Madeira News Blog

Today’s photo – Many thanks to Tobi for sending them in : I don’t actually know who took the second photo … Serra de Água. You will have already seen the ‘after’ photos? But here are the ‘before’, and ‘during’ … taken on 20th February 2010 … staggering.

"Here’s something different. Local Madeira spider, may be someone can tell me what type it is?" Pete.

Many thanks to Becky for these videos :

How to find the British Cemetery in Funchal

Tragedy in Madeira – Before and After  (interesting side by side photos accompanied by some truly awful music… has anyone ever written a song about Madeira that was any good?!  Come on, Der, I’m expecting ‘Ribeira Brava, Ribeira Brava’ to buck the trend…).

Many thanks to Paul for this :

Cedary, layered 1780 Borges Bual Madeira ($2,450) that could have been drunk by Thomas Jefferson.

Image caption: A bottle of 1843 Bual Madeira

John Pierpont Morgan likes to sip old vintages of Madeira with his fellow industrialists while cruising New York harbor on his steam yacht Corsair.

Why vintage Madeiras have begun to attract more collectors in the past three years

Image caption: Thomas Jefferson, portrait 1791, the 3rd President of the United States.

“The wine is surprisingly delicious, its caramel and candied fruit flavors and lively acidity intact after more than two centuries.

Which is why vintage Madeiras have begun to attract more collectors in the past three years. For several hundred to several thousand dollars, you can sip pieces of history that still taste good and aren’t in enough demand to inspire fakes.” Link to full article

Sheila sent in these photos of the ‘Garajau dog’ abandoned at home by his owner :

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

Storm interrupts holidays holidays of the deputies – The Peoples Party pressured and the parliamentary recess will be suspended to approve urgent assistance to those harmed.

Arsenal supportive towards Ribeira Brava – The shirt of footballer Eduardo delivered to the ‘face’ of the tragedy. The photo shows Ismael Fernandes, president of Ribeira Brava, presenting the Arsenal shirt to José Feliz, the lad that lost 7 family members and was badly injured himself on 20th February in a landslide in Pomar da Rocha. The official shirt of the number 9 of Arsenal of London, Brazil born Eduardo da Silva, was given to young José Feliz. All of the Arsenal team signed the shirt, which was first of all auctioned for £600 and then given to Ismael, who was in London for a weekend fund raising event.

Today’s main news headline : Taxman and Social Security facilitate reconstruction – Reduced bureaucracy in response to the storm : based on a legal counsel the Directorate of Finance waives the bank guarantee for traders and businessmen engaged in reconstruction. Social Security will also facilitate.

[Recovery] Works in all the city except in Laranjal – The complaint continues. After the street clean the machines just disappeared. The debris remains there. And there are three bodies to be found. That’s the big picture today, and it’s certainly not the first time the Diário has given front page coverage to the plight of Laranjal in Santo António, that seems to have got left behind in the clean up and rebuilding. There are not even any men or equipment there on clean up work, whilst the rest of Funchal is still busy in that respect. The Diário refers to it as a "scene of death and destruction". Still missing are a young lady and her 9 month old baby, and a 16 year old neighbour. Few of the residents have been able to return home, through damage to their homes and fear of new landslides.

United Nations widens campaign to Madeira – In April, there will be launched here a mineral water for commercialisation to help in humanitarian causes of the ONU. The ‘Earth Water’ brings Fátima Lopez, the boyfriend of Madonna and maybe Luís Figo. As for who that is in the yellow dress in the bottom right hand corner to today’s front page, I have no idea, as it doesn’t appear to be Fátima Lopez (I thought she was older with shorter hair). The launch of the initiative will be at the Vine Hotel in Funchal on 14th April. All seems a bit odd to me … Madeira itself will be targeted to raise money for the ONU and it’s causes, at a time when it needs money raised for itself?

Swan Lake is "an extraordinary challenge" – The Diário watched two scenes of the ballet that joined together the Moscow Tchaikovsky Ballet and the Classical Orchestra of Madeira. It must have been a spectacular two and a half hours with 50 rather fit Russian ladies, probably some blokes too, and that was just the dress rehearsal. But unlike the Diário, Der’s blog doesn’t get free tickets for reviews, especially for the real thing tonight, so no review from me. There are still some tickets left (€50) if you are quick.

The main sport / football headline today : No sport headline … that’s two days running!

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. All contributions much appreciated. 

