Duas coisas são infinitas: o universo e a estupidez humana. Mas, em relação ao universo, ainda não tenho a certeza absoluta.
(Einstein)
But the tune ends too soon for us all (Ian Anderson)
(sublinhados meus) - funny how ways of thinking change with time...I understand his point but as I grew "on the outside", I don't agree. Only some can stand up...and that's that!
Why is no one only slightly wrong any more? We don’t say or do things that are foolish or ill-thought out – rather we are immediately guilty of fascism, genocide or child abuse. We don’t deserve to be merely argued against – we deserve to put before an inquisition, in a cage.
I guess that academics at Winchester University have deliberately chosen to use the words ‘child abuse’ in a paper in the Journal of the British Philosophy Association, arguing that schoolchildren shouldn’t be forced to play rugby in order to gain attention. If so, they have succeeded, because it is doubtful that the story would have made it into the newspapers, and I wouldn’t be writing about it now had they stuck to dry academic language. But I doubt that it will help them to make their case. Rather it will merely stir up outrage that they have effectively labelled the head teachers and sports staff at many of Britain’s schools as child abusers.
Children are growing bigger and heavier from a young age
The point that they were trying to make will be lost in the melee.That is a shame because, had it been expressed in more moderate language, I would be fully in agreement with them. While it is tempting to resort to the usual complaints about a ‘snowflake generation’ being kept away from activities which previous generations engaged in quite happily, I remembered my own time at school and thought just how counter-productive it was for sports masters to force children against their will into playing very physical, dangerous sports, and in circumstances which are thoroughly miserable.
As it happens I have never played rugby – my grammar school stopped short of forcing that on us – but I was made to play hockey and I hate the game to this day. Why? Because sports masters would force us onto the games field to play the game in the dead of winter, in a wind chill of minus five, wearing nothing but cotton shirts and shorts.We weren’t even allowed to run around to warm up before we were called into a circle to be taught ‘skills’.You wouldn’t send a professional sports player out in such circumstances; you wouldn’t want to risk them pulling muscles in the cold. But for some reason it was decided that we nedded to be ‘toughened up’.
No, it didn’t toughen me up – it merely made me hate hockey, every second of it. Indeed, for a while my dislike extended to all outdoor sports. I could have ended up a couch potato for life had I not discovered for myself the pleasure of going out running when I was able to warm myself up properly. Surely, schools should be teaching children to love sports, not dread them. There is no point in making children play sport if in the process of doing so we are making them hate it so much that they then opt of out physical activity for the rest of their lives.
With rugby, it is not just a case of getting cold. There is a serious risk of injury, and one which seems to be growing. The sport seems to be becoming ever more physical, and children are growing bigger and heavier from a young age. Or at least some of them are. The vast gulf in size you get between kids around the ages of 11 and 12 makes it even more dangerous. I don’t want to stop people playing rugby if that is what they want to do. But it should be a game for people who want to play it, not for unwilling conscripts.
I like ice hockey, 7-Eleven Big Gulps and the choice of six lanes on the Interstate. I like almost everything about America except the guns, which is why I decided to challenge my prejudices at a pistol range in Fresno, California. Walking in, I was welcomed by ‘Don’t tread on me!’ stickers and signs in military stencil fonts. I had anticipated hearing gunshots, but the irregular, endless bangs were worse than I’d expected.
‘We’re from Britain and would like to try a gun,’ explained my friend. We signed some waivers and a friendly assistant called Tom reached back to the pistol rack behind him and replaced one of the handguns with my driving licence. It felt like we’d opened a bar tab.
A tutorial ensued and I absorbed roughly half of what Tom said, worrying instead that the pistol would fire randomly while bouncing around in his hands. ‘It’s the Europeans who actually listen’ Tom said to a colleague.
We were equipped with earplugs and safety glasses, then handed our Glock and bullets in a plastic carrier case. We stepped into the range. There were about ten lanes, each fitted with bulletproof dividers to form booths. Still, the surrounding space felt communal. To my right: a stocky gentleman with enough bullets to keep him occupied till sunset. To his right: a dolled-up soccer mom firing rounds with conviction. And to my left, Tom was jogging our memories, telling us how to correctly wield the weapon.
I didn’t feel ready, despite his assurances. I worried that the Glock could malfunction. What if there was a faulty bullet? Or the soccer mom suddenly found the paper targets boring and went berserk?
Tom left. I had imagined he – or another attendant – would be present alongside us amateurs. But perhaps it was better this way. Had this been in Britain, someone would have been peering over my shoulder, putting me off. It’s why I’d refuse to do axe-throwing again in London – the staff were constantly fussing about my stance and the way I swung the axe.
The Glock wasn’t heavy, but it felt substantial when gripped tightly. I loaded the magazine with five bullets, pulled back the slide and felt an unnatural sense of gallantry when lifting the gun at the paper target – a confidence that I hadn’t earned. My eyes locked onto the front sight. I knew the time to shoot had come.
All my doubts and worries vanished. I wasn’t sparing a thought for my friend, Tom or the neighbouring booths. I had one thing in mind: shoot and do so correctly, without distraction.
Bam. I was knocked backwards by the recoil. The bullet shell flew into the air and bounced off my hand and onto the floor. I looked back at the target and squinted. Headshot. I fired four more shots, with a little pause in between. The slide locked back into place. I’d emptied the chamber. I carefully lowered my arms and sighed.
