Posts
Today I went for a cruise on my bike in the Black Forest. Though it's a public holiday, my wife was working and my son was in Düsseldorf playing American Flag Football against the Krauts (we won, I'm glad to say). My daughter has been begging for a ride sometime and the weather was playing along for a change, so off we went. The ride was wonderful. After the months of grey skies and the interminable wet and cold of a European winter, it was fantastic to be out in the sunshine with the wind warm against your skin and the feel of a powerful motor beneath you. Riding the winding forest roads with the dappled sun playing on the asphalt beneath your wheels, following the route of a surging forest stream as you make your way upwards from the Swiss border through the fringes of the Black Forest, climbing ever higher, passing through open meadows and picturesque little southern German villages, well, it just gives one a good feeling. There is a myriad of cute little taverns and inns along the way, tucked away in the forest on the roadside. We chose one and stopped for some of the delicious forest fare before leisurely making our way back South via a different route.
What one does notice though, especially coming from where I do, is the sense of fashion, or lack thereof, among the bikers over here. This is a very wealthy corner of Western Europe where I live, and nowhere is this more evident than among the bikers. There are literally hundreds of bikes on the road when it's a public holiday and the weather's as good as this. What's so amazing is that they are all brand spanking new! However, that's not what catches my eye the most. It's the clothing. When I was sixteen, I got my first motorcycle. It was a 50cc, and it was all I was allowed until I turned eighteen and could get a licence for something bigger. Like me, all my friends got one too. We were all from poor-to-middle income families, so there was no such thing as a new bike for any of us, and if one of our schoolfellows was fortunate enough to be given a new motorcyle then he was ostracised and left out of the fun. Anyway, our bikes were simply a means of transport, and after school and on the weekends the whole crowd could be found whizzing down to the beach in their baggies, barefooted and no shirts, a surfboard (which was longer than the bike) clutched under one arm while you crash-changed the gears all the way down to the shore. Some of the unfortunates who hadn't managed to get holiday jobs and save enough for their own transport but who were lucky enough to have a friend willing to run the gauntlet of a traffic control while illegally giving them a lift, would sit on the back, helmetless and clutching a surfboard on either side. Later on, I got a 500cc Honda and was allowed to legally carry a passenger. We still rode in shorts, sandals and no shirts.
When I first got to Switzerland, one of my priorities was getting a motorcycle. I haven't been without one for 21 years, and with these alpine passes and beautiful summers, it was a necessity. I wasn't prepared, however, for the stares, glares and lectures I was in for. I do wear shoes and socks these days, and a shirt, but half the reason one has a bike is for the feeling of freedom, the sun on one's skin, the warmth of the summer air rushing over your body as you cruise the open road. Not here. Here people dress themselves up in a variation of costumes that puts the fear of God into you. Can you imagine 30°C, bright hot sunshine and a skintight leather or canvas-like suit completely encasing your body and zipped tightly up to the chin? Add to this a kidney belt that looks like Klitschko's latest trophy and you can feel the sweat breaking out as you read. What's laughable about the whole thing is that everybody has some sort of a Grand Prix style outfit. You could swear you've somehow stumbled into an international event. I even find myself looking out for billboards with all the motorcycle manufacturers sponsoring ads.
What happened to getting on your bike and going for a fun ride? What happened to owning a bike for the simple purpose of getting from A to B? Today you need to get kitted out in a sauna-suit that's some variation of neon puke green or eye-searing bright pink before you mount your colour-coded 1200cc metal steed, which in most cases you're not even really experienced enough to drive, and then hare off into the most hell-raising, hair-curling ride you can think of, endangering all and sundry in the process and unfortunately killing not yourself but some other hapless pedestrian, motorist or cyclist.
