The Simpsons Movie

What are holidays for, if not to take the kids to the movies. They chose The Simpsons Movie, which they loved, I hated.

It was all rather serious stuff, with its conservationist message, shortage of slapstick humour and unfamiliar characters. For instance, Homer didn't once say "Doh!". Nor did Bart come out with "Cowabunga" or "Eat My Shorts". None of the usual supporting characters were involved, except soppy Ned Flanders. Bart's lines in detention were "I will not make illegal copies of this movie". Yawn.

There were a few laughs, admittedly, but none worth reporting here. My recommendation: Watch the trailers and cinema channel reviews. Then you'll get to see all the funny stuff without trawling through the rest. Or better still, go to something else.

Unfair Practice

Once again, TV Cabo appears to be abusing its near monopoly position.

Eurosport is showing the Shanghai classic snooker tournament - hardly a mainstream Portuguese sport. During the interval between frames, Eurosport showed just enough adverts. Then a flash of snooker and a new, low-definition logo saying "Eurosport - publicidade". Then a long advert for Sport TV, the logo again, and back to the snooker mid-frame.

Who are the TV Cabo directors trying to kid? It was an amateurish stunt, surely without Eurosport's knowledge, pulled by someone who thinks they are untouchable. Totally unacceptable, in my view, but TV Cabo is the only TV supplier available to me...

No surprise then that one of Henrique Grenadeiro's dirty tricks during the PT takeover battle was to strip TV Cabo out of PTM. No point handing such power over to Sonae, is there.

0-0, End of First Part

When the BCP General Meeting was announced some weeks back, I voted in the Jornal de Negócios on-line poll, suggesting that nobody's cause would win at the meeting. It wasn't a very popular choice. So I'd just like to say "Ha ha" to all the hawks and doves out there.

Admittedly, there will eventually be a winner. And with Paulo Teixeira Pinto in retreat even before the meeting started, it's not difficult to guess who will win. But yesterday only brought one casualty - the poor misguided IT manager whose system couldn't cope with registering all those shareholders.

And so the saga continues, leaving the second largest bank in Portugal paralysed when it comes to dealing with its larger customers. Fortunately the Board are not worried about profitability for now, with the record results announced for the first half. But it's not much fun being on the outside, waiting for the storm to blow over.

Diário Côr de Rosa

A Direcção do jornal Record anunciou hoje, "em honra das recentes prestações e novo equipamento do Sport Lisboa e Benfica", uma nova orientação editorial. A nova capa usará tons parecidos com o novo equipamento do Glorioso, para fácil identificação pelos leitores.

"Face à popularidade inegável das revistas 'côr de rosa' como Lux, Olá! e Caras, a quais falam extensivamente da vida privada, social e até profissional dos maiores jogadores de futebol, consideramos haver espaço nas bancas para o primeiro diário 'social'". Quanto ao conteúdo, "Haverá inclusivé alguns artigos sobre o campeonato e outras competições secundárias como a Liga dos Campeõs, mas sobre tudo tratará de notícias sobre os nossos jogadores VIP's".

Questionado sobre a capacidade de encher as páginas com notícias adequadas diariamente, "Temos contratos com os maiores jornais populares britânicos e alemães, conhecidos pela criatividade e alcance das suas pesquisas nesta área. Não teremos problemas..."

The Saga of the Exiles

As I kid, I devoured books. From Arthur C. Clark to Thomas Hardy, from Ellery Queen to Alexander Solzhenitzyn. I worked my way through all the science fiction at our local library, and on to science fantasy.

Recently, my parents have been unloading my books, bringing them over for me to re-read. So instead of reading the books I received for Christmas, or the texts from my course, I've been ploughing through the four volumes of the Saga of the Exiles by Julian May, a superb story of time travel and psychic powers, written in a very readable style, not too convoluted in its plot, with credible use of technology and believable characters.

Following that came the two volumes of Mordant's Need, by Stephen Donaldson. Awful stuff. I know why I bought them - I remember their predecessors The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant as being very good. But these are rubbish! The main character is a woman who has doubts about her own existence, the "technology" is questionable and the literary style revolves around the correct use of punctuation in conversation - you know: speech with no closing commas continues in the next paragraph. But if the arguments are convoluted and the speech goes on for pages a a time, it's hopeless.

