Pistorius

It's an embarrassingly long time since I've written anything here but I'm breaking silence to report that we watched the Oscar Pistorius bail decision on the telly box today:-

It reminded me a lot of watching the Egyptian election result.

You're probably wondering why I made that connection. It's because SKY telly breathlessly announces that they'll be carrying it live at 11:30 GMT. At 11:29:47 GMT, you need a pee but think "I'll not go just now, don't want to miss the result". And at 12.29.47 GMT, with your bladder the size of a basketball (and television executives frantically rearranging their schedules), some beak is STILL droning on. The Pistorius judge managed to trace the history of bail back to 7th century England (not kidding) while the Egyptian election commission bloke dutifully narrated each recount demand ("in Thebes Central, there were there three spoilt papers ...").

Even worse, around 13.12 GMT, when you're at the point of serious genito-urinary damage, the beak says "Taking all of this into consideration, I have come to the conclusion that ..." and it's a damp squib like "there are no grounds for a recount in Sharm-el-Sheikh North" or "I am entitled to draw the inference that I may proceed to consider the accused's arguments on Schedule 6 which I will now express my views on ..."

As far as elections are concerned, I recommend the Egyptians follow Britain's lead in by-elections. Thus, you have a TV anchor-man, Mohammed el-Dimbleby, saying "I'm sorry Professor el-Pundit, I'm going to have to interrupt you there because we can go live now to the Tahrir Centre for the declaration ..." [takes off glasses and looks down at monitor]

[cuts live to the Tahrir Centre where some middle management official uncomfortable in the limelight stumbles through the following set-piece speech]

"... as the duly constituted returning officer for the Republic of Egypt, do hereby declare the number of votes cast for the candidates to be as follows:-

- Morsi, Mohammed (Muslim Brotherhood) - 20,000,001 votes
- bin Laden Moi?, Osama (Raving Muslim Loony Party) - 50 votes
- Hopeless, Gillian (Liberal Democrat) - 700 votes
- Beardy Bloke, Some (Egypt Out of Arab League Party) - 701 votes
- Bloke, Other (Backed by Army for Mubarak Era Business as Usual Party) - 20,000,000 votes ...

It then cuts back to the studio where Mohammed el-Dimbleby says "Quick reaction Professor el-Pundit?" which is "Lib-Dems beaten to fourth place by EGOALP - shocking!" Whereupon, el-Dimbleby smiles beatifically to camera and says "And that's about all we've got time for, next its Sue el Barker with Question of Sport. Good night!"

And as far as the South African justice system is concerned, I'd recommend they take a leaf out of 70s British TV series "Crown Court".

Is that the bloke that was in the series about an airline during the Berlin Airlift?

Remember that? It was on at lunchtime so I only ever got to see it at school holidays. The format was that the case was fictional but the jurors were members of the public. The trial ran for half an hour Monday to Friday and at the commercial break on the Friday, the stagey voice said "Join us after the break for the verdict - in the Crown Court!" That way, you had time to go for a slash and knew for certain that you'd get the result within about 13-14 minutes thereafter at most. British justice at its best!

Back to Pistorius, I'm not sure what he's guilty of but one thing I am certain about is that Warrant Officer Hilton Botha should have a TV series. You can't make him up - how could someone so royally screw up an investigation? And be under investigation himself? Makes Luther (Idris Elba - Stringer Bell in "the Wire") look like positively benign by comparison.

Still, Botha is positively magisterial compared to clown of the week, US Vice President John Biden. Did he really urge people to go out and buy a shotgun as part of a gun control campaign or was that some elaborate spoof?

The skin is white, the language is English but they're just not the same as us, the yanks, are they?

Election fever look-alike

It's election time in the Azores again.

Already? I hear you ask. Yes, and not a moment too soon because the pen I got from the orange T-shirt lot the last time round has just run out so the pen deposited in our mail box this afternoon by the turquoise pen lot (above) could not have been more timely.

I don't normally like fat chunky type pens like that with the rubbery bit to get hold of [as the actress so memorably observed to the bishop]. I can't see past a plain Bic myself, the transparent ones, not the yellow ones. But what the turquoise pen lot's pen lacks on the tactile front, it gains on the quality of writing front:-

Not at all bad. But the key test will be whether the nib will be able to sustain that quality in the longer term - that's to say until the ink is about 75% used up (which is when Bics begin to go off the boil)?  Cheap pens have a habit of going a splotchy after a disappointingly short period and showing one up for being a jotter-blotter - a most unwelcome state of affairs.

