when CD's were young, was this classic recording of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", played and conducted from the piano by Leonard Bernstein, perhaps the greatest American musician of the 20th century.

That well known piece is followed by the Symphonic Dances from "West Side Story", Bernstein's landmark musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set in 1950's New York. While possibly rather pretentious, creating Symphonic Dances from a musical movie soundtrack, the dances are more developed, musically, and much more satisfying to listen to than the original, with its purposely untrained singers.

And who better to conduct them than the composer himself, with his favourite Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra.

Management Objectives

It's good, once in a while, to be reminded of the fundamental principles of our day-to-day jobs, which we often have no time to reflect upon because we are too busy resolving immediate problems.

The principle that came up this week was "Management's fundamental objective is to maximise the value of the company". Rather obvious! Very easy to apply to the cases we are studying, involving investment decisions on discrete projects, but how to apply it to a company as a whole?

Imagine that, as the series of projects and initiatives that comprise the company's activity move forward, management identifies obsolete assets and under-performing staff. For the assets, just sell them off. But the staff? That brings into play management's business philosophy: is a company a social phenomenon or merely an economic one? And if the company falls into a recession cycle for its product.

Investment analysis is the easy part of management. Knowing when and how to disinvest, while maximising the company's value, is much harder.

1,000 visitors

Visitor 1,000 was Bev Trayner, on-line collaboration guru, mountain biker and fellow Setúbal-based Brit. An honourable mention for her...

Navy Blues

So the long arm of the law has finally caught up with corruption in the Portuguese Navy. Everybody knows it happens, but it has never been convenient to look too closely. After all, who would volunteer to investigate people who have unlimited access to arms and explosives.

The question is whether this is just scratching the surface, or if the can of worms is now open. One of the captains had just bought a Mercedes (wow!), which is too ostentatious for his salary level. But there are many more, mostly quartermasters staff, who don't necessarily have Mercedes, but have a nice house, cars for all family members, frequent holidays. Postings to those positions are highly sought-after and involve severance payments to the previous incumbent.

Of course, the charges may be unfounded. In five to ten years we will find out. In the meantime, I wonder how many people on the south side of the river have been sleeping badly this week.

Blogger beta

Beta is definitely the word here. A whole evening, just to update my template:

1. Standard templates are still 800*640 pixels though very few of my visitors use that resolution. So I had to stretch the template again, just like I did with the old one.
2. Nothing can be placed above the post body, so it is impossible to take Google's own advice on their AdSense advertising site and place the ads top and centre.
3. The footer only allows a left-justified column of modules, not a centered line of icons like I wanted.

Serves me right for not sticking to my golden rule: NO BETAS.

Copyright, or copy wrong?

Well break out a new criminal record for me. I realised today that to put the music clip on the CD of the Week post below, I broke copyright law.

As my computer is usually off, I uploaded an MP3 track that I had ripped from the CD (for my own personal use) to Fileden. That's not a music sharing site, as such, but if you let the music play through, you end up with the whole MP3 file in the browser cache on your hard drive.

If they come and arrest me, I'll let you know.

Blunted knives

Having been on the wrong end of a piece of journalism last month, I now feel slightly uncomfortable about anonymously being rude about public figures.

As I said to the journalist at the end of my interview, when asked if she could quote me, "Quoting me is the least of my worries. What matters is the way that you quote and the context that you put it in." Sure enough, the quotes attributed to me in the published article were selective, taken out of context, and inaccurate.

As a result, I feel more sympathy for the people in the news who see their words taken out of context, like poor old Benedict XVI (okay, maybe not!) and may put away my sharpened knives for a while.

In fact, I may do a 180º turn and support somebody occasionally, such as secretary of state Castro Guerra, who appeared in very poor light on the TV this morning because of the Johnson Control factory that will close in Portalegre. It's not his fault. In my contacts with him when he was Chairman of IAPMEI he came across as an honest, concerned manager, not as a politician. He used all the tools available to him to secure foreign investment and Portuguese jobs. If globalisation means that once the State benefits expire the multinationals move to cheaper locations, he's not to blame.

Season's End

I never really took much notice of the Portuguese habit of stating that the seasons begin and end on the equinoxes and solstices, perhaps because in England it can snow in April, rain all of August and get unbearably hot in May. But this week has put and end to summer with a vengance.

I spent a merry afternoon clearing drains, in the rain. Very prudent, you may think, but it was a reaction to the flooded garage during Thursday morning's downpour, due to lack of maintenance. Then I get in the shower and find my so-called tan rubbing off. I hate it when that happens. Will anybody notice I'm cleaner, whiter (pinker!)?

The coincidence of the week was swapping CDs in the car. What came up? "Season's End" by Marillion...

Circular reference

Somebody in Brazil asked Google to automatically translate my blog into Brazilian Portuguese. To see what happens, click the link in the title. I could hardly understand anything, especially the title (which is, of course, already in Portuguese).

Made me laugh anyway...

CD of the week

Sting: Ten Summoner's Tales

Strangely enough, this album, which is always difficult to replace once it reaches the CD player, actually contains eleven tracks, including the epilogue. That epilogue is important, as the album's only hit single: "Nothing 'Bout Me".

The tracks cover a mix of styles, with tones of The Police, plenty of story telling, touches of blues and classical music textures. While not dazzling, Sting produces intelligent ballads with often intriguing lyrics and complex, richly orchestrated music - just right for a music snob like me! A CD that I just can't put down.

Hard sums

While trying to keep up with the financial calculations given as examples by my foundation course lecturer, I discovered that the awful calculator on my PDA (Palm Treo 650) has heaps of advanced features, including advanced mathematical, trigonometrical, financial and logical modes, with the exact functions he was revising - HOORAY!

Today, when reviewing what we did on Wednesday, I came to the appalling conclusion that, though the functions exist, they give inaccurate answers in some cases, such as when dividing by the square of a number, confirmed using Excel - BOO!

So I tried Documents to Go, which allows manipulation of Word and Excel documents in Palm OS. Result: rebooted PDA, no documents - double BOO!

