That Deserves A Medal!

[Wonderwall]

Hats off too that man. Hero for sure.

Sends a shiver through you reading how easy it is for it all to go wrong, that's the last place you want to fall in .

[MauriceMynah]

I have to say that Dr Packman seems to me NOT to have tried to steal any of the "limelight" on this occasion, so Respect to him as well.

[Malanka]

My comment was merely to point out that the EDP was again using huge and unnecessary dramatic license. Jumping in to rescue a young girl from the water is heroic enough without the added BS. Icy water in August... What ???? My detector went off which a clang on that one.

 

Same as it did on the chewed up swan piece. Good journalism does not embellish that which does not require embellishment. Especially not when that embellishment actually lessens the credidibility of the report. Icy water in August...

Where was the sub editor with a modicum of common sense when that rubbish passed his or her desk.

Written from my desk whilst basking in the late summer rays streaming through my part opened blinds hiding the magnificent vista beyond....Grrrrr

 

Actually it's raining and dull but didn't read as well. No drama in its raining and dull.

 

M  

[MauriceMynah]

More worrying is the fact you still use Vista and think it magnificent. I prefered XP but now use 10. Jury's still out on 10.

[Victoryv]

10 minutes ago, Malanka said:

My comment was merely to point out that the EDP was again using huge and unnecessary dramatic license. Jumping in to rescue a young girl from the water is heroic enough without the added BS. Icy water in August... What ???? My detector went off which a clang on that one.

 

Same as it did on the chewed up swan piece. Good journalism does not embellish that which does not require embellishment. Especially not when that embellishment actually lessens the credidibility of the report. Icy water in August...

Where was the sub editor with a modicum of common sense when that rubbish passed his or her desk.

Written from my desk whilst basking in the late summer rays streaming through my part opened blinds hiding the magnificent vista beyond....Grrrrr

 

Actually it's raining and dull but didn't read as well. No drama in its raining and dull.

 

M  

Always a silver lining, my brother in law lives in Switzerland, I like the thought that its raining on him.

[Malanka]

LOL nicely done. Its a touch screen DELL lappy with windows 7 pro with the full professional office suite. And it's been raining for about thirty hours. Fiona and I love it as it broke months and months of nothing less than 28 degrees and stifling heat and humidity. Awful to live in, nice to visit but live ughhhh.

Sorry but we went to Norfolk hoping the weather would not get warmer than 23 or 24 ..We left 36 degrees behind us and needed a cool down... Basically where we live you're a prisoner in the house in the winter as its minus 16 outside, and a prisoner inside in the summer as its 36 degrees outside, no aircon this is der Schweiz. Its also over 2000 ft elevation too so you get burned or frozen really easily.

This is also a German Keyboard so I think I do ok not having z in place of y and not hitting the öé äà èü keys too often.

For some colour to a dry post...ala EDP...

We definitely get four propper seasons here but the move from spring to summer is always a huge shock to my delicate system, one day its 18 and pleasant. The next it's 35 degrees and my office becomes a sauna but without the nice Swedish lady. 

Maybe I could be the roving EDP reporter in Switzerland and West Coast US where I spend 35% of my time.

One thing that I have noticed, just to go completely "off piste" so to speak , is that for whatever reason and please speculate away, the Swiss where we live are absolutely useless at driving in snow. Go figure. We have winter tyres too but first snow and it's chaos. I ALWAYS go in late when I see the snow just to avoid some numpty running into me.

For the mountain savvy amongst you lot, from our window we can see the Jungfrau which looks like a pair of shoulders and the Bernese Oberland is our local ski area. Justin skis with school all day every Friday from January through to the end of March on the other side of the mountain from Gstaad: Here.

 https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-gb/zweisimmen.html

This quaint village in the Bernese Oberland forms the gateway to the world-famous Gstaad-Saanenland region.

Needless to say he loves it.

 

M

[Polly]

Portable air con? 

No wonder the Swiss are so good at skiing.