I do own a full motorcycle suit (black with a touch of midnight blue, none of this neon sunflower shit for me, and no fake Suzuki, Honda, Motoguzzi, etc. racing labels), and together with the motorcycle boots it was just the right thing when I spent three years commuting to night school every night in Zürich. One remains completely dry and warm, no matter what the weather is doing (even December wasn't a problem) and there's the added satisfaction of knowing that a fall isn't going to result in half your skin being removed. However, even with the Winter lining removed, it is just impossible to don these clothes when the sun is shining. Not to mention that my daughter doesn't have the advantage of owning such things. So, if she has to wear jeans, sneakers and a thin leather jacket, then so do I. If she's got no gloves, then mine remain at home too. Though I know that the modern protective clothing is designed to save lives, I surely won't clad myself in all these things and then leave my daughter to her fate when the next wannabe Grand Prix champ smashes into us. Rather we suffer together. Man, I can just hear the whinging going on as people read this! The thing is, what happened to us along the way? My father used to take us on his bike when we were toddlers. When he realised that we started falling asleep to the rhythm of the engine after five miles, he modified an old safety belt from a scrap car and strapped us to him so we couldn't fall off in our sleep. Crikey, I don't think it gets unsafer than that. Actually, rubbish. My brother-in-law carried his toddler around on his shoulders on his dirt bike as he did the rounds on his farm in the Drakensberg mountains of South Africa. No helmets. We drove around in old Valiants with bench seats and no head rests. Mother and father sat in front and I stood in the back, leaning on their seat. Safety belts were only available in the front and were something to be tucked away under the seat so they didn't get in the way of cuddling while you drove. Well, my parents didn't get their necks snapped and I didn't fly through the windshield. The old man just drove slowly and carefully, keeping his eye on the road and the other motorists and being a considerate driver.
I know this is all over now, but there must be a mix somewhere? Sure, everyone drives like raving lunatics, and the vehicles are, like life these days, so much faster, but can we still enjoy a "Sunday drive" in the sunshine with our children if we're extra careful?
I did.
Monday 24 May 2010
Monday 10 May 2010
Old values, modern world...
Today I picked up the newspaper and saw a curious picture in the bottom corner of the front page. The image showed a gaping, empty road tunnel...
Considering the amount of traffic on the roads these days, this was quite intriguing. The only time tunnels are empty of traffic is when a) there's a mother of all accidents being cleaned up, or b) unavoidable repair work is being carried out in the middle of the night.
Of course I forgot momentarily that this is Switzerland. On top of the narrow ledge on the side of the roadway were four little ducklings in a row and behind them the mother duck, busily encouraging the other five still on the road (and also in perfect duckling formation) to attempt the jump up to join their siblings. Turns out the St Johann tunnel in Basel was blockaded for all of 40 minutes by a dozen assorted firemen, police and border guards (Basel is on the German/Swiss border) while the duck family were carefully rounded up and transported to a place of safety.
Now I ask you, is this not fantastic? This is one of those things that I just love about Switzerland. Back where I come from, no one would even have noticed such a thing (except perhaps some hapless sod bemoaning the new crack in his windshield as momma duck's carcass ricocheted over his speeding vehicle). Here in the land of cuckoo clocks, however, where time is not only money but omnipotent God of everything (up to the borders of the French- and Italian-speaking cantons, that is!) are not only expensive public servants called into action for a family of ducks, but countless even more expensive professionals (think BANKER...YEARLY INCOME...BONUS, and you'll get the picture) and tradesmen (think SWISS QUALITY and the expense this entails to get even more in the picture) are held up or diverted on lengthy detours through the boondocks as they go about their sacred duty (MAKING MONEY). And not one public complaint!
It's fantastic that in this society people will go to such lengths for a single family of ducks. How much concern was for the safety of motorists I couldn't say, but I would guess this featured in the whole exercise too. Still, back home....
As an addendum to this little tale, I must mention that this is the only place I know of where the services of the police are billed out to the public. Am I just ignorant or is this normal elsewhere in the world? I wonder how much the duck escapade cost, and who's going to pay for it? I wouldn't mind if they sent me a bill for my share (one seven millionth, that is). It's worth it.
