A civilised place

London is without a doubt one of the most civilised places in the world that I know, although I'll never know quite how it manages to pull off that aura. In between two passing thunderstorms, I walked back from a very nice dinner at the Garrick Club to Over-Seas House in St. James's tonight, and despite of giving off the restless vibes of a metropolis, the place appears to maintain its peace. Rather embarrassing though having to borrow a tie from the porter's in order to comply with Club rules, even more so taking into account my short sleeved shirt...

It was wonderfully calming however later on to sit at the bar in front of an open door overlooking a thunderstorm passing over St. James's Park while studying some accounting documentation (just don't comment). Yet, in spite of the apparent peacefulness of the place, shops are bustling with Sales-induced business, which I have taken advantage of as well, of course. I actually got Seasons 1-3 of Six Feet Under, which i am very much looking forward to watching. Tomorrow will be a full day of meetings, to be followed by my first Friends of ROSL Arts Garden Party, which I am looking forward to. More meetings on Thursday, hopefully to be concluded by a visit to the Churchill Museum and a quiet pre-flight pint with J.

Smart goggles

No, this is not a typo, referring erroneously to a well known search engine. A British design student has actually designed smart swimming goggles that keep track of your lap count and time in an in-goggle projection, or whatever you call that. I want them - now! OK, Thursday will do also when I'll be back from London ...

NZZ Leserbrief

Die NZZ hat ihr Wort eingelöst und meinen Leserbrief zur Buchpreisbindung heute in leicht gekürzter Form abgedruckt (s. 26) - leider ist mein abschliessender Aufruf an den Autor einer "Kürzung" zum Opfer gefallen ... immerhin ist es aber bezeichnend, dass keiner der drei abgedruckten Leserbriefe eine positive Reaktion auf den Kommentar enthält. Der verantwortliche Redaktor hätte eine solche ganz sicher berücksichtigt, so er sie bekommen hätte. Das Publikum wird also weitgehend meiner Meinung sein, die bestimmt auch jener der Wirtschaftsredaktion entspricht, die keine Freude am Kommentar gehabt hat.

EU crisis

The EU is in one of its periodic crisis. That's nothing unusual for that institution, and contrary to many a widespread expectation, it will be stronger for it, especially if the road proposed by the incoming EU presidency will be taken. Read the impressive Speech to the EU Parliament by the British Prime Minister - der Text ist auch in Deutsch verfügbar! Il y a aussi une version française.

Greatest Philosopher?

BBC Radio 4's In Our Time is still running the Greatest Philosopher Vote (until early July). The current frontrunner - according to the moderator, you don't get to see it online - is, rather questionably, Karl Marx! Since he is probably the one contestant with the best claim to the scrapheap of history, we cannot have him winning, can we. So go and vote your personal favourite (mine's Sir Charles Popper, of course)! There's a lot of interesting material there, too, not least a philosophy quiz, which I pretty much flunked with a reasonable score ...

Fertig lustig

Die Zugabe von Das Magazin zum Abonnement der Basler Zeitung erweist sich zum wiederholten Mal als massiv wertschöpfender Glücksgriff der BaZ-Strategen. Die heutige Ausgabe ist dem Zustand des Humors in der Schweiz gewidmet, und das ist wahrlich eine traurige Angelegenheit:

"In ihrem Humor einigt sich eine Gesellschaft auf ihre gemeinsamen Werte, auf ihr geteiltes Wissen über die Welt. (...) Humor ist seinem Wesen nach konservativ. (...) Wenn die Realsatire überall ist, gibt es keine Satire mehr. Oder: Wenn alle Tabus gebrochen sind, gibt es keine Unkorrektheit, keine Minderheitenwitze mehr. Erschwerend hinzu kommt, dass in der Mediengesellschaft zur Wirklichkeit die Karikatur immer gleich mitgeliefert wird. Die Welt ist lückenlos umstellt vom Spiegelkabinett des Fernsehens, der Zeitschriften, des Internets, des Digitalkameras, die jede Regung tausendfach reflektieren, umordnen, nachäffen, sodass sich zur These sofort die Antithese gesellt, jede Szene in sämtlichen Blickwinkeln zu sehen ist. Weil so nichts mehr für wahr, nichts mehr wirklich ernst genommen werden kann, hat auch der Unernst einen schweren Stand. (...) Es sind schlechte Zeiten für guten Humor."