Work around: I sent myself an Excel spreadsheet by mail, with the required formulas already inserted. Opening the document directly from the email application allows me to use the formulas in full, with no precision errors - HOORAY! Shame that once I switch out of the email application, I can't get back to the spreadsheet without a number of clicks - BOO!

Looks like I'll have to buy a financial calculator - double BOO!

My first video post

Further to my last post....

Elton John comes in from the cold

I hadn't willingly listened to Elton John's music for 6 years until yesterday, following his disgraceful behaviour in walking (running?) away from a concert at Casino Estoril, which I just happened to have been invited to. (That said, the dinner was superb. The escaping act would have easily been excuse enough to start a blog, if Blogger had been around at the time. I did complain on Usenet. As somebody there said at the time, "He was off like a rocket, man.")

What made me change my mind? I still think he is a horrible, selfish little man, but he has, in fact, written a huge amount of great music to accompany Bernie Taupin's wonderful lyrics. The event which reminded me was watching Moulin Rouge, which is a great film for lyrics addicts, featuring "Your Song" prominently throughout, and huge numbers of other well-known songs where only the Madonna references feel out of place to me.

So I no longer have to skip Elton's CD's when I'm deciding what to put in the car, the only place I usually get to listen to my hundreds of albums and classical discs.

Technorati Tags : Music

Whose funds?

I threatened that I might get academic, so here goes (not that this is directly related to my course)!

As resident "bife" and financial boffin, I am frequently called upon to translate business documents, including financial statements. Knowing the technical equivalents in English and Portuguese, I had never really worried about the literal meaning of the phrases I translate - literal translation very rarely works.

So it came as some surprise when I realised that "Capitais Próprios" (own funds) is not a literal translation of "Shareholders' funds". In fact, it appears to reveal an underlying difference in attitudes: is a company an autonomous entity or does it belong to the shareholders?

In UK accounting, we are taught that the difference (hopefully a surplus) between assets and liabilities is arithmetically equal to the cash contributed by the shareholders plus their undistributed return on that investment, or accumulated net profits. The Portuguese version implies that the undistributed profits belong to the company itself, until the management decide to distribute those profits. This, in my view, is a fundamentally different attitude and may explain (chicken and egg problem here) the frequent lack of correlation that I have noted, over the years, between management actions and shareholder wishes in Portuguese companies. My sample is small and necessarily unrepresentative, but it's food for thought.

In fact, the "own funds" concept may be better suited to the wider definition of "stakeholders" that prevails today, including shareholders, staff and suppliers. Could I have found subject matter for a bit of research here, or has someone already done it?

Back to School

It's that awful time of year when we have to drag the kids off to the supermarket to stock up on stationery, to later go rushing back to pick through the remains of the stock when school clarifies exactly what will be required this year.

But that's not what this post is about.

17 years since I last did any serious studying, I have been pushed into signing up for a post-graduate course, mostly just to see if the grey matter still works. So this morning I got up early (for a Saturday) and went off to the second foundation session where I found, to my relief, that I am not the oldest student and that I appear to have sufficient basic knowledge to start the course.

As for blogging, the effect could be to have fewer posts, due to less time, or, hopefully, for this blog to take a decidedly academic turn as I find something interesting in the coursework to blog about. Then I will have to try to make economics and accounting interesting for readers - a real challenge!

(At the same time, I have upgraded to Blogger Beta. Now if I could only find the promised "Tag" function...)

It's not that I have had nothing to blog about over the summer. In fact, I reached the point where there were so many potential topics that it was easier to watch a film or bury my head in a book than to choose which one to write about. But tonight's ordeal stands out: Refuelling the car.

Firstly, thanks to the company for giving me a Galp Frota card. With my love of monopoly operators, I was overjoyed, considering that all my usual Galp filling stations are generally packed. Tonight, at the Encarnacao filling station, leaving Lisbon, there were queues for all pumps, two of which were out of order but only one visibly so for the queuing motorists. Then I chose a card payment pump, but the card reader didn't work! Changing pumps was a marvellous experience. After finally filling up, the staff who took my payment were surly; three cashiers but only one accepting customers.

We are so used to bad service that this seems trivial, but this is the second consecutive occasion that visiting this filling station took more than 15 minutes just to fill up. My alternative, near Alvalade XXI, is just as bad.

The grumbling customers will be back for more bad treatment, such is the power of having a majority market share and the right contacts with the fleet operators. I just wish I could change.

Endurance Travel

Flying has always been something of an ordeal, particularly flying cattle class out of Heathrow or Gatwick. Now it's beyond "ordeal" - a real test of endurance.

 

Leaving Gatwick we arrived at the airport 2 hours and 15 minutes before take-off. Check-in took half an hour, about normal for TAP. Then five minutes just to reach the end of the security queue, which was leaving the terminal, and 90 minutes to clear security, all this time on our feet, shuffling along. How the pensioners heading off to the Canaries or the families with young children bound for the Costa del Sol survived, I don't know. Typical British stoicism abounded in the queue, but I was exhausted as we dashed through the shopping area to our gate, showing "Final Call".

 

The worrying part is that the security is relying on the fright factor. They really cannot see liquids in the hand luggage. We forgot to put our allergy drops in the hold bags, so took them with us, no problem! Anyway, so far so good on the incident front. Given the choice, I would think twice about travelling though, purely based on the stress and inconvenience that has to be endured.

Technorati Tags : UK, Security

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Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

After all the hype and endless "making of" programs on the movie channels on the cable, this film was something of a let-down. Perhaps if I had not seen those programs, it would have been better, as I had already seen the major action sequences that are the most enjoyable parts of the film.

 

The three main characters, Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley are excellent and well supported by Jack Davenport as the down-and-out Norrington. I was less convinced by the Davy Jones and Bootstrap Bill characters.

 

In terms of the script, the main problems is that it doesn't stand up by itself; this is clearly a bridge between films one and three, and this becomes clear very early in the movie.

 

At least the kids loved it, though even they, at 8 and 12 years old, complained about the final scene - a very unsubtle trailer for the third movie. As for going to the movies to see this one, the sound was great but the long fight scene on the beach was spoilt by dirt flashing past in the projector.

