Colossos de Mêmnon, Egito

Colossos de Mêmnon, Egito
Egito
Fotografia

Filosofia de Internet - Humor

Filosofia de Internet - Humor
Humor

Filosofia de Internet - Humor

Filosofia de Internet - Humor
Humor

O Escândalo da Água Contaminada no Rio de Janeiro - Marcos Nogueira

O Escândalo da Água Contaminada no Rio de Janeiro - Marcos Nogueira
Artigo

Achei ridículo quando minha irmã sugeriu que trouxéssemos água mineral de São Paulo para o Rio. Viemos de carro para buscar as tralhas que deixei no apartamento do Ivan Finotti –colega de Folha que aprecia se bronzear, em sunga pink de fita isolante, no Piscinão de Ramos.

Deveria tê-la escutado. O desabastecimento de água potável é um problema real no Rio de Janeiro.

A água que sai das torneiras é turva e tem cheiro de bunda –como descreveu, também na Folha, o colunista carioca Anderson França. A hipótese que o próprio governo defende para o ocorrido é o alto teor de toxinas produzidas por cianobactérias.

Tais bactérias proliferam quando há esgoto na água (que é posteriormente tratada). Já aconteceu na Guarapiranga, em São Paulo, mas nada que se assemelhasse ao barro que sai dos canos cariocas.

Apesar de o governo negar riscos à saúde da população, há relatos de gente que adoeceu. O próprio Ivan passou a semana com piriri. Agora ele só bebe Gatorade, Coca-Cola e coisas do gênero. Porque falta água mineral no mercado.

Os cariocas lotam carrinhos de supermercado com fardos de água mineral. As garrafas logo somem, sobrando nas gôndolas apenas a água importada da Noruega, vendida a R$ 44.

A pestilência tornou impraticável a “água da casa”, água filtrada que deve ser servida gratuitamente aos clientes de restaurantes, por determinação de uma lei municipal. Como a obrigação legal persiste, os estabelecimentos ainda oferecem jarros de líquido turvo, com aparência de água de coco.

Pior: a praga afeta todo o gelo feito com água vinda da estação de tratamento do Guandu, que abastece o município do Rio. Esta é uma cidade dependente do gelo. Na caipirinha, no suco, na testa e na nuca para aliviar o calor implacável. Os sacos de gelo circulam por toda parte em camionetas e bicicletas.

Ainda que o indivíduo consiga se hidratar exclusivamente com água mineral, é insano imaginar que alguém vá cozinhar arroz e feijão “à la Minalba”. O meu prato-feito predileto em Ipanema –não vou dizer qual é, pois os caras não têm culpa alguma– está com gosto de lodo.

É o lodo do rio Guandu. Um rio que, segundo reportagem do jornal O Globo, recebe diariamente 22 piscinas olímpicas repletas de esgoto bruto.

Já havia percebido o lodo num macarrão que eu mesmo cozinhei. Na hora, pensei que um dos temperos secos talvez estivesse velho demais. Depois vim a sentir a mesma inhaca ao escovar os dentes. E no banho.

O único jeito de escapar da comida lamacenta no Rio é optar por pratos que não usem água na preparação. Esqueça pão, pizza, cozido, feijoada, risoto, purê, sopa, qualquer coisa com molho.

Invista no bife com fritas. No frango assado com farofa. No camarão ao alho e óleo. Depois da sobremesa –chocolate industrial–, lembre-se de passar o cafezinho com água norueguesa.

Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante 1937, França

Bugatti Type 57SC Atalante 1937, França
Fotografia

The first Type 57S debuted at the 1935 London Motor Show bodied with dramatic fastback Aérolithe coachwork, a style which was eventually refined into the Atlantic coupe. Eventually only 48 of the exclusive, sophisticated, rapid, and beautifully constructed Type 57S Bugattis would be built, of which only 17 were bodied with the beautiful, elegant, athletic Atalante coupe style.