Selbstverständlich wird in diesem Zusammenhang auch Frank Baumann erwähnt, der mit seiner genialen Sendung Ventil vor bald 10 Jahren das humoristische Verständnis der Schweiz völlig überfordert hat. "Frank Baumann ist überzeugt, dass der Schweizer generell erst dann lacht, wenn er sich ganz sicher sein kann, dass er auch darf. Das heisst: Die Pointe muss klar sein und die Situation dergestalt, dass man niemanden verletzt mit seinem Lachen. (...) In der Schweiz gilt für jede öffentliche Kommunikation: Seid nett zueinander. Auch über die Lebenden nur Gutes." Wer weiss, vielleicht hat uns die Entwicklung der letzten Jahre ja Humor gelehrt? Hoffen wir, dass SFDRS bald eine Reprise bringt!

Madrid

I realise now that I haven't exactly over-reported my short trip to Madrid. That probably has something to do with my lack of enthusiasm for the place, which to no small degree may be attributed to the scorching heat there. Granted, I've only had a full day to spend there, but often times, you only confirm your first impression anyway. And since I've been to Madrid before a few years ago, that was my second impression in fact.

No doubt impressive and an excellent way to escape the heat are the art collections. I only visited Thyssen & the Prado, where a lot of copying seems to be happening:Never saw that before, so that was quite interesting. I also enjoyed seeing those Goyas and of course El Grecos @home, so to speak. I definitely want to find out more about Goya's black paintings - very enigmatic! However, what absolutely took my breath away was Sargent's life size picture of Millicent, the Duchess of Sutherland, at the Museo Thyssen. Naturally, the reproduction on your screen doesn't even begin to do her justice, if only for size. She's stunningly beautiful, elegant, arrogant & smart - I guess they just don't make them like that any more. I am entirely smitten, you can tell!
But that's enough gushing for the day. I'll leave you with yet another picture, this time from the great flight home. To the left, you can see lake Geneva and to the right, that would be lake Neuenburg.

Adopt a blog

I am considering adopting a Chinese blog in order to help them get around the ban on freedom of expression imposed by the Chinese government. Does anyone have any thoughts on / experience with that?

Holà de Madrid!

First of all, I need to get rid of a to do item from Art. Strangely enough, I forgot to include one of the weirdest pictures in my collage. So, here goes Che ...Nice, isn't it!

Well, Madrid is also - and very hot! It was about 37 degrees today, which is definitely too much for a city. But nonetheless, I think I have seen most of it already. There doesn't seem to be much more to do than the museums, so I had another very "cultural" day today. Any hints? I still have half a day to spend here tomorrow morning. Oh, and I hear that NZZ is going to publish my letter to the editor - great!

Funday, bloody funday

That was a pretty good day today! It started off with mopping up the remainders of a class reunion of our highschool class of Saturday night. It was good fun with almost everybody showing up in the back of beyond of M's home in Bärschwil. Thanks to everybody who was involved in organising it - I am looking forward to seeing some pictures, and the digital version of that video tape of yonder!

Somewhat less fun was being woken my the marching practise of the Musikverein Schönenbuch at the ungodly hour of 10am on a Sunday morning - argh!

But all was well after a nice day in the sun and the pool and finally, a quick visit to Art Basel - and thanks to P for the ticket! A lot of the stuff on display is not worth much more than a passing smirk, but strolling through the exhibits is always fun, if only for the people watching. Here's a small collage of phone pictures taken. Next time you read from me here is probably coming from el la ciudad real de Madrid!