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.

Technorati Tags : Taxation, Football

 

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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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