Bugatti Type 57S, chassis no. 57551 with engine no. 30S, was completed on 23 July 1937 with an Atalante body finished in black with pigskin upholstery. The body configuration, with its low headlight placement between the radiator and front fenders, was identical to the October 1937 Paris show car. It was delivered by the factory just a week later to its first owner, Jean Lévy of Strasbourg, Deputy Administrator of the family owned “Grands Moulins de Strasbourg,” a successful grain milling company established by his father, which is still in business today.

Lévy used his Atalante until the beginning of the war and transferred it to Maurice Weber, manager of the livestock feed operation at the Grands Moulin, in 1941, presumably for safekeeping.

In 1946 the Atalante was sold by Weber, ending up in the summer of 1947 with Pierre Pruvost in Bezons. A year later it was acquired by a Paris owner and displayed at the 15 June 1949 concours in the Bois de Boulogne, now sporting modification to the rear window, fenders, and added chrome flashing, work which may have been carried out by Figoni et Falaschi.

Chassis no. 57551 passed through a known succession of owners in France before being brought to the U.S. in 1959 by Colin Doane, a U.S. Air Force Officer. Doane drove it 3,000 miles over the next two years, including a 500-mile trip from Boston to Watkins Glen.

In 1961, Doane sold the car into the fabled collection of casino magnate William F. Harrah. While in the Harrah Collection it received a comprehensive restoration with the chassis and running gear restored by O.A. “Bunny” Phillips, including the installation of a replacement engine block (originally numbered 15S) and correct gearbox, no. 357, and the body in Harrah’s shops. The engine was upgraded to the most desirable Type 57SC specification, with the addition of a late-production five-bladed supercharger. Several aspects of the Atalante were returned to the original configuration, including re-creating the original pair of small rear windows and removing some of the chrome embellishments that had been added in France in the late forties. Completed in 1976, it earned the ultimate accolade for quality, appearance, design, and performance: Best of Show at the 26th Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

It was acquired during the disposition of the Harrah Collection by Dr. Herbert Boyer and later was acquired from him by the current owner, a distinguished private collector who continued to enjoy and maintain it carefully, until consigning it to RM Auto Restoration in 2013 for a complete restoration to modern concours standards.

The Harrah restoration had been well maintained, thus the restoration team found the car to be in very good condition. They were quite delighted to find much of the original body wood intact, including the entire rear section, which was retained and is still present in the car today. The result was returned to Pebble Beach and, now exactly as it had first been delivered, was awarded Best in Class, a superb honor. This was followed by Best of Show at both the Concours d’Elegance of America and the Keeneland Concours in 2015.

It is one of the most beautiful, desirable, and advanced of all Bugattis, with Jean Bugatti’s lean, sleek, aggressive Atalante coachwork perfectly complemented by the low Type 57S surbaissé chassis. One of four built in this style, it has a well-documented history from new and is one of the most attractive, desirable, and best-performing of all Bugatti road cars.

Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio by Gangloff 1938, França

Bugatti Type 57C Stelvio by Gangloff 1938, França
Fotografia

The Bugatti Type 57 was introduced in 1934 and is commonly regarded as a masterpiece from the hand of Jean Bugatti. Starting with the lovingly fabricated hollow-tube live front axle, this new chassis was the epitome of 1930s sports chassis design. The dual overhead-camshaft eight-cylinder engine was an art deco sculpture in itself; with its slim squared-off block, angular machined cam covers, and beautifully fabricated ancillaries, it was a thing of striking beauty to behold.

In 1936 the supercharged 57C model was introduced, with a stiffer frame, rubber-mounted engine, and a Rootes-type compressor driven off the camshaft drive at the rear of the engine, running at 1.17 times engine speed. With a 5–6 psi boost, the potent motor now punched out 160 bhp, an astonishing figure at the time for a high-revving, three-litre car. Fitted with lightweight bodywork, close to 120 mph was now possible.

Chassis 57737 fitted with supercharged engine 50C was ordered by M Leyda, the Bugatti agent in Toulouse, for his client M Fouque on 30 May 1938, although it seems that the car was never actually sold to him. The chassis was assembled in a batch with four other Type 57C chassis at the Bugatti factory in Molsheim in July, and on 8 August, 57737 was in stock with Gangloff in Colmar, apparently awaiting an order. Gangloff finished the body to its 1938 Stelvio design, but the date of completion is not known. Interestinlgy, Gangloff only clothed forty 57C chassis with four-seat cabriolet coachwork.