This reminds me of the time five years back when I had occasion to attend a course in another town quite far from where I live. Quite far in Switzerland means about 35 kilometres. The route to and from the course centre every day took me through about five kilometres of nature reserve. Coming from deep and dark Africa, I naturally spent the first few days eagerly looking for lion and elephant, but was sorely disappointed. This must have brought me to my senses, for I suddenly remembered that I was in Switzerland, where 'nature reserve' also means 'a place for butterflies and pretty flowers'. Anyway, it was Autumn and the roads were slick, the mist was thick and it was dark on the way there in the morning and on the way home in the evening. Not being much of an early riser, I was always pushed for time. So you can imagine my surprise, irritation and apprehension when I found the road suddenly barricaded one morning. This was and is a main route, by the way, not a gravel road, African style, intended only for traversing the 'nature reserve' when viewing the butterflies. There was a large triangular road traffic warning sign, of the kind used to indicate a lurking danger ahead for the motorist, such as a level crossing, or a four-way intersection, or perhaps falling rock or slippery road surfaces, etc. on the barricade. The thing is, this sign had a picture of a frog on it. A frog?
Hastily revising my opinion of Swiss nature reserves, I began peering frantically about in the thick mist on either side as I activated the central locking, all the while expecting a gigantic poisonous frog to appear on the bonnet (that's 'hood' for those of you who can't speak English) and send his tongue shooting through the windscreen to drag me kicking and screaming through the shattered glass and to my doom. I had wondered why the road was so quiet that particular morning, and as I retraced my route looking for a suitable detour I noticed a few more of the ominous signs that had escaped my limited early morning attention span. Everyone would recognise them if they had a leaping deer on them as that's exactly what they were like, just regular warning signs, but with a frog. My sleep-fogged brain must have failed to register the different image...
Well, when I arrived late and explained that the road had been closed without warning because of an escaped batch of mutant ninja toads, the lecturer just looked wisely into the middle distance somewhere behind me and muttered, "Ah yes, it's that time of year..." leaving me with the distinct impression that somehow I was the dumb foreigner again. However, the remark gave me a hint and I soon put two and two together and realised that these hard, business-orientated Swiss truly do have a soft and gentle side to them. Imagine closing off a whole road just for migrating frogs! Back home you could always tell when the rainy season had officially begun simply by the amount of squashed frogs on the roads. Not here, sonny! Here we're civilised and caring!
I like this place, even if I am just a dumb foreigner...
Considering the amount of traffic on the roads these days, this was quite intriguing. The only time tunnels are empty of traffic is when a) there's a mother of all accidents being cleaned up, or b) unavoidable repair work is being carried out in the middle of the night.
Of course I forgot momentarily that this is Switzerland. On top of the narrow ledge on the side of the roadway were four little ducklings in a row and behind them the mother duck, busily encouraging the other five still on the road (and also in perfect duckling formation) to attempt the jump up to join their siblings. Turns out the St Johann tunnel in Basel was blockaded for all of 40 minutes by a dozen assorted firemen, police and border guards (Basel is on the German/Swiss border) while the duck family were carefully rounded up and transported to a place of safety.
Now I ask you, is this not fantastic? This is one of those things that I just love about Switzerland. Back where I come from, no one would even have noticed such a thing (except perhaps some hapless sod bemoaning the new crack in his windshield as momma duck's carcass ricocheted over his speeding vehicle). Here in the land of cuckoo clocks, however, where time is not only money but omnipotent God of everything (up to the borders of the French- and Italian-speaking cantons, that is!) are not only expensive public servants called into action for a family of ducks, but countless even more expensive professionals (think BANKER...YEARLY INCOME...BONUS, and you'll get the picture) and tradesmen (think SWISS QUALITY and the expense this entails to get even more in the picture) are held up or diverted on lengthy detours through the boondocks as they go about their sacred duty (MAKING MONEY). And not one public complaint!
It's fantastic that in this society people will go to such lengths for a single family of ducks. How much concern was for the safety of motorists I couldn't say, but I would guess this featured in the whole exercise too. Still, back home....
As an addendum to this little tale, I must mention that this is the only place I know of where the services of the police are billed out to the public. Am I just ignorant or is this normal elsewhere in the world? I wonder how much the duck escapade cost, and who's going to pay for it? I wouldn't mind if they sent me a bill for my share (one seven millionth, that is). It's worth it.
