Life in the Chocolate factory – ‘Darn foreigners…’
Every morning when I take the tram from the border to Geneva, and then the bus to work, I read one or two of the local free commuter papers printed by and using articles from the main Swiss newspaper – ‘La Tribune de Genève.’
There are the usual round ups of day to day life but the Swiss have a peculiar local way of reporting very quaint pieces of news. In the U.K. or anywhere else, the stories are mostly about a lot more grittier problems and they will just tell you the facts, but here each story starts ‘An Italian non-resident banged into Madame. Le-Clerc at 9:00pm whilst walking home inebriated last night….’ or ‘A resident of Portuguese origin, had discussions last night concerning his shouting at 2:00 am whilst looking for his lost dog – when questioned by Police he later remembered the dog died last year.…’Yesterday a Czech man collided with a scooter…’
Fellow Swiss are not exempt from this approach either - other articles always quote ‘Fred Boggs (from Berne province) set fire to his neighbours barn in a fence dispute last night…’ or ‘Joe Bloe (from Ticino province) was charged after trying to defraud the insurance company for a new tractor to replace his WW2 era relic …’
There’s a feel that after centuries of isolation and neutrality there’s something deep within the Swiss psyche that manifests itself in their still being very wary of anyone outside their own neighbourhood, let alone the next Canton or country.
But if most of the problems are just Georges and Pierre getting plastered at the local tavern and making dicks of themselves, then I’ll read that news any day.
Every morning when I take the tram from the border to Geneva, and then the bus to work, I read one or two of the local free commuter papers printed by and using articles from the main Swiss newspaper – ‘La Tribune de Genève.’
There are the usual round ups of day to day life but the Swiss have a peculiar local way of reporting very quaint pieces of news. In the U.K. or anywhere else, the stories are mostly about a lot more grittier problems and they will just tell you the facts, but here each story starts ‘An Italian non-resident banged into Madame. Le-Clerc at 9:00pm whilst walking home inebriated last night….’ or ‘A resident of Portuguese origin, had discussions last night concerning his shouting at 2:00 am whilst looking for his lost dog – when questioned by Police he later remembered the dog died last year.…’Yesterday a Czech man collided with a scooter…’
Fellow Swiss are not exempt from this approach either - other articles always quote ‘Fred Boggs (from Berne province) set fire to his neighbours barn in a fence dispute last night…’ or ‘Joe Bloe (from Ticino province) was charged after trying to defraud the insurance company for a new tractor to replace his WW2 era relic …’
There’s a feel that after centuries of isolation and neutrality there’s something deep within the Swiss psyche that manifests itself in their still being very wary of anyone outside their own neighbourhood, let alone the next Canton or country.
But if most of the problems are just Georges and Pierre getting plastered at the local tavern and making dicks of themselves, then I’ll read that news any day.
posted by Captain Nemo at 3:10 pm
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