First Day of Freedom

Walking from court appearance (as plaintiff) to shopping to job interview to property seminar, I couldn't resist snapping this with my phone.

It was a good way to spend the first day after 13 years of routine employment.

More will follow...

Sport TV Golfe

Its nice of the Sport TV guys to dedicate a whole channel to the golfing nuts among us. When they presented the channel on Friday, they said that it would be free to Sport TV subscribers until the end of February. I wait to see what will happen then.

They were a little unlucky in their first day, with the Bob Hope Classic, bought from the Golf Channel, unplayable due to heavy rain in the American desert. American golf broadcasting is frustrating at the best of times, with an excruciating ratio of adverts to live action, so watching repeats of the little golf that had been possible was awful. On the other hand, the Abu Dhabi tournament made good watching, despite having to view it live and the highlights only a few hours later.

As it happens, I am quite happy to pay for 12 months of Sport TV subscription just to watch the four Major tournaments. They added to that last year with the FedEx Cup playoffs. I watch virtually no football, except sometimes the Champions' League matches and gave up on Formula 1 long ago. So we'll see if they expect me to pay more to watch non-stop golf, because that would be a little optimistic. If I can subscribe to only the golf, that will be the way to go.

Rewarding Incompetence

It is quite unbelievable that anybody, especially a supposedly intelligent economist such as Cavaco Silva, might even consider that Pedro Santana Lopes should have his invaluable services to the country recognised by the award of an official honour.

His time as mayor of Figueira da Foz and Lisbon was characterised by public works carried out but not paid for, leaving both cities in a financial mess, then he moved on to be the shortest serving Prime Minister since 1981 years, dismissed because his government was unable to ensure the stability necessary for it to function properly.

Well known for being entitled to a full state pension at 49 since years as a member of parliament count double, his self-interest is beyond doubt, as seen in the last council elections in Lisbon, where he only reluctantly took up his place as an opposition councillor, stating that he would be concentrating on working for Lisbon alongside his professional activities as a lawyer.

All in all, another confirmation that to get on in life competence is far less important than political connections.

Afonso de Albuquerque

The biography of Afonso de Albuquerque by the English historian Elaine Sanceau is impressive for two reasons.

Firstly becasue it tells the story of a larger-than-life figure who had to battle all the time he was in India to dominate a vast area of sea and coast with only a handful of men and ships, beset by political intrigues from within and without. His achievements in conquering costal cities, persuading local warlords that he represented a major international power to obtain their cooperation to build fortresses and charge taxes, while all the time having to contend with disloyal subordinates, jealous of his position and authority, are worthy of such a dedicated work of research and presentation.

Secondly, the extracts of text and facsimilies of original documents reveal the huge amount of painstaking work that must have gone into decoding and cataloging hundreds, if not thousands of documents to produce this definitive biography. That rigour occasionally results in a rather dry read, but our difficulties pale into insignificance if we consider the author's task.

A fascinating biography of a truly great man.

Death is All Around

No I'm not referring to the situation in Haiti, nor the ex-colleague's funeral that I went to yesterday.

Our one year-old golden retriever, which is not that fast and makes as much noise as a tank approaching, manage to catch a pigeon on Wednesday. It must have been old and/or sick to not escape.

Fortunately, we found the dog before he made too much mess and I got to dispose of the bird when I got back from work - wonderful!

Prisoner of the State

I picked this book up at Hong Kong airport - I wasn't expecting to see it there - prior to boarding a 14-hour daytime flight to London. Of course, I didn't manage to read it all on the plane. Cathay Pacific's amazing in-flght entertainment system made sure of that. But it was an interesting window onto the Chinese mentality that I had heard about but never needed to understand.

The book is the secret memoir of Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang, who was removed from power for trying to negotiate an end to the student uprising in 1989, rather than taking part in the military crackdown imposed by the hard-liners.

The book shows the cloak and dagger world of politics, influence and personal interests that lies behind any political system, though always covered up in China where, under the one-party system, such posturing and conflict could not be admitted.