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If you can, please contribute something Madeira related. A funny story or good or bad experience, a news item, or a story from a Madeira newspaper, a teaser, news of a bargain flight or item in a supermarket. Please help keep this blog going … without user contributions it won’t survive. Please don’t send in automatic translations (like Google translator) without checking them through and correcting them first, thanks.

You can email blog@madeira4u.com with any large contributions and other material.

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Please use the comments here for general chit-chat, or feel free to ask any questions … someone usually has an answer.

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Today’s photos – Many thanks to Pete … "Tail of 3 Ribeiras of Funchal. Are they trying to tell us something, about land erosion and the environment? 1st pic Ribeira de São João   2nd Ribeira de Santa Luzia,  3rd Ribeira de João Gomes. Der – Would a Ribeira campaign of asking people for photos help to make thing more aware in the blog help?". It might do Pete, but please don’t look to me to run it or publicise, as I have more than enough on my plate … any volunteers?

Ken emailed me with this story, thank you : Unfortunate Experience. Having met our family who are on a visit to Madeira, at the airport last night (Saturday, 27th March), we were driving home in Tandem, myself leading my son who was driving a hired car, to go to our home in Estreito da Calheta. Going down the long decline on the Expressway after the exit to Madeira shopping, we were in the right hand lane as we didn’t want to drive faster than about 80 km per hour. Cars were obviously passing us as usual in the left hand passing lane, going down the hill towards the big bridge in the valley. Suddenly we noticed that the flow of passing cars had slowed to our pace, and in fact the pace of cars ahead of us in the right hand lane had also slowed to below 70 kph. The reason soon became clear as we saw a small car ahead in our lane weaving dangerously from side to side. It sometimes went right across the middle line of the road and then back again. The car we saw later was an older model Ford Fiesta, dark blue/black. Both lanes of traffic were reduced to the speed of the offending car, the driver of which seemed to be under the influence of alcohol or perhaps something else.

One or two cars tried to overtake the weaving car, but were forced back by the erratic track of the offender. With the number of cars backed up behind us, my son who is a driver with years of experience of driving on the freeways in and around Los Angeles, who was in the hired Ford Focus, decided to lead the way in overtaking the offender, which he did but for his troubles received a slight side swipe from the inebriate driven vehicle. This was as we were going through Câmara do Lobos at about 20H10. Once my son had overtaken him, the driver of the offending car seemed to get a grip on himself, and stick more to the right hand side of the road than he had previously, and the backlog of cars then followed my son’s example, and went past the offending car. After the rush petered out, we too were able to pass the car. It was driven by a sole occupant. Prior to our overtaking him , whilst he was going through a tunnel, he was in fact so far over to the right that he ran against the walkway curb.

I wonder if any of your other readers were perhaps involved in this incident and can perhaps tell us what the final outcome was. We unfortunately didn’t take the registration of the car. We just hope that no disaster happened either to the stupid driver, or any innocent bystander.

Many thanks to Elaine (East) for these web snippets :

Madeira appeal could top 100,000 pounds. Jersey Appeal

PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD WITH OUR GUIDE TO HIKING HOLS More calorie-based incentives – do the walk, you get to have your Madeira cake and eat it. NEWS OF THE WORLD

Many thanks to Becky for this video and web snippet :

Madeira Island – as beautiful as ever

A comprehensive travel blog from 2008:  "Funchal itself clusters in a valley around a pleasant bay but, as I said, don’t expect a beach. The sea-shore offers only dingy pebbles, and you won’t see anyone bathing. I only saw a few kids on the pebbles and one of the few homeless to be found there. This particular chap was dressed as if for the Arctic, wore the traditional woollen hat with side-flaps – the story has it that these are so the men can let them down to block out nagging wives – they’re considering it for export – and he wore a huge gold chain and medallion around his neck along the lines of a mayor. (Unless he was, indeed, the mayor of Funchal, I would have thought that the police should have taken a closer look at his regalia than I did.)" TRAVEL BLOG

