TODAY'S PHOTO : Thanks to Tobi ... One of the tall ships moored in Funchal this week. Thanks for all the photos sent, I think we have enough tall ship photos until the end of the year now, so I apologise for being selective in what has turned out to be a 'nautical week', what with all the Spanish Navy traffic as well.

Front Page News : source Diário de Notícias 2/10/2008

Old statistics (Feb 2007) and probably recycled news, but in total the councils (câmaras) of Madeira owe in total €276,000,000 in what the Diário calls 'hidden debts'. The Tribunal of Accounts on Madeira has carried out an audit of the debts, and made recommendations as to the way forward. Amongst the debts highlighted are €11 million owed to contractors by Funchal Câmara, and €20 million owed to contractors for work completed in Ribeira Brava. I make that about €1,100 for every single person living here, in case it is ever shared out amongst us, considerably more each when it comes to billing just the the council tax payers, then add that to massive regional government debts then lets hope that Madeira isn't 'sinking'. It makes getting out of recession look somewhat tricky. If this happened in the private sector, (obtaining goods and services) without the means to pay, heads would roll for sure.

The top other stories are The Diário blowing its own trumpet about an event it has organised to announce the 'Company of the year' for 2007, more build up for Marítimo's game last night, and an article about a new soap opera which has just started being filmed here (I guessed you wouldn't be reading this blog if you were interested in that).

Other News :

Whilst most of us are feeling the economic gloom, the 4 year old Euromillions lottery is not feeling the pinch apparently, with €400,000 still being wagered by the people of Madeira every week. Peaks and troughs occur according to the size of the jackpot, but in a normal week 200,000 'bets are placed' being on average €2 a time. However it's not a particularly good gamble for the Madeirans, because for every Euro spent, the prizes won here only amount to under €0.85 in return. If anyone is thinking of taking it up, here are some tips that might help ... number 50 is the most popular number chosen, but number 1 is the number that comes up the most. Number 34 has not been drawn for 49 weeks.

The summer police campaign called 'Safe Night' has published the results of its efforts between May and September. Using over that period 735 officers, it managed to breathalyse or test 2,157 drivers suspected of drink driving, finding 203 over the legal limit. Of these 164 registered between 0.81 and 1.19 grammes per litre of blood, and therefore were liable for a fine of at least €500 and loss of licence, whilst 39 were between 0.51 and 0.8 g/l, whilst 1,893 had been drinking but were below the 0.5 g/l threshold. In total 7,134 vehicles were stopped for inspection, and the other offences found were not wearing a seat belt (561), and irregularities in documentation (64). Some of the operation also covered night clubs and similar activity in Funchal. Hardly a raging success in account of the costs and resources involved for such a small number of 'hits', but I guess the deterrent value is incalculable.

The first couple of cruise ships of the last quarter of 2008 have come and gone, with another 135 predicted to stop over here before the new year (29 in October, 58 November, and 48 in December), bringing around 160,000 tourists. The 4 months just gone brought just 23 visits. For the whole year 268 are expected, 22 more than in 2007, bringing nearly 350 thousand passengers.

According to one taxi driver quoted in Saturday's newspaper, "we live in the worst moments ever in the taxi business". The Diário suggests that people are walking or taking the bus to save money during hard times, and that competition from tourism companies (hotel minibuses etc) has taken away potential customers, and also the loss of transportation of non-urgent patients to hospital are all causing the problem. No mention of the few bad eggs that give the business a bad reputation amongst tourists, or should I say foreigners, though.

Marítimo were within 15 minutes of a historic victory over the Spanish club Valencia last night, but conceded a goal and then with a couple of minutes left were punished with a penalty, the result of a very poor refereeing decision

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The 'contact us' form and the excursion and car hire booking forms on the main website still has a fault. Nothing is coming through to me. If you have to send anything or have made a booking, or wish to, please email me. Very sorry for the inconvenience, I am trying to fix it asap.

www.madeira4u.com

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