On 24 May 1939, the car was first registered in the name of Roland du Pouget of the Villa Stella Maris in the rue Constant Tavet in Saint Servan, Brittany, not far from Saint-Malo. Du Pouget likely traded in his 1937 Atalante for his new four-seater Stelvio cabriolet. When war was declared on 3 September 1939, du Pouget found himself with his Bugatti and some friends on a hunting trip in Yugoslavia. All were ordered back to France within 24 hours. Tranquillity was short-lived, as the Bugatti was requisitioned shortly after the German invasion in mid-June 1940 by the local Nazi Kreismommandantur located at the Hôtel de France in Chateaubriand. Undeterred, du Pouget demanded his Bugatti back, and amazingly, with the help of a German friend from his racing days, he succeeded.

The car was squirreled away for the rest of the war and luckily survived the Allied bombing of Saint-Malo that took place from 6–14 August 1944 and destroyed nearly 80% of the city. After the war, du Pouget used 57737 for the baptism of his daughter Ghislaine. On 23 November 1954, the car was re-registered with number 933 BM 35, still in the name of Roland du Pouget. The Bugatti saw use in the ensuing years, but by 1959 it was stored under a tarpaulin in the yard of the Villa Stella Maris, now used for occasional outings and fishing trips.

Two years before, on 7 October 1957, du Pouget had responded to an advertisement in a car magazine placed by the famous early collector Jean-Louis du Montant, who was looking for beautiful classic cars. Du Montant did not write back until 18 March 1959, when he made a low offer for the car. Du Pouget declined and ended up keeping 57737 for another two years. In the spring of 1961, he sold to Marquis Robert de Goulaine of the Château de Goulaine near Nantes. The car was still in original red paint with aubergine fenders and brown leather.

De Goulaine had 57737 restored by Bugatti specialist Francis Mortarini in Montmorency, south of Paris. At some point it passed to Baron Napoleon Gourgaud of Taillis at the Château de la Grange in Essonne in the Île-de-France region, where it was placed in the museum of the château. On 3 May 1967, the Bugatti participated in the Paris-Nice rally with the number 47. The following year, in 1968, it took part in the filming of an R-rated movie titled Thérèse and Isabelle, a romantic-erotic drama about two high-school girls, where 57737 can be seen in a shot, swerving around the girls’ bicycles.

The Autorama de la Grange museum in the outbuildings of the château closed in December 1970. The collection was sold off in 1971–1972, and it is believed that the car may have passed shortly through the hands of collector Jacques Rousseau. On Friday, 16 June 1972, a sale of ‘prestigious race, sports, and city cars’ was held in Paris at the Pavillon Royal in the Bois de Boulogne. Six Bugattis were on offer, including 57737, which was bought by Albert Prost. Prost, whose main interest was Ferrari, did not keep the Bugatti, and it quickly went to the great collector Uwe Hucke.

The Bugatti was shown as a rolling chassis in Hamburg from 8 June to 28 August 1983 during a special Bugatti exhibition at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, after which the car was sold to collector Rudi Kreyer in Melle, south of Bremen in Germany. Chassis 57737 would stay with Kreyer for more than thirty years until August 2014, when it was acquired by the well-known dealer Jack Braam-Ruben from Maastricht, Holland. Braam-Ruben soon passed 57737 to its present owner, who used it in the International Bugatti Rally in Montreux in June 2016.

A recent inspection and report undertaken by Bugatti historian Pierre-Yves Laugier in December of 2019 confirms that the car retains its original chassis, engine, gearbox, rear axle, and bodywork. Amazingly, Laugier asserts that the present mileage on the car, showing 29,008 km at the time of inspection, could possibly be the car’s true mileage. His report is on file for inspection.

Today this rare supercharged Type 57C presents in remarkable, unmolested condition. The car has been cared for by a series of prominent and titled owners. It has known continuous history and a valid FIVA identity card. Chassis 57737 is a very rare survivor and a seldom-seen opportunity to acquire one of the most powerful and desirable road cars of the late 1930s.