Normal service will be resumed on Monday

There'll be no bank robberies today – but only because the banks are closed for a holiday. Instead today is a feriado, a Bank holiday, in this case for the Catholic holiday of Assumption, when the Virgin Mary was transported into Heaven with her body and soul united. However, for many Portuguese it'll just be another long weekend and they'll be turning to their other great passion: killing each other on the roads.

Portuguese driving is notoriously bad, so much so that even French drivers have a good reputation. Since the holiday season started in the middle of July there have been over 2.000 accidents, 60 deaths and over 300 serious injuries. In the weekend of 1st August there were 16 deaths, and last weekend alone 20 people were killed in a 24h period.

For a London driver, rarely able to get above 30mph most of the time, this need for speed is baffling. Portuguese drivers, mainly in black or silver Seat's or in expensive Audi’s or Mercede’s, will rocket past our little Modus, sometimes forcing cars coming in the other direction to move to the side of the road. Often speeding drivers will be in commercial vehicles, easy to spot as all company vehicles are two seater's with a metal grill behind the front seats, or in company vans. Because the drivers don't own these cars, they'll drive like Tiago Monteiro around the Portuguese roads. In the Aveiro/Oiã area there are vehicles from two companies that we are always wary of: Würth (who co-incidentally sponsor Formula 1) and Centroauto. When we see these on the road we always get ready to move out of the way.

The GNR do what they can, of course. There is a road safety campaign operating at the moment, to get people to drive slower, and the TV news reports the statistics each day as they show images of crushed and mangled cars. The worst thing is to see images of the bombeiros hosing down big pools of blood on the road, but it hardly seems to have any effect.

Mind you, bad driving is not limited to the daytime. Since today is a holiday, last night the bars will have been full of people drinking and getting in the mood for their long weekend. After necking umpteen beers, or whiskies, they'll think nothing of getting in their car and driving home - or to a club. At night the police set up checkpoints and give people random breath tests. Over the holiday season they adopt a zero tolerance policy to drink-driving, in an attempt to demonstrate it's a stupid thing to do, but driving while intoxicated seems a difficult habit to break in Portugal.

So if you’re going away this weekend, take care on the roads, enjoy the beach, and bom fim-de-semana.

Technorati Tags: driving,portugal,holiday,feriado,assumption,bank,robbery,safey,roads,drink

Another day, another hold up

A day can't go by without mentioning a bank robbery in Portugal. After last weeks hostage situation, and yesterday's attempted robbery of a Millennium in Loures comes news of yet another bank hold-up in Lisbon.

This time, a branch of the Banco Popular was the target, when a 50 year-old man wearing a wig held up the staff with a gun. The man fled the bank on foot, and the police have yet to reveal how much was stolen.

This robbery comes on the same day that the Diário Económico reported that in the first SIX MONTHS of 2008 there has been a bank robbery, or an attempted robbery, once every 40 hours in Portugal, with a haul of approximately 439.000€.

Topping the list of banks targetted was Millennium bcp, with 15 robberies, followed by the Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD) with 13 and Montepio with 12. Santander, which was fourth on the list, with 8 robberies, actually lost the most money, with a total of 86.000€, while CGD lost 66.000€ the banks Funchal and BANIF lost 48.000€. Aside from the hostage situation last week, BES actually had the least number of branches robbed.

With aprroximately four robberies per week, the survey identified, unsurprisingly, that Lisbon was the city most at risk, followed by Porto in the north and Sétubal in the south. On average, the haul from each robbery was 4.400€.

One thief that won't be contributing to the figures for the rest of the year was Jaime Jímenez Arbe, 51, the robber known as ‘El solitário’, who was caught by police last week after robbing 26 banks.

The daily free sheet Destak compared the figures in Portugal with those in Brazil and the US. With a population of about 10million, if the numbers of robberies continue at their present rate, there will be 100 robberies by the end of the year. By contrast, with a population of 180million there were 529 robberies in 2007, and in the US over 10,000 robberies. On the other hand, Portugal can't compare with Baghdad, officially the bank robbery capital of the world, where approximately $1million a month is stolen.

While the police are chasing bank robbers, the funeral of Paulo Salazar, the 13 year-old killed in the foiled warehouse robbery on Monday, will take place tomorrow. Although family will be there, and no doubt a completment of GNR keeping an eye on the service, one person who won't be is the father of the boy, who hasn't been seen since being driven away from court yesterday. Odds are he won't turn up for his court date, either.

Marcas Technorati: robbery,bank,portugal,milllennium,banco popular,lisbon,porto sétubal,record

Justice, the Portuguese way

Remember the story about the thieves who broke into a warehouse and when they were confronted by the police a 13 year-old boy was killed? Well this one is just going to run and run… literally.

OK, let's summarise: We have two criminals, caught red-handed on Monday evening in the act of stealing from a warehouse by the police, In the altercation that follows, a 13 year-old boy, the son of one of the men that they took along with them, is killed. They went to court in Loures yesterday (which coincidentally, recently lost its ATM from the courthouse lobby in a robbery) and are freed on bail. All they have to do is report on a weekly basis to the police until their trial.

Now it turns out that the father of the boy, Paulo Salazar, presented a false ID and address to the police when they were caught, and that in February 2007 he had previously escaped from prison, which the judge wasn't aware of when they were released. As they were driven away from the courthouse by a relative, in a very expensive looking Mercedes, Portuguese TV were reporting that the father was a fugitive. That was the last anyone has seen of him, and the police are now on the hunt. The father, Sandro Salazar, was in prison for his part in an armed robbery in the Algarve.

