Diamonds and Rust

What I like about women is that we can adjust to any situation. The survival instinct is born into us and we are completely adaptable if the situation arises.
In Europe the situation is here, and the only way to exist in it is to go by the old adage;

“If you can’t beat them, join them”

You see the EURO 2008 will be starting soon and Europes men are suffering from Football Fever.
In Switzerland where many of the matches will be held it has reached endemic proportions, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to beat eleven men chasing a ball that they can’t even pick it up.

That is why we will have to join them if we don’t want to spend a very unhappy couple of weeks.
The Commercial College near us has also seen the problematic.
They have now invited Manuel Navarro,a Fifa referee to give a course on the rules of Football for women. Worth checking out I think.
At least we can join in a conversation,-and an offside is not always an offside.
We wouldn’t just have join them,it seems we could even know better.

It makes the EURO 2008 almost acceptable.

When I was small I asked my Father what the difference was between the Tory and the Labour Party in British government.He gave me an answer that satisfied a childs mind.
“The Tories help the rich people in the country,Labour help the poor”

London has now voted against “red” Ken Livingston ,who has been Lord Mayor of the city for several years.He was always to the very left side of the labour party,but he didn’t do a bad job in London.
One of the things he initiated was a toll of 25 GB Pounds on every owner of a high powered car which expelled more than 225 gramm of carbon dioxide who wanted to drive in the City
This motion should come into force in Oktober.

But now “Red Ken” has gone, and London has a Tory mayor. Boris Johnson, educated at Eton and Oxford,who’s family most probably didn’t have a Ford in their garage.

My Father’s words ring in my ear,and I am wondering like many others if Mr Johnson will amend the toll.

The German motor manufacturer, Porsche, already brought an action against it last month.

Were you around in 1968?
I was, and it is one of the few things that make life today tolerable. The fact that I lived through the years that moved history.

40 years ago today on the 3rd of May 1968,students of the Sorbonne University in Paris occupied the building.It was the beginning of events that led to a general streik in France and sowed the heterogeneous seed that changed our society.

Looking back it is difficult to define what exactly happened,the movement was dissimilar and mostly unorganised. The moved were young,creative,spontane,and questioned everything established in the world. It was a apart from certain street riots a quiet revolution,but it changed the world.

68 a painfully beautiful year full of diamonds and rust.

It had to happen. I toddled along to an Art Vernissage which I do like attending for Arts sake if the subjects in the widest sense appeal to me. Not like all those people of course who are only there to wine and dine,although I am partial to a good, cold, dry white,and even more so to a glass of bubbly.Bollinger, if you want to know.

No, I am really interested in Art,and those of you that may have followed my revelations in that category will know that I like to dabble a bit myself. But truth is I am no talent,or I don’t think I am. People tell me what I paint is good but I am never satisfied with it. One of my colleagues at Art classes,say’s he feels just the same. The trouble is we are both perfectionists, the difference being, he turns out some brilliant work,but as he says he has been painting for years. That doesn’t help my self esteem either because he works at the next table.

So I got rather unsatisfied, and dissilusioned about it all and failed to enrol for the last set of Watercolour classes.-And I didn’t even excuse myself,or give a reason why to my teacher.

I havn’t picked up a brush or pencil in three monthes.
But I have been learning a lot from a fellow blogger: http:/ creatisphere.wordpress.com and realise now that even Artists go through this unsatisfaction.

So I went along to the Vernissage of a Watercolour Artist from Zürich, thinking I might learn something.
And who was the first person that I saw there on the other side of the wine.
My Art Teacher.

He had realised I was going through a “stage” and he hoped I would come back.

I start again next Tuesday.

“To Travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive,
and the true success is to labour”
Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850-1894 Virginibus Puerisque 1881

We should be enjoying ourselves,for it’s time to take a summer break again.We pilgered to the Holiday Exhibition and came home with two bags full of books and brochures. (Heaven help the enviremont) Special offers had also fluttered into the house by post, which we should have taken them up on monthes ago.Too late now. I have scoured the internet to no avail and two days ago I was obliged to set foot in a Travel Agency.That is of course where the trouble really starts.

There are so many of them here, that’s because the Swiss are always on holiday somewhere. Each travel firm has it’s offices in every town. Upmarket and downmarket businesses,usually all controlled by a couple at the top,so the prices don’t really vary, we are just made to think we are getting a good deal.

On entering we are always greeted by a helpfull smiling assistant.Don’t be taken in by the smile,in actual fact the scenario is of the spider greeting the fly.

If you have studied the wonderfull coloured books full of carefully shot photos you will also have read the small print,and interpreted their language. “Original” well in need of new beds,paint,showers. “Quaint” on it’s last legs. “Within walking distance” anything between 10 meters and 10 miles. “Discotheque in Hotel” not for people who like ro go to bed early,especially if your room is near it. “Child friendly” be very carefull if you like to see young children but not hear them.” Side view of the sea” only if your partner holds you feet while you hang out of the balcony. The traps are endless.

I had already decided where and when. I just wanted a 5* Hotel there at 1* price. Can sometimes be done,but then there is always a snag with the flights. Just one place left when there are two of you.All seats booked on the return journey etc.

I wasn’t lucky of course with their “Last Minute” offers, is anyone ever? But then I would have had to have paid a 100 Dollar booking charge instead of 60.
Because I wanted to use my credit card to pay for the arrangement, which would save me the 45 Dollar obligatory insurence coverage they would have to ask for a further 1 1/2%.
Would I like to reserve a special seat on the three hour flight? For free,of course not, 50 Dollars more. No thanks I’ll stand.

I came out feeling liike a squeezed lemon,and vowing to do it all differently next time.

