My Christmas Present List for 2012

Christmas is over, as I complete this blog. The leftovers have been eaten. We are back in Thalwil and the Thank You letters and emails must be written.

Talking about Thank You letters and presents, I have starting making my present list for December 2012. I am never one to be unprepared, and for years now, I have made Christmas Lists for myself. I keep the notes under “25^th December” in my diary, in case you want to look.

This probably sounds very selfish. However, when anyone asks the question, “What you do want for Christmas?”, I just get out my list. Easy, innit.

I am doing people a favour with this. I have been told that the most difficult people to buy Christmas presents for, are those who say that they don’t mind what they have. As I don’t want to be difficult, there is no chance of that happening with me. Ask me what I want, and you are likely to get an item, price and location of purchase. Mercenary or what?

I had thought of publishing a Christmas Present list. I could have used Grumpy’s blog for this, but this might have been even more off-putting than usual.

Actually, I don’t suppose for one moment that you would want to buy me a Christmas present. Do people really want to know what you want, or are they just being polite or making conversation? (“Beano or Dandy annual”, has come highly recommended recently.)

I think that there are alternatives. I could use one of the Wedding Lists with John Lewis, Marks and Spencer or Tesco and change “Wedding” to “Christmas” list. (Why do we always say the plural - “Marks and Spencers” or “Tescos”?) The prices will be published, you could sign up for individual presents, and have them delivered to my house. We could have a “Grumpy’s Christmas Present List” at John Lewis or wherever. I can’t believe that this has not been done yet or has it?

My Thank You letters would be automatically generated by the John Lewis, Marks and Spencer(s) or Tesco(s) website. All labour and brain power saving stuff.

There would have to be a list of items that definitely should not be bought, such as handkerchiefs and socks, except for those extremely silly socks which you would never be seen dead in, without the excuse “I got these for Christmas”, as if this explained “Bad Socks”.

(“Grumpy” socks are the exception. These will be accepted gladly and worn on inappropriate occasions).

Do you think that it would be rude to send out reminders to people who fail to give me a present? Should I run a Black List? A sort of “Name and Shame” List.

In case you were wondering about my 2011 Christmas list, anything that was not reserved by another member of the family, I bought for myself on Amazon at a total cost £25.38. I  am very easy to please.

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I cannot let this occasion go by without some comment about Christmas Newsletters. Now, having been a fully paid up member of the “I can’t believe these people who send Christmas Newsletters”, I have switched sides, am a total supporter of the Christmas Newsletter and was the organiser of the “A Short (but getting longer) Christmas Letter from the Swiss Family Hawker”.

As a good Swiss person, I feel that there should be some standardisation of the format in terms of length, content, font type and size, and number of photographs. There is, of course, the question of whether they should be made mandatory. I shall be submitting these ideas to the European Commission, in case they are short of meaningless Directives, naturally using my 2011 Newsletter as the model.

Finally, I should inform you that I am seriously considering the use of e-Christmas-cards. It will save me the effort of printing the labels. This is a bigger problem than you might imagine, as our printer will not pick up the sheets of labels. However, I haven’t yet worked out how you hang e-cards on the wall with the other cards, but I am working on it.

What Sort of Toilet Roll Hanger are You?

After last week’s serious rant about English Newspaper reporting, I thought that the readers of Grumpy’s blog, having recovered from last week’s headache, needed something a bit lighter. So here we go.

K-Tipps is a Swiss consumer magazine, something like “Which”, except that it is in German. Recently, they did a four page survey on various brands of toilet rolls. As you might expect, the criteria were determined and prioritised; data immaculately collected and the results laid out. You have all the information that you need. “You pays your money and takes your choice.”

The blog on this worthy topic took its form as Andy Bowen Ashwin and I were walking across the North Downs in October. We were discussing the meaning of life, how good the carrot cake was that we had just devoured and the optimal way to hang a toilet roll. We felt that there were important questions to be answered. I am sure that you would all agree with me when I say that the Leveson Inquiry will just have to wait.