This reminds me of the time five years back when I had occasion to attend a course in another town quite far from where I live. Quite far in Switzerland means about 35 kilometres. The route to and from the course centre every day took me through about five kilometres of nature reserve. Coming from deep and dark Africa, I naturally spent the first few days eagerly looking for lion and elephant, but was sorely disappointed. This must have brought me to my senses, for I suddenly remembered that I was in Switzerland, where 'nature reserve' also means 'a place for butterflies and pretty flowers'. Anyway, it was Autumn and the roads were slick, the mist was thick and it was dark on the way there in the morning and on the way home in the evening. Not being much of an early riser, I was always pushed for time. So you can imagine my surprise, irritation and apprehension when I found the road suddenly barricaded one morning. This was and is a main route, by the way, not a gravel road, African style, intended only for traversing the 'nature reserve' when viewing the butterflies. There was a large triangular road traffic warning sign, of the kind used to indicate a lurking danger ahead for the motorist, such as a level crossing, or a four-way intersection, or perhaps falling rock or slippery road surfaces, etc. on the barricade. The thing is, this sign had a picture of a frog on it. A frog?
Hastily revising my opinion of Swiss nature reserves, I began peering frantically about in the thick mist on either side as I activated the central locking, all the while expecting a gigantic poisonous frog to appear on the bonnet (that's 'hood' for those of you who can't speak English) and send his tongue shooting through the windscreen to drag me kicking and screaming through the shattered glass and to my doom. I had wondered why the road was so quiet that particular morning, and as I retraced my route looking for a suitable detour I noticed a few more of the ominous signs that had escaped my limited early morning attention span. Everyone would recognise them if they had a leaping deer on them as that's exactly what they were like, just regular warning signs, but with a frog. My sleep-fogged brain must have failed to register the different image...
Well, when I arrived late and explained that the road had been closed without warning because of an escaped batch of mutant ninja toads, the lecturer just looked wisely into the middle distance somewhere behind me and muttered, "Ah yes, it's that time of year..." leaving me with the distinct impression that somehow I was the dumb foreigner again. However, the remark gave me a hint and I soon put two and two together and realised that these hard, business-orientated Swiss truly do have a soft and gentle side to them. Imagine closing off a whole road just for migrating frogs! Back home you could always tell when the rainy season had officially begun simply by the amount of squashed frogs on the roads. Not here, sonny! Here we're civilised and caring!
I like this place, even if I am just a dumb foreigner...
Sunday 9 May 2010
Guilty conscience
Whew!
So much for the new project. Here I was, thinking I was going to be writing down all the daily thoughts for everyone, and I haven't been back for over a month. It's hard to do this when you don't have anyone following your input, but I suppose it is a diary of sorts, and since when were diaries supposed to be public?
I've been battling with the fact that the damn blog page appears in German. A certain off-putter to the audience I'm trying to target, I'm sure. I spent a half an hour on the phone with my brother on another continent trying to interpret the page so that he could leave a comment, but he must have given up 'cause there're no facetious comments yet.
I think the original theme of the blog needs to be changed, because there is just so much else that I would like to talk about (when I get the time to write, that is...). However, this little Swiss one needs telling.
Today is Sunday. The day of rest in Switzerland, and for all I know, in the rest of the world. In the bad old "Old South Africa", when I was just a young whippersnapper being groomed for a future as a big bad white supremacist type (thank God all that crap fell through... has anyone seen what happened to the Führer of Evil White South Africans, Eugene 'Terror' Blanche? Not the kind of ending I'd imagine enjoying as a son of the Chosen People...) Sundays were for braaing (a South African term for barbecueing), drinking beer (or home-brewed battery acid, if you weren't a Chosen One)and gardening, fixing the lawnmower, tinkering with your motorcycle or car, or whatever else tickled your fancy. Now I live in the northern Balkan province of Switzerland and suddenly things are different.
