Today is 31 July, which means it is the International day of the Orgasm.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The 50€ laptop is here
In Lisbon today at noon, in the presence of the prime minister, local officials, and representatives of Intel, the first 50€ laptop will be launched. News was leaked yesterday, by local officials and the government, who promised to order 500,000 units for all primary schoolchildren starting in September, at the heavily subsidised price of 50€.
For the Portuguese government, this cannot come to soon. The country has been in the grip of an economic crisis for the best part of a year now, with no apparent end in sight, and despite everything they have done, and to be fair they have been as much of the cause of the crisis as the solution, the creation of 1.000 new jobs in Matosinhos, near Lisbon, can only be good news.
The new computer, called Magellan (Magalhães), is intended to be the flagship of Intel's Classmate PC. Originally, Intel was a part of the One Laptop Per Child programme, which aimed to create low-cost PC's for education in third world countries, but disagreements at the start of the year meant they went their own way, and developed the Classmate PC.
In brief, the Magellan is a small laptop with a 7-inch TFT screen and no hard disk. It contains a 900MHz Celeron M CPU, with 256MB of RAM and runs Microsoft Windows XP Embedded Version 2002, with Service Pack 2. To give additional memory, the computer contains a 1Gb flash memory drive, but also has two USB ports, one for additional memory, and one for a wifi adaptor. It also has an ethernet connection and headphone sockets. For a full review see here.
The Portuguese government has been supporting new technology in schools as a part of it's e-schools programme (“e.escola”), which has subsidised laptops to students (discounting the VAT) and a deal for schoolchildren where they could buy a laptop for 150€ plus a monthly 15€ fee for wi-fi internet access. This deal, to provide the Magalhães to all primary school children, is part of a new programme called “e.escolinha", or little e-schools.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Friday, July 25, 2008
On Ronaldo and being Portuguese
The weather has taken a turn for the worse today. Last night the clouds came in and when we woke up there was rain falling. The high temperatures and orange alert in the north have given way to sub-20º temperatures and accidents on the roads. When a little snow falls in London, the whole capital grinds to a halt. When a little rain falls in Portugal, the drivers keep driving as if the sun was out and end up slipping and sliding all over the place.
Portuguese believe that it is their right to be tanned. When the sun comes out, the first destination of any Portuguese is the beach. At weekends, cities are deserted, the lines of traffic snaking toward the seaside are never ending and the beaches heave with people looking for a space they can erect their umbrella. Getting to the beach, to achieve that perfect shade of mahogany, becomes an obsession.
So it was interesting to see an article on the Daily Mail website ("Becks vs Ronaldo: Who is the biggest metrosexual of them all?") comparing the attention that Beckham and Ronaldo pay to their grooming, with an earlier article saying Ronaldo
has spent so much time on sun loungers and by the pool that he could almost be mistaken for the Cuprinol man from the television adverts for the wood preservative... The £100,000-a-week star, who is recuperating from ankle surgery to cure a long-term injury, passed the healthy looking bronze stage some time ago, but is still soaking up the rays on a daily basis."
Well sorry guys, but Ronaldo is Portuguese, and like him, if you spend the bulk of the year in rain-swept and sun-free Manchester, you'll take every opportunity to get a tan. Portuguese will lie in the sun until they can't tan any longer, and then they will lie in the sun some more, mocking us poor English for our factor 15 protection while they lather themselves in factor 2, or olive oil as I prefer to call it.
Today the weather in Portugal is a little dull, everyone in the north of the country is looking towards the sky for the clouds to clear. As soon as they do, the beaches will be filled again, the bars on the beach will be happy, and normal service will be resumed. A Portuguese without a tan is not a Portuguese.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Tensions remain high in Quinta da Fonte
Following the disturbances in Lisbon last week, in which shots were fired between the gypsy and immigrant black communities, tensions have remained high, despite the Câmara Municipal and the Police advising people that they should be going home.
In the days following the shootings, which was caused by a dispute between two rival groups, the Police saturated the area, and made a few arrests. Four of the arrests were made at the Câmara Municipal in Loures, where some of the gypsies have been congregating, when police found four guns in the camping gypsies.
According to reports yesterday, more gypsies are going to the area from all over the country, presumably in support of the residents of Quinta da Fonte. This will not please the local Câmara or the Police, as they will be anticipating an increase in tension just at the time they are trying to defuse it.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Há Caracóis (We have Snails)
Cleaning the car this morning (it was becoming a disgusting shade of yellow rather than it's usual white) we spotted on the neighbour's wall hundreds of little black dots. Amazed, these were hundreds upon hundreds of caracóis, snails: on the wall, on the plants, everywhere.
Like in France, and I believe in Spain, caracóis are a Portuguese delicacy, and are eaten by the plate-load, in café's and restaurants across the country. Outside the shop, there will be a poorly printed, or hand-written sign "Há Caracóis," "we have snails" (or more precisely, "there are snails"). Now these aren't the beautiful, hand-reared, French snails, cooked in a beautiful garlic butter and served with a fine wine, but small wild snails, soaked in salt water, boiled and eaten either with a beer, or with the poorest glass of 50c wine that is available.
Personally, I can do without them, they are far too bland, and if not prepared properly contain 'coco', which is basically a mixture of snail crap and earth inside the shell. As you can probably guess, when first eating these, I also ate the coco, which is a bit lumpy and hard, and not very nice. So my opinion is biased.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Chris Martin kept out of his own party
Portuguese news is a little slow sometimes. They reported this morning that Chris Martin, the Coldplay front-man, was refused entry to a party by security at a Beverley Hills hotel because his name was not on the guest list.
