Escorpião

During my Portuguese lesson Ilídio and I got into a debate about horóscopos (horoscopes) as the textbook contained some examples. I expressed utmost cynicism that they bear any resemblance to real life and ranted that they’re written to appeal to anyone on any given day. Then we had to chuckle on the following page where the supposed personality traits of different star signs were listed. His Sagittarius are quite generic and could relate to most people. However my Escorpião (Scorpio) list is another story. In reality the traits can’t apply to everyone, voiding my theory. Needing no translations, the below apply some or all of the time:

Crítico
Agressivo
Independente
Rebelde
Determinado
Dominador

I still think horoscopes must be a load of b*llocks but the Scorpio situation, i.e. that I don’t think I know any placid Scorpios, does prove me wrong somewhat. Calm or meek Scorpios, please step forward and prove me right that you exist whatever Russell Grant and his ilk are writing.

Also today I received an email entitled ‘Alluvial Gold Dore Bar For Sale’. One Mr Serge Wilfred said:

‘We are small scale Gold miners here in Abidjan Cote D'Ivoire. We have huge quantity of alluvial Gold Dust for sale at a considerable price of Gold Dust $25,500USD per kilo and Gold Dory Bar $26,000 USD per Kilo.....Even if you are not prepared to buy our Gold Dust now but can get a buyer for us, we pay 7% commission per kg to Agent/Mandate or Intermediary’.

No doubt the system would be to deposit many hundreds of thousands of dollars into an Ivorian bank account on the promise of commission being reimbursed later.

This building is the National Marine Institute and I think it has something to do with maritime customs. I’m sure they’d have something to say about gold dust.

A good portion of the evening was spent calculating the bills for the colleague living in my flat in Cambridge. It was truly thrill-a-minute.