T.G.I.F.! (Thank God its Friday)

One thing is certain living here –you certainly earn your keep. Maybe it’s the company or maybe it’s just the fact of being here that everyone has absorbed the Swiss work ethic, but man I get into the office and five minutes after I’ve had my morning coffee and checked emails, it’s head down and tail up. I just keep working through my ‘to-do’ list steadily ticking things off from morning until late afternoon/early evening when I finally pull the pin and head home.

People working here are certainly not paid for their good looks or charm – you’re here to get the job done and most people come in a little early or put in a little extra in the afternoon to keep on top of things.

Come Friday everyone starts heading home around 5:30pm onwards - after having had the foot flat on the throttle all week long, you can feel people (slowly) easing off the gas very late in the day in anticipation of the two day break.

I know for me that Friday night/Saturday morning sleep-in is the most important part of my week. The time I get to replenish my batteries and not have my life revolve around alarm clocks, deadlines, replying to emails or looking at cash flows worth millions and making sure I haven’t missed anything. I just get up when I want around 8:00-ish and have a cup of coffee and ease in what is usually a calm sunny Saturday.

There’s a definite rhythm to life here in France/Switzerland. Saturday for most folks is the coffee morning with a leisurely newspaper read in the brasserie, or catching up with friends, then the grocery shop to stock up for the coming week before adjourning to the sacrosanct lunch which marks the apogee of the days’ calendar. Then a little later shop-window lights start blinking out, window-shutters start clanking down and people slowly drift away back to their homes.

Come Sunday, both France and Switzerland are as quiet as a churchyard - families having lunch together, couples strolling in the park, only a few cars on the roads. You can almost hear both nations breathing a contented relaxed sigh.

And then all too soon it’s Monday morning again – up and at ‘em!

Dorothy and Toto make a stand

India has its sacred cows, South America reveres the mighty Condor, and Europeans, or rather European ladies just adore their little dogs.

One of the curious things about Europe is their love for pets and in particular the ‘cute’ little dogs Toy Poodles, Silky Terriers, Chihuahua’s and other pocket breeds. Some of these things furry pipsqueaks could fit into the palm of your hand, let alone a ladies handbag where I’ve seen some of them being propped up in whist being shuttled around by their doting owners.

What started the recent kerfuffle was an incident a few weeks ago where a little girl unfortunately got bitten by a Rottweiler and had to have a lot of stitches to her face. The Swiss being Swiss, a very strict law was immediately passed to deal with this problem – everyone agreed with that - only trouble was that the legislation was more like a sawn-off shotgun in its approach in that it introduced a blanket ban on any dogs being in public without a muzzle, and it was not enough ‘laser beam’ targeting known aggressive breeds such as Pit-Bulls, Dobermans, Rottweilers etc.,

This caused no end of practical problems as firstly stocks ran out of all standard muzzles and secondly since there were no muzzles even being made to adapt to little ‘wind up toy’ sized pets like these – some of these tiny dogs would nearly fit inside the entire muzzle!

But not everyone was happy to buy a muzzle and there was revolution in the air! Middle-aged ladies were threatening to defy the ban, others said they would complain directly to Bern (the Capital), whilst others in a more defiant mood, declared their revolutionary zeal by saying they would ‘move to France’ before they would ever make ‘Fluffy’ wear one of those awful contraptions.

It was quite interesting to watch – taxes and the price of petrol could go up and people would grizzle, traffic fines would be heavier during the holiday season and it would get a resigned shrug, but inflict this indignity on Madame’s little ‘Toutou’ and well, that was beyond the pale!

All countries and their peoples have their ‘red line’ issues – politicians touch them at their peril. It was very interesting this month to find one of Switzerland’s.

There’s already talk of ‘fine-tuning’ the regulation…

Bordeaux and back

I had to go to Bordeaux on a business trip last week. I was there to assist with an audit for a prior joint venture the company had – there were some costs in dispute with Exxon and, with oil companies, the money involved soon adds up pretty quickly.