But let us not prejudge and, anyway, that's not what I was going to write about. Which was that surely I can't be the first person to have been struck by the uncanny resemblance between the turquoise pen lot's Flores candidates Paulo Rosa and some other bloke - let's zoom in below:-

other bloke                                       Rosa

 and TV gangster Tony Soprano's nephew Christopher Moltisanti and veteran British left wing politician, Tam Dalyell:-

Dalyell                                                      Moltisanti

But when I looked inside the brochure of which the scan at the top is the front cover, I was equally taken aback to find a row of pictures of people many of whom I know:-

I suppose this goes with the territory of living on an island of fewer than 4,000 people but Anselmo's the boy with the high-viz "knock me doon jacket" who wheels the steps out to the plane at the airport; Catarina works at Bragas' supermarket (gets my vote because she cuts the leaves off the cauliflower before weighing it); Tiago is our computer whiz-kid (came to the house for negligible call out charge when our modem decided not to play ball); and Stella's mother in law lives across the road from us. I think the way it works is that, if the turquoise pen lot get voted in, then only the first two or three of them get to go to the Azorean parliament but if one of them demits, then you don't have to have a by-election because you've got all the rest of them pre-elected and ready to step up, as it were.

Under the row of photos, it says "O Que Queremos Para As Flores" which is "What we want for Flores". I won't bother to translate all of these but among them is the airport lights issue I alluded to in my previous post  -  I'm not sure if the fact it's third from the bottom on the right hand side is indicative of the priority the turquoise pen lot give to this issue.

I went down to the turquoise pen lot's sessão de esclarcimento (public meeting) this evening. When I got into the hall, Chris Moltisanti was speaking to an audience of about 20 people in that Fidel Castro way latin politicians have of not pausing for breath and with no notes: they don't do soundbites in this country. When at last he wound up and asked for questions, there was a cringingly awkward silence - a cough, a child cries. I was just drawing breath to say "I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse my very bad Portuguese but could you explain why there's enough money to put street lights up along the Avenida Marginal but not enough for the airport lights? Oh and - sorry to interrupt you - there's not much point in having airport lights unless SATA establish a schedule whereby, at least once a week, the plane arrives late at night, stays over and departs early the next morning and comes back again late the same day so as to permit the possibility of a day trip to Lisbon for a medical appointment etc. I've heard it's because the SATA crews refuse to spend the night away from home on Flores, is that true ...?"

Fortunately for Chris, he was spared that (unintelligible) rant as someone else broke the silence with another question although I didn't catch what it was. And by the time he'd answered it, I had to get back up for tea anyway.

    

Avenida Marginal

The Avenida Marginal along the sea front at Faja Grande is now more or less finished and contrary to earlier misgivings that big concrete retaining wall along the seaward side has been very skillfully faced in freestone and is undoubtedly a work of art:-

I do have one small problem with the Avenida Marginal, however. Up at Faja Grande's village square, there are half a dozen little lights on bollards.

They used to light up the square causing a pleasant glow under the trees on a warm summer's evening with the cicadas chirping as the old gents of the village gather on that bench to pass the time (I was going to attempt the Portuguese velhote there but thought better of it as I'm not sure if that word connotes "nice, wise older person, salt of the earth" or "tiresome old fart who's a thoroughgoing pain in the arse")

But I digress, where was I? Oh yes, unfortunately the mood lighting in the square has been switched off for as long as I can remember now. A sticker on each of the lights explains why:-

For anyone who doesn't read Portuguese, that says "Lighting switched off under the energy saving programme".

But what have they just stuck up along the new Avenida Marginal?

Un-fucking-pardon-my french-believeable!

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not some kind of namby-pampy, wishy-washy, hoity-toity, lah-di-dah, middle class, tree-hugging, greeny-weeny, lefty, liberal tree hugger. Far from it - we run our washing machine and dryer during the day at premium electricity rates and pay the fellows and damn their impudence.

And I've always felt it's not my place as an incomer to this island to march in and start lecturing the locals how to run the place. But come on, Camara Municipal das Lajes das Flores - 45 new lamp-posts along a road that's a dead end and has only one house along it? You're having a laugh!

What kind of message does this send to the world about the Azores' commitment to the environment? The island of Flores is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, for Christ's sake.

Apart from general issues about the energy consumption of all these useless street lights, there's a purely local issue as well - cagarros. These are Cory's Shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea), a sea bird which breeds in burrows on the cliffs of Flores.

Photo credit - duffbirder

Every October, the young birds leap off the cliffs to fly out to sea for the first time. Except some get distracted by the street lights and land in the village. Unlike most birds, they can't take off again from a standing start so will die unless rescued and taken down to the shore where they can take a run at the sea to get airborne. We used to get a few in our garden every year until we learnt to put our outside lights off at this time of year. The picture below is of a juvenile cagarro, the first time we got one in our garden:-

We took that one down to the shore and it flew off out to sea just the thing - very satisfying.

Below is pic of a clutch of juvenile cagarros which ended up in an empty swimming pool as a result of the same syndrome of being distracted by lights from flying out to sea.

I don't know if the owner of that swimming pool was planning to release them or make a pot of soup but the point is, what have the Camara just constructed along the seafront of Faja Grande but a great big illuminated landing strip for cagarros? And the irony is that, every year, there's a "Save the Cagarros" campaign with flyers handed out telling you to switch off your outside lights etc. ...

Of course, I know the Avenida Marginal is being paid for by EU grant schemes. And I realise that this funding is helping keep people of Flores in work building it in troubled times for Portugal. But my point is, is this European assistance being targetted properly? Is it, dare I say "sustainable"?

