Madeira News Blog

Today’s Photo Thanks to Migratory Bird … The beginning of the end – the SAVOY hotel sign going down.

Eurozone confirms inflation return – Price rises in the eurozone confirm a recovering economy. November’s eurozone annual inflation figure was the first positive rate for seven months, figures have confirmed. The European Union’s Eurostat body said consumer prices in the eurozone in the year to November rose by 0.5%. The positive figure, which was slightly down on an initial estimate of 0.6%, was widely expected by economists. But the return to price rises – which is largely because of a rise in energy costs – is being seen as welcome news for the European Central Bank. It suggests the currency bloc may be able to avoid falling into deflation without employing yet more stimulus measures. BBC FULL ARTICLE

Portugal port’s image changed to attract younger fans – While a bottle of port may still be brought out at Christmas, the days of it being a regular tipple for most seem to be long gone. Humphrey Hawksley travelled to northern Portugal to see how an image overhaul is affecting the region’s historic port trade. Paul Symington walks through his hillside vineyard, at ease with the land. With his steps, confident on the damp, sloping ground, he cuts a figure not unlike a Roman centurion. The vineyards of northern Portugal have changed little since Roman times. He stops to talk to his men pruning the vines.

He confers with his cassero – or farm manager. He consults his young viticulturist about the quality of the soil. Then he casts his eyes over the estate, where mist obscures the view of the Douro River below. "The Romans dressed differently, of course. And you wouldn’t have driven there," he said. "But apart from that, what you see in these vineyards hasn’t changed since Roman times." MORE FROM BBC NEWS

Many thanks to Paul (Paul do Mar) for that article and link.

Once again, the weather seems to be the main focus of interest for readers. Don’t forget there is a weather forecast site on the link to the right, that someone told me was one of the best websites. A wet and windy week, on and off, and more to come, but at least in my town it has stayed warm. We lost a lot of our Xmas light decorations in town on Wednesday due to strong winds, but the council has now put some more up, so I suppose that’s a good sign. I feel sorry for local traders, who were looking forward to a bumper year end, and must be bitterly disappointed. Saturday night was a wash-out again, and town was just so quiet. If the financial squeeze hadn’t already killed of the trade for the bars and restaurants, then the bad weather must have made sure of the matter. For me there was another factor, a religious factor, namely the Missa do Parte, that is held at 6 am during 9 days leading up to Christmas. A few bangs at 5 am is a nuisance, but I think it was Friday there must have been more than 50 (mega-banger size), and as a result I have lost 3 or more hours sleep a night for several nights running. I am sure I can’t be the only one who is tired as a result, and my brain has been operating a half capacity as a result. Thankfully I don’t have to drive anywhere, as I wouldn’t be very confident and alert being so tired. That to me may be another factor affecting night trade in town … everyone is too knackered to go out! I seriously think there is a safety risk in depriving people of sleep over a sustained period. I have had a couple of drenchings too, not the end of the world, but it’s a hard job getting anything dried out afterwards. I do actually own an umbrella, but at night, after a beer or two, I am liable to forget it. Also I have had it 33 years, and it’s still in great condition, so I particularly keen to keep it that way as it was present. Anyone beat that? So I just take a chance, and as it’s too warm to wear a coat, I get drenched now and again. Must take the rough with the smooth. Going back to the traders in town, I had already mentioned that Wednesday gale force winds had caused some damage. On Friday, talking to one bar owner, he said that earlier in the day all his outside furniture had blown away and much of it was damaged. Now that well recognised promenade bar has new red chairs to add to the collection of orange table and chairs.

Presépios are top of the agenda at the moment. We have two very large ones in Ribeira Brava, the latest one taking up most of the space in the fruit market courtyard. I notice that once again they have included live hens in the display, cooped up in cages. Still at least they are dry and presumably well fed. Unlike the ducks on the river here, who for several days now have been living on tiny islands barely safe from a very wild current on a pretty swollen river. I have already emptied my freezer of bread, and most of it has floated off down the river, as I attempted to throw it onto these little high points in the river, each crammed full of ducks. Of course the river bed has now been cleaned out by the river flow, and there is no natural feed in the water, and probably won’t be for at least several weeks. If anyone has any leftovers or bread they can spare, please save it for the ducks here if you can. They also like dried sweet corn (92c for 2kg in the pets section in Hiper Sã). They are going to have a long tough Winter by the looks of things. Just going back to presépios, there was a feature on TVI news yesterday, with two featured. One was in the Azores in a location of what looked like hot springs, so it looked quite spectacular as the steam swirled around. Another, on the continent, was a ‘live nativity scene’, with real people in costumes doing real things. Unfortunately the most important character, the baby Jesus, was not represented, as apparently he has been hit by swine flu. Bonito all the same.

We had a free bandolim concert yesterday in the São Bento church, with a 15 piece orchestra, joined later on by another mixed orchestra. Not quite a full house, but pretty close for an excellent performance of Christmas carols and other music, none of which I recognised except for the ‘Cornetto’ song, sadly lacking a serenading gondolier.