The company booked an Air France fight for me from Geneva airport out to Bordeaux on the Atlantic holiday coast. It was a nice regional jetliner and the lady ‘of a certain age’ at check-in must have thought I was cute as she gave me a big smile and gave me the best seat right up front – almost like flying first class in an executive jet! Although it was more comfortable than flying Mil-Air choppers over Baghdad at rooftop height at 1:00am in blackout conditions, it certainly wasn't nearly as interesting!

The flight was simple enough and didn’t take overly long, but the long drive through dark coastal pine forests to the hotel on a dark moonless night had me scanning for Deer left and right (shades of ‘roo-spotting on country roads in Oz at dusk).

The building was huge but they had closed most of the operations in this regional city and relocated the majority of the staff. It was like a ghost–town – there were only a handful of people left and there were only two cleaning ladies otherwise shuttling steadily backward and forward emptying the contents of the dozens of now empty offices into either storage boxes or the dumpster outside.

The finance contacts we met were very business-like and sharp as a tack, but heck, good business doesn’t stop a Frenchman having a nice lunch and we spent a few pleasant days at the local brasserie eating way too much good food and wine at wonderful prices before getting back to the grindstone.

At one point soon after we entered on the first day, this barrel-shaped Frenchman with a walrus moustache and huge hands came out and starting shaking my hand (and the rest of me up and down) and wishing me ‘bonjour’, ‘bienvenue’, and ‘bon apetit’. I must have had this stunned mullet look on my face that said ‘who the heck is this strange man shaking me up and down?’ One of our hosts said ‘Ah, zat is ze chef – he likes to say hello to special guests!’ The bonhomie and cooking was certainly darn good because the place was packed every day. As they say - never trust a skinny cook!

Wednesday was a late afternoon flight back from Bordeaux that I almost didn’t make after trying to negotiate the monstrously large car park where I had to return the AVIS rental – but as it turns out the flight was delayed for 20 minutes anyway. The only other car park I have seen of such huge proportions was in Baltimore airport when I used to go and see my American ex-girlfriend. Man that thing was the size of Maine and had bus routes to get you back to the terminal!

Back to the office for Thursday and Friday and heap of emails (and much smaller lunches!). I may have to go back again this week and pass judgement on whether the claims have merit and should go to arbitration or not - quite a responsibility. Just hope I can handle the lunches!

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Come on snow...!

The weather is slowly changing here. It is dark in the mornings and the long twilight nights are now closing in a lot quicker. I used to wake up to bright sunlight, now it is dark when I head to work and just getting light when I get my first coffee of the dark at Starbucks before heading to the salt mines.

I got all excited a day or two ago - I thought I saw my first snow flake of the season but it's still a month or so too early. Darn!

Another few weeks and I'll be getting my big London great coat and scarf out - it sure was a life saver in the U.K. my armour plate against those icy blasts one gets in the city from Nov to Apr.

A few more weeks after that and hopefully I can head up to La Clusaz and get some snow flakes flying behind me. This was a pic from a trip over last season where I went x-country at La Clusaz. It has some great runs for alpine skiing to the right as well as some awesome off-piste skiing too.

Tick one more day off the calendar....

I went to the Olympic Museum in Lausanne last weekend which is about 80 kilometres (50 miles) east along the auto route.

It is an amazing museum with lots of sporting equipment signed by famous Olympic athletes going all the way back to the founder of the modern Olympics himself – Baron Pierre de Coubertin.

They had lots of audio-visual displays and you can choose any number of opening and losing ceremonies going back to the 1920’s by tapping on the touch screens. I was there with my friend and we first selected the 1936 Berlin opening. It was weird – it was like going back in the ‘Time Tunnel’ seeing the Fuhrer and all the cronies strutting around in full uniform. Stranger still was seeing all the athletes from all the countries dipping the flags and returning the ‘Heil’ salute…

There were a couple of older generation Europeans standing behind our open booth watching and when they saw Adolf you could tell it was a very personal moment - I could hear them suck in their breathe when they saw him and almost ‘feel’ their unease seeing him again.