This happened last week before their pre-show party in Los Angeles. Martin was left sitting dejectedly in the foyer while his friends tried to persuade security to let him in. This is not the first time this has happened, last year he was refused entry to the New York screening of his wife Gwyneth Paltrow's movie, "The Good Night", when he tried to sneak past the crowd waiting on the red carpet.
While we were relaxing on Meco Beach
We took an unexpected, but very welcome, few days off to clear our brains of all of the stuff that had been clogging our minds since the end of March. While we were lying on the beach, the world continued around us as normal:
- In Lisbon, there were gunfights on the streets of Quinta da Fonte, between the gypsy community and the black community. Sparked by an event the previous evening, gypsies (ciganos) and the immigrant black community too to the streets, shooting at each other. The police were swiftly on the scene, although the main perpetrators escaped. The cigaanos started to leave the area, apparently in fear of their lives, and have been camping outside the town hall ever since, refusing to go back.
Not content with cutting flights because of increasing fuel costs, TAP, the Portuguese national airline, are now multitasking their cabin staff.
- When a TAP flight between Guinea Bissau and Lisbon experienced engine problems, the pilot wasted no time in rolling up his shirt sleeves and climbing onto the engine to fix the problem. Watched by admiring ground crews, the unidentified pilot fixed the engine starter, before taking off for Lisbon, only four hours late. The representative of the air mechanics union, the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores de Aviação e Aeroporto (SITAVA), was not surprised, “the pilot’s are equipped to do many things that don’t put the plane at risk… sometimes if they don’t have a screwdriver, they just use a 5c piece.”
- As you heard here first (probably), Carlos Queirros agreed to manage the Portuguese national team until 2012 for an annual salary of €1,5 million. Queirros was the first and, according to the FPF, the only candidate to replace Luis Felipe Scolari.
- In a country which is becoming increasingly polarised in terms of who has money and who doesn’t, criminals have been stealing ATM machines from outside shopping centres and banks. In Loures, an ATM machine was stolen from the lobby of the city courthouse. Apparently the security cameras weren’t working, leaving the criminals with a clean getaway.
- Farmers were protesting about the high price of fuel, while at the same time the taxi drivers were increasing their fares because of… the high price of fuel. Convoys of tractors poured through Lisbon causing traffic mayhem, and ironically giving the taxi drivers an entra bonus as they and their fares sat in traffic jams with the meter running.
- The iPhone went on sale in Portugal, amid much fanfare in Lisbon. Celebrities and new adopters all turned out at the Vodafone store to be the first to get their hands on one. While prices have been falling all over Europe, the prices in Portugal were pretty steep. Pre-paid iPhone’s were available for 499,90€ and 599,90€, for the 8Gb and 16Gb versions, respectively. Monthly payment options, including 500 free minutes and texts, were also available starting at 65€ for the price plan and 125€ for the iPhone.
However, bearing in mind that the average monthly salary in Portugal is 800€, and most people are paid little above the minimum wage of 426€, take up of such an expensive item may be limited. Already prices across Europe are coming down, and although mobile phone companies in Portugal are notoriously greedy, it surely won’t be too long before they follow. My suggestion is to hold out for a couple of months.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
El Camino del Rey
Have you ever had one of those bad dreams, where you are climbing up stairs, and there are bits missing and it's really unsafe, but you have to keep on climbing..?
Well here is that dream. Be afraid, and if you suffer from vertigo, hold onto something solid...
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Is waterboarding torture? Ask Christopher Hitchens
I don't often get too serious on this blog, it's aimed at being a bit of fun, a bit informative, football news during Euro 2008, that sort of thing, but sometimes you just have to make a comment.
While I can't always agree with what Christopher Hitchens says, he is an opponent of the war in Iraq. He has always believed, however, that the US forces don't stoop to torture, but use "extreme interrogation". His critics thus argued that he thought waterboarding, which the US military are known to use, and which GW Bush has denied is torture, falls under extreme interrogation, and the editor of Vanity Fair challenged Hitchens to try waterboarding, to see if it felt like torture. Amazingly Hitchens agreed, and published an article in this month's Vanity Fair.
What gives this article, and Hitchens, some kudos in my eyes, though, is that he actually submits himself to waterboarding. I am not sure that I would do the same. No let me rephrase that, there is no way I would do the same. They produced a video of his experience, which is presented below. Please don't watch this if you are sensitive..
He compares arguments for and against whether the US should be using the technique, and compares waterboarding to foreplay, stating that 'a man who has been waterboarded may well emerge from the experience a bit shaky, but he is ...unmarked and undamaged and indeed ready for another bout in quite a short time.' His position is simply that because a group like Al Queda would use waterboarding against their enemies is reason enough for the US to use it as well. Is that an argument in favour, I'm not sure that it is. He reports that after his experience, he has 'woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia.'
Queirós to leave Manchester United?
According to the Portuguese sports daily A Bola, and reported on the Portuguese TV news earlier, the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol, the equivalent of the FA, is in talks with Carlos Queirós to take over from Scolari. Quierós is reported to have left Lisbon yesterday, although the Guardian reported that Gilberto Madaíl, the head of the FPF, flew into Manchester, without having made any decisions.
Surely this would not please Alex Ferguson, who is facing increasing pressure to convince Ronaldo stay at United, and will be facing Scolari in the dugout from next
season. A Bola reported that the deal could be worth €1,1million to Queirós, not a deal to be dismissed lightly.
So the question arises, could United see the departure of their star striker AND their number two coach?
Technorati Tags: Carol Queirós,Alex Furgeson,Manchester United,Portugal,National,Team,Ronaldo,Football,FPF
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