The weekend’s football : Both of our teams played yesterday afternoon. Marítimo visited bottom-of-the-table Setúbal and lost 3 – 2, and Nacional hosted Académica winning 4 – 3, retaking 4th place in the league table.

Weather disruption : The Porto Santo Line cancelled yesterday’s ferry crossing again due to high winds and rough seas. The whole of this week is in doubt for the crossing on the Lobo Marinho for the same reason, although Christmas day may see improved conditions.

The Aida Luna cruise ship also tried to berth in Funchal, but failed and gave up. It will stay around Funchal, and travel on to La Palma tomorrow. According to one Diário reader it was only given the assistance of one tug boat, while HMS Gloucester was given two, and managed to dock.

6 flights were also cancelled, and there were a number of diversions to Lisbon and Porto Santo and general delays, and some flights turned back to their origin. Madeira airport returned to full operation at 3 pm yesterday afternoon.

The cause of the problems, the weather, saw Madeira placed on Orange Alert again, lasting through Sunday and Monday. With gusts of wind expected up to 120 km / hour, in high places. Warnings have again been issued about travelling on foot or by car in mountainous areas and exposed places.

I just remembered that today is the shortest day of the year. Nice to know that the lighter evenings are on their way back again, but it’s also the first day of Winter of course.

Today’s news headlines from the front page of the Diário de Notícias :

Funchal sees ships once again – Bad weather diverts 3 cruise ships and prevents another docking. 6,250 visiting tourists have been lost as a result of the bad weather. Yesterday saw 6+ metre waves in Funchal Port, making ship manoeuvres very difficult, not helped with 90+ km / hour wind gusts. The AIDAluna had a very sick passenger on board, and had to wait for over a hour for the tugboat to ‘run the cable’. But after 3 attempts to make the necessary manoeuvres the berthing effort was abandoned. The sick passenger will now have to disembark in the Canary Islands. Today the port will have just two visiting cruise ships, rather than the 4 scheduled. The losses in tourist revenue are estimated at €0.5 million.

Operator distances British tourists from Madeira. The collapse of the Scottish company Globespan, and it’s tour operator / airline Flyglobespan, has meant that there will be 300 less visitors here from Scotland over Christmas and New Year. 22 stranded customers are being flown back to Manchester UK today, from where they will have to find alternative transport to return to their homes in Scotland.

Rat control programme causes row between government and council – Directorate for Agriculture regrets the lack of care by local authorities. The President of Machico denies recklessness.

Today’s main news headline : Madeira imports 9 thousand cars per year – The "car park" increased 26% in just 3 years. There are actually 131 thousand vehicles in the region. There are 26% more vehicles on the island than there were 3 years ago, with 27,500 of all types being imported during that short term. The information is provided by the Institute of Insurance of Portugal, with a small margin of error because there are many vehicles here without insurance policies, either on the dealers stands or because the owner has defaulted. More detailed information on the types and spread of vehicles here CAR STATISTICS

90% of schools without security at the gate – The Secretary for Education guarantees that private security exists in sensitive schools.  The Diário visited 12 1º cycle schools (children 6 to 10 years) and found some of them with the gates open and without security, whilst the children were in classes. Are they safe they asked? The answer was not that simple, with schools in ‘more complicated zones’, around 10% of the total, having private security at the gate. The regional secretary says there is no immediate danger, nor complaints from parents, in a statistical environment made up of 25 million entrances and exits every year. Some schools rather than have private security, prefer to lock the school building during lessons. That way anyone who needs access can enter the premises but needs to ring the doorbell to obtain attention.

The main sports / football story and front page photo today : The fog supported the rain of goals – Nacional wins game with five parts and closes the year in 4th place. A 4 – 3 win for our lads finishes the league fixtures for the year. The new year opens with a visit to Benfica. Yesterday’s game, high up in the Choupana, was interrupted 3 times with thick fog, but the fog seemed to favour Nacional and not their opponents. Amongst the 1,227 supporters were shivering bare-chested students, who saw the game start 26 minutes late, and stopped at 57, 78, and 79 minutes, in one of the longest games in football history. Man of the match was again local hero Rúben Micael, who is not expected back at the Choupana after the new year transfer window  opens, and he said his goodbye’s to the crowd. "Another king who disappears amid the fog …" says the Diário. Sad that he will be going, and a big blow to the Nacional squad. Strange that for such a great local hero the Diário sports team still haven’t worked out how his name is spelt. Normally it varies between Ruben and Rúben, but today it is Reuben.

Marítimo slips up in Setúbal and falls to 9th place.

Benfica win the classic. In the most anticipated match of the season, the ‘classic’, finished Benfica 1 Porto 0, with lots of controversy on and off the pitch as usual.

If anyone else can oblige with the translation of any of the ‘blank’ or sparsely filled headlines, or other news stories, here is the link Thank you in anticipation.

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