"A nice balanced piece I thought" – Adrian. Bargains to bag as Madeira gets back to normal – Places that rely on tourism for their livelihood develop the ability to bounce back from disaster.  Madeira hit the news in February when a month’s worth of rain fell in just one hour, triggering appalling landslides that temporarily paralysed the island’s capital, Funchal. It was a cataclysmic event that claimed 42 lives and made 200 homeless. Yet within days, the Portuguese island in the Atlantic, famous for its mild climate, was attempting to convince travellers that it was back in business. Previous experience of such disasters suggests that people are inevitably affected by the negative news stories. The TV cameras reveal awful pictures of destruction yet there is no follow-up which shows that things have returned to normal. The Madeira tourist office has vociferously appealed to people not to cancel planned holidays to the island – with limited success. The result is that, in the words of one UK Madeira specialist: "Bookings have fallen off a cliff." In these situations the way to recovery usually lies through cut-price deals. For anyone planning to travel in April, for example, there are extraordinarily good buys to Funchal. Teletext Holidays WEBSITE is offering a seven-night package to a three star hotel for just £186 including a return flight from Gatwick – seven nights’ half-board at a top-grade hotel costs £444. While there are still signs of damage, the message is that Madeira is almost completely back to normal. At the prices currently available, it’s a prospect too good to miss. Frank Barrett.  (Mail on Sunday Travel 28/03/10). Many thanks Adrian.

‘Cheetahs of the Deep’ and other whales off the Calheta Coast! The blog site of the whale & dolphin watching boat ‘Lobosonda’ is reporting with photos impressive sightings in the last few days. Among them are Pilot Whales. The North Atlantic Ocean population runs, in a band that runs from South Carolina in the United States across to Madeira, the Azores and Morocco.

Length (metres): Adults are 3.5 – 6.5 metres in length. When they are born short-finned pilot whales are about 1.4-1.9 metres long.

Weight: At birth, Short-finned Pilot Whales weigh about 60kg (135lb). A fully grown adult will weigh between 1 and 4 tonnes.

Diet: Fish, Squid, Octopus

Life span is about 45 years in males and 60 years in females for both species. Image caption: Globicephala macrorhynchus, The Short-finned Pilot Whale (Globicephala macrorhynchus)

Logging, lobtailing, slapping flukes, porpoise and spyhopping. Short-finned Pilot Whales are very sociable and are rarely seen alone. They are found in groups of ten to thirty, though some pods are as large as sixty. They are sometimes seen logging and will allow boats to get quite close. They rarely breach, but may be seen lobtailing (slapping their flukes on the water surface) and spyhopping (poking their heads above the surface). Before diving, they arch their tails and raise them above the surface. When coming to the surface to breathe, adults tend to show only the top of their head, whereas calves will throw their entire head out of the water. Adults occasionally porpoise (lift most of the body out of the water) when swimming particularly quickly. They are known as the ‘Cheetahs of the Deep’ for the high speed pursuits of squids at depths of hundreds of metres.

Fin whales off the Calheta Coast! Also, Lobosonda has sighted Fin whales. “In the morning there were 4 fin whales that rushed very fast to the east, in the afternoon there were 3 fin whales which went for a while just beside our boat.” They are the second largest whales and the second largest living animal after the blue whale growing to nearly 27 metres long. They live to 94 years of age. Its food consists of small schooling fish, squid, and crustaceans including mysids and krill. Image caption: Fin whale off the Calheta Coast, Madeira.

Image : Fin whale size.  Wiki pages: FIN WHALE PILOT WHALE Link to Lobosonda’s blog:

Many thanks to Paul for all that information on our oversized neighbours. 

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

To purchase a house on Madeira is more expensive – A bank assessment in the Region comes up with values superior to the national average by almost 25%. The price of construction is higher, and the consequent bank evaluations even more so. Madeira has the highest rating in Portugal. According to a study by the National Institute of Statistics, the average bank evaluation on housing in Portugal, during the month of February, stood at 1,183 Euros per square meter, or 0.5% less than in January, but more than 4.5% higher compared to February last year. However the banks have evaluated the value per square metre on Madeira to be €1,470, 24.2% higher than the average for Portugal.

Today’s main news headline : Storm already caused three lawsuits – There are two criminal complaints lodged by relatives of victims (crane and landfill) and an investigation initiated by the MP (Babosas). One of the cases (pictured) is of a crane that fell in Laranjal killing people. One of the lawsuits has actually been instigated by the Prosecution Service (MP) itself, after hearing news and complaints about the situation in Babosas, something that the MP has the power to do. There will be other such cases for sure, as 6 months are allowed from the date of the incident to formalise complaints.

Diocese doesn’t comment on the suspicions of paedophilia – There are cases of two padres on Madeira. But Paço says to the Diário that doesn’t talk "based on conjecture". And that "if there are cases being investigated, they should be investigated, proved, and that each one  assume their own responsibilities". The Diocese ignores investigations of members of the clergy suspected of sexually abusing minors that occurred in 2008 and 2009, according to church spokesman, Father Marcos Gonçalves. The Justice Police are investigating cases following the receipt of anonymous letters.

