turizmus

Vámosi Gergő
2007. 08. 15., 8:45Utolsó módosítás: 2007. 08. 15., 8:46eszközök:

Azt szeretné a főváros, hogy wifizni lehessen egész Pesten. A móka 4-5 milliárdba kerülne, amit a rendszert kiépítő cégekkel fizettetnének meg. Ők fizetős felhasználókban reménykedhetnek, mi pedig abban, hogy több lesz az ingyenes szolgáltatás, mint a fizetős. Az önkormányzat még maga sem tudja, mi lesz az álmokból, de a nagy sebsességre már esküszik.

A főváros önkormányzata már egy éve tervezi, hogy vezeték nélküli internettel fedi le Budapestet. Az elképzelés lényege, hogy a budapesti közterületeken - utcákon, tereken, parkokba - ingyen lehessen internetezni a villanyoszlopokra szerelt wifi-jeladók segítségével. A város egész területét lefednék, de úgy, hogy ez egy fillér közpénzbe se kerüljön: a hálózatot a tendert megpályázó internetszolgáltatók építenék ki és üzemeltetnék, a főváros csak a helyet és a hotspotok működtetéséhez szükséges áramellátást biztosítaná számukra a kandelábereken.

Mi lesz ingyen?

A tendert megpályázó cégeknek az ingyen wifi mellett nyújtott fizetős szolgáltatásból lenne bevételük, vagyis ebből kellene kitermelniük a hotspotok telepítésének és üzemeltetésének költségeit. Azt azonban még nem tudjuk, hogy pontosan mire lesz jó az ingyenes net, és miért kell már fizetni. Az önkormányzat a tervek szerint a közérdekű információkhoz, tömegközlekedési menetrendekhez és az e-ügyintézéshez szabad hozzáférést biztosít majd a felhasználóknak, ezen felül a városháza dönti majd el, hogy milyen oldalakat lehet ingyenesen letölteni.

Ikvai-Szabó Imre városfejlesztésért felelős főpolgármester-helyettes határozott igennel válaszolt arra a kérdésünkre, hogy a wifi-hálózat kiépítése után ingyenesen lehet-e majd internetezni a városban. A tervet elővezető politikus szerint a fizetős szolgáltatások elsősorban tartalomszolgáltatást jelentenek, de ezzel kapcsolatban egyelőre nem árult el többet, viszont azt is hozzátette, hogy az ingyenes netezés idejét vagy sebességét semmiképpen nem szeretnék korlátozni - mint ahogy azt sok szolgáltató teszi, aki pénzért árulja a gyorsabb, tetszőleges ideig használható wifi-kapcsolatot.

Telefon helyett is használná az önkormányzat

Az utca emberének nyújtott szolgáltatás mellett az önkormányzat is használná a várost lefedő wifit, mégpedig a "digitális városüzemeltetéshez". Ez azt jelenti, hogy a közigazgatásban, az önkormányzati szerveknél dolgozók kommunikálhatnának rajta keresztül, de alkalmas lehet közlekedési és forgalomirányítási információk, vagy akár térfigyelő, rendszámtábla-figyelő kamerák képeinek továbbítására.

A városházán jelenleg egy wifis telefonszolgáltatást tesztelnek, amely a drágább, vonalas- vagy mobiltelefonokat válthatná ki (legalábbis részben). Ez az a szolgáltatás, amit az üzemeltetők fizetős extraként is nyújthatnának: Nyugat-Európában létező modell, hogy az arra alkalmas készülékkel - wifis mobillal, PDA-val vagy laptoppal - a felhasználó a rendes netelérés díjánál olcsóbban Skype-olhat, ami még az esetleges fizetős netes telefonhívások díjával együtt is kevesebbe kerül, mint a mobilozás.

Milliárdokba kerülhet a város lefedése

A legnagyobb kérdés, hogy a szolgáltatóknak megéri-e belevágni a főváros által elképzelt projektbe, vagyis lesz-e vevő az ingyenes wifi mellett a fizetős változatra, amelynek az egész beruházást el kell majd tartania. Ikvai-Szabó szerint a szolgáltatásra "nagy igény van", és sok beruházó érdeklődik a tender iránt - beleértve olyanokat is, akik még nincsenek jelen a hazai piacon. A Magyarországon 300 hotspotot üzemeltető Wiera szerint akár egymillió forintba is kerülhet egyetlen kandeláberes jeladó, a teljes hálózat kiépítésének költségeit pedig a Világgazdaság 4-5 milliárd forintra becsülte.

Egy ilyen beruházás megtérüléséhez legalább 5-7 évre van szükség - mondta az [origo]-nak Strelisky Ádám, a Budapesten közterületi hotspotokat is működtető Ace Telecom ügyvezető igazgatója. A cégvezető becslései szerint is elérheti akár a 7-800 ezer forintot egy olyan, akkumulátorról működtetett hotspot, amelyet a közvilágításnak szánt éjszakai áramról töltenek fel, nem is beszélve arról, hogy az akkukat egy-másfél évente cserélni kell. Emellett az engedélyeztetési adminisztráció miatt is igen bonyolult lehet a vezetékes internet elvezetése az azt rádióhullámok formájában továbbító hotspotig.