 

Not such a bad film that I won't buy the DVD when it comes out, for a more comfortable viewing environment. I'll have to get a bigger TV though...

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Rio Sul Shopping

What better to do on one's first day off work than to go shopping. Yuk!

 

Among other places, we ended up at Rio Sul Shopping in Seixal, now fully upgraded from Continente Seixal to the full glory of a second tier mall. What's wrong with it? Well for a start, I never liked the name. Why name a shopping centre after an obscure tributary that flows into the River Vouga in the centre of S. Pedro do Sul? Maybe the marketing guys know even less Portuguese geography than I do. I also found their advertising campaign very bland - nothing new or dynamic - just about sums it up in fact.

 

Sonae decided to put in a parking space location system, the first I had seen in Portugal, which guides you to a free space. All very well, but the corners are too tight at the end of rows, so they have closed the last space to allow cars to make the turn. But they forgot to tell the parking system, which detects no vehicle and shows the space as free. As a result, all rows have a green light! There is also no blue light to show that only disabled/pregnant spaces are available. The wonders of modern technology!

 

The restaurant area is huge, with a nautical theme and a wonderful glass roof. The heat was unbearable with the only free tables inevitably in full sun on a day which reached 36ºC with people advised to go to the shopping centres to get away from the heat - lovely.

 

As for the shops, the poor selection demonstrates the second tier qualities of the centre. I think I'll stick to my quick, surgical supermarket visits at this one and reserve serious shopping for Almada Forum, the Colombo or Amoreiras.

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German Discount Groceries

Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is pulling out of Germany because Germans don't want to pay to be better served, preferring to go to Lidl. Now I agree with them about service - at a supermarket who cares - but I am so allergic to actually going shopping that you won't find me in Lidl. Give me a hypermarket any day. One-stop shopping, in and out as quickly as possible, buying what's on the list and probably nothing more. It's not that there's anything wrong with Lidl's products - the lasagne and ready-mixed Sangria are great - I just can't buy everything in one go.

Somewhere in the murky depths of my mind another obscure connection was made. I remember reading that the Germans could rescue their Social Security system simply by buying and consuming as much as 20% less food. Healthcare would cost the State less due to reduced obesity, and they could save more for their retirement, easing the pension burden.

If the Germans prefer not to pay for service, what do they buy with the cash that they save? Greater quantities? It would appear so. And this is not just a German problem. Obesity is rife in the UK and ever more commonplace in Portugal where lower disposable income should encourage more careful shopping. Food for thought...

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The Bourne Supremacy

This year's holiday pastime among my sons' friends is film swapping. Now don't preach to me about copyright - that's impractical. I just watch (some) of them and send them back. I won't review all of them here, or else it will change from a "football" blog to a film blog.

Saturday's movie was The Bourne Supremacy - superb. I haven't enjoyed a spy movie this much since the film adaptations of John Le Carre's "Smiley" novels: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold with Richard Burton, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People with Alec Guinness.

The locations (India, Naples, Berlin and Moscow) are well integrated in the plot. No concessions are made to non-linguists, with local characters speaking in their native tongues.

Weapons and gadgetry do not intrude, as often happens in such films. The CIA's use of tracking and information gathering computer systems is credible. The only real doubt is whether a Moscow taxi could survive the treatment it takes in the car chase, but that sequence is so good that the doubt can be forgiven.

Such a good film that it will go on my shopping list, which is already rather long, somewhere near the top.

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Justice: Under the Carpet

A fundamental anglo-saxon legal principle is that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. It's a good job that the Zidane-Materazzi hearing took place in Switzerland!

All of a sudden, we find that there were no racial insults involved. Zidane received a 7,500 CHF (5,000 EUR) fine - I could afford that - and three days' community service. Materazzi was fined 5,000 CHF and suspended for two matches.

What is going on? Zidane and Materazzi behaved unacceptably on the game's biggest stage and get away with pathetic punishment. Zidane reportedly earns 110,000 EUR per week, so what is 5,000 EUR to him? Compare his punishment with the 30,000 GBP (45,000 EUR) fines paid by Eric "Kung-Fu" Cantona in 1995.

Was justice seen to be done? Obviously not. So FIFA have swept the matter under the carpet, perhaps at Gelsenkirchen.....

Zzzzizzzzou....

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Blue Living

Blue Living is a monthly lifestyle magazine that the Caixa Geral de Depositos is kind enough to send me. Now I don't buy magazines as a rule - no time to read them. But this publication is so good that I would probably buy it.

Its articles on hotels and leisure activities are superb - the down-side comes with the twee photos of furnishings and accessories for the home. Not that I am against such articles, but where does one keep all that junk once the initial burst of enthusiasm has worn off?

In the June issue, the Editor, Luisa Jacobetty, complained about children's behaviour in a restaurant spoiling her evening, and was promptly crucified by her readers, either for being anti-children, or for not taking the matter up with the restaurant owner. For me her message was clear and balanced - maybe I missed some of the subtlety! Fortunately, some readers agreed with her, that the problem is fundamentally that of the parents and their attitudes.

This is a critical problem nowadays in Portugal, as it has been in other countries for many years. Parents are increasingly disinterested in giving a proper upbringing to their children, probably due to similar neglect by their parents. This, for me, is particularly visible among the rich, who are supposedly better educated. Their attitude, that money excuses bad behaviour, is seen everywhere nowadays, from restaurants to healthcare to driving habits. Parental disinterest is so common that in exclusive closed condominiums the main security problem is not intrusion by outsiders but damage caused by the owners' children. Unfortunately there is no obvious solution to this problem.

Anyway, I will keep on reading the magazine, in the hope of finding a restaurant or weekend destination where my children would fit in, or maybe even some "junk" that I like enough to have lying around the house.

Bewitched

Last week's discount priced DVD was Bewitched.

At first sight, the genre is off-putting - a film about the making of a classic series remake. That generalisation is confirmed upon seeing the film - it is dreadful.

On the other hand, Nicole Kidman is gorgeous, though some of the close-ups show that she too is beginning to age. Will Ferrell acts his socks off as the star who finds an unknown girl for his comeback series (quite ironic when comparing his career with Nicole Kidman's) while Michael Caine and Shirley MacLaine are solid in their supporting roles. But the disaster is in the plot, not helped by the directing.