Unfortunately, and this is part of that same system and philosophy, the book rambles on about many, many different issues, then revisits some of them in a economic rather than a political context, making the book very hard going.

It is clear that Zhao Ziyang was wronged and improperly treated and that China's economic development suffered in organsational terms as a result, but so many years later, that is water under the bridge.

Overall, a book for academics and enthusiasts. Don't risk picking it up as a curiosity.

I have NOT got H1N1!

Actually, I knew that before I went to the health centre on Wednesday afternoon. I called beforehand to book an appointment with my family doctor, preferably for the same day, as I was coughing up blood! The telephonist suggested I should go to the flu section, for faster treatment.

I was attended to fairly quickly and patiently explained that I had received the annual flu, pneumonia and H1N1 vaccines, but thought that the blood should be seen to. The duty doctor appeared to agree and wrote me a reference letter for a chest x-ray at the hospital.

The hospital was also well organised, but couldn't give me an x-ray without me seeing the duty doctor first. It appears one professional opinion is not enough! So I was taken to the H1N1 quarantine area - one doctor, three patients in front of me. More than an hour later, it was my turn. Finally, a doctor who listens and even asks if there's nothing more he should know. Unfortunately, his initial diagnosis on the admission form was "H1N1".

So we ran the tests - unfortunately they take 2 hours! Nasal swab, throat swab, blood sample. During the 2 hour wait, they even took me to x-ray.

The 2 hours were up. Where's the doctor? "Oh, he also has to do general emergency, and it's rather busy", I was told. When he finally returned, he confirmed that I have not got H1N1, that the blood is not coming from my lungs and prescribed me some antibiotics, as well as giving me some preventive hints for someone of my age - off to the cardiologist for me then! Great doctor!

I reached the health centre at 2 p.m., got home at 10. So much for the fast track!

More Power to the Taxman

Who came up with the idea of giving the Portuguese tax authorities automatic access to bank records for the family members of suspected tax fraudsters? It's unbelievable!

Consider the well publicised IT errors that keep on cropping up: assessments for years where liability has lapsed, tax payments that do not get set off against the respective assessment, inspection staff completely devoid of any reasoning capacity, only worried about meeting their quota of inspections. It's easy for just about anybody to fall foul of such errors.

So if my company is inspected and incorrectly assessed for extra tax, which we claim against, leaving a file open (subject to somebody at the tax office remembering to register the claim), any of my family members can have their bank accounts inspected!

Not even the judiciary has such sweeping powers, but that would likely be inconvenient for a large number of eminent politicians.

So once again the little guy gets squeezed while the country rots from the top down...

Labour Anarchy

The Portuguese Communist Party are currently running a poster campaign that states simply: "We Will Revoke the Labour Law". Are they nuts? Do they have any legal advisors at all?

The Portuguese Labour Law covers contractual rights and obligations of employers and employees, health and safety at work, training requirements and much more. Most employers would be only too glad to see the abolition of clauses that prohibit the dismissal of incompetent, disruptive staff, give the employee total right to refuse to changes in working conditions and disallow monitoring of email and internet use. I, for one, would be more than happy to see it revoked as it hamstrings any hopes of a recovery plan for small- or medium-sized companies in the current crisis.

Of course, the PCP wants to revoke the changes that have been nibbling away at employee rights. Their fight would be more credible if they were more careful with what they say!

Photo Chop Shop

There are a lot of examples of bad Photoshop work around, in fact there are sites dedicated to it. Normally it doesn't bother me but the other day I was browsing through the Oceanico Signature magazine and was appalled by the obvious cut-outs of their star players and unit owners placed in front of sundry landscapes. With different colour temperatures and opposing lighting angles, these stars had obviously not been present when the landscape was photographed.

Then I came across this, on a bus stop. I think Keira Knightley has done herself no favours with this image. She was great as a skinny, flat-chested tomboy in her many film roles. As a girl, it just doesn't work, and the photoshop guys have done her no favours.

But I'm rarely a fan of advertising...