Hotspotért a magyar nem fizet

Strelisky saját tapasztalataik alapján azt állította, lehet igény az utcai wifire, bár wifis ügyfeleik legtöbbje jelenleg csak a cég időkorlátos ingyenes szolgáltatását veszi igénybe. A magyar wifizők közösségét tömörítő HuWiCo képviselője, Türk István viszont már szkeptikusabb a tervvel kapcsolatban: szerinte az ingyen wifire csak a belvárosban, a turisták és üzletemberek által sűrűn látogatott területeken van igény, ahol egyébként is vannak hotspotok, és fizetős szolgáltatást a magyar felhasználóknak szinte lehetetlen eladni. A társaság pár hónappal ezelőtti kérdőíves felmérése szerint Magyarországon még mindig csak egy szűk réteg használja a nyilvános hotspotokat, és ők sem nagyon hajlandók fizetni ezért: inkább az ingyenes lehetőségekre vadásznak.

Ráadásul az önkormányzati ingyenwifi-tervének konkurenciája lehet a Fonera-mozgalom is: a spanyol kezdeményezéshez csatlakozó felhasználók egymással osztják meg a vezeték nélküli internetet. Igaz, ezt a megoldást a szolgáltatói szerződések tiltják, és sok Fon-tag arra sem figyel, hogy a routerének jelerőssége az utcán is elég jó legyen, ne csak nála, a lakásban.

Kevés a nemzetközi tapasztalat

A budapestihez hasonló, nagy területet lefedő önkormányzati wifi-szolgáltatás több nagyvárosban működik, de rendszerint a város turisztikai vagy üzleti szempontból kiemelten fontos negyedeiben. Londonban háromféle megoldás létezik: a metropolisz pénzügyi központjában, a Cityben egy fizetős rendszer szolgálja ki az üzletembereket, a turisták a Temze partján reklámokért cserébe wifizhetnek ingyen, Islingtonban pedig a főutcát rakták tele hotspotokkal, és számítógépeket is osztottak az ott lakóknak, hogy élénkítsék az e-gazdaságot.

Az ingyen wifis városok sorában ott van még Madrid, Frankfurt, Párizs, Stockholm és Helsinki is, nem is beszélve San Franciscóról és több amerikai nagyvárosról, de mindezek a kezdeményezések még túl fiatalok ahhoz, hogy megalapozott következtetéseket lehessen levonni az eredményeikről. Arról pedig ősszel tudhatunk meg többet, hogy nálunk egyáltalán mi valósulhat meg a nagyszabású tervekből, amikor a tenderkiírást nyilvánosságra hozza az önkormányzat.

[origo]

Take a look around any airport and the business travelers are easy to spot — not so much by their wardrobe and gadgets, now that the “wired casual” look has blurred the line between work and play. Their luggage gives them away.

A rolling upright and a computer bag are the working traveler’s typical companions, often stacked for a quick sprint to the gate. But look closer at the carry-ons crossing the concourse, and it is clear that computer bags are getting a makeover.

While boxy black laptop bags are hardly headed for extinction, they are getting some competition from totes, messenger bags and even backpacks. Purely utilitarian designs are giving way to more fashionable looks, as women and young professionals lead a growing demand for stylish bags.

“As much as we sell a functional product, we’re part of the wardrobe,” said Laurence Franklin, chief executive of Tumi, a luggage company best known for its black ballistic nylon laptop cases. But these days, he said, “I think there’s an interest in making the business piece a little bit more fun. Men and women are both conscious of the fact that their business case is as much a part of their image as their apparel, their footwear, their jewelry or their accessories.”

This emphasis on style is evident in details like colorful interior linings, which also make items easier to find, and a wider range of materials, like the waxed cotton used for Jack Spade’s Waxwear Laptop File Case ($445 at jackspade.com). Made from woven cotton soaked in paraffin, the chocolate-colored briefcase is supposed to age like leather and even recover from certain scuffs.

“If you hang it in your bathroom after you’ve taken your shower, the steam will refinish it,” said Matt Singer, a company designer.

With a focus on fashion, more companies are creating products for female travelers that feature more hardware details, lighter materials, subtle patterns and curved silhouettes.

“It used to be that a woman’s briefcase was a man’s briefcase in burgundy,” said Michele Marini Pittenger, president of the Travel Goods Association, an industry trade group. “Now manufacturers are offering entire lines of women’s business cases.”

For instance, Tumi’s Elements Slim Brief ($325 at tumi.com) is a black laptop case made from ballistic nylon, but its curved top, rounded handles and leather trim give it a handbag look.

Although luggage manufacturers say women are embracing wheeled cases more than men and are less likely to choose a backpack, it is tough to generalize about preferences with bags.