At least the film appealed to our eight year-old, as it is funny in places and easy on the eye, despite his having no idea about the constant references to the original series. In short, don't bother buying it, and don't rent it unless it is to play in the background at an eighth birthday party.

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Tax Consultant for Hire

I thought of calling this "Scolari is an Idiot", but what's the difference. All this talk about tax exemptions on the Portuguese squad's bonuses is complete bull.

 

Firstly, with the top Portuguese tax rate of 42%, which international footballer is going to worry about paying 20,400 euros of tax on a miserable 50,000 euro bonus?

 

Secondly, many of the players are not tax resident in Portugal. Most countries require declaration of all global earnings from their tax residents. So Pauleta, for instance, would have to declare the bonus anyway. If he did not pay tax on the bonus in Portugal, he would have to in France. Tax paid in Portugal would be deducted from his French tax bill. So it makes no difference!

 

Scolari should stick to what the FPF thinks he's good at - coaching. But if he needs some tax advice, I'll be around.

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Better vicious or incompetent?

Arriving at the pizzaria for lunch yesterday with my newspaper under my arm, the manager asked me, "What paper is that? We don't want any of those vicious English newspapers in here." Fortunately the Financial Times met with his approval.
The sensationalist crap that the popular British press makes up is no credit to anybody and causes damage to the national reputation of civilised stoicism.
Better the laid-back incompetence of the Portuguese press than "investigative journalism" with a habit of making things up.

FIFA injustice

Much as I would prefer not to write about Saturday's match, I can't be seen as the only Anglo-Portuguese blogger to ignore it.

Frankly, I thought that England played better, overall, than Portugal, but that doesn't count if you can't put the ball in the back of the net. Rooney and Beckham were useless. Hargreaves and Ashley Cole were superb. On the Portuguese side, the only player who stood out was Ricardo, clearly the Man of the Match. England didn't miss four penalties out of five. Four out of the five penalties were on target but Ricardo defended three of them - a stunning feat. How FIFA chose Hargreaves as Man of the Match is beyond me, though he was the best England player.

Congratulations to Cristiano Ronaldo for slotting home the last penalty, under huge pressure. I hope he gets to do the same against France and Germany, when I will be supporting Portugal.

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Joke of the Week

A woman walks into a cocktail bar and asks for a double entendre.
So the barman gives her one.

Found on Little Red Boat

Well I thought it was funny.

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Tons of Rubbish

I noticed yesterday that this will be post 100. A ton of posts from someone with little to say! That got me mulling over the origin of the word "ton" in this context. After all, a ton is 2240 imperial pounds or 20 hundredweight (showing my age here). And a tonne is 1000 kg. So where does "ton=100" come from when talking about speed, runs in cricket or other colloquial measures.

My dictionary doesn't help, neither does Wikipedia or the other on-line dictionaries I browsed through, so I'll just leave this one hanging...

Anyway, if I have produced a ton of rubbish, imagine how much the other 20 million bloggers on Blogger have produced. It's mind-boggling. Maybe some recycling is in order.

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Memoirs of a Geisha

This work of fiction, which describes the life of a geisha from her childhood in Japan, through her working life during the Great Depression and the Second World War to her later life in New York, is only spoilt by the clarification in the closing notes that it is a work of fiction.

As a biography, the story is totally convincing, though the account of the war years is rather harrowing. Except for that section the narrative runs at an even pace, ideal for reading a little a day, not so gripping that I could not put the book down.

All the book required was a concluding confirmation that it is, in fact, a biography. As it is, the doubt remains as to how truthful the descriptions of Japanese life are, what was made up for the sake of a better read. Nevertheless, a gripping book, well worth reading.

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Get Firefox!

I've been playing with Firefox for a couple of weeks now, and have to recommend it over Internet Explorer despite many years of almost faultless service.

It's smaller, faster and more user friendly, particularly the tabs feature. In addition, a big plus for me is that I can now visit my own blog without clocking up visits on Sitemeter. At the old house, using ADSL from Oni to access the internet, Sitemeter would detect my browser and ignore my visits. Since we moved and changed to NetCabo the visits were registered, coming from the same PC with no configuration changes. Firefox has fixed that - hooray.

The plug's in the sidebar, as I can't put scripts in the post body.

I am also removing my endorsement of Bloglines. Not because it's faulty, but because I've found something better: NetVibes (thanks Bev).

Red Card for Pope

Who was the bright spark who fielded a Pope (Eddie) against Italy, with a referee who is probably Catholic.

Well he's been sent off! Should have substituted him while they could.

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Harry Birthday

P'ra Inglês Ver is one year old today.

I'm not sure if 96 posts with 816 visitors is good or bad, because I didn't define any objectives when I started. I have tried to resist writing posts with the specific objective of getting more visitors but, as a result, have tended to wander in No Man's Land. Categorising the posts is also not easy, especially as I haven't used tags.

It has been a chore at times, close to making me give up, and a passion at others - thanks to Mr Constâncio. So it's onwards, to year 2, at least until I get bored or people stop visiting. I will deal with visitors, tracking software and other blogging tools sometime soon, but now its off to finish another book for this weekend's review...

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The New Volkswagen Passat

After 4 years and 120,000 km in my old Passat, where my only real complaint was the awful radio, I swapped it for a new one. Big mistake!

The new radio's fine, so VW have fixed a minor complaint. The downside is the awful clunky gearbox, with low gears too low, and high gears too high. Thanks to improved sound-proofing, I found myself cruising at 140km/h in 4th the other day. 6th gear is very long.

And then there's the fact that it has gone into "limp home" mode seven times in the last month, so I can't say I'm a fan of the electric engine management system. The solution: switch off and restart, just like a PC, which is great when cruising in the fast lane. The dealer claims to have fixed that problem now, by updating the software!

So I'm driving a 140 horse power PC, running Windows Me (the worst Microsoft operating system ever). It hardly inspires confidence. If you're thinking of buying one, wait at least 6 months for VW to fix the bugs.

Why Study?