So now I'll get on with the more recent purchases - hopefully a more fruitful, inspiring read. In between, I may even blog more often, who knows...

Turn of the Century

Reading a recent newspaper about urban redevelopment, I found the writer referring to "Turn of the Century" housing and thought, "That's too recent to need redevelopment".

A few seconds later, it dawned on me: housing from c. 1900! It's dismaying to find myself in a different century to someone else, though I do it all the time too, often referring to things that happened five or six years ago as having been in 1991 or 1992.

I suppose it's just a sign of old age.

Banking Secrecy

Portuguese tax law states that all companies must have at least one bank account used exclusively for their business activity. This is to avoid the old habit of sole traders mixing up their personal and company money, usually with the result that all personal expenses are paid with company funds.

How can that be enforced? It's difficult. The latest underhand trick is that if you want to present any alteration to a company's tax status, it is now obligatory to fill in the "bank account for tax refund" section of the form. I have a problem with that. For the tax man to find out the number of a company's bank account, he has otherwise to ask a judge. Armed with that number, provided voluntarily by the tax payer, snooping is much easier. And let's dispel the myth that there is banking secrecy without a warrant.

What do I base this conspiracy theory on?

The tax office is now emailing tax payers, both companies and individuals, pressuring them to register the number of their bank account in order to receive any tax refunds that may be due. My email states that my bank account details are "unconfirmed", when I have been receiving my refunds for ten years, always by transfer to the same account. I know of a company that has a VAT exempt status, where the email states "unless you register your bank account, you will be unable to receive your VAT refunds".

Who are they trying to kid?

The tax authorities have been given excessive powers and insufficient resources to correct any mistakes made, which are frequent. This is just another example, so if you are an individual and receive the email, my advice is to forget it. If they don't have your bank details, they will send you a cheque.

Nothing Doing

José Sá Fernandes yesterday went to the Feira das Galinheiras to meet the voters and complain how, in six years of PSD administration in Lisbon, nothing has been done in the area. The press went with him, to report on the stagnation in Lumiar - it's a shame he was actually in Ameixoeira.

In fact, the Feira has suffered from the construction of the Eixo Norte-Sul roundabout - a State highway project - and most of its patrons are probably from Loures anyway. The Lisbon side of the Feira has seen all the shanty housing demolished and the residents re-housed to a housing project that won this year's INH prize. There is renovation everywhere.

So what the hell was he talking about? Maybe it's that he, the great "embargador" has been unable to find anything to criticise in the Alta de Lisboa area during his time in office. So it's just sour grapes. More likely, it's just political opportunism of the worst kind, as we've come to expect from the man who cost the City 4 million euros just to get his name in the papers. We can but hope that he doesn't get elected, as looks likely from the latest polls...

24 - 48 - 72

No film reviews recently, mostly from lack of time due to studying, but also because the films have been put on one side while I plough through the boxed sets of 24.

Three series down so far, all with their good and bad points. Series 3 started so badly, I almost gave up. In fact, the rest of the family did move on to series 4, leaving me suffering in their wake. The whole of Joaquim Almeida's involvement was contrived and wooden, and not just from him. To make up for that, the final episodes are as good as anything from the first series, and the fighter jets blowing up the escape helicopter is great TV, even if other parts of the same sequence do not tie in.

As ever, nothing is likely to be as good as series 1, when everyone was fresh and inspired.

Looking at it from a technical viewpoint, the behind-the-scenes footage shows how little action actually goes on. The director's vision and the film editor's work are what make the series. Just in appreciation of that work, I will soldier on to the end. Film reviews will have to wait a while longer.

What price a toothbrush?

At 10.30 p.m. last night when picking up an antibiotic prescription for my son from the local night pharmacy, the next in line was a pair of elderly ladies who had driven three miles from the next village to buy a toothbrush.

What was so urgent that they needed to go out, at that time of night, to a relatively insecure area that they did not know? Surely they could have survived with furry teeth for just one night, getting up and going to their local shop at 9 a.m. this morning.

As for the price - 6 euros! That's 4.50€ for the brush, including its protective cap(!) and 1.50€ night pharmacy fee. Daylight robbery, I thought. They could have gone to the local supermarket, which closes at 11 p.m., and bought a three-pack for that price, in relative security and closer to home.

There's nowt so weird as folk, as we used to say back home.