One of the fun things about WordPress is you can see how many people have accessed your site, well more accurately how many times the site is visited… So I’m not sure what was happening on the 20 December, but the Blog had 71 views, pushing my total number of hits to over 300

Now I know that’s not high compared to some blogs, which have recorded 100,000 or 200,000 or even over 500,000 hits, as one Arsenal site was congratulating itself on receiving (please don’t ask why I was looking at an Arsenal site) but I was chuffed to get over 300 views – without once ever mentioning Britney (damn, too late!) So thanks very much, and hope that you come back over the Christmas period to see how the holiday is celebrated in Portugal.

In the meantime, whether you are a regular viewer (if this blog has such a thing), or just found this entry by accident, have a great holiday and a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Someone asked me recently whether I enjoy living in Portugal…

Well my answer would be too look at the attached photograph, taken today, 19 December 2006, and think… is he really sitting there on a veranda in the sun with short sleeves and a glass of wine? The answer, of course, is yes, absolutely. Compared to London life is so peaceful and the weather so pleasant (when it is not raining, see previous posts). Mind you we have now swapped an orange alert for excessive rain for an orange alert for excessive cold (and in the summer is a red alert for the fires) but that is in the mountainous areas inland, so we should be OK.

Hopefully we will be able to start on our business shortly, so I have created a companion blog, www.ohub.wordpress.com where you can see how the business is developing. Don’t visit the site just yet, though, as it is blank aside from the header.

Saw this on WordPress under ‘Humour’ and enjoyed it no end…

Hope that you do too…

Spotted on the NoWax website, an iPod accessory that needs no explanation  (http://www.ohmibod.com/)

Well, it’s official, Beira Mar have cemented their place on the bottom of the Bwin Liga following a 3-0 drubbing by Boavista. D. Aves play U. Leiria this evening, but that is academic as win or lose, Beira Mar are still bottom.

 This is Paulo Bento, the manager of Sporting football club, the most supported team in Portugal. In every pre- or post-match interview, he is SO miserable. He even makes Alex Ferguson look cheerful. During each match he is seen screaming and kicking along the touchline, either exhorting Sporting to push themselves further or screaming at the referee. Graham Poll thought he had a hard time against Mourinho at Chelsea, but this is nothing to what referees face each time they appear at a Sporting match.

There has only been one photo that I’ve seen of Paulo Bento smiling, but I think even this time he was forcibly pushing up the corners of his mouth, and as soon as he let go his face dropped into its normal scowl.

So why are we thinking of Paulo Bento? Because Beira Mar is now officialy bottom of the Bwin Liga, with a paltry 7 points out of 12 games (‘Jogos’, hence ‘J’ on the table. That is even less than Charlton or Watford in the Premier League, although the UK teams have played up to 16 matches…

 Where is our great hope Jardel? He only seems to be played for the last 20 minutes of any match, by which time it is too late to pull anything back. Last week Beira Mar were beaten 2-1 by Belenenses (another Lisbon team) and the team who were below Beira Mar, Clube Desportivo das Aves, (called D. Aves) beat Naval 2-0 so gained the points needed to get them off the bottom and put Beira Mar at the bottom of the table instead.

We need to start winning some matches… Força Beira Mar!!

There are 4 terrestrial channels: RTP, 2: (‘Dois’), SIC (pronounced “sick”) and TVI. RTP and 2: are the state channels, the equivalent of the BBC, SIC and TVI are like ITV (actually probably more like Channel 5.) Programmes on all channels, except 2:, are a mixture of chat shows, news bulletins and soap operas. 2:, which programmes like BBC2 did in the 1970’s, show a broader range of programmes. For example they have the Discovery Hour in the evenings, documentaries and the Simpsons or Futurama. Most of the English-speaking programmes are on 2:, although these are on after 10:30pm. Daytime chat shows and news bulletins are all on at the same time on RTP1, SIC and TVI, and in the evening around are game shows: O Preço Certo (The Price is Right) is very popular, and I’ve already mentioned Um Contra Todos.

Portuguese TV has low production values, the daytime chat shows on RTP in particular are more like public service broadcasting, or breqakfast TV in the UK, than national TV. All channels are heavily sponsored and play commercials, even RTP1 and 2:, although the commercials on 2: are either public information films or for art shows, films, concerts, etc. Advertising breaks on TV are about 40 minutes apart, but are 15 minutes long! Bizarrely, they almost always seem to be on at the same time on each of the channels, so if we are watching SIC and a break comes on, if we turn to TVI, there is also a commercial break playing – or you get a couple of minutes of a programme and then the break starts. 

Adverts for the bigger products are the same across Europe, so you can see the same commercials in the UK as in Portugal, except they are dubbed (so we get Charlize Theron or Penelope Cruz speaking Portuguese when advertising hair priducts.) Strangely the recent ”c’mon” advert for a car is played in reverse compared to the UK, so that the cars are driving on the right side of the road, although I actually think it is reversed in the UK, so the cars are driving on the left…

Soaps in particular are very big in Portugal, but are ‘novelas’ rather than a long running soap. A novela is like a mini soap, running for a set time, say 6 months, with a set narrative which eventually comes to an end. One of the most popular is ‘Floribella’ (about a girl called Floribella-she’s just been in an accident and has lost her memory), which has spawned a musical stage show, a chart CD with Nelly Furtado, and DVD’s. Another is ‘Morangos E Açucar’ (Strawberries and Sugar) which is now in its 4th season, but which gets a bit confusing because they’re showing the 3rd season at the same time, and I don’t actually understand what is going on.  

“Cobras E Lugartos” (Snakes and Lizards) is a Brazilian import (novelas are popular in Brazil too, and many are bought in) with two sets of families, one poor and one rich. The poor family wins the lottery and becomes rich in turn – although the catch is that the character that won the lottery was not actually meant to do so, so he keeps on seeing the ‘ghost’ of the real winner, who looks pitifully on while the family digs themselves into more and more improbable positions. This soap also features a character with the most bizarrely coloured mustache in the history of soaps.

Most of the TV we watch are the English programmes in the evening on 2: and the movies on TVI and SIC at the weekend. SIC also shows CSI, and other US imports, but as these are on either at midnight or the early hours, I rarely get to see them. On Sunday evenings at about 11:15pm is Britcom, which has either Little Britain, the Catherine Tate Show (which I never saw in the UK, but which I’ve become a big fan of), Nighty Night or Extras.