Free calls to South Africa and Venezuela. Almost old news really, as Cable TV company Zon offers free calls to fixed phones in those two countries between 9 pm and 9 am, from next month. That’s using the telephone package that costs €9.99 per month. The change has happened as Zon increased the list of free-to-call countries from 20 to 30. They now include Austria, Germany, Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Norway, Poland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Australia, China, Japan, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Canada and USA. With Canada and the USA  you can also make free calls to mobile networks, no doubt subject to some restrictions or conditions, before someone finds out otherwise and sues me.

Social Democrat Party conditions representative of the Socialist Party on the table of the Legislative Assembly of Madeira – Ramos only accepts Serrão.

PP [Peoples Party] criticises deputies on holiday with support, when there are matters from the storm to be dealt with.  Had to guess that one a bit, seemed an impossible headline to translate, but even the Diário often makes errors, even on the front page.

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. All contributions much appreciated. 

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If you can, please contribute something Madeira related. A funny story or good or bad experience, a news item, or a story from a Madeira newspaper, a teaser, news of a bargain flight or item in a supermarket. Please help keep this blog going … without user contributions it won’t survive. Please don’t send in automatic translations (like Google translator) without checking them through and correcting them first, thanks.

You can email blog@madeira4u.com with any large contributions and other material.

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Please use the comments here for general chit-chat, or feel free to ask any questions … someone usually has an answer.

(more…)

Today’s photo – thanks to Der … Another one of those old bus photos I started showing some months back. I must emphasise that it is a photo of a photo, and I was not actually around to take this shot many years ago.

Many thanks to Elaine (East) for these website links :

The Rede – traditional transport now for hire in Funchal. HERE

The Classical Orchestra, OCM, has a new website with an English version. HERE

Many thanks to Paul for this interesting piece and the link to the WSJ video:

The socio-economic and employment situation in Madeira. Over the past decade, Madeira has seen dynamic economic growth with GDP per capita in 2003 reaching 90 % of the EU-25 average – above that of most of mainland Portugal.

Much of this growth has been driven by the increasing importance of the services sector in the economy, including real estate and tourism services, which complement more traditional industries such as agriculture and fishing. While in the past Madeirans would emigrate to find work, economic growth has largely reversed this trend and today the region has generally lower unemployment by Portuguese standards.

Employment also grew by 5 % in the decade up to 2004, in particular in the 25-44-year age group. Growth in the services sector has contributed to rising levels of female employment that reached 41.8 % in 2004, although this remained below the EU target of 60 % then. Education levels are also improving. Between 2000 and 2003 the number of workers without basic qualifications fell to 8.6 % and those with basic, secondary and higher levels of education all increased. This feature is due to earlier investments in the education and training system in Madeira.

However, among job-seekers, 3 in 4 of them have less than a secondary level of education. The number of long-term unemployed has been stable at around one-third of the total unemployed. Madeira is making extensive efforts to develop its economy and private sector in ways that capitalise on the particular advantages the region can offer, including by making significant infrastructure investments even though these are less than in the earlier 2000-2006 funding period.

To sustain economic growth and rising employment Madeira now needs to expand its labour market and provide its workers with the skills the Madeiran economy and businesses need today and in the future.

The European Social Fund. The European Social Fund, created in 1957, is the European Union’s main financial instrument for investing in people. It supports employment and helps people enhance their education and skills. This improves their job prospects.

Source: Information service of DG Employment, Social Affairs & Equal Opportunities Communication Unit, Brussels

ESF priorities in Madeira. Madeira’s strategy for ESF funding has global objectives :

-to significantly increase the level of education and training among its people, and in

particular in technology-related areas,

-to create more jobs in ways that support entrepreneurial initiatives

and the requirements of the regional labour market;

-to improve social cohesion and regional governance.