Here, Sunday is a day of REST. Essentially, this means that if you have a gardening implement of any description not only in your hand but at all visible to the neighbours, you are WORKING. This is NOT DONE. If you wash your car on Sunday, you are SINNING. If your vacuum cleaner is not set to silent mode and you get the urge to quickly vacuum that corner behind the dinner table where your guests from the previous evening thought you wouldn't find the rice grains they managed to sow when you weren't looking, be advised: you WILL BE FOUND OUT, and you are SINNING.
I never realised how religous the Swiss are before. I must admit, when I came here nine years ago and had to register at the local municipal authorities, I gave my religion as "Protestant", even though I was last in church about 25 years ago when my cousin got involved in the happy clappers church band as a means to get to practice music for free with top class instruments (yes, that preacher knew how to get the bucks out of his flock alright!). The reason I did this was because I was afraid that these Europeans were still in the middle ages and maybe if I admitted that I didn't really know what my religion was, they might find ways to ensure that I didn't get a job, or even worse. My blank look and "huh?" was answered with "Katholisch oder Reformiert?" and a withering look. Even a dumb plaasjapie (Afrikaans for country bumpkin) like me was able to work out that my choices were Catholic or Reformed (Crikey, like Luther or Calvin? AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! What century do these people live in?). Not being very friendly to the whole idea of organised religion (thanks, all you meddling, two-faced, hypocritical christians of my past...), I had to rely on my extreme distrust of the last remnants of the two thousand year old Roman Empire that lives on in the Vatican today and make a serious choice. So today I'm a Protestant. Don't even THINK about asking what branch! I have no clue. Though it's irrelevant here where I live. They only seem to know catholic and NOT catholic. Typical Swiss efficiency and logic, eh? None of this Holy Followers of the Lost Lamb Brotherhood, Anglican, Sons of Zion, Methodist, Walk-on-the-Wrong-Side-of-the-Valley-of-Death-and-you-Die or Scientology stuff, etc. Oh no. Catholic or Reformed! This in a country where catholics in the city of Zürich were still officially treated as second-class citizens as late as 1952. A strange race, to be sure, but a good one nonetheless (unless you work for the IRS).
So, I digress. There I was, standing in my garden, busily involved in converting the kid's sandpit into a snailproof, high-tech organic research and development centre for the cultivation of lettuce, when I heard a friendly yet menacing voice coming from the other side of my far too short and far too sparse garden hedge. "Schaffe mer am Sunntig?", which translates to (in this context) "Are we working on Sunday?". I looked up into the face of my neighbour, who was looking quite nonplussed at this extraordinary Sunday activity.
Now, I know that he's not overly religious (his Ukranian girlfriend and her daughter have recently moved in with him, and I'm sure I seem to remember something about "though shalt not live in sin" from those awful wasted sunny Sunday mornings when I was forced to go and sit with all the losers in Sunday school instead of running free with the sun in my face and the salt spray from the ocean settling on my bare torso as I learnt to be a little white supremacist), but even though he's such a nice guy one never can tell where the line is actually drawn over here. Especially for a barbarian from Africa like me. So I did what one should never do in Switzerland. I resorted to sarcasm. This is a MISTAKE. Swiss people DO NOT understand sarcasm. Actually, they do. I've heard the most hilarious sarcasm over here, but it's always coming from a Swiss. When a foreigner tries it it falls flat. I put this down to two things. Firstly, you're foreign, so you must be too dumb to understand what is being said to you, hence your answer, which is taken literally and then torn apart while the facts (as seen by your lecturer) are explained to you. Secondly, the English-speakng foreigner tries to translate his sarcasm into German or Swiss-German, which does NOT work. You may think that as you went to school in the Goethe Institute for twenty years, your fluency in German will put you one step ahead of the rest, but you're wrong. Over here, they speak Swiss-German, or Schwyzerdüütsch, and there ARE no institutes that could possibly give you the step up that you need to be able to communicate at a level approximating your proficiency in your own language. Try and picture a hillbilly telling the Queen how to brew her own whiskey, and you'll be close to the language barrier between Germans and German-Swiss.
I digress again. I love digressing. Well, my answer was: "Oh no, I'm not WORKING! This is my passion! My secret love! I do this because I LIKE it!" Though the lecture that followed was boring in the extreme, I did get a momentary glimmer of satisfaction at the fleeting look of blank incomprehension that followed my infantile reply.