Yesterday morning, on the radio, I heard an advert for a rock festival saying "Relax between the end of classes and your exams - come to our festival, you deserve it". I was amazed. I can only conclude that either:

1. The course teaching has instilled the basic principles and techniques so well that studying for the exam is unnecessary.
2. Given that all that is required is to know the answers to a restricted number of questions which always come up in the exam, cramming the night before the exam is sufficient.
3. It's acceptable to risk failing one or two exams, because they can always be re-taken in September.

Maybe I'm missing something here, or I have forgotten how it was when I was a student.

Which World Cup Team am I?

Strange!!!!


Thanks to Pandora

Schumacher Accident?

So the least accident prone driver in recent history had an accident on the last corner of qualifying in Monaco, guaranteeing pole position for tomorrow. What's the fuss about? He was unlucky to run wide, lucky not to hit the barrier, unlucky to stall the car. Couldn't have done better if it was on purpose.

I'd be seriously pissed off in Alonso's place. Somebody should think about bumping MS off tomorrow - he deserves it.

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Pirates of the Caribbean

Just to prove there is life outside work, the internet and video games, we sat down to watch a DVD last night. The kids chose "Pirates of the Caribbean", which by now must be our most watched DVD.

It's a great film: funny, clever, spectacular costumes, stunts and special effects. Johnny Depp is weird but very entertaining and delivers his comic lines with a great sense of timing. Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley make a wonderful couple.

But what holds it together is the script with great lines like: "Will Turner: This is either madness... or brilliance. Jack Sparrow: It's remarkable how often those two traits coincide. ", and with Jack Sparrow's bluffs and double-bluffs to give plenty of twists to the plot.

This family trend may mean less blogging, but it's worth it, especially if that coincides with less work brought home and less stress in general.

Public Disservice

Wasted 20 minutes today trying to reply to a National Statistics Institute (INE) on-line survey about the use of information technology.

The bureaucratic overload in this country is amazing (don't know what it's like in the UK, never had to do it) and INE has to be the worst. Apart from the sheer volume, there is the awful site and their complete inability to communicate, a total contrast to the Tax Authorities' site which anybody can cope with.

Anyway, I battled on, finding that INE's users are "aderentes" not "utentes" and that signing up is a multi-step process where the individual registers, receives a password by email, then registers the Company and has to wait for another password by post... yawn. But the most amazing part came when I hit the help button on the "aderentes" page. It gives a FAQ section which helpfully defines all sorts of unintelligible terms, in a totally unintelligible fashion! The author should be shot.

So we can now register a new company "on the spot", only to spend hours groping around in the dark when we try to run it. Maybe the Government should wave its anti-bureaucracy broom in INE's direction.

Oh, and don't forget that you can be fined for not replying to INE surveys!

Football Fan?

When I finally uploaded some photos into Flickr yesterday, Bev said "You're into football". I was surprised by my own negative reaction to that suggestion.

In the old days, I watched rugby and Formula 1. As I am too far from quality rugby and too bored with Formula 1, I join in with the Portuguese national obsession - football - but not obsessively so.

There's very little hooliganism in Portugal, but even so I wouldn't risk most league games. I stick to the big events, when tickets come my way, like yesterday's cup final, which was a good show and won by my adopted club, F.C. Porto. Even so, there was a dismaying number of obsessed fans at the game - apparently normal people who use a football match as an excuse to behave like they are retarded.

Many words have been written about the appeal of football to mankind's basic tribal instincts, which were so much on display yesterday, with chanting aimed to offend the national coach and against Benfica, who weren't even playing. For me, it's enough to be considered a "fan" with a lower-case "f", and I'll keep on following Liverpool (which won the F.A. Cup this weekend too!) and Porto in my own quiet way.

Bad Publicity

Manuel Maria Carrilho is the living proof that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

As a politician with a long CV of non-achievement, he survives thanks to the Caras and Lux gravy train. The problem arises when the gravy starts to run dry. That's when self-esteem goes out of the window - anything goes.

So here we have a book, written for a nobody, about nothing: "How I lost the election". He complains about unfair press coverage, targeting precisely those he needs to stay in the public eye. But it works. He is back in the news again. People will buy the book, to read and throw away.

It's better for him than sitting at home and living off Barbara's income, especially as she has passed her prime as the most elegant auto-cue reader on Portuguese TV.

Nothing to be found?

Haven't we been through this before?

The woefully ineffective Hans Blix failed to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so the US invented "intelligence" to justify an invasion. There were no such weapons, but the Iraqi regime objected to the heavy-handed approach and refused to give full access to inspectors, as a matter of national pride.

Now the Iranians are refusing to co-operate with the IAEA inspectors, for the same reason. Just as in Iraq, they deny having any weapons but nobody will believe them.

How long will it be before the US invades this time? George W. has nothing to lose - his ratings are rock bottom already. Another invasion would, at least, help ensure his pension payments from sundry Pentagon contractors...

Where's the recession?

At dinner last night, a friend was bemoaning the successive increases in fuel prices.

While sympathising with him, I questioned how that increase affects driving habits. He agreed that the increase does not seem to affect demand for fuel. The queue for Lisbon this morning was no shorter than usual at the beginning of a month and most cars still carry only the driver. So either all these drivers have no alternative but to use their cars, or they are unaffected by the fuel price increases.

Empirical evidence also shows no shortage of shoppers for food, clothes or DIY products and new car sales are picking up well. So where is the recession?

Strangely, it appears to be easier to book doctors' appointments - how can healthcare be considered discretionary expenditure? The housing market also remains flat, a clear sign of lack of consumer confidence.

Maybe Victor Constancio, recently reappointed (for services rendered to his current masters) could explain where the recession lies. Maybe not...

Jornal de Negocios writer shot in foot

A wonderful piece of journalism from Rui Peres Jorge yesterday: "Tobacco Tax Receipts Plunge." The increase in tax on tobacco is having the opposite effect to that expected, falling 39% in the first quarter of 2006.

This is the trivial result of reading the Treasury's report on budget execution for March, without bothering to do the research.