Leslie Forde, who works for an Internet company in Boston, says she is so devoted to her black Kenneth Cole backpack that when the zipper broke about two years ago, she had it fixed rather than buy a new bag.

“Even for that week or two when I was without it, I was completely freaking out,” she said, adding that although she looked for a different backpack, “I couldn’t find anything I liked as much.”

The main appeal of her backpack, which she began using after an injury, is that its slightly curved shape looks professional without being too masculine. It can also hold her laptop, papers, planner, assorted gadgets and a small handbag.

These days, transporting an entire mobile office is not rare.

“All of us have so many different devices, and you want to have quick access to them, so there’s a lot more emphasis on organization,” said Peter Cobb, senior vice president of eBags.com, an online luggage retailer.

In fact, manufacturers tend to refer to their bags as business cases these days, recognizing that a computer is just one of many technology products people carry. In addition to a padded sleeve for a laptop, most bags have assorted pockets for BlackBerrys, cellphones, iPods, digital cameras and chargers, often lined with a soft material to prevent scratches.

For designers, one challenge is to make all of these compartments flexible enough to adapt to constantly evolving technology. “We struggle with that, because the footprints change so rapidly,” said Jeff Warde, marketing manager for Case Logic, which makes cases for gadgets and as well as luggage and bags.

Luggage manufacturers are also under pressure to adapt to changing airport security regulations, which can vary depending on the country and threat level.

“The best day for this company would be when we have a standard security protocol around the globe, which we don’t now,” said Quentin Mackay, creative director for Samsonite. For now, Samsonite is designing modular products that can be joined together or detached, depending on whether one or two carry-ons are allowed on the plane.

For instance, the “smart sleeve” on the back of some of its computer cases is a pocket that is open at the top and bottom so the bag can slide over the handle of a rolling upright. And many of Samsonite’s rolling bags have four wheels instead of two. Called “spinners,” they are meant to be more maneuverable, with wheels borrowed from in-line skates.

Removable laptop sleeves are also popular — and can double as padding underneath a computer in an airport security bin. Some manufacturers are even adding pockets on the outside of their rolling uprights to make laptops more accessible for X-ray scans.

At the same time, manufacturers are trying to minimize the weight of their bags.

“Our computer briefs range from about 3 ½ pounds to 4 ½ pounds,” said Jim Lahren, vice president for marketing at Briggs & Riley Travelware, which makes bags for more traditional professionals. “Compared to 10 years ago, that’s at least 1 ½ to 2 pounds lighter.”

That may not make a lot of difference to burdened executives who carry 20 pounds of gear.

Or as Mr. Franklin of Tumi observed, “People are conscious of weight, but in the end it’s what they put in the bag that’s really the determining factor.”

WE were not 10 miles out of Cagliari, the cosmopolitan capital of Sardinia, when the late-afternoon traffic halted. The cause was soon apparent: a flood of long-haired sheep, blank eyes framed by wild white dreadlocks, spilling slowly across the highway.

The sheep were pursued, if that’s the word, by an older gentleman in a dark cap, halfheartedly brandishing a stick. He was in no more hurry than they were. Rush hour, it seemed, could wait.

So could we.

Sardinia has many appealing features: deserted beaches of gold and azure, rocky landscapes strewn with Bronze Age stone igloos, sparkling resorts, unpretentious and friendly people with wonderfully expressive eyebrows.

We went there to count sheep. Also pigs, goats, donkeys and the occasional ostrich. In 2003, my wife, Fran Pado, and I spent our Sardinian honeymoon following the hollow tinkle of goat bells from one guest farm to the next, sampling the flavors of the land, sneaking sweet clover through fences to grateful livestock. This past May we returned, chaperoned by Violet, 2 ½, a happy consequence of the first trip.

While the countryside vacation has been around forever, agriturismo as a state-supported institution in Italy goes back to 1985, when the government moved to preserve the country’s beloved rural traditions, weakened by decades of postwar migration to cities. Farmers received tax breaks and other incentives to create rooms for visitors. Today there are more than 14,000 agriturismi in Italy. Nearly 600 are in Sardinia — not a ton, perhaps, compared with Tuscany, which has 3,200, but still more than a family can visit in a week, especially given the occasional woolly traffic jam.

An agriturismo is a real farm: most of what you eat and drink is produced on the premises, or at least nearby. The farmer is happy to let you see how sausage is made, as it were, and perhaps even get your hands dirty or milky at chore time. Many hosts also offer outdoorsy extras like horseback rides or guided hikes to ruins.

Accommodations vary from spartan to pleasant and can feel improvised: at one place, our big window commanded a view of the back of a wooden cabinet in a hallway; at another, an unenclosed shower tended to turn the whole bathroom into a wading pool. But with a combination petting zoo, fine-food atelier, nature preserve, playground and all-you-can-eat artisanal restaurant outside your door, there’s little reason to linger in your room.