The secret, dear readers, is in the hedge. I planted my Thuja Smaragd evergreen conifers three years ago. As a pleb in this ultra wealthy society, I couldn't go out and buy them ready grown at two meters, so I had to settle for 30 centimetre ones, but my god, how they grow. If you think you know what the proverbial "watching a pot boil" means, well, you don't. I have surely consumed at least 2000 crates of beer over the last three years watching these little buggers creep toward the heavens. My perseverance is paying off though. They're up to my nipples already, and the gaps between them are nearly closed. If they carry on at this rate, I'm going to have a lot of privacy on the north, west and south side of the property very soon. Like in about another five years or so. Unfortunately, we have a block of flats on the east side, so that will take, oh... perhaps another twenty years or so, but by then the gardening police will have ordered me to cut them down before they reach the 30 metre mark... I dunno, I suppose I'll just have to be another irritating foreigner and pretend I didn't realise they were getting out of hand.
Okay, this post has gotten so long that I think will call it a day now. Hopefully the next won't be so long in coming as this one. I think I'll go and enjoy the last of the day of rest now... Wherever you are in the world, I hope you're enjoying your day as much as I did mine.
So much for the new project. Here I was, thinking I was going to be writing down all the daily thoughts for everyone, and I haven't been back for over a month. It's hard to do this when you don't have anyone following your input, but I suppose it is a diary of sorts, and since when were diaries supposed to be public?
I've been battling with the fact that the damn blog page appears in German. A certain off-putter to the audience I'm trying to target, I'm sure. I spent a half an hour on the phone with my brother on another continent trying to interpret the page so that he could leave a comment, but he must have given up 'cause there're no facetious comments yet.
I think the original theme of the blog needs to be changed, because there is just so much else that I would like to talk about (when I get the time to write, that is...). However, this little Swiss one needs telling.
Today is Sunday. The day of rest in Switzerland, and for all I know, in the rest of the world. In the bad old "Old South Africa", when I was just a young whippersnapper being groomed for a future as a big bad white supremacist type (thank God all that crap fell through... has anyone seen what happened to the Führer of Evil White South Africans, Eugene 'Terror' Blanche? Not the kind of ending I'd imagine enjoying as a son of the Chosen People...) Sundays were for braaing (a South African term for barbecueing), drinking beer (or home-brewed battery acid, if you weren't a Chosen One)and gardening, fixing the lawnmower, tinkering with your motorcycle or car, or whatever else tickled your fancy. Now I live in the northern Balkan province of Switzerland and suddenly things are different.
Here, Sunday is a day of REST. Essentially, this means that if you have a gardening implement of any description not only in your hand but at all visible to the neighbours, you are WORKING. This is NOT DONE. If you wash your car on Sunday, you are SINNING. If your vacuum cleaner is not set to silent mode and you get the urge to quickly vacuum that corner behind the dinner table where your guests from the previous evening thought you wouldn't find the rice grains they managed to sow when you weren't looking, be advised: you WILL BE FOUND OUT, and you are SINNING.
I never realised how religous the Swiss are before. I must admit, when I came here nine years ago and had to register at the local municipal authorities, I gave my religion as "Protestant", even though I was last in church about 25 years ago when my cousin got involved in the happy clappers church band as a means to get to practice music for free with top class instruments (yes, that preacher knew how to get the bucks out of his flock alright!). The reason I did this was because I was afraid that these Europeans were still in the middle ages and maybe if I admitted that I didn't really know what my religion was, they might find ways to ensure that I didn't get a job, or even worse. My blank look and "huh?" was answered with "Katholisch oder Reformiert?" and a withering look. Even a dumb plaasjapie (Afrikaans for country bumpkin) like me was able to work out that my choices were Catholic or Reformed (Crikey, like Luther or Calvin? AAAARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!! What century do these people live in?). Not being very friendly to the whole idea of organised religion (thanks, all you meddling, two-faced, hypocritical christians of my past...), I had to rely on my extreme distrust of the last remnants of the two thousand year old Roman Empire that lives on in the Vatican today and make a serious choice. So today I'm a Protestant. Don't even THINK about asking what branch! I have no clue. Though it's irrelevant here where I live. They only seem to know catholic and NOT catholic. Typical Swiss efficiency and logic, eh? None of this Holy Followers of the Lost Lamb Brotherhood, Anglican, Sons of Zion, Methodist, Walk-on-the-Wrong-Side-of-the-Valley-of-Death-and-you-Die or Scientology stuff, etc. Oh no. Catholic or Reformed! This in a country where catholics in the city of Zürich were still officially treated as second-class citizens as late as 1952. A strange race, to be sure, but a good one nonetheless (unless you work for the IRS).