If the EU wants to pay for a night-time landing strip, then could it not perhaps pay to upgrade the lights at Flores Airport? I understand that this is the issue which prevents SATA's planes from landing here after dark and thus permitting the chance of getting to or from Lisbon in a day.

It is not at all my style to whinge. Especially not in an adopted country. But I do pay taxes here in Portugal and I simply cannot bear to see money being wasted. If we're going to pay people to dig holes and fill them up again, could we not pay them to do it in the right places?

Ave Maria

Today was one of those Sundays when the statue of Our Lady (Nossa Senhora de Saude to be exact) is brought out of the church and paraded down the street with the brass band following Her.

I was just coming out the shop (the building on the right in the photo above; I'd gone down to get a Magnum (white chocolate) for Carol and a jumbo packet of Lay's ready salted crisps for me for full enjoyment of the final of Dois Mil e Doze) and found myself standing behind the last man in the band as OL emerged from the church. Peering over his shoulder at the card clipped to the top of his trumpet, I tried to read the name of the music they'd be playing. Ave Maria, it seemed to say. How fitting, I was thinking, so was a bit taken aback when, moments later, the procession moved off and the band struck up with - of all things - Fernando.

Turns out my eyesight was deceiving me. It didn't say Ave Maria, it said Abba Medley. 

Knowing me, knowing you.

 

Lookalike

Has anyone else noticed the uncanny resemblance between England and Man City goalkeeper Joe Hart and 80s comic [using the expression in its loosest possible sense] Russ "See you Jimmy" Abbott?

Hart                                               Jimmy

Perhaps they could change the rules in time for Dois Mil e Catorze so that Ant & Dec could be in goal.

Dois Mil e Doze

 Nick Hornby summed the syndrome up memorably in Fever Pitch:-

"I was going to say 1980 was a torpid, blank, directionless year for me but that would be wrong; it was 79/80 that was these things. Football fans talk like that: our years, our units of time, run from August to May (June and July don't really happen, especially in years which end with an odd number and therefore contain no World Cup or European Championship)."

I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a football fan but I do enjoy my summer international football competitions and I share Hornby's pain in odd years. Portuguese TV has a habit of emphasising the year when referring to international competitions, so this summer of EURO2012 is very much Dois Mil e Doze where last summer was plain old 2011.

Portugal has had the misfortune to end up in the Group not so much of Death as Total Annihilation With Your Remains Being Vapourised And Projected Into A Parallel Space Time Continuum. How unlucky is it to be ranked tenth in the world and still be the lowest in your Group (the others being Germany (3), Holland (4) and Denmark (9))?

In the opening Group B matches this evening, Denmark beat Holland 1-0 while Germany beat Portugal 1-0 but with Portugal having had some bad luck and not having been a pushover by any means.

Meanwhile, jammy Ingerland (6) have landed up with France (14), Sweden (17) and Ukraine (not even on the list I printed off) in the Group of "Ought To Be A Breeze To Qualify From But Good Chance They'll Screw It Up Royally Leading To Tabloids Screaming For Woy's Blood, Terry Never Playing For Ingerland Again, Should Have Taken Ferdinand, Told You So".

For the avoidance of doubt (as we lawyers say when in fact we're adding to it massively), I hope Ingerland do screw it up royally in the group phase (like France in Dois Mil e Dez) but if they do get through, then I will support them after Portugal have gone out. (Ideally, I'd like to see France fail to go through as well although that might be too much to hope for again.)

Scotland, I need hardly add, failed to qualify for EURO2012, having buggered up some challenging matches against Liechtenstein and the Faeroe Islands in the Group of Having a Tickly Throat in the qualifiers. It'll be different in the future, though - Uncle Alex says if we become independent, we'll qualify in Dois Mil e Catorze and triumph in Dois Mil e Seize.

        

The 4th Verse

With the British national anthem having been heard more often than usual in the last few days due to the Diamond Jubilee celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty's accession to the throne of the United Kingdom, it's timely to be reminded of the fourth verse of "God Save the Queen" as composed in the 1740s:-

Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,

May by thy mighty aid,

Victory bring.

May he sedition hush,

and like a torrent rush,

Rebellious Scots to crush,

God save the King.

Rebellious Scots being crushed

Marshall Wade was the Commander in Chief of the British Army during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46. He'd been relieved of his command by the time the rebellion was finally crushed at the Battle of Culloden (pictured above - last pitched battle to be fought on British soil in April 1746) and is better remembered (as General Wade) for the military roads he built in Scotland in the 1720s.

One of General Wade's military roads from the 1720s

Often misunderstood as rebellions by Scotland against England, the Jacobite Rebellions (there were five in all between 1689 and 1746) were simply armed attempts against the government of the day back in the days when it was still not uncommon to articulate political grievances by taking up arms rather than demanding judicial enquiries. The misunderstanding is due to the fact there were proportionately more "Jacobites" in Scotland than England (though a tiny minority in both) and the main theatres of war happened to take place in Scotland.

Whatever. The message of the forgotten fourth verse of the National Anthem is as relevant today as it was in the 1740s.

Rebellious Scot needing crushed