The highway northeast from Cagliari wound through the lonely Sette Fratelli Mountains, which define Sardinia’s southeastern corner, the Sárrabus. Down a fennel-scented dirt road lay our first destination, Sa Perda Arrumbulada. Sa Perda Arrumbulada (the rolling stone in Sardinian, a dialect that is nearly its own language) is a bona fide organic farm, run by an agreeably hippieish, 50ish couple, Denise and Antonio Marongiu.

They showed us our simple, comfortable quarters off their living room, refreshed us with loquats — little peachy fruits with thick skin, sweet-tart flesh and a smooth round stone – and turned us loose. In the pigpen, we found a shrine to porcine beauty. Gray pigs, pink pigs, spotted pigs, pigs with lustrous golden hair that did not deserve to be called bristles, all frolicked in the mud.

For a family of vegetarians (O.K., two vegetarians and a cheater) the farm can be a challenging environment. Pork and lamb and veal are ubiquitous on the Sardinian menu, and some of us learned tough lessons about our animal pals. But if you’re going to have to survive sometimes on crisp rosemary-flecked flatbread, cheese and oiled pasta, Sardinia is a delicious place to do it. Fortunately for us, the Marongius spoke vegetarian. Dinner was a celebration of the fava bean. It started with raw favas fresh from the vine, dipped in a bowl of the farm’s grassy olive oil and some salt. I have never tasted anything so green. The main course was more favas, stewed in sun-dried tomatoes and onions, as complex as the raw beans were simple, tasting ancient and fresh like the earth.

Architecturally, most agriturismi are somewhat formal if not fancy affairs, with a separate dining room for guests and motel-like outbuildings. Sa Perda is just the Marongius’ house, with two spare rooms. Their living room was ours. Dinner is at their table.

Such intimacy has its perils. In my first chat with their 17-year-old son, Eros, he told me he planned to join the military after high school. I mentioned this to his parents over dinner after he had gone back to his room. It was apparently the first they’d heard of it. “Eros!” Denise shouted across the house. “So you’re going into a military career?” A lively discussion ensued.

After a revelatory visit to a honey farm — carob and arbutus flowers yield a bittersweet honey with a chocolaty, coffeed finish — we meandered 70 miles north to our next stop, Su Barraccu. There, the rooms were big and had adjoining bathrooms, but the difference between agritourism and ecotourism was apparent. Violet froze in her tracks when the owner’s daughter opened the pig barn door, revealing 150 sad-looking specimens corralled in cramped concrete-floored pens.

The puppylike brown-and-black-striped boar piglets tagging along after their mother outside seemed a lot more cheerful, and dinner, starring culurgiones — pillows of pasta fluffed with potatoes, mint, garlic and pecorino — was delicious. But we were glad to return the next day to Su Mugrone, one of the highlights of our first trip, 15 steeply sloped acres piled against a long curtain of fluted white-gray stone outside the town of Oliena.

We were welcomed back like family. One of the owners, Maria Asunto Selis, gave Violet the ornately embroidered hat off a life-size doll to try on and let her baby-sit for her infant son, Michele, while she made dinner. That night, the Selises took us into town to visit Maria Asunto’s mother-in-law, the maker of the hat. At her kitchen table, she opened a battered magazine between whose pages she kept different colored threads and ran a few cobalt stitches in a wedding shawl.

We met another guardian of the island’s handiwork traditions later in the trip, Gilda Garau, whose agriturismo, Sa Lorighitta, sits in the center of the village of Morgongiori. in Oristano province. Her farm-stay lacks a farm, but in her kitchen, Ms. Garau rolls and twists dough made from the local hard wheat into lorighitta, pasta shaped like tiny, tightly coiled necklaces. Each one was a toothsome miracle of texture, a rosary counted on the tongue.

About 80 miles away, perched on a high plain above the provincial capital of Nuoro, Agriturismo Costiolu would be the perfect setting for a magical-realist spaghetti western. One of the most established agriturismi on the island, it is run by three Costa brothers — Giovanni, the hardheaded but kindly boss; Giuseppe, the sentimental horse whisperer; and Pietro, the dashing sculptor, whose monolithic humanoid creations of baked scraped clay are scattered like grim jokes across the premises.

Costiolu is full of enchanted corners. Battered cheese pots hang from the branches of a dead tree in the courtyard formed by the arms of the salmon-painted main building. Next to a conical, twig-roofed smokehouse, an orange cat slept all day in the crook of a low bough. A plank swing hanging from the bough took in a dizzying view over rocky pasture and cork plantation.

In the afternoon, Giovanni invited us into a dark, cavelike kitchen where stalactites of pepper-coated salami and pancetta hung from the ceiling. A glowing mass of mozzarella rested in a pan of hot water. Giovanni formed two little vases of cheese, tied them on a string like balloons and handed them to Violet.