Not to worry I have a month to prepare myself for the real problems.
The Check in at the Charter Flight desk at 4.30 in the morning.
How to think positively and thus not draw anybody into the place in front of me on the plane who is going to put his seat right back the moment we are in the air, or beside me and glue their elbows onto both arm rests for the whole flight.

If we do take off and land without any mishaps,I only have the apprehension at the luggage belt.
and the elbowing of my fellow travellers at the hotel reception to overcome.

Then, usually after a bad first night in a new bed walking down to the beach at seven o’clock in the morning to find that all the sunbeds under umbrellas have already been reserved with draped towels and bags printed with “Neckermann machts möglich”. OK maybe “Kuoni” too.

We have an unconventional figure in Switzerland.

An 81year old foreigner,respected, I might even say loved by all. Nicolas G. Hayek. A self made man who hates to wear a tie. If he does have to wear one it is never tied properly and extremely loud.

Born in Beirut,Lebanon to a Lebanese mother and American father. In 1944 the family emigrated to Switzerland. Nicolas studied mathematics and physics in Zürich. This combined with the business talent of the Lebanese proved a force not to be stopped.

Nicolas Hayek is now in the 250 richest people in the world list,but he is not sitting still. Hayek the Engineer, Problem Solver,and Troubleshooter.

After revolutionising,and saving the Swiss Watch Industry,turning Biel into the world center.He also wanted everybody in the world to be able to afford a watch. The Swatch was born. Afterwards came the Smart, and now he has a new idea.

Hayek is planning the Energy Revolution.

Apparently in his office stands a model of the future.

The turning on of an artificial sun allows it to send its’ rays onto a solar panel, two test tubes simulate an electrolysis system and a few seconds later a small propeller is turned. It seems almost like a toy. But fifty movements later you know what Hayek is talking about. It produces energy

Altogether you need a solar panel 50 square meters large. An electrolysis plant the size of a normal household fridge.and a fuel cell to cover 60% of the energy requirements of the average household. Including a car.

The cost at the moment 35,000 to 40′000 Swiss Francs or US Dollar. The annual energy saved would normaly cost about 3000 SF. (Without car costs)

Until then,the interested engineering firms have to work on a few problems.

The solar panel has to be 30% more efficient, The electrolysis apparatus has to be mass productable and the energy cells should last at least three years.

Not forgetting we need completely new motor engines. According to Hayek, three car manufacturers are participating in the project.

In twenty years he says we can cover 75% of the present oil demand with clean energy.But what does we can mean, we must he states. It is five to twelve.

“We need do-ers not talkers, and we must disconnect trade production from the rise and falls of the stock exchange. Social law must protect a firm from being just a bundle of shares.”

Over the years I have been asked more times than I can count by elderly persons unable to care for themselves if I could give them something so they could die. They didn’t want to live anymore with the everyday suffering of being bedridden and in pain. They didn’t want food pushed into their mouthes before they had finished swallowing any more.Or the pain that comes from large open bedsores that could take fifteen minutes or more to dress.

They didn’t want to lie for hours in wet,stinking nappies. They just wanted to leave this world with dignity.

I couldn’t help them.

It seems that in Switzerland where I live,the cost of caring for the elderly whether in their living accommodation or in a

nursing home will double between now and the year 2030. In that year an estimated 2 million people over the age of 65 will be living here. In 2005 there were only 1,2 million.

The growth of the over 80 year olds has risen enormously. This has had a massive influence on the cost of health care.

A study by the Swiss Health Observatory says the price for care will rise from 7,3 billion francs in 2005 to around 18 billion in 2030.

The rise is of course affected by the prescription of multiple medication for the aged, on average fifteen tablets a day,and performance of complicated operations, excluding emergency orthopaedic procedures on over seventy five year olds. Higher nursing and so called hotel costs add to it.

Ethics play a great part in how we approach the situation at the moment.

Mankind has the right to live ,but when are we going to have the right to die?

Last year approximately 100,000 tons of grain was used to make biological fueI.
I love the colour green, but I love a fresh loaf of bread more.

1 Swiss Frank per day, per person.

Worldwide at least a billion people must live on this amount. That hardly pays for basic food.

The price for grain is exploding because it is being used for bio fuel.

The price of rice rose by 75% in the last two monthes. The price of corn rose over the last twelve monthes by 120%. One of the causes being merchant speculation.

It takes 200 kilo of corn to manufacture enough Ethanol to fill a 95 Liter tank. With this amount of corn a person could feed themselves for a year.

2102 Million tones of grain was harvested in the world in 2007. Half of it was used for animal food and biological fuel.

Work the rest of it out for yourselves.

Can we let this go on?

Ethic has become a fashionable word these days. According to the Oxford Dictionary, ethics is “the study of standards of conduct and moral judgement”.

There are Ethic Commissions everywhere earning good money to save us in our completely unethical world.

In Switzerland they have probably given up trying to save people and animals because the Ethical Commission here has now moved on to plants.

They say plants have a dignity that needs to be protected,and are discussing what ethical position we must take in this.

So, up until a decision is made please don’t pick the Daisies.

Every year the Guilds of Zürich celebrate with great gusto their traditional Spring Festival called “Sechseläuten”,or Six O’Clock Bells.

Celebrations get well under way on Sunday with the parade of the children dressed in historic costumes walking through the streets of the inner city.

On Monday the parade of the Guilds takes place.
After, everyone meets by the Lake, where punctually at six p.m. the effigy of “Old Man Winter” is burnt on a huge bonfire while riders in costume gallop around it.

It is said that the kind of Summer we can expect depends on the time it takes for the effigy to explode.

I never care either way,more important to me is that Winter has at last gone.