For example, when you get your (optimally purchased) toilet roll home, what do you do with it? Are you a “Drop down the front” person or “Push it down the back” person? Does your toilet roll hang limply above the toilet floor or lie snugly against the wall?

So what sort of Toilet Roll hanger are you? Do you have a favoured way? What determines this? Are these patterns learned and set in early childhood or are they caused genetically? Do you consider the effects on the other “clients” of this facility? Should it be a topic on the national curriculum?

Of course, you might not be consistent in this. Perhaps you change the way you hang your toilet roll depending on the weather, or just on how you are feeling on that day. The day of the week might be a factor. It might be different if you were standing up, when doing a changeover, as opposed to be being in a “seated position”.

Does your partner do this the same way? Is it a point of discussion or heated debate within the household? If you were to appear (heaven help us) on one of those “U.S. Family shows” (apologies to my U.S. subscribers, but you know what I mean), in answer to the question “What habits of your partner really annoy you?” would you answer “He / she always hangs the toilet roll the wrong way”. Well after all, domestic murders have been known to happen for less.

Personally, I am a “Hang it down the Front” person. I don’t think that it will do to go into reasons.

While we are on the subject of toilet roll hanging, does anyone know why cleaning staff in hotels and restaurants in Europe (I am not sure about England) are trained to make the end of the toilet roll into a very nice “V”. Actually it is an upside down “V”, but I can’t do that on my computer. It seems such a shame to spoil it. (To those kind people who put us up on our endless English and Scottish travels – please note the standard expected)

I am on a roll now (no pun intended). Motorway stations have those big enclosed holders. I suppose it is to discourage the toilet paper thieves, who have now moved on to stealing any bits of metal that they can find nailed down. (The stuff not nailed down, has already be pinched.) Anyway, the point is that on most occasions, I can never find the end.  There is no industry standard regarding the direction from which the continuous roll should emerge (There needs to be an EU Directive). You end up rolling it round and round and eventually, if you are lucky, your fingers alight on a loose corner, which you then have to gently tease into the outside world. No wonder the thieves moved on to scrap metal.

A Final tip from Andy.  The Mercure Hotel in Beijung has raised the perforation issue for toilet paper to new heights. The game is to take a piece, pull it and see how many strips come out without tearing – The Record here is claimed to be six. The Lesson is to take your own scissors with you.

Happy Christmas from Grumpy to my supporters. I am signing off now until the New Year. However, I promise that next time, Grumpy will write about something a bit less lavatorial.

Feeding Christians to the Lions

I was on one of my many trips to the U.K. recently, as you possibly already know. When I am there, I make a point of buying two or three newspapers each day, to get the latest stories and the different slants that are used.

One aspect that always comes through is the confrontational nature of English News Reporting. I have already commented on the use of the words “controversy” and “crisis”, as ways that newspapers and TV try to spice up a story, without having to put in any content.

The nature of the reporting of the “poppies on football shirts” certainly lived up to the standard. This was all the more important as it involved “Foreigners” and even worse “FIFA”, against whom England now regard themselves as having a permanent casus bellus (“cause of war”).

The “Poppy War” ended when it was agreed that poppies could be worn on the players’ sleeves. According to at least one commentator, FIFA were forced to “capitulate”. Great cheers from the crowds and general self-congratulations and crowing over a defeated enemy.

I know that I have been in Switzerland for too long. There is a 35 point questionnaire that tests for “Swissness” and my kids say that I would have passed this even before I came here. And in my Swissness, I would have described the “Poppies on the Sleeves” as a sensible compromise.

The problem for the newspapers, of course, is that “FIFA and England Football association shake hands on a sensible compromise” does not make for a good headline, or satisfy the English readers need to feel that they are initially victims and ultimately victors over a continental conspiracy.

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On another of “The Topics of the Day”, the “Eurozone” crisis, Angela Merkel is not always popular and was recently criticised for her “intransigence” (on the point of not allowing the European Central Bank to be the lender of last resort).  