I was relieved that I had tamed the Glock. Yes, it was explosive, loud and I felt a little on edge watching others fire. But when I held the pistol, I knew it was under my command. As we worked through the remaining 40 bullets, the cycle of tunnel vision and relief continued.
After we left the shooting range, retrieved my licence and returned to the comfort of our car, I felt a flurry of pleasure. Rarely is a congruent focus of the mind and body required in daily life.If it is, it is even rarer that a mistake could be fatal. But I shot when it felt right to and that felt like therapy as much as like sport.
‘Yuck, guns’ a friend responded after I shared a photo of my tolerable aim. Before that trip to Fresno, I would have agreed. But I’ve realised that while there may be an unsettling glorification of firearms in America, shooting can be therapeutic too.
Why Britain is building the world’s most expensive nuclear plant
Hinkley Point C (photo: Getty)
For over 20 years, Britain effectively gave up on building new nuclear power stations. But that’s changed now, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, is under construction and when completed will provide around 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity.
Hinkley Point C is set to be the most expensive nuclear power station ever built. In fact, it is more than four times more expensive on a pound-for-megawatt basis than the average nuclear power plant built in South Korea. Even Flamanville 3, a French plant that uses the same reactor (EPR-1750) and built by the same company (EDF), is set to cost at least 25 per cent less.
Why has Hinkley Point C been so expensive and how do we make new nuclear power in Britain cheaper? Britain Remade, the campaign group I work for, travelled to Somerset to visit Hinkley Point C a few months back to try to find a satisfactory answer to those two questions. (We also really wanted to see Big Carl, the world’s largest crane.)
Hinkley Point C is, by some distance, Europe’s largest construction project. We arrived at the site through what I am reliably told is Europe’s second largest bus station. As we entered, we walked past a big rock with ‘safety is our overriding priority’ engraved on it.Nuclear, of course, is the safest form of power generation there is.
In fact, it’s probably too safe. Nuclear expert Jack Devanney argues safety comes at a cost. There are some nuclear safety measures that cost between one million and several billion pounds per life saved.By pushing up the cost of building and running nuclear power stations, the regulations mean that we end up using much more dangerous forms of energy generation like gas or coal, which are not only bad for the climate but also kill millions with air pollution.
Still, on a building site, safety is a sensible priority and some of the safety measures employed at Hinkley Point C could (and should) be rolled out much more widely. Take the constant signs telling you not to look at your phone while walking – something for TfL to look into perhaps.
Practice makes perfect. The more times you do something the cheaper it is to do. Nuclear is no exception to this rule. For example, EDF told us that welding on the second reactor at Hinkley Point C is being done four times faster than on the first one. In fact, the second reactor is set to be around 30 per cent cheaper than the first.
It shouldn’t really surprise us that Hinkley Point C has been so expensive. It is, after all, the first nuclear power station Britain has built in almost three decades. South Korea, who have kept costs low, have done so by building fleets. There’s really no shortcut to an experienced skilled workforce. Some mistakes need to be made so we can learn from them.
Hinkley Point C is on paper the 4th EPR-1750 plant being built. In theory, we should be able to learn lessons from EPR-1750 projects from around the world. In reality, it’s more complicated.
The UK and France (and for that matter, Finland) have different approaches to nuclear regulation. On the continent and across the pond, regulators tend to set out clear rules on the design of nuclear reactors. By contrast, the UK takes an outcome-based approach to regulation. In essence, we don’t care how you make your reactor safe as long as it is safe. Our approach is more flexible, which is good for innovation and why small modular reactor developers see the UK as a great destination, but it creates problems too.
EDF were forced to prove that their reactor design, already approved elsewhere, could meet the UK’s goals on safety. The UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation, it turns out, often takes a different view to its French counterpart on whether a design is up to standard.
In total, meeting the requirements of the Office for Nuclear Regulation led to a staggering 7,000 design modifications. The result is Hinkley Point C will use 25 per cent more concrete and 35 per cent more steel than it would otherwise.
Hinkley Point C is so different from its counterparts in Flamanville and Olkiluoto that it shouldn’t be thought of as just another EPR-1750, but rather the first ‘UK EPR’. A brand new design.
The consequence of that is many of the lessons EDF have learned the hard way on Flamanville 3 can’t always be applied to Hinkley Point C. We get to make entirely new mistakes of our own.
By taking up a smaller footprint than any other form of energy to produce a given megawatt, nuclear power should be a conservationist’s ideal source of power. This, by the way, was a key argument made by eco-modernists like Mark Lynas, Stewart Brand and the people at the Breakthrough Institute.
When you take into account that the energy we need to keep the lights on has to be produced somehow, a new nuclear power station will almost certainly have a positive impact on nature and biodiversity (even putting aside the climate benefits). Yet, our planning system doesn’t take counterfactuals like this into account.
A key issue that the 31,401 pages covered was the impact Hinkley Point C would have on marine life. To generate power, pressurised water reactors like Hinkley Point C use a fission reaction to heat water in order to generate steam to power a turbine. To keep generating power that steam needs to be cooled and that’s typically done by pumping seawater into a condenser. By the way, to bust a common myth, this seawater never actually enters the reactor.