In the corner hung a bouquet of desiccated lambs’ stomachs, the source of the rennet that curdled the milk that made our cheese. I decided not to point them out to my companions.

Instead, I changed the subject. I asked Giovanni if the property had any nuraghi, the fortresslike stone structures built by Sardinia’s pre-Roman inhabitants that pop up everywhere on the island. “I’ll show you,” he said, and led us out to the pasture, apron strings dangling.

“Here,” he said, pointing to a clump of blocky boulders. At first glance, their positions seemed random — Sardinia can look like one gigantic nuraghe. But from the right angle, we could see the rough outlines of a stone enclosure. “Villagio,” he said. “Thousand years before Christ.”

Over two days, we worked out a comfortable routine: descending from our pretty, whitewashed room with wooden shutters and wooden beds for a breakfast built around honey, ricotta and pane carasau, the paper-thin crisp bread; watching from the the courtyard as the animals made their midmorning rounds; then off into the fields. Violet made friends with a 3-year-old and took long pretend rides with him on a disused tractor. Dung beetles rolled balls of dung along a dirt track. Sheep defied their sheepdogs’ efforts to maintain an orderly procession across the property.

Our last morning at Costiolu, Giovanni beckoned us into an outbuilding where he was mixing a batch of ricotta. We watched mesmerized as he stirred it with a long stick studded with pegs like a crude guitar. As the cheese formed, he handed out spoonfuls. It tasted like hot ice cream. The milky broth left over, he said, would be fed to the pigs.

As we made our way down the long, dusty driveway, it occurred to me that we were eating like the pigs of Sardinia. And that was a good thing indeed.

GREENWICH, Conn.

IN terms of sheer speed, power and history-making levels of engineering excess, the Bugatti Veyron is a success. Bugatti’s parent, Volkswagen, set out to build the fastest production car in the world, and it did. There is a photo of the thing right there in the 2007 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records, under the heading, Fastest Production Car. It is said to achieve a top speed of 253 miles an hour, and that’s faster than any production car ever.

But here’s the problem with setting out to conquer a superlative: there’s always someone lurking around the corner, drawing a target on your back. Ask the Petronas Twin Towers (at 1,483 feet, the world’s tallest buildings for six years, until the Taipei 101 tower went to 1,671 feet in 2004). Or Hank Aaron.

Once the bar is moved, you’re a historical footnote. That might be why, despite a total run of only 300 cars, half of the Bugatti Veyrons scheduled for production are still unsold.

Oh, sure, the price might be a factor, too. The Veyron is rather expensive — about $1.4 million, although sometimes the price is quoted at $1.3 million or $1.5 million, depending on the exchange rate. (At this level, the price should be quoted in terms of a larger monetary unit anyway, like Ferrari F430s or Christie Brinkley divorce settlements.)

As bad as this may make you feel about your own financial situation, the world has plenty of big-money car nuts with $1 million-plus to spend on a Veyron. But so far, despite fawning reports in the media, buyers have given it a lukewarm reception. The problem, from my point of view, is that the world’s most expensive car comes from the people’s car company, and I suspect that the Veyron is ultimately the VW Phaeton of the supercar stage: Its engineering is beyond reproach, but its origins don’t satisfy the brand snobs who have the money to buy one.

If you own a VW Passat with the W8 motor, then you own half of a Veyron engine, minus the turbos. That’s a fantastic bragging right for the Passat owner, but not so great for the person who just spent the equivalent of seven Ferrari F430s to buy a Veyron.

Certainly, Bugatti is one of the most esteemed European marques ever. But count me among the people who fail to understand the trend of reviving long-dead prestige brands. You’ve got to earn a reputation, not dust one off. There is no authenticity without continuity.

Yet Bugatti, along with Maybach and Spyker, seem to believe that there’s no statute of limitations on the brand appeal of pre-World War II automakers. Hoping that buyers will embrace a supercar because it wears a once-glorious badge is like hoping people will assume your son’s a great baseball player because you named him Honus Wagner.

One wonders why, since VW already owns Bentley, the Veyron doesn’t simply wear the Flying B. What would be so wrong if the world’s fastest car were a Bentley — and might it have sold better that way?

I suppose time, and some distant Pebble Beach lawn event, will tell whether the Bugatti Veyron is as successful with collectors as it is at decimating speed records. What is undebatable right now is that the select few who own (or lease) a Veyron hold the keys to the world’s greatest automotive thrill ride.

Depending on your prior exposure to big-horsepower cars, the initial second of acceleration might not seem out of the ordinary — even with all-wheel-drive, a car has only so much traction off the line, and a Porsche 911 Turbo can spin all four tires out of the gate, too.

But quickly, almost too quickly for your brain to process, the Veyron speeds straight out of your frame of reference. Once the Veyron’s hooked up and putting its 1,001 horsepower to the ground, there’s no comparison I can invoke that will help you understand it, unless you’re a Navy fighter pilot or a circus clown with extensive cannon experience.