To achieve these objectives the ESF Operational

Programme has two main priorities:

Priority 1 : Education and training

Priority 2 : Employment and social cohesion

Portugal Downgrade Adds To Debt Woes. A solution to Greece’s budget woes remains elusive for the EU. Now Fitch’s downgrade of Portugal reminds investors, again, that Athens is not alone in the dark. WALL ST JOURNAL VIDEO 

Also an article on the issue and impacts from the BBC HERE

Madeira fungi                    Thanks to Pete

Many thanks to Elaine once again for yesterday’s top news stories :

DIÁRIO 24/03/2010

FRONT PAGE NEWS

Cleaning reveals the Fontes de João Dinis. This water source has been buried for decades in the gardens that separate the Palácio de São Lourenço from the Avenida do Mar. The mudslide that hit Funchal on the 20th February entered these gardens and on removing the debris, this public water supply was uncovered. It was built 520 years ago. In 1490, Funchal Council approved the water from the ‘Altinho das Fontes’ when they built the first fort which became the Palácio de São Lourenço. Historians have identified the Fontes de João Dinis from photographs from the 1930s, before the Avenida do Mar was constructed. Photographs from the twentieth century prove that the fountain was still in good working order. The fountain is to be left on view when the centuries old pebble pavement and gardens are renovated.

MADEIRA

Luso-Canadians gather one million Canadian dollars. Over the past month, 700,000 Canadian dollars have been collected for Madeira and the community hopes to reach one million. The campaign started on TV and radio stations for the Portuguese in Canada. A festival of folklore arranged by the Canadian Madeira Club brought together 18 dance groups and the club hosted three dinners to raise money. Last weekend, the largest union for civil construction workers held a dinner for 1,100 people and collected 280,000 Canadian dollars. The union has 46,000 members of which several thousand are Luso-Canadians.

Solidarity takes three mayors to London. Miguel Albuquerque, Ismael Fernandes and Arlindo Gomes, the Mayors of Funchal, Ribeira Brava and Câmara de Lobos, respectively, will go to the solidarity dinner in London on Saturday. All 800 tickets have been sold and the organizers could have sold another 500 if the room at the Ibis Hotel at Earls Court could accommodate more. It is uncertain if the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson can attend and the event will not be broadcasted live on RTP-Madeira as previously reported. The dinner costs a reasonable 30 pounds per person including drinks. Also present will be the President of Marítimo (Carlos Pereira), Ricardo Pestana from the Banif bank, the Ambassador of Portugal, the Portuguese Consul, the Madeiran Advisor and the leader of Lambeth Council. More than 60 volunteers will help prepare and serve food and drinks. The two singers, Vânia Fernandes and Adelaide Ferreira provide live entertainment.

ECONOMY

TUI Germany should have two winter flights again. Two charter flights that were cancelled three years ago during the winter season 2007/8 are being renegotiated. Until four years ago, these flights brought 70,000 tourists to Madeira. Over the past four years, the German market along with other European markets fell by 20%. Last year, TUI brought 50,000 tourists from Germany. Negotiations are for two flights from Frankfurt and Dusseldorf with Stuttgart as another option. If the deal materialises, TUI will no longer use Air Berlin, a low-cost carrier that connects Madeira to more than a dozen German cities, although many are indirect flights. Proposals for more routes for Air Berlin to fly to Madeira are not as promising as hoped.

Reid’s Palace is one of the ten top historic hotels.  Reid’s Palace luxury hotel, part of the Orient-Express chain, is listed as the fifth most outstanding historic hotel in Europe and the United States. The list was compiled on the British Trivago hotel comparison website from customer evaluations and prices. It is cited as having an excellent location on the south coast of Funchal and a brief history of the hotel is included on the Trivago website. The top hotel is the 1861 five-star Palace Beau Rivage in Lausanne, Switzerland. The list is HERE

JORNAL DA MADEIRA

REGION

New leader of PSD will not be invited. A few days before Friday’s election of the new national leader of the PSD, Alberto Jardim warns that there will be no-one from Lisbon invited to this year’s PSD-M Festa do Chão da Lagoa. The festa is scheduled for the last weekend in July. Jardim thinks the internal bickering and intrigues will continue within the national party. Regardless of who wins, even if it is Paulo Rangel, he says the leader could not efficiently organize the party structure. Although there are 15,000 PSD members in Madeira, only 8,000 can vote at the national level. — Jardim said the national PSD would continue "um albergue espanhol" – Spanish hostel, asylum ? Anyone know what this phrase means?

RAM wants to integrate into OSPAR. A meeting of representatives from six countries in OSPAR is being held in Funchal. The inclusion of Madeira in the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Northeast Atlantic would be beneficial to the region, along with the inclusion of the Canary Islands. The Azores are already in OSPAR. This would help to protect the marine environment which is a vital resource for Madeira. This intention must be formalized by the Regional and Republic Governments. At the conference, Madeira won praise for the protection of marine species and preservation of biodiversity. Illegal fishing in international waters is a worry for the representatives and the Madeiran fishermen are having to go further out to catch fish in deep water.