So, I digress. There I was, standing in my garden, busily involved in converting the kid's sandpit into a snailproof, high-tech organic research and development centre for the cultivation of lettuce, when I heard a friendly yet menacing voice coming from the other side of my far too short and far too sparse garden hedge. "Schaffe mer am Sunntig?", which translates to (in this context) "Are we working on Sunday?". I looked up into the face of my neighbour, who was looking quite nonplussed at this extraordinary Sunday activity.
Now, I know that he's not overly religious (his Ukranian girlfriend and her daughter have recently moved in with him, and I'm sure I seem to remember something about "though shalt not live in sin" from those awful wasted sunny Sunday mornings when I was forced to go and sit with all the losers in Sunday school instead of running free with the sun in my face and the salt spray from the ocean settling on my bare torso as I learnt to be a little white supremacist), but even though he's such a nice guy one never can tell where the line is actually drawn over here. Especially for a barbarian from Africa like me. So I did what one should never do in Switzerland. I resorted to sarcasm. This is a MISTAKE. Swiss people DO NOT understand sarcasm. Actually, they do. I've heard the most hilarious sarcasm over here, but it's always coming from a Swiss. When a foreigner tries it it falls flat. I put this down to two things. Firstly, you're foreign, so you must be too dumb to understand what is being said to you, hence your answer, which is taken literally and then torn apart while the facts (as seen by your lecturer) are explained to you. Secondly, the English-speakng foreigner tries to translate his sarcasm into German or Swiss-German, which does NOT work. You may think that as you went to school in the Goethe Institute for twenty years, your fluency in German will put you one step ahead of the rest, but you're wrong. Over here, they speak Swiss-German, or Schwyzerdüütsch, and there ARE no institutes that could possibly give you the step up that you need to be able to communicate at a level approximating your proficiency in your own language. Try and picture a hillbilly telling the Queen how to brew her own whiskey, and you'll be close to the language barrier between Germans and German-Swiss.
I digress again. I love digressing. Well, my answer was: "Oh no, I'm not WORKING! This is my passion! My secret love! I do this because I LIKE it!" Though the lecture that followed was boring in the extreme, I did get a momentary glimmer of satisfaction at the fleeting look of blank incomprehension that followed my infantile reply.
The secret, dear readers, is in the hedge. I planted my Thuja Smaragd evergreen conifers three years ago. As a pleb in this ultra wealthy society, I couldn't go out and buy them ready grown at two meters, so I had to settle for 30 centimetre ones, but my god, how they grow. If you think you know what the proverbial "watching a pot boil" means, well, you don't. I have surely consumed at least 2000 crates of beer over the last three years watching these little buggers creep toward the heavens. My perseverance is paying off though. They're up to my nipples already, and the gaps between them are nearly closed. If they carry on at this rate, I'm going to have a lot of privacy on the north, west and south side of the property very soon. Like in about another five years or so. Unfortunately, we have a block of flats on the east side, so that will take, oh... perhaps another twenty years or so, but by then the gardening police will have ordered me to cut them down before they reach the 30 metre mark... I dunno, I suppose I'll just have to be another irritating foreigner and pretend I didn't realise they were getting out of hand.
Okay, this post has gotten so long that I think will call it a day now. Hopefully the next won't be so long in coming as this one. I think I'll go and enjoy the last of the day of rest now... Wherever you are in the world, I hope you're enjoying your day as much as I did mine.
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