When you floor the throttle of the Veyron on the highway, the sensation is as if every other driver slammed on the brakes. Except they didn’t. They’re still doing 70 miles an hour, but you’re blurring the space between the guardrails like an antiproton in a particle collider.

In most cars, you expect a reduction in acceleration as you move up through the gears — longer gear ratios and aerodynamic drag eventually trump horsepower. But the Veyron is different. First gear is quick and violent. Second gear takes slightly longer but seems equally violent. By third gear, you’re worried about your driver’s license and your life, and the thrust shows no sign of relenting. (Did I mention the violence?)

Mission control, something is wrong. The booster rockets don’t seem to be dropping off.

So you hit the brakes and discover that they’re excellent, but they’re of the realm of mortal cars, unlike the motor. Thanks to active aerodynamics and the wonders of downforce, at higher speeds the Veyron’s stopping and cornering power begin to approach the standard set by its go-power.

But by higher speeds, I definitely mean faster than I cared to drive in suburban Connecticut. For example, if you hit the brakes and look in the rearview mirror to see the spoiler extended high and angled down in air-brake mode, you’d better hope there are no constables nearby, because that trick doesn’t come out of the bag unless you’re going at least 130 m.p.h.

I was informed of this by none other than Pierre-Henri Raphanel, a Bugatti test driver, who was riding shotgun at the time and probably had little desire to see the air brake in action on the Merritt Parkway.

Mr. Raphanel, a former racecar driver, knows as much about this car as just about anyone; he also knows what a monumental headache it was to make the Veyron a reality.

The Michelin tires had to be developed specifically for this car. Engineers faced endless setbacks in dissipating the volcanic heat of the motor, which sits naked behind the passenger compartment, a W16 al fresco. The optics of the windshield require such perfection that for every 100 windshields produced, only 5 are usable. The rest, I suppose, go to Crazy Al’s Slightly Irregular Windshield Warehouse.

The gist of Mr. Raphanel’s spiel is that cranking out 1,001 horsepower is just the first of many challenges in building a 253 m.p.h. automobile. In fact, even attempting such a thing is ambitious bordering on crazy.

“Ferrari would never build a car like this,” he said. “They simply don’t need to. They could give a car 700 horsepower and sell out a production run of 400. So why bother going to all the trouble to make it 1,000 horsepower?

“Nobody else will ever make a car like this again. This will be the high point for cars powered by an internal combustion engine.”

I hear you, Pierre, but you know that at some car company, somewhere, there’s a chalkboard emblazoned with a new target: 254 m.p.h.

Already, you can walk into Exotic Cars at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and put your money down on a Koenigsegg CCX, which has a claimed top speed of “245-plus miles per hour.”

Bugatti has sold 150 Veyrons because the car holds the record for the world’s fastest production automobile. And they haven’t sold the other 150 because records are made to be broken.

INSIDE TRACK: The ultimate car — so far.

ON a recent family vacation in Cape Cod, Jenny Pollack, 40, a novelist and public relations associate from Brooklyn, did something she knew she would come to regret. She did it on the spur of the moment. She did it because she felt desperate.

Besides, the giant illuminated Dasani vending machine was just standing there, like a beacon.

So, with her reusable plastic Nalgene bottles dry and her son Charlie working up a thirst in an indoor playground, she broke down and bought a bottle of water. To most people it would be a simple act of self-refreshment, but to Ms. Pollack it was also a minor offense against the planet — think of all the oil used to package, transport and refrigerate that water.

“Something about it felt like a betrayal,” said Ms. Pollack, who otherwise does not consider herself an ardent environmentalist. She said she decided to stop buying water after hearing friends talk about the impact of America’s bottled water habit. And now she is doing what she can to spread the word.

“I’ve pretty much said to every single one of my friends, ‘Can I tell you my spiel about bottled water?’ ”

How unlikely, that at the peak of a sweltering summer, people on playgrounds, in parks, and on beaches are suddenly wondering if an ice-cold bottle of fresh water might be a bad thing.

In the last few months, bottled water — generally considered a benign, even beneficial, product — has been increasingly portrayed as an environmental villain by city leaders, activist groups and the media. The argument centers not on water, but oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels a year just to make the plastic water bottles Americans use, according to the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, plus countless barrels to transport it from as far as Fiji and refrigerate it.

The issue took a major stride into mainstream dialogue earlier this summer, after the mayors of San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Minneapolis and New York began urging people to opt for tap water instead of bottled.

This added momentum to efforts by environmental groups like Corporate Accountability International and Food & Water Watch, which have been lobbying citizens to dump the bottle; environmental organizations had banded together in several states to pressure governments to extend bottle bills to include bottled water. Several prominent restaurateurs, like Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., made much-publicized moves to drop bottled water from their menus.

AND so people who had come to consider bottled water a great convenience, or even a mark of good taste, are now casting guilty glances at their frosty drinks.

