Switzerland & Concrete

I needed to go to Switzerland this week for work-related purposes. I’d never set foot in Switzerland before and I’d always harboured a chocolate box notion of its beauty so I was very much in a positive frame of mind about the trip. The only inevitable downside to gigs like that are that, if you want to travel, you have to do the travelling yourself. You can’t delegate it and wake up at the destination. You just have to grin and bear it and hope that, at least, the mechanics of the journey function as intended and, as much as it might be a bit draining, there’s a lot be said for an uneventful journey. I’ll take “boring” in preference to “traumatic” any time.

The journey consisted of 20 minutes on the metro into Lille, wait half an hour, spend an hour on the TGV to Paris, wait an hour, spend an hour on a plane from Paris to Geneva, wait half an hour, spend an hour on the train from Geneva to Montreux, wait half an hour in hotel room, walk for 20 minutes to Harry’s Bar, close to the lakeside, wait 10 minutes to be served and, eventually, beer arrives on table and the journey is completed.

I’m a smoker but I try to be considerate wherever possible and whenever appropriate. I was delighted to see that Switzerland hasn’t succumbed to the Euro-American bullshit when it comes to the relaxation which used to be embodied in an evening out. In a bar or restaurant in Switzerland, it seems to be the case that they still treat adults like adults. There’s a rightful assumption that the Swiss public can think and decide for themselves, unlike the European and American models wherein common sense and decency have been deemed no longer to be of any importance and have been replaced by legislation and nonsense. In the UK, America and large chunks of Europe, all bars will soon be required to be non-smoking spaces, even if those bars are privately-owned. This is, of course, bullshit. Even more so in capitalist societies. Capitalism is supposed to revolve around supply and demand. In the smoking debate, that should equate to “if I, the proprietor, decide to allow smoking in my bar, then I realise who will and who will not frequent it as a result of my decision”. In other words, there may well be non-smokers, nuns and semi-professional protestors who might decide never to frequent that particular bar but their numbers are likely to be low in comparison with the adults who normally frequent the place. On the other hand, a proprietor might, of his own volition, decide that he won’t allow smoking in his bar and, in doing so, as has been proven in Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere, he must resign himself to a greatly-reduced patronage. He might even be killing his business off completely by taking such a decision. Obviously, this deadly prognosis doesn’t necessarily follow through if ALL the pubs and bars are compelled to make the same changes at the same time. In those circumstances, no single pub needs to die but, of course, much of the relaxation and freedom of the traditional night out is killed, along, of course, with freedom of choice and the principles of supply and demand and, thus, the futures of many thousands of pubs and bars will be jeopardised through the many decisions to have a tinny and a smoke in front of the telly on Saturday night rather than to spend half the evening outside like a leper in a tent in a pub garden or on the pavement. Who wins? I can’t see anyone who wins from this PC daftness. Even the people who choose to go to pubs (places they’ve been to enough times to know what to expect) and then moan about smoke as if they weren’t expecting it, will lose out if their "favourite" bar (the one they whine about after every visit) has to close through reduced takings. My feeling is that these people should stay in or find a non-smoking bar but, either way, they should stay the fuck away from places they know full well they aren’t going to like and leave the adults to their traditional enjoyment.

It should be the owner’s choice and, as far as the debate over employees’ welfare is concerned, if the people who suggest that we all want non-smoking bars are correct, then there’ll never be any need for a barperson to be compelled to take a position in a smoky bar as most of the proprietors of bars will, of their own free will, have declared their bars non-smoking. Yeah, right. I suffer from hay fever in the summer and, of course, that means it’s not a good idea for me to take a job cutting grass. If I was someone who had some problem or other with smoke, then I wouldn’t pursue a career as a Guy Fawkes or a barman. Common sense. Over the years, I’ve been in bars which smelt or looked dirty or where the glasses or toilets or staff were disgusting to behold – but I only ever go into a place like that once – I don’t keep on going there, moaning every single time about issues I could have avoided completely just by going somewhere else. I’d love to be around when PC finally gets seen through and we can all get back to making our own minds up.