Intransigence. What a great word. You are certainly being told what to think on this issue. She is WRONG. Not just wrong, the woman is a fanatic. She is stubborn beyond belief. How dare she stall the general consensus that has been carefully and painstakingly developed? and don’t even think that there could be another opinion.

The trick for the reader, if he wishes to remain sane, is not to believe all this journalistic gumpf. Let’s try out different words for one moment, which describe the same event, but have a different effect.

Perhaps Angela Merkel was “holding a firm line”, “sticking by her convictions”, “Resolute” (Yes – I like resolute” – I like to think of myself as resolute) “resisting the drift down to the lowest common denominator.”

Never let it be said that the English press doesn’t have an opinion on the issues of the day. But these opinions don’t have to be yours.

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Lastly for this week’s blog, I was watching parts of the statements being made at the Leveson Inquiry this week (Press hacking and other practices). I could not help feeling that we were hearing of an ancient ritual practiced throughout the ages. The public loves its ounce of sleaze, the photos secretly taken, the latest gossip about some film star or the relevation of some public figure acting in a way that is politically incorrect, the ritual humiliation of some public figure, all in the interest of “Press Freedom” and “Public Interest”. Of course, this is nothing to do with truth or news, but the bringing down of someone who has “got above themselves”.

Such stuff is not new. Hangings were the traditional public events that the ordinary folk were allowed to enjoy, brought to its pinnacle in the French Revolution, where crowds gathered to watch Madame Guillotine wreak her vengeance.

Let me take you back further, to 2,000 years ago. We learn with (fake) horror of the Roman Games. We can picture the cruelty, the carnage, and the Emperor deciding who would live and who would die, while the lions prowl around the half eaten bodies, usually of Christians. All this happens, while the crowd roars for more.

The News of the World and its peers have done little more than supply a 21^st century Roman Games. Denied public hangings and denied the spectacle of seeing Christians being torn apart by the Lions, the English public have to be satisfied with half-truths and lies about the lives of people whom they will never meet, but who have fame and most likely more money than they do.

If such stories cannot be found easily then they must be created or invented. Go out and find it. After all, it was the job of the Roman Army to bring back the defeated armies, some of whom would find new careers as Lion food. And if you can’t get a job as soldier in the Roman Army, become a journalist with the News of the World. Oh dear – that option, at least, is no longer available.

By the way, you will notice that I have once again avoided taking any sides on the issues / crises / controversies described. Just an innocent observer, that’s me.

4000 Swiss Francs Fine for Playing Truant

Here is an English translation of an article from the beginning of this October in the “Tages Anzeiger”, a reputable Swiss Newspapers, translated by yours truly.

I thought that you might be interested to see how the Swiss do things and the matter-of-fact way in which Swiss Newspapers report these matters, without comment. Make up your own headlines from an English Newspaper.

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A mother from the winegrowing town of Waltalingen has to pay expensively for the premature start to her holiday. The woman wanted to take her daughter out of school one day early, in order to fly to Egypt on holiday. As she had already used up her “Joker Days” [days allowed off per year during term time], the school leaders and administrators did not approve the additional days off. However, the mother departed with her daughter anyway. She said to the “Schaffhauser News” that she had thought that a possible fine would be cheaper than the postponement of the flights.

 Now she has received a letter from the district attorney. She and her husband, from whom she is separated, must each pay a fine of Chf 1,500, as well as Chf 500 each by way of administrative costs. [Total of about just under £3,000]

The district attorney wants to use this to clamp down on the bad habit that parents have of switching to cheaper pre-holiday flights with their children. “The fine should be high enough to cancel out the financial advantage”, said the Adelfingen Governor, Peter Weih to the newspaper. Urs Meier, representative of the School Body, is surprised about the amount, but said that this is in the jurisdiction of the Governor. The upper limit is Chf 5,000, but for that, a great deal must happen or a particularly serious offence committed. The parents have lodged an appeal.  The mother says that if the fine is upheld, she will pay, rather than go to prison.

