Local news

Go check out local.ch! It's a very useful site if you're in Switzerland for it gives you a map based access to yellow and white pages as well as to events and classifieds. It's really useful and it works. Yesterday I was looking for a dental technician that I could visit on the way to the train station, and today I was looking for an unlisted hairdresser in Rheinfelden on behalf of my sister. Both worked perfectly smoothly. Oh, and it also displays blog posts from geotagged blogs from the map area. This is the Web 2.0 stuff that's really useful!

In other local news: My mom is currently in hospital to have both her knees replaced. She's had her second operation yesterday, and I am glad to report that everything went well. She's well on the path to recovery, which includes a few more weeks of hospital and rehab stays away from home. In order to make that easier on her, I gave her a digital picture frame today. It's a little TFT monitor that displays a slide show of all pics, movies & sound files that are on the memory card you plug into it. She's enjoying it a lot, especially since it contains literally hundreds of conversation starters. I tested a cheaper one before, but that was a bad experience: apparently buggy software, bad physical quality &c. I spent quite some time trying to get it running, whereas the Kodak one was just plug & play.

Urbi & orbi

One of the smaller things I took home from London was the July / August issue of Monocle, which is dedicated to an evaluation of the world's most liveable cities. The ranking of the 20 most liveable cities not published on the public site is as follows: Munich, Copenhagen, Zürich, Tokyo, Vienna, Helsinki, Sydney, Stockholm, Honolulu, Madrid, Melbourne, Montreal, Barcelona, Kyoto, Vancouver, Auckland, Singapore, Hamburg, Paris, Geneva.

While I am certainly glad to note that 2 Swiss cities made the cut, I am surprised at the bile expressed against Berne, the nation's capital. I am not exactly saying that Berne is a global metropolis - quite on the contrary. But if easy access to a long haul hub is such an important criterion as it is made out to be, then the metropolitan area of all of Switzerland should actually enter the competition, thanks to the country's small size. After all, Singapore is there, too, and some people are beginning to think of Switzerland as one big metropolitan area with a really huge natural park (the alps) in the middle. At any rate, I think I am not going to buy another issue of Monocle, because I am going to take out a subscription.

Speaking of cities & the world at large, I also stocked up on those new Wallpaper* Guides of the cities that I currently have an active interest in: Bangkok, Basel, London, Singapore. Great concept!

Obama for president? Yes, please.

In a recent conversation, I reserved judgment over whether I would support Mr Obama's candidacy until after having read his recent Foreign Affairs essay - as if anyone cared. I can now say that indeed I would. Mr Obama's foreign policy programme seems to be a well considered mix of hard action items while not forgetting about the softer repair operations in international trust & confidence necessitated by the current administration's dilettantism. Unfortunately he doesn't mention how this policy is supposed to be financed - it probably won't come cheaper than the unsustainable ongoing Iraq operation, which he proposes to conclude.

Live hypocrisy

There's really nothing much favourable I can say about spin events such as Live Earth. Not only were most participants quite hypocritical in their own answer to the call, other than jumping on a well prepared PR bandwaggon. What's more, the message promulgated by Messrs Gore et al is one of pathetic over-dramatisation. The planet needs no saving, nor does mankind as such. I don't contend that "we" are likely to run into quite a lot of trouble and pain in adapting to the changing environment, and that it may be reasonable to take mitigating measures now, but the missionary zeal in evidence does little to alleviate my suspicion that there is more to it than meets the eye: Politicians will jump at every opportunity to expand their own sphere of influence, even though the single most effective strategy would be one of a government-neutral increase of the relative price of fossil fuels. Politicians however are loath to hear the bit about government-neutral, of course ... they are part of the problem rather than of the solution.

In fact, I am wondering whether we're on the way to a carbon standard economy. This refers to the world currency system, as in gold standard, or the Bretton Woods system. Already today, the influence of one form of carbon (i.e. oil) on the global economy is very strong and may be seen as an alternative currency.

Anyway, arcane considerations such as that apart, I've come across a good evaluation of voluntary carbon offset programmes by Tufts University. I am glad to see that one of the recommended companies is Swiss MyClimate. Amazing that my forthcoming trip to Singapore for instance will release about 10 tons of CO2, the offset of which would set me back some €260. I need to consider my policy options.

Enough already!