However, if you actually read the report, this shortfall is explained - "As referred to in prior months". So I went to the prior month reports and found, in January, that the fall compared with 2005 is due to extraordinary receipts in January 2005.

All of that research took me less time than preparing this post! But why bother researching, if your objectives are to arrange excuses to criticise the Government and fill column inches.

In on-line news, there is no need to write just for the sake of it.

O Codex 632

Com este romance, o Ilustre José Rodrigues dos Santos, mais conhecido como jornalista, avança para o mundo do historiador académico com uma afirmação provocante – “Será que o Cristóvão Colombo era português?”

Fico admirado com este género de livro, ao imaginar o esforço de pesquisa necessário para juntar a matéria-prima. Com visitas a Rio de Janeiro, Nova Iorque, Jerusalém e Génova, sem falar nas pesquisas nacionais, o livro representa um investimento considerável em tempo e dinheiro, felizmente bem gasto. As descrições elaboradas dos locais e pessoas são por vezes maçadoras, por empregar demasiadas palavras obscuras, mas, mesmo lidas na diagonal, transmitem bem as características essenciais dos lugares e personagens.

Quanto ao miolo, a parte técnica das pesquisas é muito interessante, mas explicações ao Moliarti dos factos e consequências das pesquisas são algo infelizes em repetir tanta matéria já explicada ao leitor no momento da sua descoberta.

Apesar de ter desvendado sozinho uma das principais pistas, fiquei com muitas dúvidas sobre outras, que mantiveram o interesse. O desfecho final adivinha-se apenas a poucas páginas do fim, servindo também para explicar como é que foi possível inventar uma história tão convoluta – começando pela afirmação acima, arranjando argumentos a favor para, num golpe de mestre, deixar tudo no ar com a destruição de uma prova chave num momento crítico.

Resumindo, um romance brilhante, que hei-de voltar a ler – altamente recomendado.

Quanto a traduções, seria difícil traduzir para inglês, tão cheio que é de referências tipicamente portuguesas. Seria interessante ver o livro lançado em espanhol ou italiano…

Another one in the eye for Mourinho!

Define "news"

Last night, at 8 p.m., RTP and SIC opened the news bulletins with the traditional Sunday items - Holiday Weekend Motoring Death Toll and Pope Celebrates Mass in St. Peter's Square. TVI spent 15 minutes on the death of the star of its hit soap opera in a car crash, of no interest to me at all. It seemed like hype, promoting the series even in times of tragedy.

Looking back, however, it now appears that TVI was right. After all, where's the news value in:

• lower motoring death toll - the weekend is not over yet;
• Pope Celebrates Mass - news value would arise if he failed to celebrate mass at Easter;
• woman whose doctor had operated the wrong foot - oops.

Looking round the family, I was the only one not interested in the soap star's death. That gives an 86% relevance rating.

Looks like I'm not cut out to be a news editor...

World's Largest Windows Error Message

Now this is funny. Not so much the post itself, but the multi-lingual comments - ROFLMAO, as they say.

(Thanks to Wonderm00n)

Freakonomics

As the economics best-seller of 2005, I thought this was rather thin, both in terms of size and substance.

While there are some startling conclusions, the extensive bibliography shows that much of the underlying research does not belong to the author. In fact, that bibliography is one of the most impressive parts of the book, revealing an obsessive record-keeper and, deep down, a serious economist behind the editorial hype.

Nevertheless, there is some interesting research, including the application of statistical techniques to identify teachers who cheat on their students' behalf and to evaluate the practical effect on crime rates of having more police. On the other hand, his statistical analysis of children's names and social standing over the years returns statistics to its traditional ultra-boring status.

The economics question I wanted answering was why the English version of the book, which I bought, with a print run of millions, costs more than the Portuguese version, which incurs the overhead of translation as well as losing economies of scale due to a smaller print run.

Overall, not a book I would recommend buying.

Políticos

No dia a seguir à grande balda, encontro isto no blog da Pandora.

Avoid Problems with the Building Inspectors

When a new building sprung up behind my garden wall, I was concerned about its height and distance from surrounding roads and buildings, so I went to the City's web site and filed a complaint. In return I received a mail confirming the number of my complaint - so far so good.

A week later I got a call to inform me that the construction permit number I had copied from the builder's sign, did not exist. "Could I give any more details?" As I had put the address and geo-reference from the website in the complaint, I fail to see what was missing.

That was in December. This week I phoned to find out what happened to my complaint. I spent 20 minutes being transferred around City Hall. All the secretaries could tell me was that the case had been closed - though I never received a reply.

So if you want to build, with no problems, just buy a sign, fill it in with random data which you wash off again to leave an illegible blur. Build what you like - nobody will be able to complain. Random checks by building inspectors may be dealt with using the personal touch - preferably face-to-face in the local seafood restaurant. You'll have to deal with the paperwork sooner or later, but meanwhile you can save time and have the building ready (and sold) while the planners pore over the drawings.

Book Review Problem

I have been posting book reviews, partly because someone might find them useful/interesting (though I have no evidence that's true), partly to show that there is life beyond the internet.

Now I am faced with a little dilemma: what's the point of posting a book review, in English, of a book I read in Portuguese that has never been translated into English? Maybe I'll have to take the plunge and write in Portuguese, or just give up on the idea completely. If I do write it in Portuguese and someone feels it necessary to correct my grammar, I just hope they do so by email, rather than putting comments for all the world to see.

How to buy a TV

Don't laugh. It's not as easy as it seems.

After 15 years of steady use, our 25" Philips TV has finally been laid to rest. So I wandered round the retailers' web sites in search of a new one: CRT, 15-year life, nothing fancy.

The following don't get a link, because their sites are lousy: Euronics/Prolar (under construction for 3 years, to my knowledge), MediaMarkt, Carrefour and Jumbo.

That left Fnac (where the site is poor, very slow), Radio Popular, where I drew a blank, and Worten, which actually had a conventional TV for sale!

Just to be on the safe side, I wandered along to Prolar, where the salesman obligingly told me that Plasma and LCD TV's are not suitable for locations where they are always on - that rules out any house with kids, as far as I can tell. It was a pity he only had top-end Sony conventional TV's, complete with stand.

