há algum tempo, disse-lhe adeus
mas agora,
ela foi para sempre
1. Teaching Maths In 1970
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is 4/5 of the price.
What is his profit?
2. Teaching Maths In 1980
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is 80% of the price.
What is his profit?
3. Teaching Maths In 1990
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is £80.
How much was his profit?
4. Teaching Maths In 2000
A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100.
His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20.
Your assignment: Underline the number 20.
5. Teaching Maths In 2005
A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands.
Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.
6. Teaching Maths In 2009
A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target.
When he is released he returns to find Gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100. While he is in jail the Gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving BBQ of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.
Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?
7. Teaching Maths In 2010
A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub- prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.
The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.
Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1,500 registration fees as a gang master.
The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonus's are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.
You do the maths.
Um Falstaff íntegro (e magro)
A morte é certa, mas a morte de um grande humorista é a mais certa de todas. Um grande humorista percebe a morte melhor do que os outros e é por isso, aliás, que dedica a vida inteira a escarnecê-la. O riso é o grande fracasso da repressão, disse alguém que hoje mereceria mais do que o anonimato e é a grande vitória (a única possível) da vida.
Raul Solnado dizia muitas vezes que fazer rir, ou é fácil ou é impossível. A frase é, parece-me, de Woody Allen, e é fulgurantemente verdadeira. Haverá poucas coisas menos engraçadas do que alguém que se esforça para ter graça.
A atitude humorística de Raul Solnado assentava exactamente nessa ausência de esforço. Antes de abrir a boca, Solnado já tinha graça: é divertido que alguém que ama tão profundamente o riso decida simular a maior displicência perante ele. O intérprete Solnado não só está completamente desinteressado da tarefa de fazer rir os outros como parece nem perceber de que é que eles se riem. Não é só um palhaço que não quer fazer palhaçadas, é um palhaço que está relutante em admitir que é um palhaço. De facto, o que surpreende em Raul Solnado não é que um humorista vindo do teatro de revista pudesse ter êxito a fazer um tipo sofisticado de humor absurdo o que é notável é que um humorista cujo estilo era contido e preciso tenha alguma vez tido sucesso no teatro de revista. O cómico cujo estilo estava mais distante do gosto popular foi aquele que obteve um sucesso mais abrangente, o que é espantoso.
A revista teve muitos outros grandes actores, mas nenhum terá sido capaz da mesma versatilidade. Ivone Silva, por exemplo, era uma actriz de revista brilhante. Mas ninguém consegue imaginar Ivone Silva a interpretar o texto da guerra. É, aliás, significativo que Solnado tivesse adoptado como divisa uma ideia de Woody Allen. Allen e Solnado são, na verdade, humoristas aparentados de mais do que uma maneira. A gaguez e a aparência física constituem, em ambos, instrumentos da sedução (da sedução humorística e da outra), e os monólogos de Solnado são o equivalente português das histórias que compõem os números de stand-up comedy de Woody Allen.
Solnado era uma criança sensata, como Falstaff, o herói cómico de Shakespeare, mas sem os seus pavorosos defeitos o que, humoristicamente, era uma desvantagem para Solnado. É muito mais difícil ter graça quando os defeitos não estão à vista e as qualidades são tão evidentes. A ternura não tem piada. A generosidade também não.
E, no entanto, Solnado era terno e generoso. Há várias comédias famosas sobre avarentos, misantropos e hipocondríacos, mas não muitas sobre o tipo de pessoa que se percebia que Solnado era. Conseguir ser humorista apesar daquelas virtudes é mais do que problemático: é quase uma falta de ética.
Philip Larkin escreveu que a coragem não isenta ninguém da sepultura: a morte não é diferente para os que a temem ou para os que a enfrentam. Certo. Mas a vida é. A vida é mais vida para quem se ri da morte do que para quem a teme. Raul Solnado viveu bem. E, por causa dele, todos vivemos melhor.
9:33 Quinta-feira, 13 de Ago de 2009
tirado com todo o gosto da Visão
indecentemente tirado de deus criou a mulher
Means:
To pull a MacGyver.
This is the art of slapping together a solution to a problem at the last minute, with no advanced planning, and no resources. It's the coat hanger you use to fish your car keys out of the toilet, the emergency mustache you hastily construct out of pubic hair.
What's interesting about desenrascano (literally "to disentangle" yourself out of a bad situation), the Portuguese word for these last-minute solutions, is what is says about their culture.
Where most of us were taught the Boy Scout slogan "be prepared," and are constantly hassled if we don't plan every little thing ahead, the Portuguese value just the opposite.
Coming up with frantic, last-minute improvisations that somehow work is considered one of the most valued skills there; they even teach it in universities, and in the armed forces. They believe this ability to slap together haphazard solutions has been key to their survival over the centuries.
Don't laugh. At one time they managed to build an empire stretching from Brazil to the Philippines this way.
Fuck preparation. They have desenrascanço.