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Now make up the story as the English Newspapers might have reported it.

I am Returning Your Call

Do you check your missed calls, either on your mobile phone or landline? It is always interesting and perhaps important to see who was calling. What do you do if you do not recognise the number?  Are you compelled to call the number back in order to find out? Does it nag away at the back of your mind?

It might be important. Perhaps a member of the family with a new number, or even a headhunter with a job for you. Yes – you have to do the redial and find out.

What about the person on the receiving end of such a redial? Plenty of room for mischief here.

You – “Dial back the number”

They – “Hello”

You – “I am returning your call”

They – “Who’s that?”

You – “Who’s that?”

They – “I asked “Who’s that?””

You – “Did you call me earlier?”

They – “I don’t know – who are you?”

You – “You called me. You must know”

They – “I call lots of people”

You – “So did you call this number?”

They – “I don’t know. It depends who you are.”

You – “I’m the person you called earlier, but I wasn’t in”

They – “Do you have a name?”

You – “This is George Bloggs” (Grumpy - Now we are getting somewhere)

They – “I don’t know a George Bloggs”

You – “Well, you called this number”

They – “It might have been a wrong number?”

You – “Was it a wrong number?”

They – “It depends on who was using the phone”

You – “How many people use this phone?”
They – “Is that important?”  

You – “Well. Please don’t waste my time or money again”

They – “You called me. You didn’t have to.”

You – “It might have been important”

They – “Why did you think this if you didn’t recognise the number? Do you often receive important calls from people you do not know?”

You – “But what would happen if the call was important”

They – “In that case, I would have called you back.”

You – “Anyway, who are you?”

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

Etc.

…

Please feel free to add to this immature dialogue. I am sure that it can be improved.

The aim here for the “They” is to keep the call going as long as possible, while being patronising and annoying.

I do enjoy answering these calls. And “No”, I do not call back unrecognised numbers, except to landlines via Skype, which are free for us and can fill an idle moments without cost.

It‘a Crisis - but for how long?

I see that the Euro Crisis is still continuing. Steps are being taken to resolve this, as they have been for the past umpteen months.

How long can a crisis last? I always imagined (i.e. “in my day, a crisis……) that a crisis was a point in time; a point when a decision was made; a point in time, when history might go one way or might go another way.

The Free online dictionary tells me that a crisis is:

- A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point or.

- An unstable condition, as in political, social, or economic affairs, involving an impending abrupt or decisive change

Perhaps then, contrary to my initial prejudice, this really is a crisis. It is certainly unstable, although whether there is to be an abrupt or decisive change is another question. In this case, I guess that it is a crisis, because it is expected that there will be an abrupt or decisive change.

But what happens if “Euro Crisis” eventually ends, not abruptly or decisively, but slides steadily and gradually into chaos, bankruptcy of various countries, a gradual drift into recession, and / or the continuous drip feed of German (and French) money to pay for the running expenses of its neighbours (with something left over for me, I hope).  Does this mean that someone will admit that it was all a big mistake and that there wasn’t a crisis after all?

José Barroso might announce “Sorry folks – it wasn’t a crisis at all. It was just a continuous unsolvable problem. There was no abrupt or decisive ending. We have just slipped remorsely into bankruptcy / civil war / been taken over by Saudia Arabia /oblivion” (please delete as required), while trying to look statesmanlike and in control.

Another way of putting the question is how many summits does it take before a crisis becomes something…well …more boring and routine?  I mean to say, that apart from David Cameron’s recent appearance on the “Euro Crisis” platform, not a lot has changed in the headlines on “Euro Crisis”. Actually, I think that the newspapers are now just recycling old headlines.

I have decided to take different tacks on this question, by asking what it would take to end the crisis, whether it is necessary to end a crisis or whether a crisis can carry on indefinitely (Perhaps these two questions are actually the same).