So it was off to the Colombo shopping centre, to Worten, where the model from the web page was in stock. The only difficulties were persuading the salesman that I wanted to take the TV away, not have it delivered, and persuading the kids that we did not need to take plasma replacements for the 14" models that have not broken down yet.

So it was right product, right price, right publicity. Not really a surprise that Belmiro de Azevedo is loaded.

Vodafone UK Network Coverage

As a loyal Telecel customer, converted to Vodafone and quite satisfied with the network coverage in Portugal, I was dismayed to arrive in the UK, home of Vodafone, and discover such poor coverage.

Getting off the plane, I dutifully selected Vodafone as my preferred network, so that I could retrieve my voicemail messages, but reaching my sister's house was faced with "Emergency Calls Only" as there is no Vodafone coverage. It was the same story at my parents' house and at the hotel where I went to a wedding.

As O2 and Orange seemed to be available everywhere, I am seriously considering changing to Optimus, which also has better coverage where I work in Lisbon. It's strange how such minor annoyances can spoil a personal opinion of a major company.

Disposable Generation

The French students demonstrate, rightly in my opinion, against the new labour law, claiming that it will make them the "Kleenex" generation - used once and then disposed of.

I wonder what the marketing people at Kimberly Clark think of that.

Motoring Pundits

Radio Capital has an early evening feature where anybody can request to have their say on the air about issues affecting motorists. That's all very well, but it continues to fuel the pundits - the bad drivers are always in the other cars.

Of course, we're all motoring experts: locals, expats, old, young, men, women. When did you last hear anybody admitting to being ashamed at the way they drive? That's the root of the problem. What's missing is a dose of modesty and introspection.

Maybe Radio Renascença should have an equivalent feature: "Forgive me Mr Presenter, for I have broken the Highway Code." I think not. That's just giving raw material for the comics to parody. How about AA (Automobile Association?): "Hi. I'm Zé. I'm an accident waiting to happen, but I haven't touched a solid white line in 37 days." Which radio station would host that one?

Fixed my Template

After much head-scratching and attempts to upload files, I have managed to re-size the template provided by blogger to 1024 screen width.

Thanks to Miguel for suggesting the solution - putting the background files in a post so that they would be available on blogger. I actually set up a new blog just for such postings.

That leads me to my first complaint to date about Netcabo: having worked out how to upload files to my personal web-hosting space, the files could not be seen by blogger, nor via ftp at work, presumably because netcabo only gives customer access if you are using their connection.

So I've learnt some html, what next? Onward and upward, I hope.

BCP offer for BPI

Who benefits from the proposed takeover BCP has made for BPI?

For individual customers, acquisition of an aggressive, customer-oriented bank by a less-competitive institution is hardly positive. The consolidation of the customer bases of the two banks is never a simple addition - there are customers who have accounts at both, and BPI customers who do not want to be part of BCP.

For staff, there is the prospect of mass redundancies. The synergies from the takeover inevitably mean that fewer staff will be required in back-office operations and there will be branch closures, just as we saw with the BCP / Nova Rede / Banco Mello / BPA consolidation.

For corporate customers working with both banks, after consolidation their credit lines will almost certainly be merged, not added together.

So who stands to win - only the faceless shareholders, fund managers and the like who, even at their peak of intervention in corporate affairs in other countries, only focus on management salaries (BCP watch out!).

Let's hope that the core BPI shareholders decide to hang on to their independence until a suitor appears who doesn't simply want to eliminate domestic competition.

Eating out - Mexican

Senhor Taco restaurant at Amoreiras Shopping Centre yesterday. No Portuguese bottled beer except Bohemia - so drink Corona at twice the price. Apart from the chaotic service, the strangest part was Chilli con Carne with no chilli and nearly no beans. The waiter was unsure if they had chilli - no Tabasco, they eventually produced ground green chilli sauce, plenty spicy.

Actually, the food was not too bad, just not what we expected. At least it didn't resemble the plastic food at Cantina Mariachi in all the other big shopping centres.

Even so, I won't be going back.

Milosevic - a coincidence?

They have got to be joking. Two deaths in custody in the space of a week. The Dutch are known for their honesty, not for their cover-ups, but the conspiracy theorists are going to have a field day with this one.

Worse than the news itself, were the reactions - a man loved or hated, provoking exaggerated reactions from Serbs, Albanians and Americans alike.

What are the lawyers and judges in the Hague to do now, other than keep the gravy train rolling?

The IKEA Effect

There´s been no time for blogging recently. I have spent most of my free time over the last few days assembling (not "mounting") Ikea furniture.

Now I'm not a fanatical recycler and Ikea's eco-friendly labelling leaves me cold. But I just can't resist folding all that recyclable packaging and dropping it at the recycling point - a real feel-good factor.

It's not for nothing that the owner of Ikea is the world's 4th richest man.

(Posted by email from my Palm Treo, written in the car while stopped in rush-hour traffic. Free time, what free time?!)

Croat Serb Leader Dies in Jail

This is ridiculous. How is it possible for a convicted criminal to commit suicide in a secure UN facility? Maybe "secure" and "UN" are incompatible.

After all Milan Babic had been through - mass murdering, hiding out, surrendering to the peacekeepers, testifying against Milosevic, it's hard to picture him as suicidal.

Another dent in the armour of the Untied Nations....

This is not a football blog, but...

High point of the night for Porto fans:

41 minutes - Jose Veiga gets to his feet to celebrate Benfica's goal, slips and falls

Sad really.

Blog Journalism

Last weekend's FT had a nice long article on blogs, asking the question, "Will blogs replace traditional news media?" After a rather tortuous set of examples and anecdotes, the conclusion was "No."

For me that's rather obvious.

Just looking at the mix of blogs out there, the author skipped over all the classwork blogs (2), spam blogs, diary blogs (9), travel blogs, advice blogs (2), photo blogs (1) and others that I couldn't classify (3), to concentrate on current event blogs (3). (The numbers are classification of 20 blogs found by hitting the "Next Blog" button 20 times - where have all the spam blogs gone?)