Supply and demand. It’s a concept which seems to have been lost, even to the most capitalistic of regimes. Another example would be the requirement to add ramps as well as steps into practically every privately-owned establishment in the civilised World. Yet again, complete nonsense. Only one person in 1,000 or so is genuinely incapable of getting up steps so why on Earth do we need to tell every single shop, hotel, pub, cinema etc that they need to provide such access facilities as a matter of law? Public buildings, yes. Public buildings are "owned" by the public and that means that all members of the public have a right to be able to enter but absolutely nobody has any right to expect access to privately-owned premises and they have no right to expect private proprietors to cater, at their own cost, to the personal and specific needs of every human being on the planet. Again, supply and demand should be enough. Let’s say that nine out of every ten shop owners said “Balls to them. I’ll keep my steps and risk losing the business of the people who can’t get up them”. To the enterprising businessman, this is a golden goose. He sees that, around him, 9 of 10 merchants are excluding a certain clientele so he decides to put a ramp in front of his shop. This enlightened bod is then fairly assured of most the physically-disabled business available in the locale and lots more sympathetic clients besides, as long as his product and his service are up to scratch and there will be a portion of his clientele which his neighbours with steps might envy but which can never be lost to them. Private businesses and personal, commercially-oriented decisions. Not the government’s business and not the local council’s business.

So, anyway, Swiss bars and restaurants are still proper bars and restaurants where adults get to choose whether or not they want to smoke or whether or not they want to be around people who smoke. I don’t know much about the Swiss psyche but I sincerely hope that they keep this grown-up attitude to their lives and their public. It’s admirable.

With my three colleagues from France, I enjoyed a relaxed evening in good company and a pleasant enough bite to eat. There was nothing particularly “Swiss” about the evening and the final leg of the journey, the train from Geneva to Montreux, had been in darkness so, if there’d been any spectacular views to be seen from the train, they’d been lost to us in the night. We were all pretty weary so we split to our rooms at a reasonable hour. I watched the some TV news in German (of which I speak not a word), then some in French and then some in English and then to bed. Not much danger of insomnia.

I got myself down into the hotel foyer at 8.15ish to meet the others. I had enough time to wander out onto the terrace at the rear of the hotel and the view, as you see, was stunning. My camera was in the safe in my room and I didn’t have time to go and get it but I resolved to get some pictures from there that evening and the following morning. As you can see, I did. Time to go to the office.

From the work point of view, more than adequate preparations had been made on all sides and, to cut a long couple of days’ meetings short, the objective of the trip was attained and so there’s no need to delve into that side of the trip. All of us already delved deeply enough. For lunch, we were treated to a pleasant enough Chinese meal in a local restaurant. Is it just me or is Chinese food “out of place” at lunchtime? I enjoyed it but it felt slightly weird to be using chopsticks at 1pm in Switzerland.

After the first day of debates, I dodged away for 20 minutes to get my sunset photos and then returned to the office and our hosts drove us the 20 minutes or so to a village called Les Paccots, where they knew of a pleasant, chalet-style restaurant which specialised in a form of nourishment very much associated with Switzerland. The Fondue. The smell of melted cheese needed to be opened like a secondary inner door on entry.

There were seven of us and our hosts, knowing the ropes, ordered 2 cauldrons of molten cheese (it’s traditionally prepared with a dash of wine and various seasoning) and, aided by long, slender forks, we communally twirled chunks of bread and new potatoes in this yellow lava on the ends of our forks until thickly-coated and then, what a taste. Incredibly nice. The two cauldrons offered two different tastes, both excellent but the one which was based on Gruyere cheese was by far the nicer. The seven of us took about half an hour to leave two empty pots and very little else on the table. It was superb and all the better for its relevance to our location. It was, however, possibly the “heaviest” thing I’ve ever eaten. In terms of volume, each of us clearly ate an amount of cheese which, in its normal, solid state, would be a block one might buy for a family of four each fortnight. Furthermore, we’d been warned by our hosts that fondue and alcohol, once combined, are synonymous with the word “concrete” but, in the evenings, I’m not really Mr Diet Coke and, one teetotaller apart, everyone had a beer or two and some wine with the meal. The concrete phenomenon began to manifest itself about half an hour after the cheese-twirling had ceased. I still had the pleasant latent enjoyment of the meal on my taste buds but it began to feel like I’d ingested a yellow anvil. If, at some stage in the next five years or so, I finally manage to defecate that meal, I swear it’ll still be yellow and it'll probably arrive in its own iron pot. I joked with someone that we’d all have nightmares that night. For my part, I certainly did. I woke up convinced that I was carving chunks out of someone’s back with a dagger (or was it a long, narrow fork?) at 5am. Realising that neither dagger nor victim was real, I drifted back to sleep.