After all, the modern meaning (as used by the newspapers and newscasts) of a “Crisis” is really just an unsatisfactory or undesired state of affairs. This is what most people refer to as a problem. “Greece is Bankrupt” / “The problems of the NHS in England are unsolvable / inflation is increasing / unemployment is rising / education system is failing”. These are actually just statements of fact. In themselves, they are not crises.

The consequences are unpleasant, and if one had previously believed something different, then the recognition of the truth is something of a jolt. In political terms, this leads to hyperactivity (e.g. summits), in an attempt to deny the inevitable.

For this sorry state of affairs, we (voters) only have ourselves to blame. After all, what politician was ever re-elected on the banner “It is hopeless. The best thing is to do nothing and see what happens”. Besides which it makes for pretty boring news, and the English don’t like their news to be boring, but stirring for the emotions.

What if they are not “Crises”? The moment of crisis was over, probably when no one was watching, when we were all tucked up in bed, fast asleep, believing that all was well with the world. At the point at which we recognise that there is a problem, the crisis is long past. The point for decision is miles behind us, and all political leaders can do is to thrash around, while looking statesmanlike, and spend billions of whatever currency we choose, of other people’s money, to help us look statesmanlike.

Therefore I propose a new category in the Guinness Book of Records. “The Record Length for an Unresolved Crisis”.

Why do Cows all Point the Same Way?

Those of you who have braved the Swiss hills and mountains cannot have failed to notice that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cows in the meadows. You will also have noticed that they are there in the summer, but in the winter they disappear. Magic.

If you have been hiking and have not noticed the cows, or thought that they were pigs or big cats or hamsters, then get down to SpecSavers.

Those of you who are truly observant and do not need to get down to SpecSavers will have noticed that when they are grazing, they frequently all point in the same direction.

hen they lie down, the position is somewhat random, although they do tend to sit along the horizontal, rather than up or down the slope. This is so they can play rolly polly.

However, when they are standing up, there is definitely a pattern.

Of course, there are exceptions and my conclusions have not been subject to strict observational techniques, and are almost certainly the victim of selective memory, but this way makes for far a more interesting blog. “Cows Stand at Random” is not so catching.

What do you make of these cows all pointing in the same direction? Here is a nice picture that proves the point. I know that they are not exactly cows (and what they were doing in the mountain meadow, we are not quite sure. Perhaps the farmer needed to go to SpecSavers.)

The fact that they are being bribed by some tasty grass has nothing to do with their pointing in the same direction.


Here is a better picture. It has the advantage of having cows as the subject matter, and there is no obvious bribery or “Direction Fixing” (as in “Match Fixing).

The most obvious explanation, other than the whole thing being a lot of nonsense, is the direction of the wind. If this is the case, they must have sensitive wind detectors (perhaps that is what their ears do), as most times I cannot feel any wind, but I am not a cow, am I. (No comments please)

If this is the case, do cows face downwind or upwind or cross wind? More data needed here.

Alternatively, they might just be a lot of sheep and do the same as the cow in front, just to be the same, to be one of the crowd, one of the herd. No one wants to stand out, do they. “Look at her, all snooty, pointing at 54 degrees different from the rest of us”.

I wanted to include a picture of a lot of sheep here, just in case, you were getting confused as to which animal is which. Sheep get a bad press, being said to behave like a lot of sheep, when in fact they often behave like a lot of cows. Unfortunately and amazingly, my picture collection contains no such pictures. A clear case of cow prejudice.

Another theory is that they are guided by the position of the earth’s magnetic field. It could be something to do with the metal bells that the farmers put on them, to help them sense the movement in the core. They will warn us when the earth’s magnetic field is going to change, and we are about to be destroyed by cosmic rays. At this point, the cows become the masters of the planet and the sheep and the lamas will do the milking.

My theory is that they have a secret leader, to keep order and discipline. “Here are the Directions of the day. Pass it on”. Here is a picture showing the leader passing on the instruction.