Portugal 1 - Rest of Europe 5

Can't blame the players
and it's not the coaches' fault

Maybe it's the fans.

The State as a Bad Example

I enjoyed the debate on SIC Notícias last night, which reached the conclusion that, so long as public figures behave in an unacceptable fashion, there is no hope for society.

The case in point was Fátima Felgueiras, who has immense popular support despite (allegedly) stealing from the very council that she ran "because everybody has their finger in the pie". No shame. No resignation from office. Worse, she's running for re-election as an independent!

The same principle applies to all aspects of public life. The military, who earn relatively badly, have elaborate schemes to skim off supplies for personal gain, from food to office supplies to appliances and building works on their own houses. They nearly all do it, always have. How can that be condemned if everybody knows and nobody acts?

Then we have traffic laws. Politicians (and lowly policemen) don't keep to the speed limit; abuse their privileges to overtake rush-hour queues on the hard shoulder. This cannot be justified by security considerations. Why should your average citizens worry about compliance if they have bad examples to follow?

The public have to demand ethical behaviour from public figures, not follow their bad examples...

TVI Program Classification

TVI is advertising that they will classify programs, with warnings "to help viewers". Where did I see this advertised? During an interval in "Commando" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, shown at 2 p.m. on Sunday!

According to IMDB, this film is generally rated "Adults Only" - not exactly appropriate for early Sunday afternoon, though TVI on-line considers it only M/12.

If TVI is worried about children seeing inappropriate content, why not use responsible programming, which is likely to be far more effective than a classification system.

It remains to be seen where and when the warnings will appear - permanently on screen, after commercial breaks, in printed and on-line programme listings, or just at the start of each program.

English for All

So the Government has delivered on its election promise of English classes for all children from Year 1.

Just a few minor oversights:

• there do not appear to be enough English teachers for the extra work
• busy schools may not have classrooms available for the extra classes
• there is no guidance for schools as to curriculum revision from next year for year 5, which was the traditional starting point. Children will be entering year 5 with between 1 and 4 years' experience.

And I wont even start on the language knowledge of the teachers who are in the system already....

Lisbon City Creditworthiness

According to Expresso newspaper, Galp cut off fuel supplies to Lisbon City Council due to non-payment.

One of my suppliers had the same problem with the City. When calling to request payment, they were told, "The 'Santanistas' spent everything".

How is it possible for a City administration to be so irresponsible that they spend to a point that there are no funds for basic necessities such as fuel for the refuse collection fleet?

Budgetary discipline cannot be restricted to Central Government. Tighter control is required over Local Government spending, which is subject to less public scrutiny and therefore open to greater abuse.

Planning Corruption

It is admirable for a city councillor to come forward and denounce corruption in the planning approval process.

Unfortunately his timing is disastrous - at the end of his elected term, when he knows that his party is not putting him forward for re-election. What is a serious matter appears more an opportunity for petty revenge.

Everybody knows the planning process is frequently corrupt. He should have resigned mid-term and taken evidence with him for the Public Prosecutor.

At least the Prosecutor is taking the matter seriously and has called him to make a statement.

Connected Communists

Only the Communists could have so little of relevance to offer voters in the run-up to local and presidential elections.

At their annual fundraising festival in Seixal, they had an exhibition describing the Soviet Union's (apparently praiseworthy) role in defeating Hitler. This is aimed at a public aged mostly 20-35, which has little interest in the 1974 revolution and even less inWW2.

If the PCP is not interested in getting elected, why bother even standing for election?

Louçã for President

Surely if the politicians want the voters to take politics seriously, they have to field credible candidates. Francisco Louçã for President!? Enough said!

At least there is still the hope that, with the splintering of the left-wing vote, Cavaco Silva will win the first round outright to cut short the agony.

Anyway, congratulations to Cavaco Silva on his forthcoming victory in the presidential election.

Open letter to Jonathan Margolis

Dear Mr Margolis

I have always appreciated your low-tech approach to the internet in the Financial Times "How to Spend It" magazine. However one of your recent columns left me quite seriously
annoyed.

First of all you complained about web sites without a credible contact address. I could sympathize with you, until I tried to send you an email with my comments. You come up frequently in articles, but no contact details. Even the FT site only has a "Letters to the Editor" option. In the newspaper the columnists publish their email address, but not in the magazine.

I have to admit that this was only a problem once I had reacted to your other comments.

You went on to state that spam is dead. I can assure you it's not. As system administrator for a small company, I estimate that over 90% of all incoming mail is spam, and at least 75% of outgoing mail despite a "business use only" written IT policy. Perhaps my definition of spam differs from yours.

The last straw though was your complaint about the country list on registration pages. "How many visitors do they get from Afghanistan?" "The major countries should be at the top of the list" Let's see. Major countries.... That would certainly make life easier for the Chinese, Filipinos and Indians. We could use population, land
area, birth rate etc. If we search hard enough, we might find some where Britain is still in the top 10.

That obsession with British superiority doesn't get you very far once you cross the channel or the pond.

Then it occurred to me, you don't know how to use that list box! Click on the box and you get the usual 'Afghanistan...' list. Press 'U' 4 times. Hey presto "United Kingdom". That's not too hard is it? Or press 'P' and use the down arrow like we do in Portugal. As far as I am aware, that list is a standard feature provided by Microsoft, so it is natural that everybody should use the same list.

Yours sincerely


Harry

PS. I'm not posting my email here, so you'll have to leave me a comment, which doesn't require you to register, for now.

Google this!

Couldn't resist passing this on one, which I found here: shut up! i know!

Just Google for the word failure