When you pump in the water, fish occasionally get caught and, er, cooked. EDF has spent millions to avoid that as much as possible. Unlike in Flamanville, Hinkley Point C’s water intake has been re-designed to take in water at a lower velocity to give fish a better chance of swimming away. On top of that, they also have a fish recovery and return system.
Yet that’s not all, there’s also provisions in their Development Consent Order to install an acoustic fish deterrent. In effect, to save around 45 tonnes of fish (less than a small fishing vessel takes in each year) EDF must install 288 speakers to produce a jumbo-jet level racket playing sounds that fish don’t like – a recording of Baby Shark perhaps?
This is not only an expensive way to save a tiny number of fish (only 112 of the fish deterred are protected), but also potentially dangerous to human life. The water around Hinkley Point C is murky and EDF contend that the only way to install it is to use trained divers. Diving in this water is not without risk and there’s a real possibility that someone might drown in the process of installing (and subsequently maintaining) it.
EDF are trying to persuade regulators to remove this burdensome requirement and proposing to create a biodiversity enhancing 840-acre saltmarsh nearby instead. Yet, the process of getting out of the requirement has been extremely long. It started in 2019 and they’re not expecting a decision until 2025.
EDF have spent hundreds of millions of pounds on protecting fish and will need to pay potentially hundreds of millions more if they can agree on the salt marsh. If they can’t agree, then there’s a risk the powerplant will never be allowed to be switched on.
And remember, the biggest threat to biodiversity is climate change. If we can’t switch on plants like Hinkley Point C then it means relying on climate change causing fossil fuels for longer.
To install those cooling water intakes means dredging a lot of mud. And that mud has to be dumped somewhere. EDF originally wanted to use a site near Cardiff. Yet bogus concerns around radiation (the mud was next to two other nuclear power plants) led to massive delays to work starting.
What should have been a routine process was anything but. EDF gained a licence to dump the mud in Cardiff Grounds dumping site in 2013, but Welsh politicians and a petition led to a drawn-out dispute.
In some cases, politicians opposed to the dumping made claims that could politely only be described as utter nonsense. Welsh Assembly Member, Neil McEvoy, asserted without evidence that ‘no dose of non-naturally occurring radiation is safe.’
For context, the dose of radiation received by a member of the public from the dump would be just 0.002 millisieverts. That’s less than a 25th of the radioactive exposure that you get from a single transatlantic flight and roughly equivalent to eating 40 extra bananas in a year. In other words, it’s next to nothing.
In fact, it is so un-radioactive that it cannot legally be described as ‘radioactive’.
When they started work the plan was to dump it all in Cardiff Grounds, but when space opened up at a nearby dumping site in Portishead, they decided to dump the mud from the second phase of dredging there.
Anti-nuclear campaigners, including the keyboardist from the Super Furry Animals (a man known for Fuzzy Logic), used it as an opportunity to take EDF to court on the grounds they needed to do another Environmental Impact Assessment. Dealing with their legal challenge took six months – it was eventually dismissed at the High Court in March 2022.
But the delay to the project went beyond those six months. Construction is reliant on weather windows. In some cases a few months delay can push a project back by a year. That’s what happened here. EDF reckon that pushing it back by a year made the overall project around £150 million more expensive.All of that expense over some mud that will expose a member of the public to less radiation than they’d get from eating 20g of Brazil nuts.
But there’s more. EDF were also forced to pipe naturally draining water far out to sea because the water was high in Zinc. Not only was this expensive, costing tens of millions, but as the water was naturally draining it provided no environmental benefit. Oh, and they had to pay rent to the very agencies that told them to do this to run the pipe across their land.
It is now 11 years since Hinkley Point C’s planning application was accepted. In that time, a lot has been learnt about the best way to store spent fuel (otherwise known as nuclear waste). EDF initially planned to build a ‘wet store’ because it’s easier to inspect, but they’ve now decided to switch to a ‘dry store’ because experience shows they’re simpler to run. In terms of safety, there’s no difference and the Environment Agency has granted them the relevant permit to make the change. However, switching systems will mean the building the waste is actually stored in will need to be about 79m longer.
This, it turns out, meets the threshold to be considered a ‘material change’ and as a result EDF will have to apply for special permission from the planning inspectorate. As a result, it means more delay and more legal fees for a relatively minor change.
This is part of a wider problem. By making it hard to make changes, Britain builds new infrastructure slower and less efficiently than it should. Most major infrastructure builders when asked could list examples of beneficial changes they didn’t make due to the cost of going through planning again, according to research from the National Infrastructure Planning Association. Even modest and clearly beneficial changes like the Lower Thames Crossing using one tunnel boring machine instead of two mean that lawyers and environmental experts are drafted in to prove the change is ‘non-material’.
Building Britain’s first nuclear power station in almost three decades was never going to be easy, but boy have we made it harder than it needs to be.
The sheer number of changes required by our nuclear regulator not only meant using more concrete and more steel, they also limited our ability to learn from Finland and France’s experience. Delays caused by a drawn-out process of permitting and planning haven’t helped either. But, even within a single project, productivity is increasing as engineers learn from experience.
So, what needs to be done then to cut costs? I can think of a few things.
