Another iconic 80's album to show my age, Avalon by Roxy Music is classic pop with a soulful edge that many others tried to imitate.
While Brian Ferry's posing makes me cringe, his music is simply sublime, so here's the title track as my mp3 of the month...
To have staff who are contactable 24/7, to give your company the cutting edge - any top manager's dream. Can't see it myself.
The Jornal de Negócios today stated that the Government has announced that single-parent families will get 20% more family allowance, as an incentive to increase the birth rate.
I was somewhat puzzled by this. Are they implying that women will have more children and then split up with the father in order to get more cash from the State? Doesn't that bring social problems that will weigh on the State budget? Or are they proposing Michael Jackson type surrogate mother arrangements to encourage single fathers?
Somebody's done their sums wrong, it would appear...
Even though the new Lisbon airport will now be built in Alcochete, the "Otários" (fools) are still fighting their corner. Last week they came up with the idea that the Ota region must now be considered disadvantaged and thus requires government investment to make up for the airport not being built there! Logically, this investment should be added to the cost of building the airport in Alcochete. Will that still be a better solution in this case?
Not surprisingly, the Government agreed to consider this request. Don't forget who are the major landowners in Ota, who would be expected to show their gratitude for receipt of such investment. And the poor little property speculators, taxi license sharks and City Council employees who stand to lose from not having an airport on their doorstep.
So let's subsidise them all. It's clearly an important area, more so than the deserted regions of the interior, for example. Or maybe the Government could take another difficult budgetary decision, and not throw public funds to speculators and sycophants.
As one of the pedants who greatly enjoyed Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the ultimate English grammar book, I am often distressed by incorrect use of English in song lyrics, in particular when the correct words would have fitted perfectly well with the music and the rhyme.
Of course, even Queen abused the language when they felt like it, but the other day I came across a great, easy-listening song where virtually every line is incorrect. The song is "If I Was a River" by Tina Arena; its very title makes me cringe!
Let's see: a phrase expressing doubt requires the conditional tense, as far as I remember. So it should be "If I Were a River". How would that leave the song? Sounds OK to me. I tried it out on my 9 year-old son, translating it into Portuguese: "Se eu fui um rio". He corrected me immediately: "Se eu fosse"! So what is it with these people? I guess the options are:
Richard Branson's stunt of flying a Boeing 747 from London to Amsterdam using 20% bioethanol seems to me to be heading in the wrong direction. For a start, why take such a huge, heavy, gas-guzzling plane on such a short hop? Unless of course it was fully laden.
Then there is the collateral effect of large scale bioethanol production - grain prices have gone through the roof. So the (roughly) 100% of the world's population that needs to eat, is being screwed by the eco-friendly posturing of the 2% (my guess) of the population that "needs" to fly. If flight were to be made significantly more expensive, its carbon footprint would be reduced by having fewer planes in the air.
Given that the fliers are generally well off people, shouldn't we be thinking of a fuel surcharge whereby they subsidise the people that the World Food Program doesn't have funds to feed, increasingly the middle classes in developing countries, due to the huge rises in basic food prices? Along the same lines of reasoning, we could extend that charge to the hedge funds and commodity traders that are reaping huge profits buying stakes in foodstuffs when they have no intention of taking delivery. I'm not usually in favour of intervention in markets, but something needs to be done.
I've been meaning to do this one for ages, but today I was more annoyed than usual:
The Corrs are one of my great favourites, despite being relatively recent. I saw them at the Pavilhão Atlântico last year, with my older son - a great concert!
Their Unplugged album shows them at their best as spontaneous, talented musicians, though with a huge backing orchestra, and reveals cover versions of some unexpected tracks, such as Everybody Hurts.
This should be the title to an Al Gore type educational movie, starring Billy Crystal as the conservationist and perhaps Michael Caine as the big bad polluter. Actually it's only the heading for my own personal attempt to encourage readers to recycle.
In Portugal, recycling is optional and not easy unless you live in a built-up area. We have recycled glass for years, because we don't use much, it's easy to store, doesn't smell and is 100% permanent, no decomposition at all over time. But it wasn't until we found the right size of boxes at Ikea that we finally got round to recycling paper and packaging.
It's been quite a surprise. Our "general rubbish" volume has fallen 70%! We now have to take the recycling bags with us when we go out, as the nearest recycling point is at driving distance, and the volume going to the landfill is almost none. But that's no big deal. So if you don't recycle yet, WHY THE HELL NOT!!!
(Nothing worse than a born-again recycler, eh... )
Today was Dad's 66th birthday - congratulations.
Younger son learned to ride a bicycle - that's important for a young un!
Nothing earth-shattering to write about, good night...