These 15% of current event blogs are basically regurgitation of information taken from other blogs, or from traditional media. Look! I'm doing it too! Quite frankly, what can the amateur journalists write about if they have no time to go out and gather news. So we can't replace the news-gathering function of the media - we'll have to make do with writing opinion columns, gossip columns or just plain plagiarism. The professional journalists can sleep soundly, for now.

OMG - I'm beginning to sound like Bev Trayner!

Embarrassing Performance

As a long-time Liverpool fan, I borrowed a scarf and went to the match yesterday, thanks to my colleague and Benfica fan who got me a ticket.

It was an embarrassing performance. If Benitez wanted a draw, what was wrong with 1-1? If I had been watching at home, I would have given up after half an hour.

The second half was better entertainment. Liverpool never deserved to win, preferring the Italian approach. At least the better team eventually won.

For me the men of the match were Luisao and Riis - two defenders, which sums up the excitement level. The only high point was the goal. The low points were Luis Garcia's yellow card after only 20 seconds and Beto's challenge on Sissoko. Both were worth red cards, but it seems that UEFA has eased off on the referee's this year.

Now I have to wait to see how Liverpool turn the scoreline round in the home leg. It was a dead certainty for me, now I only give them a 60% chance.

Netcabo: so far so good

Despite my initial fears, the change from ADSL to Netcabo has been pretty smooth. The only problems have been:

• the self-install kit would never have worked without a call to the technical help desk. The carrier frequency required was not pre-programmed in the modem or on the CD. This was solved, first-time, by a 12-minute assistance call.
• the connection does not recover after a power failure because the modem has to boot before switching on the router. That's not the end of the world.

Connection speed is fine. Only 15 minutes of down-time in a month (that I detected).

As for software problems - Sitemeter seems unable to detect my owns visits, to exclude them from the hits statistics and two weeks after the move started reporting my hits as Netcabo in Porto, which is definitely not where I live.

Now TV Cabo, that's another story. Fox, Eurosport 2 and Motors TV were all part of the Cabovisão base package. TV Cabo's base selection is not to our taste - we'd dispense Gigashopping, M6 and Parlamento. Can't win them all.

Moving House

The long-awaited move took place on January 7. Since then I have been writing to companies, telling them.

My UK bank, Lloyds TSB, replied with 3 letters, to my old address. "Strange", I thought. They wrote to my wife, telling her I had requested a change of address on our joint account. Fair enough. Then they wrote to each of us, individually, to advise that they would process a change of address, to be sure that we knew about it. I'm impressed by the security.

My Portuguese bank, Barclays (Portuguese "entre aspas"), made do with a fax but requested proof of the address, i.e. a copy of a bill. Not very logical for two reasons:

1. They financed the construction, therefore know perfectly well where it is.
2. I had no bills at that stage - even the bills for the new house were being sent to the old one!

Different countries, different cultures and concerns. I'm happy to be able to make do with the lower level of security.

Atlantis by David Gibbins

After the disaster of the last book received as a Christmas present, this was a great read.

The book, in the fashionable "historic reconstruction" style, manages to mingle archeology and adventure with terrorism, with a good dose of history, plenty of classical and biblical references and even a strong storyline. Its 364 pages positively raced by, the only problem being the need to put the book down occasionally to get some sleep.

In an imaginary world inhabited by stereotypes, the main negative points are the sometimes excessive technical details given to real-life weaponry and some fanciful technologies.

Overall, a very good read. Recommended.

Sour Grapes, Mr Salgado

Ricardo Salgado's interview, "live from Marrakech", was a real case of sour grapes. Was his interview so important that a camera crew was justified in flying to Morocco? No, as it turns out.

He had just seen a major investment increase in value by 20%. Sour grapes must imply that, even so, this increase is not enough for him to sell at a profit. Maybe he should review the original investment decision.

He has no controlling stake. Who is he to say that the bid for PT is undervalued? If PT is so clearly undervalued, why doesn't he present a higher bid? Can't raise the money? I guess we all have our limits, eh! Wrong strategic partners this time, I suppose.

Who wants PT?

So France Telecom has apparently joined with a Spanish bank and a prominent Portuguese businessman to bid for Portugal Telecom. It's a nice set-up, which defeats the "Portuguese ownership / golden share" argument and seeks to shut out Telefonica of Spain.

There's certainly plenty of value to be extracted, given the ex-monopoly power wielded shamelessly and the inertia in PT's customer base.

Of course BES may react, to make things even more interesting, though they will need to find a partner with cash. We shall see...

Out-of-control Fans

Strange Co Adriaanse didn't claim that the damage to his car was carried out by under-cover Benfica fans. Surely they would be the ones to take offense to his driving a Peugeot, with a nice big lion on the grill.

After this weekend's performance in Leiria, I wonder what Ronald Koeman drives...

Ota Airport (3)

Sapka said I was uninformed about Ota - shame the comment was attached to the wrong post. I've been looking up some more information, to address that problem (sarcasm implied here).

Ladecima's blog presents some interesting statistics.

Maybe Sapka's the one who's politically motivated.

Foreign Direct Investment in Portugal

During the pre-election campaign, Cavaco Silva suggested that there should be a minister responsible for foreign direct investment. Only one week after Cavaco was elected, Manuel Pinho, economy minister, has shown that such a move is unnecessary.

He didn't call a press conference, preferring to let RTP do the work of presenting details of committed and promised investments. As it happened, the minister was available to confirm everything positive that the journalists had said, live on prime-time TV, in RTP1's most viewed programme of the week, which happened to coincide with a football match on TVI, thus boosting audience numbers even more.

The most unbelievable exchange was a "yes" response to Judith de Sousa's innocent question: "Are all these investments enough to offset all the job losses we have been hearing about?" He has to be joking!

Maybe it's the similarity with Gary Sinise that makes me unable to believe anything he says. In CSI-NY, Gary Sinise is a sinister character who manages to solve unfathomable cases with apparent ease. In Snake Eyes, he is determined and unstoppable, rather like the Minister's public image.

It remains to be seen whether this evening was a signal that the government intends to implement the president(-elect)'s suggestions or whether this was a pre-emptive move to show that those suggestions are not needed.