Replication and learning are key to improving productivity, so reforming our nuclear regulator should be a priority. Where designs have been approved elsewhere by respected regulators in places like France or the US, we should defer to their judgement and not insist on as many changes. Just as our Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency now grants automatic approval to drugs approved elsewhere by respected regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation should automatically approve reactor designs certified as safe elsewhere. It would mean that if South Korea’s KEPCO wanted to build their tried-and-tested low-cost reactor here then they wouldn’t have to make thousands of changes and build an almost bespoke design just for us.
But wider changes to planning policy are needed. Environmental Impact Assessments and Habitats Regulations should be reformed too so developers don’t need to engage in extremely costly mitigation measures and produce tens of thousands of pages of documentation to build a new nuclear power station. It also needs to be made much easier to make changes as a project develops.
And there's a deeper question that needs to be asked about the way we regulate nuclear energy. Have we gone too far in the pursuit of safety? Do we pay more to save a hypothetical life in nuclear energy than we do in any other areas of life, such as on the road or when we regulate other forms of energy?
On all of this there’s some hope. The day we visited Hinkley Point C, the government published its civil nuclear roadmap. It includes plans to allow small modular reactors to be built ‘anywhere’ that meets certain criteria (not just designated sites), a commitment to more international regulatory cooperation, and a new smarter regulation challenge.
Could it go further? By all means, but it’s a good start.
This article first appeared in Sam Dumitriu’s Notes on Growth Substack.
Não, não é uma adivinha nem uma charada, é sim a nova “trend” das redes sociais, nacional e internacional. Quando me deparei com a pergunta pela primeira vez, a resposta foi instantânea e espontânea e pensei “um homem, claro, o urso é um animal selvagem que me pode atacar ou comer”. Abri a caixa de comentários por curiosidade e mais curiosa fiquei quando foram surgindo dezenas de mulheres a dizer “o urso, porque o pior que pode fazer é matar-me”, “o urso, porque ninguém vai dizer que eu queria ser atacada por um urso ou que a culpa era da minha roupa”, “o urso, nem preciso de pensar”.
Refleti e invadiu-me uma sensação de estranheza, mas também de tristeza. Pensei para mim própria: mas será que sou só eu que preferia um homem? Perguntei a algumas mulheres próximas o que preferiam, mas quase ninguém me deu a resposta tão perentória que eu dei, e que tanto desejava ouvir outra vez: “um homem, sem dúvida”.
Algumas mulheres baseiam-se em experiências passadas para dizer que preferiam o urso (e atenção, tenho toda a solidariedade e lamento profundamente quem tenha passado por qualquer tipo de violência pelas mãos de qualquer homem ou de qualquer mulher). O trauma é uma perturbação complexa, e rapidamente escolheríamos o urso em vez de qualquer pessoa que nos tenha magoado e, aí sim, percebo que um homem possa representar aquele pai abusivo ou uma mulher possa representar aquela mãe abusiva.
Outras mulheres baseiam-se nas estatísticas para dizer que preferem o urso. Sim, estatisticamente há mais serial killers do sexo masculino, há muito mais violadores do sexo masculino, mas porque generalizamos estes números a qualquer homem que nos possa aparecer à frente? Mas que triste seria a vida se fosse só feita de estatísticas. A generalização é uma arma muito poderosa da nossa (in)capacidade cognitiva. É também uma arma do preconceito e que nos afasta uns dos outros. Que desesperança e que desconfiança é esta que andamos a semear? Li um comentário de um rapaz que me chamou à atenção e que passo a citar “Porque supuseram que o homem vos ia fazer mal?”. As respostas mais comuns das mulheres foram, precisamente, ou por “experiência” ou por “estatística”. Mas o que é isto da estatística? E estatisticamente um urso vai ser como o Winnie The Pooh, que come mel e é muito brincalhão? É claro que estou a brincar, mas pensei em tantos aspectos positivos perante a hipótese de ser um homem em vez de um urso atrás de mim, aliás, pensei logo que podíamos ajudar-nos mutuamente a sair da floresta. Para mim, mais do que revoltante, é profundamente triste que cada vez mais as mulheres estejam a associar os homens à violência e a “um grupo inimigo”. Agora, haveria de certeza quem me respondesse: “mas já viste os homens, já viste como eles são?”.
Vou entrar numa pequena história pessoal que provavelmente não prova nada, mas que talvez signifique qualquer coisa (nem que seja para mim): há uns tempos escrevi um artigo sobre o livro Identidade e Família, o qual me valeu mais de 500 comentários no Facebook, a esmagadora maioria com insultos de uma imaginação vertiginosa para o ódio. A maioria destes comentários foram de homens, muitos quiseram atacar a minha opinião apenas por eu ser uma mulher. O que eu retirei desta experiência foi que ainda há um caminho a percorrer na igualdade da forma como são respeitadas as opiniões das mulheres. O que eu também retirei desta experiência foi que, apesar dela, continuo a não pensar que os homens são todos iguais e que seguramente prefiro estar sozinha na floresta com um homem do que com um urso. O mundo anda tão estranho que quase que adivinho que as mulheres que preferem um homem iam ouvir comentários de outras mulheres como “então era mesmo bem feita que fosses violada por um homem para veres que mais valia escolher o urso”.
