Madison Who's Who

I had a merry half hour on the phone with a high pressure salesman from this organisation this afternoon. They claim to run an international directory of top professionals and try to get you to sign up for a full listing for 750€ (or only 989€ for lifetime membership!).

I was caught by an apparently identical organisation some years back: the International Who's Who Historical Society. The directory did eventually arrive, filled with the names of international professionals. The web site and contacts system also worked, for a while, until it suddenly stopped sending out the appeals for help, mostly from young Asians who had clearly been conned out of their life savings.

These guys are very good. They called my direct line, with my previous resumé in front of them, and made small talk about my business and the economy in an intelligent and informed fashion. Then, just as those years ago, they told me I had "passed" the interview, that I am clearly the kind of informed intelligent professional that would most benefit from signing up, and got round to talking about money.

Once bitten, twice shy, as they say. My advice is to keep away as you will not be able to confirm their authenticity. Note that a Google search brings up a number of identical positive references on the same hosting server and only one worried third-party query.

Oh, and on the basis that the FBI reads everything that is posted in the internet, I have a name and phone number if you would like to go after them for wire fraud!

Watch this!

I have always had a weakness for watches. My first paycheck from my first real job was spent on a watch which I still use more than any of the more recent acquisitions.

Swiss watchmaker Hublot is investing very heavily on advertising its "Bigger Bang" model, on the right, usually the red gold version, which I couldn't find a picture of. It's superb, with the mechanism all on display, made from gold, ceramic, kevlar and rubber. Strangely, I couldn't find this model on the manufacturer's site, perhaps because they have already sold the 18 limited edition pieces. For more details try The Watch Quote.

As for the price of the "Bigger Bang", if you need to ask, you can't afford it. The more practical and still stunning "Big Bang" is priced between 12,000€ and 16,000€. Maybe if I sell one of the cars...

CD of the Month (2)

I have to admit that I have not taken the time to find out anything about Lighthouse Family since my sister gave me this CD for Christmas (2003?), and according to Wikipedia, there's not really much to know.

Anyway, it's one of the great easy-listening albums and has been helping me endure my commute for the last month, so here it is.

Shoot the Publicist

The December issue of the SAP magazine had a full page advert from Hyfas (see the panel at the bottom of their homepage). What conclusions can we draw from that advert?

1. They do not speak English - "Be right!". This may be a problem when implementing SAP.
2. They don't know how to shoot an arrow, nor even how to hold a bow! What exactly are they expecting us to consult them about and how far will they take it?

The site is equally awful, with trite pseudo-English sound-bites in abundance. I hope their consultants are better than their publicists.

Telepac Stinks!

Coloquei o seguinte comentário no "feedback form" de apoio a clientes de Telepac esta manhã:

1. A resposta (ao pedido de assistência) foi "É favor voltar a ligar mais tarde porque estamos sem sistema". Assim o serviço ao cliente NÃO FUNCIONA!
2. Respondi "não" a perguntas 3 e 5. Uma vez que a página não aceita carácteres Portugueses (nem nas respostas pré-definidas pela Telepac), o impresso não pode ser entregue! Espero que Paulo Azevedo consegue dar a volta à incompetência sistemática demonstrada!!

Reacção do sistema: "A resposta à pergunta nº9 não pode ultrapassar 255 carácteres"!

Que idiotas!

Double Standards

It seems that my complaints about justice are always football related, but once again it's time to speak out about the ridiculous sentences handed out to footballers.

Twenty other drivers were caught in the police checks the other night, but none of them got off so lightly as Luisão. Why should he get special treatment? He wasn't just a little over the alcohol limit, he was so drunk that he was arrested on the spot! Imagine the court's treatment of any other Brazilian immigrant in these circumstances, or a person who drives for a living. An immediate ban would be automatically handed out.

Worse than the lack of punishment is the example given by Luisão himself. Footballers are the idols of the young. How is it possible that he sets such a poor example? The only professional footballer I have contact with is shadowed everywhere by an assistant/manager. Surely Luisão (or Benfica) has the money to hire a driver for nights out if he wants to drink.

Once again we see an example of what keeps this warm and welcoming country firmly in the past. Justice. For whom?

New Year, No Resolutions

Long time since my last post - simultaneously a sign of being busy and even having some other distractions; there is life beyond the net after all.

So I hope all(!) my faithful readers don't mind my wishing them a belated Merry Christmas (or equivalent) and a Happy New Year (if you happen to be using the same calendar as I do). Here's to a better 2007 than 2006.

High point of 2006: breaking 100 at golf for the first time. Low point: Grampy's abrupt demise. What will 2007 have in store? No resolutions, that's for sure, keep on flying by the seat of my pants for the moment.

As for the faithful, that's Jorge, Bev, Eme and sundry lurkers from Faro and Alhos Vedros (Telepac) or Carnaxide (Optimus), I hope I can find something minimally interesting to write about. Had plenty of ideas over the holiday season, but too much to do to sit at the computer and write. We'll see...

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!