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.

You might think the Euro and Potatoes have nothing in common but you would be wrong.

“Swisspatat” the Swiss Potato Industry Organisation says it does.
It is the Worlds best loved vegetable, and Football is the best loved sport. These bind.

Therefore Swisspatat want to widen the horizons of Football Fans with Potato Recipes
from the participating Euro countries, menu ideas and theme evenings are being arranged to waken the interest of fans for other cultures.
Whether “Swedish Potato Pot”, Tschech”Potato Packets”,or “Drunken Potatoes” from Portugal.
Tubors tie.
Infos can be found under www.kartoffel.ch

“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?

If you are wondering how long it took “Old Man Winter” to burn in Zürich yesterday.(See Post)
It took 26 Minutes and 1 second. For the records anyway.
His head was long gone before the big bang was heard. (Who was to blame for that?)

It means of course we are in for a bad Summer here if the oracle is to be believed.
It means too that Basle can laugh over Zürich again at their next Carnival.

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.

Often I have stood in front of one of the worlds great paintings in a museum or gallery, full of wonder for what a painter could achieve.with a few tubes of paint.
Awed by the masterpiece before me I still ask myself,-would I want to take it home,-could I live with it on the wall.?
The answer is more often than not no.
If I could take five of the worlds great pictures ,what would they be?

A Monet for sure,one of the water lilies. I am a terrible romantic.

A Vermeer, with or without earrings.

A Whistler nocturne of the Thames.Musn’t forget England.

Yep,one of Edward Hoppers. You are right,the famous one.

And of course because I live in a land of mountains and lakes, a painting by the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler. The one of the Lake of Geneva to be specific.
An exhibition of a hundred and fifty of his works opened last week at the Kunstmuseum in Berne and will be showing until the middle of August.If you do happen to be here don’t miss it.

Which famous paintings would you hang on the wall?

For such a small country Switzerland certainly has a knack at getting themselves into trouble.
Or maybe I should say our women do.

Only last month our Foreign Ministerin,Micheline Calmy-Rey,took a trip to Iran,donned a head scarf and shook hands on a deal with their President to supply us in future with enough natural gas to keep us warm in Winter. Just in case the Russians play around with their tap,she said.
The Swiss didn’t like the head scarf,and the USA and Israel didn’t like the deal.
“When in Rome” she said about the scarf.
It seems now we weren’t the only country to do business with the Iranians,but at least she did it openly and with charm.

Carla Del Ponte is at the moment Swiss Ambassadress to the Argentine.
It won’t be for long, if a lot of men in our Parliament have their way.
She opened her mouth to wide,not at all the done thing in the Diplomatic Corps, she even wrote it down and believe it or not published it.

In case you have not heard of her before,Carla Del Ponte was the Chief Prosecutor of the War Crimes Tribunal for Ex-Yugoslavia in Den Haag. Netherlands.
She saw and heard of unbelievable atrocities towards mankind during the the civil war.
But there was no atonement.The war criminals are still there.

It must have been impossible for her to come to terms with it all. She has now written a book.
“The Hunt. I and the War Criminals.
She was forbidden by the Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs to attend the presentation of her book,

A delicate diplomatic situation,especially as she among other things, accused the Kosovo Rebel Army UCK (members of which are now leading Kosovo) of trading with the organs of people in their hands.
and found the cooperation of Serbia and Kroatia with the Tribunal after the war insufficient.

The Department of Foreign Affairs is calling for her resignation.

Is it just that women allow their emotions to run away with them,that sometimes their hearts rule their heads.
Or is it that women are less afraid then men to say what they think.
Maybe they are just more honest.

If I were an American Citizen I think Hillary Clinton would get my vote.

59% of the people who were asked this question in Switzerland last week said yes. It won’t help of course.It wouldn’t help if most of the world said yes. The only thing that would help is that the athletes themselves refused to take part. But they are not going to do that,because it is all a matter of gain. Advantage, whether it is personal merit, or business profit. Human suffering, is just something that gets in the way. They knew it would. And they still chose China.