Political Theatre

Tuesday's "debate" on the 2008 State budget was a fine piece of theatre. José Sócrates did a fine job of making a lot of noise about very little. Santana Lopes embarrassed himself with a poor reply. Jerónimo de Sousa, Paulo Portas and Francisco Louçã presented their pre-prepared insults in a predictable fashion, which is to say that the first was boring and the others clever.

In fact, I thought PP's reference to "Canal Memória" and FL's request for a refund on his ticket to the show were rather good. Shame that old Santana Lopes couldn't find anything inspired to say.

And so the democracy show rolls on with the Government coming out unscathed, as usual. Yawn...

False Friends

For those of you who have never learned a foreign language, false friends are those words that two languages have in common, but do not have the same meaning in each language. There are many of these, leading to confusion and embarrassment. For English/Portuguese there is a big list of them here.

After 17 years I Portugal, I was caught out by one this week: Commitment is simultaneously empenho (adjective) and compromisso (noun). I referred to my young, ambitious colleagues as comprometidos. Oops. Everybody understood that I meant committed, but it came out as compromised! Actually, I have got compromised colleagues, but they are not the ones I was referring to...

Back to school I guess.

Journalists' Rights Day

Apparently today is Journalists' Rights Day. Now I'm all for "rights" in general, but this is a profession that, in my limited experience, doesn't make good use of the rights that they have.

Take UK journalism. The best way to sell newspapers, apparently, is to make up scandals. Any journalist who fabricates a story just to create sensation, or sets a trap for a celebrity, loses his entitlement to any rights.

Then we have the blatently biased reporters, both in the UK and in Portugal. They record interviews when they have already defined their personal objectives for the resulting article. That's hardly the best way to ensure that their rights are respected.

As for the journalists who write and present articles that they have no technical competence for..... Need I continue?

Admittedly, journalists rights are threatened in many countries, even in Portugal from time to time (particularly in Madeira), but perhaps the journalists should reflect more on the way those rights are wielded.

Gridlock

Well thank you very much Mr Putin. I enjoyed reading the whole of Global while sitting in the queue for the bridge this morning.

Actually, as far as I can tell, it wasn't his fault! How does the Portuguese police cordon off a motorway? Block it where the slip road meets the highway, of course. So cars queue back down the slip road, and block everyone else behind.

Of course, it would be more efficient to block from the start of all roads leading to the motorway, obliging drivers to choose other routes while they still had a choice, but that would require more manpower. So f**k the economic considerations, let the drivers wait!

Salão Imobiliário de Lisboa

I went to the opening day of the Lisbon Real Estate Fair yesterday. As usual, a mixture of good and awful exhibitors and stands, with some very interesting development on display. In the interesting category I would include (in alphabetical order):















http://www.troiaresort.pt

Out of Time

Thins I haven't had time to blog about recently:

• Police concert - great, thanks Barclays
• Sócrates afraid of what - criticism so it appears, and doesn't care about civil rights
• Chief public prosecutor - another prominent figure who can't keep his mouth shut when he should
• Power cut - difficult to blog when the power is out. Good job Portugal is no longer a 3rd world country!
• Jardim Gonçalves - tough break, but what's 15 million to him?

What I've been up to:

• work
• more work
• photography
• did I mention I've been busy at work?

More later, perhaps...

Mordida de Cherne

Durão Barroso on the prospect of meeting Robert Mugabe at a summit that Gordon Brown is planning to boycott:

"Very often we have to sit in international meetings with people my mother would not like me to sit with."

Take that!

Slow Food

There are only two possible reasons for me continuing to frequent the McDonald's at Seixal service area - I'm more charitable than I would appear to the readers of this blog, or I'm an idiot.

The service is chronically slow, the prices higher than normal, the staff disinterested and often not all products are available. But still I stopped there today, thinking that we could save five minutes over going into Rio Sul shopping centre for the same meal. Wrong!

There were no burgers ready and the "Too Bacon" special was not available. As for the "Too Cheese", avoid it at all costs. For me it was "Too (much) Mayonnaise" - yuck.

So if you're on the A2, looking for a quick lunch, get off at Fogueteiro and go to Rio Sul, for better service and a wider choice.

CD of the Month (6)

Well it's four months since the last CD plug, and I think this disc has been in the car all that time.

Music Box is the classic Mariah Carey album, from the young and innocent days before the marriage, implants, ventures into rap and experiments in screeching rather than singing. The best part is there are no tracks that make you want to hit the skip button. It also includes a cover of the classic track "Without You".

Green Governance, or just Hot Air?

José Sócrates proudly proclaimed to the press last week that Portugal will surpass its objectives under the Kyoto agreement - reducing carbon emissions more than planned. So the Government can be praised for having a green country and taking initiatives such as obliging builders to incorporate energy-saving measures into all new buildings.

What he doesn't publicise is the tax administration's response to that change in the building code: the existence of these energy-saving measures has been added as another coefficient that increases the tax valuation of your house, used to define how much is paid annually in municipal property tax and sewage charges! Surely they should use the opposite approach and reduce the value of houses without such features. Add to this ridiculous measure the pitiful tax incentives given for individuals to install such measures and we can only conclude that the Government is only paying lip service to green measures.

As for beating the Kyoto objectives, we have to presume that they were under-ambitious if the Government can get away with this.