Daphne Domingo Johnson, a life coach who also works for a nonprofit organization in Seattle, said she used to keep a case of bottled water “in my trunk for all times, just because I know the importance of water.” Ms. Johnson, 35, said she thought of reusable plastic Nalgene bottles — recently reborn as urban status symbols — as “just for backpackers or athletes.”

Now, after reading news reports about the debate over bottled water, Ms. Johnson said, the rare bottles she buys feel “like a guilty pleasure.” She helped mount an antibottled water campaign at work, posting fliers trumpeting environmental reasons why people should drink tap water instead of the free Crystal Geyser her employer provides.

She is not alone. In interviews last week with dozens of people on sun-baked streets around the country, former and current bottled water devotees showed a new awareness of the issue’s complexities.

Some have already changed their ways.

Melissa Frawley, 38, a banker in Atlanta, said she recently broke her Evian habit after news reports altered her thinking. Environmentalism, she concluded, “is sometimes an inconvenience to us all, but it is something I think we all need to do.”

Others who had not changed their habits were nevertheless feeling a new sense of guilt.

Barry Eskandani, 31, an administrative assistant in San Francisco who considers himself a connoisseur of water brands, said that lately his fellow Bay Area residents act as if “you just killed their puppy” if you dare throw a bottle in the garbage.

Bottled water has now overtaken coffee and milk in sales nationally, and is catching up with beer. To some, it’s an affordable luxury. To others, a healthy alternative to sugary drinks.

Regardless, many consider it a staple.

Over the last 15 years, the bottled water industry has been astonishingly successful in turning a product that once seemed an indulgence into a daily companion. Savvy marketers even managed to recast this mundane product as a talisman of sexiness — Jennifer Aniston is the new face of Glacéau SmartWater.

But the fickleness of fashion may be tilting against the industry.

In preparation for New York Fashion Week this September, Aveda has an agreement with several design labels, including 3.1 Phillip Lim, Rodarte, Temperley London, Thakoon and Marc Bouwer to use recycled aluminum bottles for the water served to models and stylists backstage.

Word is spreading. An editorial on Aug. 1 in The New York Times, “In Praise of Tap Water,” argued against bottled water on the ground that “this country has some of the best public water supplies in the world.” The piece was high on the list of the most e-mailed articles for several days.

And the industry is feeling the heat. Last week, the International Bottled Water Association took out full-page newspaper advertisements urging consumers to recycle, not abandon, their bottles and arguing that “when we drink any beverage, it’s likely to come out of a bottle or a can.”

Some interviewed last week agreed with that viewpoint.

“There are two separate issues — one is water, the other is plastic bottles,” said Paul Pentel, a physician in Minneapolis. “We have been trying to steer people away from the liquid candy — juices, pop and everything else,” he added. “From that standpoint, water is good, and I’m very hesitant to demonize bottled water.”

Indeed, some people wonder why environmentalists have singled out bottled water, and not dish detergent or Wiffle Ball bats.

Jessica Retan, a 22-year-old nanny who lives in Harlem, was sipping from a bottle of Poland Spring in Central Park on a hot Saturday. The waste issue, she said, is “concerning, but there’s Coke, shampoo — a lot of things in addition to water that are bottled in plastic. So I’m curious, why just focus on bottled water?”

Gigi Kellett of Corporate Accountability International’s Think Outside the Bottle campaign said environmental efforts targeting bottled water are a good starting point because water “is something that people can have access to right out of the taps.”

“It’s a way to protect the environment and protect your pocketbook,” she said, adding that most empty bottles end up not in recycling bins but in the garbage.

All that discarded plastic also bothers Barbara Kancelbaum, a freelance writer in Park Slope. “It’s not like the bottles that carry water are worse than bottles carrying Pepsi,” said Ms. Kancelbaum, 42, who was so moved by the sight of overflowing garbage cans in Prospect Park that she posted an antibottled water message on an online bulletin board for local mothers. “The problem is that the water industry has exploded, so that there are many, many more bottles being used than there were before.”

“The solution,” she said, “is not to buy other kinds of drinks. The solution is to bring your own water.”

But even the noblest of intentions can wilt in the heat.

Dave Byers, 65, from Silver Spring, Md., discussed the issue with his wife, Pat, on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a 90-degree Saturday. “I think it should be banned, actually,” he said of bottled water.

As he spoke, he and his wife shared a bottle of Poland Spring. They said they felt bad about it, but it was hot. And they could not find a drinking fountain.

“Water is so ubiquitous,” he said, glancing at the bottle. “It seems a little dumb to walk around with a bottle of this.”

Népszabadság • Danó Anna   • 2007. augusztus 2

Hét étterem elkerülését ajánlja honlapján az ÁNTSZ. A hivatal szerint ezekben meglehetősen kockázatos enni, mert a konyhájuk okozott már szalmonellafertőzést. A hivatal feketelistáján egy évig szerepel névvel, címmel, a megbetegedettek számával a vállalkozás. A lista élén egy mosonszentmiklósi családi vállalkozás áll.