Several hypotheses for the inerts stored at the bay of Funchal. The Regional Director for the Environment acknowledged that the debris stored at the bay of Funchal prejudices the image of the city. He says it was the right decision due to the circumstances of the tragedy. It is unthinkable to move the material elsewhere on land, especially to higher areas from where it could be washed down again. It would take thousands of trucks to move it all. The several hypotheses would have to be studied both economically and environmentally. The material could be kept where it is to add another zone by the sea. It could be moved to other coastal areas requiring protection from the sea, for example the bathing complexes at Lido and Barreirinha. It could be dumped at sea, as allowed by law as it is from a tragedy, and to reduce environmental impact would have to be deposited between 2,000 – 4,000 metres deep.

EVENTS

Whale sighted off the coast of Paul. A whale was spotted about 400 metres off the coast of Paul do Mar for a few minutes at around 11.30 am. It could have been a sperm whale and was offshore near the cafe area and the statue of fishermen. Although it is normal to see whales in the region, especially in this area, it is unusual for them to be so close to land. The information is recorded on a database at the Whale Museum for the regional authorities and the European Commission and used in studies and educational programs.

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

Those made homeless forgotten in Campanário – Storm left people without house losing hope : the authorities just photographed the damage.

Collapse in telecommunications obliges the move of the networks to safer locations.

Today’s main news headline : Rangel plays down autonomy – The motion of the candidate preferred by [president] Jardim to lead the Social Democrat Party set aside just one paragraph on the autonomy issues. Hmmmm … I reckon this is a bit of naughtiness by the Diário to put a spanner in the works of President Jardim’s voting plans in tomorrow’s national PSD leadership election. I don’t think Jardim cares for any of the candidates to be honest, and he has given the PSD members on Madeira his blessing to vote for who they want (theoretically at least). What would be really interesting is if Passos Coelho wins the leadership election, because Jardim hates him with a vengeance. Should Coelho win, then we will have a bizarre situation where Jardim is then more closely aligned to his new buddy, and ex-worst enemy, Prime Minister Sócrates of the Socialists, than to his own party at national level. 

Social Democrat Party already agrees to give the votes asked for by the Socialists – Another mess in the Parliament. Serrão was not elected and asked for the intervention of [president] Cavaco. At night, the PSD said that it would give the necessary votes.

Socialist Party has an alternative PEC [Programme of Stability and Growth] for Madeira.

Incentives to businesses without tax demands.

The main sport headline today : FIA confirms triumph of Vítor Sá on Porto Santo [rally] – The software used was approved. A rival of the Madeiran had claimed that the winning car had been ‘enhanced’ outside of the rules, after last weekends victory.

Football : Twist in the ‘Hulk case’ leads to resignation of Hermínio Loureiro from the League of Clubs.

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. All contributions much appreciated. 

BTW – Someone sent me an email today, one of those supposedly funny ones, titled ‘How to tell male and female birds apart [without a close inspection]. It used these two Madeiran Gaivotas to illustrate the point. I am not sure I really understood the joke, and I certainly didn’t find it at all amusing, but I thought I had better warn people that it is going around. Der

Finally, from me at least, going back a few days, there was a controversial article on the website of a Welsh newspaper, which has prompted at least 3 blog readers to comment that the article is inaccurate. The article practically claimed we suffered an event of Haiti proportions last month, and that it was necessary to flee Madeira. Have a look! and maybe also comment HERE

Update from Sheila : Alone in the garden of an empty Garajau apartment, this dog is dying from neglect. The Police know about this; SPAD knows about this and many of us know about this. Attempts to trace the owner of the dog are being made, even by the President of SPAD, Sr. Goncalo Santos himself. He told me over the telephone yesterday: "I cannot break into private property to save a dog". The English tourists, who have been staying in the flat next door to the dog, have been trying to lower water and food over the wall down to the animal. Tomorrow, these visitors are returning to the U.K. Then the plight of this dog will become even more desperate.

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If you can, please contribute something Madeira related. A funny story or good or bad experience, a news item, or a story from a Madeira newspaper, a teaser, news of a bargain flight or item in a supermarket. Please help keep this blog going … without user contributions it won’t survive. Please don’t send in automatic translations (like Google translator) without checking them through and correcting them first, thanks.

You can email blog@madeira4u.com with any large contributions and other material.

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Please use the comments here for general chit-chat, or feel free to ask any questions … someone usually has an answer.

(more…)