In the “real” morning, the iron feeling had gone, I descended to the terrace and got a few early morning photos of the view across the lake. I gave a brief presentation in the office and the debating continued for several hours. There wasn’t time to find a “real” lunch so we all just nipped out and grabbed whatever sandwiches, bagels and wraps we could find.

4pm came around and it was time to head off to the station (all of two minutes’ walk away). Only two of us left as the other two from France were bound for England the following day. I wasn’t at all envious that they were staying another evening and then heading for my erstwhile homeland. I was happy enough to be Lille-bound. It was soon clear that we had, indeed, missed some amazing views from the train that first evening. For most of the hour or more of the train journey, we were pretty much skirting the entire North coast of Lake Geneva and we rarely lost sight of it. The mountains were a constant backdrop and, as train journeys for work purposes go, it’s hard to imagine one much more spectacular. (Send me to Canada for research purposes… please!) Lake Geneva (also known as Lake Léman and various other translations) is the shape of a leaping salmon with its “nose” facing due East and, by Western European standards, it’s pretty vast. As we neared Geneva, the famous “Jet d’Eau” fountain became visible from the train. Situated in the lake itself, the Jet d’Eau is one of the largest fountains in the World and throws a plume of water 140 metres into the air at 200kmh. For many a bod of my generation, this landmark evokes memories of a supernatural thriller series in the late 1960s called “The Champions”, the title sequence of which featured the ever-present fountain in the background.

After that train journey, my colleague and I enjoyed a quick drink in a Geneva bar. The rest of the evening was less inspiring. Planes, trains and lots of waiting around. Journeys like that are never fun but at least I was in good conversational company and that always, metaphorically at least, takes an hour off the duration. We finally made it back to Lille at about 11.30pm. My colleague was due to set off at 3am the following morning, to spend her wedding anniversary in Rome. She was about to enjoy 2 hours’ sleep before the trains and planes routine would begin again for her.

Would I like to go to Rome some time? Absolutely. Was I jealous that she was heading there the following morning? Not one bit!

France & the Burberry Cycle

I work in an environment where the sales of clothing are analysed to the nth degree and sales predictions are made with an eye on the smallest fraction of a percentage point. Obviously, this is intricate work and due heed needs to be taken of the crystal ball gazers who seek to work out (or, perhaps, dictate) what people will deem to be fashionable 18 months into the future.

With all of this educated and finely-tuned prediction going on and with all of the vast quantities of thousands of different items of clothing being ordered by the company to satisfy the predicted demand for them, it’s hard to imagine managing the earthquake which happened under the Burberry company in recent years.

Burberry came into being just over 150 years ago and, once established, became synonymous with high quality, practical and stylish outdoor wear, favoured by the well-to-do, all the way “up” to the monarchy. The now famous check or tartan-style pattern started off as just a lining standard for trench coats in the 1920s but, over the following 40 years or so, it gradually fought its way onto the outside, first onto umbrellas, scarves and luggage and, eventually, onto…. well, pretty much everything. Image and popularity grew hand in hand for well over one hundred years from the company’s founding and I can easily imagine the executives of the 1970s viewing the demand curves of previous years, knowing full well who their clientele were and ordering yarns, dyes, treatments, machinery, manpower and whatnot with a certain air of certainty that their predictions for “next year” would turn out to be very close to the eventual reality. Possibly 1 or 2 percent out, one way or the other.