- Kicsi a falu, minden azonnal kiderül - mondta lapunknak a panzió tulajdonosa, aki - érthetően - a nevét nem kívánta nyilvánosságra hozni. Azért sem, mert szerinte az egy évvel ezelőtt történtekről, amikor nyolc ember betegedett meg, nem ők tehetnek. A kifogásolt ételből ugyanis ő maga és a családja is evett, és semmi bajuk nem lett. Akik pedig orvosi kezelésre szorultak, utóbb elismerték, csak napokkal később fogyasztottak az étteremből hazavitt ebédből. A panzió tulajdonosa úgy tudja: a jövő hét elejére lekerülhetnek a szégyenlistáról.

A Kiskunhalasi Matéza Sörözőben tavaly augusztusban 38 ember betegedett meg. Az üzlet azóta gazdát cserélt, de az új üzemeltető, László Tibor nem titkolja: elege van az ügyből. Ő csak az év eleje óta üzemelteti a vendéglőt, a szalmonellafertőzés pedig hónapokkal korábban történt. De az ÁNTSZ feketelistája elriasztja az embereket. Most naponta úgy száz adag étel fogy, de szerinte, ha nem lennének a listán, jóval több "elmenne". Van, aki kerek pe-rec kimondja: azért nem eszik itt, mert nem akar megbetegedni.

A legtöbb, 413 megbetegedést okozó konyhát a Szombathelyi Egyesített Bölcsőde és Intézményei üzemelteti. A vezetőasszony - aki szintén a nevének elhallgatását kérte - azt mondta: ők "csak" csomagolták, és az idős emberek ételhordóiba tették egy cukrászda süteményét, amely végül a bajt okozta. Arra, hogy miért nem kértek elégtételt a bíróságon, ha méltánytalannak ítélik az ÁNTSZ megállapításait, azt felelte: az ő helyzetükben megfontolandó, hogy belevágjanak egy költséges perbe.

- A tévedés kizárva, mert bizonyított, alaposan körüljárt esetek kerültek föl a listára - állítja Ócsai Lajos, az Országos Tisztiorvosi Hivatal (OTH) főosztályvezetője. E lista máris elérte a célját, mert az idei nyáron arányaiban már lényegesen kevesebb szalmonellafertőzés fordult elő.

A tisztiorvosi szolgálat a tavalyi sorozatos ételmérgezések miatt döntött úgy: feketelistát vezet azon vendéglátóhelyekről, illetve a közétkeztetésben részt vevő cégekről, amelyek nem megfelelő minőségű élelmiszert állítottak elő, illetve adtak el vendégeiknek. A héten frissült listán lévő hét vendéglátóhely 577 szalmonella-megbetegedést okozott. Az ételmérgezések zöme tavaly nyáron történt, az idei évről mindössze egyetlen, áprilisi bejegyzés található.

Élelmiszer-eredetű megbetegedések

Forrás: ÁNTSZ

Az egység neve	Az egység címe	Megbetegedettek	Betegség	Esemény
			száma	neve	időpontja
Családi Panzió Pizzéria	Mosonszentmiklós, Vasút u. 11/A	8	Salmonellosis	2006. 08. 4.
Matéza Söröző és Étterem	Kiskunhalas, Bethlen Gábor tér 1.	38	Salmonellosis	2006. 08. 8-9.
Gemenc Étterem Bt.	Szekszárd, Mészáros L. u. 1.	23	Salmonellosis	2006. 08. 20-22.
Szombathely MJV.
Egyesített Bölcsödei Intézményei	Szombathely, Bem J. u. 33.	413	Salmonellosis	2006. 08. 18-31.
Sé - cukrászműhely	Sé, Szabadság u. 79.
Saint Stephano Étterem	Mezőkövesd, Egri út 51.	9	Salmonellosis	2006. 09. 18.
Carmel Vendéglátó Kft.	Budapest, Laky Adolf u. 40.	35	Salmonellosis	2006. 11. 22.
Szt. Albert Központ főzőkonyha	Esztergom, Szent István tér 10.	51	Salmonellosis	2007. 04. 8.

Szeptembertől újabb szégyenlista

Nyilvánosságra kerül szeptembertől azoknak a cégeknek a neve, amelyek megkárosították a fogyasztókat, és a felügyelet ezért egymillió forintnál nagyobb büntetést szabott ki - jelentette be Herényi Károly, az MDF parlamenti frakcióvezetője tegnap, miután tárgyalt a Fogyasztóvédelmi Főfelügyelet főigazgatójával. A felügyelet webhelyén olvasható feketelistára felkerülnek a visszaesők is. Ez egyébként már az ötödik lista lesz: az ÁNTSZ, a Gazdasági Versenyhivatal, a munkaügyi főfelügyelőség és az APEH is lajstromba veszi a szabálytalankodókat, a tapasztalatok szerint azonban kevesen olvassák. (Hírösszefoglalónk)