Quase todas as mulheres que preferem um urso têm ou tiveram um pai na sua vida, se foi um bom ou mau pai, isso eu já não sei. Eu tenho um excelente pai, um excelente irmão que um dia há de ser um homem, um excelente companheiro. Será que sou eu que sou privilegiada por ter homens na minha vida que me fazem sentir orgulho nos homens? E eu nem gosto desta espécie de cisão que fazemos entre homens e mulheres. Não somos uma manada para que nos possamos referir aos “homens” e às “mulheres”, como se nos estivéssemos a referir a grupos rivais numa seita. O feminismo e o machismo levados ao expoente máximo alimentam o estilo de mentalidade “manada” – somos todos iguais e quando um corre, desatamos todos a correr atrás. “Onde um mata, todos matam.” Recuso-me a pensar assim.
À boa maneira dos cognitivo-comportamentais, os pensamentos provocam sentimentos que influenciam comportamentos. Se eu acreditar que corremos todos para o Norte, é bem provável que nunca chegue a conhecer o Sul. Ainda é tempo de não ensinarmos os futuros homens e as futuras mulheres a correrem cegos na direção da “manada”. A Psicologia moderna, aliada aos ensinamentos dos seus antecessores, já nos ensinou, com o eterno debate nature vs nurture (inato ou adquirido), que o ser humano não é uma tábua rasa completa, como disse o filósofo John Locke. No entanto, é bem provável que pelo menos metade de um bebé seja uma tábua rasa, à espera de amor e de tantas outras coisas, e a beleza que isso representa é também uma responsabilidade tremenda. E não é num mundo em que os rapazes crescem a acreditar que vão magoar as raparigas e em que as raparigas crescem a acreditar que os rapazes as vão magoar que vamos mudar os comportamentos que recriminamos hoje.
Nas últimas décadas a Eurovisão mudou. Em matéria de virtudes, faltavam unicamente a glorificação do terrorismo e a condenação do “sionismo”. Já não faltam.
Segundo a Wikipedia, Malmo tem batido recordes no que toca a receber, cito, “imigrantes em fuga de conflitos”. Engraçado. Segundo a mesma página da Wikipedia, Malmo também parece bater recordes na recepção de imigrantes em busca de conflitos. Pelo menos foi lá que aconteceram os Motins da Mesquita, em 2008 (que protestavam o fecho de um “centro cultural” muçulmano), os Motins Anti-Israel de 2009 (que protestavam a presença de tenistas israelitas por aquelas bandas), parte dos Motins de 2016(em que muçulmanos protestavam não se conseguiu apurar bem o quê). Isto sem contar com a subida firme da taxa de criminalidade local nos últimos anos, à semelhança do que sucede no resto da Suécia urbana e em boa parte graças aos tais imigrantes em fuga de conflitos.
Por falar em protestos e crimes, por estes dias Malmo acolhe os Motins Anti-Eurovisão de 2024, simpático certame realizado a pretexto de Malmo acolher em simultâneo o festival da Eurovisão de 2024, e de o festival incluir uma participante israelita. Milhares de pessoas reúnem-se em diversas áreas da cidade para entoar em uníssono belos refrões populares, a pedir a extinção de Israel (“Do rio até ao mar, a Palestina será livre!”), a demonstrar solidariedade com o líder militar do Hamas (“Sinwar, não te deixaremos morrer!”, e sim, é esse o nome do sr. Yahya Sinwar), a exigir que os judeus sejam deportados de volta para a Polónia (“Deportem os judeus de volta para a Polónia”, idealmente para determinados lager, perdão, lugares históricos da Polónia).Nos intervalos, os pândegos entretêm-se com o já usual lançamento de pedras a carros da polícia.
As manifestações de ódio à cantora israelita, Eden Golan, e aos judeus em geral não envolvem apenas imigrantes em fuga de conflitos. Não, senhor. Malmo enche-se de turistas de diversas regiões da Suécia e até do estrangeiro que se juntaram aos festejos. Não sei de grandes celebridades presentes, mas uma celebridade menor fez-se notar: a Pequena Greta, infatigável na defesa dos palestinianos e do ecossistema. Este carácter ecuménico e multicultural confere ainda maior vibração aos festejos, pelo que Eden Golan precisa de avantajada segurança, estilo “beatlemania” com os fãs histéricos substituídos por anti-semitas histéricos.
Por sorte, nenhuma segurança evita as vaias da plateia durante as suas actuações e o farrapinho “keffiyeh” ao pescoço de alguns dos seus concorrentes. Diz a imprensa especializada que a cançonetista portuguesa, de que desconheço nome, imagem e talento, pintou as unhas com o padrão do farrapinho. “Tenho pensado muito na questão do boicote”, afirmou ao “Expresso”. É um alívio perceber que a senhora pensa: desde o passado 7 de Outubro que é público o apreço do Hamas por festivais de música, pelo que a retribuição do carinho é um acto de elementar justiça.
A verdade é que nunca pensei escrever a propósito da Eurovisão, produto que não consumo para aí desde os 11 anos e que, não fora a vitória caseira aqui há tempos e o regabofe “patriótico” alusivo, julgaria ter acabado por volta de 1985. A expensas desta crónica, tive de mexer no tema e descobrir o que tenho andado a perder. Pelos vistos, nas últimas décadas a Eurovisão mudou. Onde antes havia senhoras e cavalheiros convencionais a entoar cantigas convencionais, a tendência actual, se bem entendi, é para haver mutantes a celebrar a “inclusividade”, a “diversidade”, o “satanismo”, a “palhaçada” ou algo de semelhante e virtuoso. Em matéria de virtudes, faltavam unicamente a glorificação do terrorismo e a condenação do “sionismo”. Já não faltam. E assim é que é bonito.