Dave was saying that when he was staying in Lugano, a man turned up to change the host's number plates on the car. Host was out so Dave annoyed him very much by questioning why this was needed. Regulations. The number was to be unchanged but there was a new logo next to it, all authorised so kindly shut up and let me do my vital work. 

[Timbo]

My first visit to Geneva. I was 13 years old and having missed the school exchange trip with our French pen pals from Salanche, I was now flying solo to a foreign country the only language I spoke was t' Yorkshire. On the plane, I was sat in the window seat by the wing. As we flew over the mountains to descend sharply into Geneva the cover shot up off the engine. No one told me it was part of the normal process of slowing down. I thought the engine had fallen off! Landing in Geneva my pen pal's family were late picking me up. I fell asleep waiting with the rather splendid air hostess assigned to make sure I got through the airport. I woke up with a face full of soggy boob, the air hostess putting my head on her ample chest....and I'd dribbled in my sleep.

Roughing my head hair and a with a kiss on my cheek the air hostess simultaneously started my lifelong fixation for brunette women in red pencil skirts and high heels and handed me across to my pen pals family for the drive from Geneva to France. The chap driving the car up narrow mountain passes to reach the Glacier Vert had only one arm. He would take his hand off the steering wheel to change gear. So hard was I clenching my bum cheeks I was constipated for three months after!

The car stopped at a ski lift. The family got out. They had no English, I had no French. By gestures, they indicated I should get into one of the seats on the lift. Half way up...they started jumping off the lift. While they were on the ground they were madly gesticulating I should do the same. You had to be kidding me? Nope.
"Jump or you ..." said my pen pal's uncle making a slit throat gesture.
It was about thirty foot by now. I jumped and landed on my pen pal's eighteen-year-old sister.

Buy me a beer or three and I might finish the story....

[addicted]

My first visit to Geneva was when I was13 too. We had driven from France. We found an Hotel and my father ascertained how much it would cost and was happy with the rates until he came to settle the bill and realised he had forgotten the quoted price was Swiss francs rather  than French which made the bill  whole more expensive than he'd thought.

 

 

Carole

[Polly]

I think Geneva is the most expensive place we have visited so far.

[Chelsea14Ian]

I treated  to a trip to Geneva a few years back.Flying from London city Airport has she had not done so before.We had a great time we had good weather.One day in the low 70s.We both loved the place,Yes it's not cheap but would love to go again.A photo  taken from the department  store cafe looking at Mont blanc.

[grendel]

was that a blind on the end window opposite, or were you just lucky.

[Chelsea14Ian]

Never noticed 

[Malanka]

If you want expensive Starbucks coffee here is 14 or 15 CHF, Burger king is 10 CHF for ten nuggets. 

Cars are cheap and wine is cheap, electrical things are comparable. Food is the mother and father of expensive. Steak 50 pounds a kilo. There are restrictions of 1kg per person to import it from outside.

With cars here nobody buys the base model, everything is 2.5 ltr this of 3 ltr that.

A christmas turkey year before last was over 200 CHF. Turned out to be only available fresh, organic, free range and practically hand reared. No possibility to nip to the supermarket and get a frozen one.

1CHF = 0.8 GBP

[ChrisB]

When all the family were here supporting me in Judith's last days I bought four Aberdeen Angus fillets which must have been about a kilo and paid £48 and a few pence. As for cars nothing worse than having low power in mountains. I worked in Mannedorf and Zug for weeks here and there and soon gave up hiring base models.

[Malanka]

Hi Chris,

That 50 quid is for supermarket rump in a packet not the delli stuff and definitiely not top Fillet which is 150 CHF / kg. (chiller aged and matured). Zug is not far from me and taxes there are the lowest in CH (less than 16% total for someone like me) House rentals or buying is unreal but tax is very low. Absolute max for millionaires is 22.8% income tax. 

 

For interest the top 1% of incredibly wealthy (net worth) folks in CH contribute 45% of the total income tax paid. In addition in CH there is a wealth tax to pay too.