Parallel worlds

Check out the rest of these excellent commercials for Parallel's virtualisation software, which I can highly recommend. The Coherence mode is kind of eerie, though!

Home for now

Now that I've returned from London before some stupid people seem to have tried in vain to start some fireworks in the central London neighbourhood that I usually stay in, I'll be grounded here for the next few weeks until my next big trip to the far east. Meanwhile, I am glad to relate that a picture of a Fortnum & Mason's shop window that I took on an earlier trip has been selected for an online travel guide. I'll be a photographer after all!

In other news, there has been a lot of talk about great change in London. At least, that's what a well established politician claims to put into place after having moved next door ... well, we'll see. A classic line by the Bard crosses one's mind, one admits.

Meanwhile, no signs of premature ihype have been spotted at the Regent Street Apple Store, even though it was as full as always. Nevertheless, I took advantage of the beginning end of season sales to indulge myself in some retail therapy. Among other things, I've upgraded my decrepit old Samsonite carry-on to a much better designed Tumi one. I've been enjoying the smart design of one of their backpacks for years now, and despite of the heavy use, it still looks almost as good as new thanks to the sturdy material it's made off. The new carry-on is just the same, and it's in silver grey, so I'll never be at risk again for grabbing any of the perfectly uniform black Samsonites from the conveyor belt. Simple pleasures ... just like the new jacket from Holland Esquire that I picked up at Liberty. I've never gotten my hands on garment that is as perfectly tailored as this for such a reasonable price.

My dog is nuts

Laika has taken to chasing jets lately. Whenever she sees (!) an aeroplane taking off from the nearby airport, she takes off like a rocket herself, racing at full speed towards the corn field which blocks her view across the meadow, then she turns left towards the brook where she catches another glimpse between the trees. After that, she comes back up again, completely exasperated & quite breathless. Now I'm worried that she might get lucky one day ...

Rebus and his Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh Journal has a great article about Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus series of novels by Rod Johnson. Neither the Journal nor the article appear to be available online, which is a pity. But if you are into Rebus or Edinburgh, then you should have a look at this three pages piece since it offers a knowledgeable insight into the linkage between the novels and the city. Also, it made me think that it might be fun to bring Rebus into an episode of House M.D. ...

The final word

With the arrival of my lost luggage tonight, I can close the book on my 48 hours power trip to Washington on Lufthansa. The verdict is not favourable.

As I mentioned previously, the service is ok, but it lacks the certain panache that is required in a truely first class service. Just a few examples: They fill up wine glasses, of which there is only one size btw. Also, you may get champagne in a wine glass, even though the proper glassware is clearly available. Announcements are annoyingly loud, but the occasional background music is inappropriately muted so that you only get the faint din of the percussion. Not even the nice Van Laack gift polo and track suit will make up for that.

But all that is still bearable. Where it gets quite bad is where it really counts. My final connection on the way home was booked rather daringly, so when we run into the inevitable departure delay at Dulles, things became critical. From my earlier experience with Swiss, I expected at least the same level of service when it became apparent that it might just work in the final approach. However - nothing! Not only did I have to ask what was happening (there were only 3 FC passengers) rather than the crew would inform us proäctively. They virtually didn't know anything.

Eventually I was told that I was re-booked to a later machine, and that they didn't wait for connections. But nevertheless, I was told to ask the ground personnel, so obviously they weren't sure what was happening. Upon landing, there was no ground personnel at hand, and the transfer desk was helplessly clogged. So I decided to try and make it to the rather distant departure gate on my own devices in order to avoid an unplanned five hours interlude at Frankfurt airport. 'Lo and behold, I was lucky! The gate staff asked jokingly whether I had flown in, so evidently they knew about the delayed connection, and that's how I made it to Basle in time, without much help from Lufthansa - quite on the contrary, in fact. Naturally, my checked luggage only arrived tonight, but that's another story.

So, my experience travelling with the crane was well below expectations. I am looking forward to my forthcoming trip to Singapore on Swiss in late August. The trip to London on Tuesday (for three days) will be more of a commuting experience, compared to that.

Update (25.6.): I thought the book was closed on this, but it wasn't really. This morning, 24 hours after the fact, I received an SMS notification that my booking had been changed to flight LH 3812, departing from gate NULL. I might just have to review my German stereotypes ...