O único problema é que, apesar dos encantadores guinchos pró-Palestina nas ruas de Malmo, consta que existem inúmeros desmancha-prazeres que, no silêncio dos lares e embora não liguem à Eurovisão, ligam à Eurovisão a fim de votar na canção israelita. Ou seja, por causa desses cobardes anónimos há o risco de Israel ganhar aquilo, o que seria inconsequente se não significasse que uma excessiva quantidade de europeus, para cúmulo europeus habitualmente alheios à sofisticação musical do evento, pode subverter o respectivo resultado e, talvez pior, comprometer os esforços de tantos em prol de Gaza e legitimar pelo símbolo a continuação do famoso genocídio.
Recomendo optimismo. Em vários momentos da História, de que os anos 30 e 40 do século passado constituem só um exemplo recente, a Europa tem sabido lidar com os judeus do modo que eles merecem. É pois apressado entrar em desespero. Com jeito, no que depender de nós Israel sairá derrotado nas cantorias e, igualmente importante, no mundo real. Possuímos o “know-how” e os “skills” necessários. Somos detentores de larga experiência em organizar pogroms e perseguições, calúnias e conspirações, êxodos e extermínios. Com a ajuda dos imigrantes em fuga de conflitos, conciliamos a modernidade com a tradição. E se há tradição antiga, por acaso um bocadinho mais antiga que o próprio “Eurofestival”, é essa.
Due to my rather efficacious dabbling in semaglutides last summer, I’m currently on the mailing list of several online pharmacies, and the other day I received an email making me aware of the existence of ‘fit notes’ – ‘formerly known as sick notes’ – following ‘an appropriate online consultation with one of our GPs’. The consultation alone would cost me £14.95 and should I receive validation as an invalid, a ‘fit note’ would then be offered to me for £19.95, so that’s the best part of £35 quid in order to pull a sickie.
I won’t be taking them up on it, as for me work is the antidote rather than the malady, but it did make me think of how the word ‘fit’ has gone from a pleasant and unpretentious word – meaning both apt and attractive – to a buzzword which can be used to sell the worried well (and the skiving well, as in the purchase of ‘fit notes’) things that aren’t necessarily going to make them any fitter.
The Fitbit started it; just think, there was a time when we didn’t need ‘activity trackers’ to help us recall if we’d been sitting on our bum all morning or had dragged ourselves out for a bit of exercise instead. Fitbit was founded in San Francisco in 2007, was acquired by Google in 2021 and is now worth over $2 billion; to say it’s successful is like saying Ed Davey is quite keen on having a title. These trackers are generally worn on the arm and can be used to monitor sleep, weight, stress and to track reproductive cycles – but the jury is out on how much use they actually are. A 2016 study, which lasted two years, found that activity trackers have no discernible effect on weight loss. Nevertheless, people queue up to pay nearly two hundred quid a throw for a plastic wristband – and it’s not just a Fitbit thing. How about an electronic device that teaches you how to breathe for £160? And don’t forget pedometers – helping you put one foot in front of the other since 1980.
You can also get activity trackers for children and dogs, which makes a lot more sense as the reason we all wanted to be adult human beings in the first place was so we could do what we wanted without being scolded and harassed ceaselessly by those who believe they know better than us; it’s hilarious that people who think of themselves as independent, autonomous human beings can end up in thrall to a bracelet. But perhaps we underestimate how strong the psychological kink of wanting to be a robot is in some people; all those Kraftwerk records didn’t buy themselves. For those who grew up less attractive that their peers, there’s often appeal in the idea of not being judged by hot-blooded biological standards; a sex-doll never has a headache. People happily have barcodes tattooed on themselves and I recently read of a shocking incident in which a man described as part of the ‘nullo community’ desired so strongly to become a eunuch that he allegedly commented cheerily as he was separated from his member ‘Well, that’s one off the bucket list!’ This is obviously an extreme example, but there is in many people a desire to be a ‘thing’ rather than being all too human, as things are harder to hurt than people. ‘Broadcast me, scrambled clean/Free me from this flesh/We’ll waltz a wonderland affair/Leave all emotion dying there/I want to be a machine’ squawked Ultravox way back in 1977; Gary Numan even wanted his friends to be electric, as I recall.
I’d say that this was generally a male thing, as men are more attracted to technology – but for women, who are less kinkily inclined in the sex-robot department, ‘fitness’ may be attractive because of the way it looks, which can lead to equally silly behaviour. There’s something just as sad as the male impulse to over-prize machinery going on here; the desire to deceive oneself, as the rise of social media – which mainly influences young women – has made the importance of being seen to do things more vital than the reality of actually doing them. This, combined with mindless ‘you go girl’ feminism-lite, has led to the rise of ‘body positivism’ and ‘fat activism’; not ‘activism’ as in standing on picket lines in the pouring rain helping the wretched of the earth to get a living wage, as we used to understand it, but sitting on the aforementioned bum all day swearing at naysayers on the internet while a gaggle of similarly chunky girlfriends call you a ‘kween’.