Then, of course, the earthquake. People of a certain mentality began, through wheeling and dealing or market trading or football management, to acquire a wealth that people of that ilk could only previously see from a distance in the wardrobes and jewellery boxes of the silver spooners and the university-educated, suburb-dwelling financiers and their wives.

These newly-affluent people knew that they could never be high class. They didn’t have anything in their armoury to achieve that status but then, as now, they had the only thing it took to allow them to look high class. Money.

Houses with mock-ancient Greek carriage lamps outside, swimming pools in the shape of a roll of carpet (in recognition of the source of one’s wealth) and pink Cadillacs are all well and good when you want to show the World how high you’ve soared but these things can’t follow you everywhere. Jewellery can. Clothing can.

So, after a short hunt for the right things to be seen wearing, the rules became clear to these ignoramuses. If a small gold ring on a finger demonstrated beauty, class, rarity, delicacy and a sense of one’s being, in some way, “select”, then it stood to reason that 16 gold rings, distributed amongst 10 fingers and thumbs must surely be 16 times as beautiful, classy, rare, delicate and select a manifestation. You and I, of course, see something far removed from “classy” when we see those fingers.

Similarly, if a distinctive, expensive, “upper-class” scarf demonstrated one’s having hauled oneself up the social scale by one or two layers, then dressing oneself from head to toe in such distinctive and expensive garb must surely mean that one is viewed as having raised oneself higher still. Again, of course, you and I see this in what might be described as inverse proportion but, to the “hard of thinking”, there’s no irony, no pathetic cry for acceptance to be heard, no inanely transparent attempts to be something more than is possible are being made.

Clearly, as far as the clothing was concerned, the Burberry range fit the bill perfectly. Expensive and distinctive, it was the perfect choice and, probably after a period of foiled analyses and abject shock, the good people of Burberry, seeing their numbers soar for the unlikeliest of reasons, appear to have opted to swallow their pride and to bask in the figures. This gave rise to little gems like the Burberry baseball cap and such like – items which the founder and the original core clientele would never have recognised and would never have been seen dead wearing. After this, the law of the jungle dictated that those oiks who had the money to "dress posh" began to be emulated by countless hordes of dross who had neither the brains nor the money to make an independent wave on the social seismometer and the inevitable result was that, just as the "I now have money but no brains" team emulated the upper classes, the "I have neither money nor brains" team began to emulate the former and, of course, this World is chock full of people with neither brains nor money. With neither class nor intellect. With neither decorum nor self-awareness. The result? Thousands upon thousands of sales for our friends at Burberry but at the price of the assassination of their hard-won image and, worse, the fact that hordes of under-achievers now wanted to be seen wearing things they couldn't afford led to another group of scum, namely forgers, bridging the price gap in the market so that not even Burberry themselves could take full advantage of this bitter-sweet turn of fortune for their range.

Whatever is happening in the Burberry empire and however they see their future, it’s clearly impossible that things will ever be the same for them again. It would take 100 years for them to shed the image created for them by the dross who hijacked their brand and, of course, they are culpable themselves too. If not, then the Burberry baseball cap would never have existed. Presumably having realised what they’d done to themselves, they discontinued the cap in 2004 but it was too little, too late. The thieves and counterfeiters had already made sure that the product, albeit not the “real” one, remained and remains well and truly available.

Having moved to France, there’s an amusing codicil to be seen. Whereas, these days, in the UK, Burberry, as a brand, is almost 100% associated with the pondlife who appropriated the brand image from its rightful owners, here in France, the cycle is still at a fairly preliminary stage. Yes, the gold-dripping oiks are bedecked in it, as in the UK but, here, decent, normal people are still to be seen sporting it in apparent unawareness of the way the Burberry cycle works.

As the months and, perhaps, years pass, the “nice” girls and boys of France will gradually shun it, like the truly “classy” people long since did and then, as much as it may continue to cause the demand forecasters of Burberry stomach ulcers, in France, just as in the UK, the only people who’d be seen dead wearing that once proud tartan are the people to whom this blog would make no sense whatsoever.