In the meantime, the family of the boy who was killed has accused the police of racism - they were ciganos (gypsies) and of having a ‘shoot to kill’ policy. The fact that they were ciganos has left the family with little sympathy in Portugal. While there is sadness that a 13 year-old was killed, many people have condemned the family for taking the boy along on a criminal act in the first place. One cruel comment in the daily newspaper Correio da Manhã was that it was one less cigano that will commit crimes in the future.

In the meantime, while the Portuguese news were reporting the latest developments in this case, there was another bank robbery in Loures. A Millennium BCP bank was the target this time. The robbers burst into the bank and robbed the staff and customers of their possessions. Of the four robbers, three were caught, with a total of around 3.000€ on them. One unlucky customer was in the process of depositing a cheque for 2.000€, which is presently being held by the police. The fourth robber escaped in a Honda Civic, and is presently being hunted.

This sudden surge in robberies seems to be a part of the increasing effects of the crisis presently affecting the country. Earlier in the year, a business owner attempted to rob a bank to pay his debts, the number of carjackings increased 55% in the first six months of 2008, and robberies of ATM's were reported once every other day (this is robberies OF cash machines, not FROM cash machines.)

Technorati Tags: justice,portugal,Loures,cigano,warehouse,ID

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.

Technorati Tags: Ronaldo,Beckham,Portugal,tanning,sun,beach,obsession,rain

Scolari accusations of fraud

When he was manager of the national team, Luis Filipe Scolari was hailed as a national hero, taking Portugal to the final of Euro 2004, the semi finals of the World Cup in 2006, and of course to the quarter finals of Euro 2008.

But once he announced that he was leaving to manage Chelsea, citing money as one of the reasons, then the accusations begin.

Unsurprisingly the Portuguese FA came out and accused him and Chelsea of upsetting the team after the match with the Czech Republic, causing them to lose against Switzerland. This was despite Portugal having got through the group stages, and the team against Switzerland being woefully under strength.

Now a Lisbon paper, Sol, has accused Scolari of salting away funds received from a business venture in 2006 in an offshore account, and not declaring income to the Financas (the Portuguese Inland Revenue). As a part of a long-running national fraud investigation, Operação Furacão, the Departamento Central de Investigação e Acção Penal (DCIAP) are investigating. All Scolari has said is that he has fulfilled his obligations towards the Financas, and nothing illegal or fraudulent has taken place. No details of the amounts are available.

Whether this will cast a shadow over his deal with Chelsea is not known, this sounds more like a small circulation newspaper digging around for dirt now that Scolari has announced his departure. I can't imagine this ever having been reported if Scolari had not announced his intention to leave. I also found it ironic that it was a paper called the Sun that started this story.

Exclusive! - New Portugal Coach Spotted

Following the defeat of Portugal on Sunday, and the impending departure of Scolari at the end of Euro 2004 (or if Portugal are defeated by Germany on Thursday, whichever comes first), the Federação Portuguesa de Futebol (FPF) has wasted little time in searching for a successor.

In an exclusive, for the first time anywhere, we can reveal the new Portuguese coach. Spotted in Lisbon after the match against the Czech Republic, probably following a meeting with the FPF, the new coach was seen scouting out potential players.

Don't forget, you saw it here first...

The Sound of Silence

After several glorious days, weather-wise, last week, the omens were not good. It was a cloudy day here in Aveiro, with a light rain from time to time, and after the euphoria of the week everyone seemed a little jaded.

There was excitement about the match, of course, Portugal was through but Switzerland had failed to win a game, so it looked like a slam dunk (to mix sports metaphors). However, when the team came out there was a collective, 'huh?' What was Scolari up to, where was Ronaldo, or Simão, or any of his good players? OK, he's resting them, and besides it's only Switzerland.

Ninety minutes later, there was a stunned silence from the Portuguese fans, in fact after that ludicrous penalty we couldn't bear to watch any more. During the game, we were watching through our fingers, it was car-crash television, like watching Steve Carell at his most embarassing in The Office. At half-time, when the players came back onto the pitch, there was a shot of a clearly embarrassed Ronaldo waving to the crowd. Great, we thought, they're going to substitute their better players, but no.

With over 30 yellow cards, by the end of the game practically everyone had been carded apart from the goalies. The refereeing was appalling, each time a player fell, or dived, out came the yellow card. There were cards for dissent, cards for running in a funny way. The penalty was given for such a blatant dive, we wondered at first who was getting the card, and the Swiss players were congratulating each other on such a smart move. We were asking what on earth Scolari was up to. Even when Portugal was 1-0 down there was time to put in Ronaldo or Nuno Gomes, or any of his first team players. But no, he carried on playing a weak team, saving his better players for the quarter final match against the runners up of group B, whoever that is (probably Germany). It was like watching Switzerland play Beira Mar, or Sporting, the Portuguese team were so outclassed. The referee didn't help.

In the post-match press conference, Scolari apparently took on all of the responsibility himself. We were thinking that he was concentrating on all of the lolly he'd be making at Chelsea, but if I was Abramovich, I'd be wondering what the hell was going on.

Unlike the previous games, especially after the game with the Czech Republic, when the team guaranteed their place in the next round, there were no celebrations, no dancing in the streets or car horns blaring. There were just sullen people going home through the drizzling rain. Sad and alone.

Apparently that was not the only upset of the evening, as in a surprising twist Turkey beat the Czech Republic 3-2. So it looks like Turkey will be going through to the quarter finals instead of the Czechs. With a mistake from Cech costing them the game, it was not a good day for Chelsea.

Marcas Technorati: Euro 2008,football,Scolari,Portugal,Switzerland,losing,Ronaldo,Aveiro,penalty,soccer