It may be the associated lack of formal fitting which has driven the rise of ‘athleisure’ wear, alongside the ever-spiralling obesity figures and the practise of ‘working from home’. There was a time in my life – what I think of as my ‘Jabba the Hutt Years’ – when I found the words ‘elasticated waistband’ the most seductive in the English language. But I certainly wouldn’t have spent anything more than the bare minimum on such slack coverings, whereas writing in the Mail last week, Frankie Graddon gushed:
The hottest look of the season is sports kit. No, I’m not going all ‘new year, new gym membership’ on you – in fact, quite the opposite. For athleisure has gone haute and it’s far too swanky to sweat in. The only physical exertion needed to pull off this trend is lifting a flat white to your lips… the aim is to appear as if you’ve been pounding the Peloton, even when the most exercise you’ve done is walk to the corner shop.
There’s actually a brand called Sporty & Rich, while over at Net-a-Porter you can grab a two-pack of socks by Toteme for a mere £80. The most expensive trainers in the world would set you back around £19,000, but Onitsuka Tiger will sort you out for around £200 a pop. Like the word ‘fitness’, the word ‘trainer’ leads to all kinds of delusion. When I was growing up in Bristol, we called gym shoes ‘daps’ – Americans used to call them ‘sneakers’; both seem appropriate, with their suggestions of a throwaway, casual attitude to dressing. It was when we started to refer to rubber footwear as ‘trainers’ that I believe the self-deceiving rot set in, as the verb ‘train’ means ‘to discipline or teach’. Just by lacing up a pair of overpriced daps, we can kid ourselves that we’re going to be ‘in training’ for some unspecified and gruelling physical test, as opposed to putting them on prior to sitting around for the rest of the day scrolling covetously through Instagram. I know someone who appears to go up a dress size every time she buys a new pair of trainers, seeming to believe that buying sports shoes means that she is actually doing a sport and can thus amp up the cake intake with no unwelcome side effects. Of course I’m not blameless here – every morning I pull on yoga pants. I write in them, shop in them and socialise in them; one thing I don’t do in them is yoga. But then, I don’t announce or photograph the fact that I’m wearing them, either – and I certainly don’t believe that they’ll somehow make me fitter, like those clowns who walk around the supermarkets in their dry robes, posing as cross-Channel swimmers.
Jung famously said: ‘You are what you do – not what you say you’ll do.’ In the world of fitness – the less quasi-religious, more show-pony version of wellness – the opposite is often true. As we grow old, it’s nice to have written proof of our glory days to look back on, be they birthday cards from dead parents, love letters or good reviews. That a row of figures on a piece of plastic seems of paramount importance to so many is yet more proof of our increasingly desiccated and soulless culture.
Para lá do momento de euforia que, genuina e justificadamente, aqueles que mais vibram com estas coisas (...), viveram neste dia, o que também não deve ter sido pêra doce de ver, foi a forma como Ruben Amorim festejou e vibrou com o momento. Assaltou-me este pensamento quando o vi saltar entusiasticamente ao longo da noite. Mete-me impressão quando os jogadores não celebram os golos que marcam aos seus antigos clubes. É por incontinência social? Sentir-se-ão obrigados a fazê-lo só porque é de bem? Porque os outros o fazem? Pela mesma razão, então, ele não deveria ter festejado...
Sporting are the 2023/24 champions of Portugal. The Lions clinched the title with two games to spare this weekend after victory against Portimonense at home on Saturday evening followed by Benfica’s defeat at Famalicão on Sunday night.
The Lisbon giants may yet complete the double, with the Portuguese Cup final against FC Porto to come, but regardless of the outcome of that match, this season will go down as one of the most memorable in the history of the club.
Sporting are on course to break a club record for the highest number of points accumulated in a single season, and are one match away from finishing with a 100% winning record at home, which will also be a first for the club.
So how have they done it? Here are seven reasons explaining Sporting’s phenomenal season.
1. Hitting the transfer jackpot
Back in the summer of 2020, in Rúben Amorim’s first summer in charge of Sporting, the club brought in a raft of cut-price signings with conspicuous success, most notably Antonio Adán, Pedro Porro, Zouhair Feddal, Pedro Gonçalves and Nuno Santos, all of whom would contribute decisively to winning the league.
Since then, Sporting understandably tried to repeat the formula, but without the same positive results.
One year ago the club took a different approach. Instead of bringing in several new faces for modest fees, Sporting spent big by their standards on two targets identified as fundamental for improving the team: striker Viktor Gyökeres and midfielder Morten Hjulmand. Both have been roaring successes.
Record signing Gyökeres has been far and away the best player in Portugal this season, the fee of €20 million plus €4 million in add-ons paid to Coventry City proving an absolute steal. 41 goals and 14 assists in 47 matches at the time of writing tells its own story. Midfield enforcer Morten Hjulmand has also been exceptional and more than justified the €18 million + €3m in add-ons Sporting paid Lecce for the Dane.
Spending over €40 on two players was unprecedented in the club’s history, but it is no exaggeration to say that without either Sporting would probably not have been champions this season.
2. Fortress Alvalade
16 games, 16 victories, 54 goals scored and 11 conceded in the Primeira Liga 2023/24. Sporting have been strong at home throughout the Amorim era but this season the team has shown extraordinary authority at the José Alvalade stadium.