We moved on to the next video which was ski-jumping from the 1952 Oslo winter Olympics and saw people in wool jumpers, leather boots and bindings, all mounted on big wooden skis, jumping hills. Today of course it is all space age clothing and ultra-light equipment - how times have changed. Still, just looking at them, you can see these folks were a different generation –possibly a better generation? Men like these trekked to the north or south poles with nothing but Sealskins and mitts, no GPS’s, laptops or satellite phones – just a sextant, their navigational skills and their brains. Men like these dragged wooden sleds up and down snow drifts for days and weeks and all with typical Victorian stoicism and dry humour. If ever you want a tale of courage, leadership and courage in the face of adversity, read or even better get the DVD, of (Ernest) Shackleton’s Polar team and their struggles. The BBC did a docu-drama with Kenneth Brannagh as Shackleton and it was awesome.

Anyhow, I digress. Here are some pics of the museum and the gorgeous gardens and stunning view of the lake. Not that we got to see much of it of course – it was bucketing down that day so all we saw was sheets of rain!

There were also the Olympic torches from many of the games and memorabilia and news reports going back to Munich and the kidnappings, the boycotted Moscow and L.A games etc. Remember all that?...

What was also cool was all the stars of each Olympics - Nadia Comaneci in the gymnastics getting a perfect 10. Mark Spitz on the U.S. team getting a record seven gold medals. That man was one amazing swimming machine (but oh that 1970’s hairstyle)!

As a side note I used to work for Conoco-Phillips in Perth and we had a visit from the Oklahoma office guys one month – one of who used to be in the U.S. national swimming squad. He joined me and my office buddy in our ‘lunchtime legends’ pool session one day and proceeded to blow us out of the water – going back and forth like a White pointer on cruise control without even raising a proverbial sweat. He told us later he used to have ‘drag races’ in the pool with the great man himself – Spitzie. Now he tells us!!

Anyway, a top day.

Ssshhhh!!! Be vee-wy qwiet! We’re huntin’ Wabbits!

Yep, it’s that time of the year. Hunting season was declared open a week or so ago and thousands of red-blooded French and Swiss men and no doubt Italians etc, are taking to the hills to enjoy a bit of game sport.

I was driving back from the local beauty spot last weekend with a friend of mine (Krissy – my flatmate from London days) when we saw some of the guys strolling out of the forestry track with shotguns folded over their forearms looking well pleased.

It’s an annual tradition in the hill country here in Europe and one of the additional benefits is that the first couple of weeks of the season usually make for good reading in the local papers of the various mishaps.

Hundreds of sportsmen, trigger-fingers itching after months of waiting, are as keen as mustard to get into ‘them thar hills’ and bag ‘emselves some Rabbits, Wild Boar or Dear etc, but it doesn’t always go according to plan….The trouble is, they’re just a bit too keen to bag something ‘before the other buggers get ‘em all. Add to that the other annual tradition (taking along a hip-flask with a snifter or two of Brandy), and we’re in for some hi-Octane fun!

Let me paint you a picture…

Ol’ Georges or Pierre or Giuseppe and their dogs are out there alert to the slightest movement.

Something rustles in the undergrowth…"Zut! There’s something moving over there! "

Blam, blam!

Sounds of indignant yelps. "Oops, that was Pierre’s dog".

"Wait, there’s something else in the brush to the left!"

Blam, blam!

More indignant yelping. "Oops, that was Pierre!"

Time to get that Brandy out!

The local hospitals (and vets waiting rooms) are usually sprinkled with hunters and their dogs, all having buckshot tweezered out of their behinds… One can almost imagine the unimpressed nurses who ‘just don’t get’ hunting, losing patience after the umpteenth patient and almost throwing the ol’ tetanus shot – dartboard style - into bare behinds. "Oh sorry, did that hurt?"

So, if ever you’re in this neck of the world around September/October, wear a big orange safety vest if you go into the woods. In fact better yet, give it a wide berth for the first couple of weeks!

Me? I'll just stick to one of the village restaurants and try some Wild Boar and roast vegetables. Much safer!