While crunch victories against Porto and Benfica will naturally live long in the memory of the Sporting faithful, the fans will also look back on goal-fests galore, especially in the second half of the season when the well-oiled green and white machine was crushing all-comers with consummate ease (5-1 v Estoril; 8-0 v Casa Pia; 5-0 v Braga; 6-1 v Boavista all coming in quick succession).
3. Like four new signings!
As mentioned in point one, Sporting went for quality rather than quantity in the pre-season transfer window, therefore relying on a squad in which the majority of players had been working with the current coaching staff for several years.
With main title rivals Benfica splashing millions on expensive reinforcements both in pre-season and during the winter transfer window, there were legitimate fears that at the business end of the campaign a lack of squad depth would harm Sporting’s chances of success. As it transpired, nothing could be further from the truth.
Daniel Bragança, Eduardo Quaresma and Geny Catamo were expected to be bit-part players at best, with speculation even suggesting the latter two may leave the club. However, all three players proved key components in Sporting’s title push. Catamo has been transformed into a dazzling right wing-back, Bragança at last adding consistency to his undoubted talent, and Quaresma showcasing the ability that made him such a hot prospect when he first burst onto the scene four years ago.
And that is before we talk about Francisco Trincão. Sold by Braga to Barcelona for €30 million in 2020, the skilful winger increasingly lost his way in Catalonia, then at Wolves in England and also in his initial months at Sporting. However, Amorim persevered with the 24-year-old and has been richly rewarded. Trincão has been outstanding in the second half of this season, oozing with the attacking verve that made him such a hot property in his youth.
At the start of the season the market value of these four players – Bragança, Quaresma, Catamo and Trincão – was for sure a fraction of what they would fetch today. Tremendous credit must go to the coaching staff for harnessing the immense talent the quartet had to offer, and to the players themselves for persevering and making it to the top of their games amidst a considerable legion of doubters.
4. Amorim’s positive pressure
In Sporting’s title-winning season in 2020/21, despite hitting the top of the league early just like this season, Rúben Amorim famously insisted his team could only be considered title contenders if they remained well-placed with two or three matches remaining, referencing the history of the Portuguese league – Sporting had not been champions for 19 years – to back up his point. It was an ultimately effective policy to alleviate the pressure on his players.
After two seasons without winning the league and a poor campaign last time out, Amorim changed his position in relation to expectations. “If we don’t win trophies this season, I will leave at the end of it. Sporting cannot be a club that is satisfied not to win anything,” he said.
Rather than adding to stress levels at the club, the bullish attitude has focused minds and the players have thrived under the pressure of knowing second-best is not good enough. Leading from the front for months, Sporting have never looked like relinquishing top spot despite Benfica also rarely dropping points.
5. Multiple routes to goal
The biggest criticism levelled at Amorim last season was that Sporting had become one-dimensional when attacking, looking to swing in crosses mainly from Nuno Santos on the left to an out-of-form Paulinho as their only route to goal, with predictably poor results.
This season has been the diametric opposite. The emergence of the effervescent Geny Catamo has given Sporting’s wide attacking play more balance, with either flank equally capable of providing ammunition for the front men, in addition to a raft of goals coming through the middle through intricate passing movements, not to mention individual actions from clever incursions between the lines by Trincão, Pote and Edwards.
Viktor Gyökeres has obviously been a massive boon to Sporting’s prolific strike rate, the Swede up to 41 goals at the time of writing, but the burden of goal-scoring has been distributed throughout the team. Paulinho has thrived playing alongside Gyökeres and Pote has been back to the lethal form he showed in Amorim’s first title-winning season, both players notching 18 goals to date. A further six players, Trincão, Nuno Santos, Sebastián Coates, Marcus Edwards, Geny Catamo and Daniel Bragança have scored 5 or more goals, with defenders Inácio, Diomande and defensive midfielder Morten Hjulmand also chipping in with 11 more combined. The goal threats are so diverse and potent that no team has prevented Sporting from scoring in the league all season.
6. Comeback kings: falling behind, no problem
One of the few metrics where Sporting’s previous title-winning team outdid the current version is in defence, the 2020/21 side conceding a miserly 20 goals in the 34 matches. But this year, Sporting have not required a watertight defence to win games and conceding goals has not proven troublesome, even when it has seen the team fall behind.
Five times Sporting have found themselves in losing positions in Liga matches throughout the season. The outcome of those matches? Four victories and one draw. The lack of panic when falling behind is another clear sign of the team’s maturity, the players confident they can turn it around and knowing they have the firepower to do so.
7. Rúben Amorim – the real deal
If any doubts persisted, they have surely been dispelled this season. Rúben Amorim showed the Midas touch in his first high-profile job at Braga, making such an impact in his two months in charge that Sporting immediately moved to recruit him.
His first full season in charge at Alvalade brought Sporting their first title after a 19-year drought, and he has now won a second in his fourth season at the Lisbon club. This after the club had won only two titles in the 38 years prior to his arrival AND despite the fact Sporting were in a state of utter turmoil when he walked through the doors, still reeling from the infamous attack on the playing squad at the Alcochete training centre by a group of ultras and a succession of failed coaching appointments.
However, it is the visible individual improvement one sees among practically all players working under Amorim and the ongoing positive evolution of the collective that points to a coach of the highest calibre. Like José Mourinho, Amorim is a masterful communicator, and at just 39 years of age, we could be in the presence of another Portuguese coaching phenomenon.
