Philosophical Inanities

Testing times

2010-10-27T10:38:00.003Z

It has a been a long time coming.
No, not this entry in the blog but my decision to (perhaps) say a final farewell to Internet Explorer.

IE and I have had a rocky relationship. Way back in the mists of internet time I was a devout fan of Netscape Navigator. Ah, how I missed thee. But then the world went a little but funny and the serif N was replaced by the resolutely sans-serif e and that dear reader was more or less that.

Yes, I knew about the security loopholes, about the often bizarre way IE renders HTML, and about the bullyboy tactics that Microsoft has used in the past to ensure it stays at the top of the tree.

I have dabbled with other browsers in the past - Safari and Firefox have both sat around on my machine, but ultimately I've found something about them that's not suited the way I surf and I've retreated to IE, updating to each new version a good 18 months or so after it comes out so the bugs have been ironed out.

So what's changed?
In a word: Twitter.
As some of you will know, I'm quite active on Twitter with my hyperlocal West Hampstead feed @WHampstead. When #newtwitter came along a few weeks ago I was interested to see the changes and the use of fancy new scripting that gives a more seamless twitter experience. But then in the past week it's stopped working on IE8. Not completely, but that damn yellow exclamation "Error" triangle keeps popping up in the bottom left corner of my browser and I was constantly hitting F5 even just to access my list of followers. Worst of all, I couldn't seem to access profiles in the neat new sidebar. The camel's back was broken and I pointed my IE browser to the Firefox site.

Obviously, the first thing I did was check the Twitter page. It worked. Perfectly. And quickly. There were some bugs with importing all my data from IE (I'm not going to apportion blame). I then looked at some of the add-ons and found Scribe Fire, which apparently lets you blog direct from your browser.

Which is exactly what I'm doing now.

I'm about to press the "Publish to..." button and see if it works. I'm not entirely sure how/why I'll use this to be honest. Although it might encourage me to blog here more often, and to post more shorter blog entries on my West Hampstead blog (which people actually read, unlike this one).

Here goes...

Yet another blog

2010-02-20T19:46:00.000Z

A very short posting to say that I think I've decided to migrate Travel Literature (which was last updated even before THIS was last updated) to a blog for simple ease of updating. Will migrate all previous reviews in the order they were written. Is a shame to leave all the excellent DHTML stuff behind, but I do want to keep the concept alive, and this is the easiest way to do it.

So, bookmark travel-literature.blogspot.com and away we shall merrily sail

You may also like to know that I'll be blogging my forthcoming Lewis & Clark roadtrip on lewisclarktrip.blogspot.com. Although there's nothing there yet.

The Italian Paradox

2009-05-27T18:50:00.003Z

Hello everyone, it's time for the (now annual) blog post.

Here I am in the hotel Luxor in Turin. No, not a recreation of the pyramids as one might find in Las Vegas, but a 3* Best Western operation that has delivered me a nice room but sub-par toiletries.

You might wonder why I'm in my hotel at 8.50pm on a Wednesday night when I am, ostensibly, on holiday. It's a fair question. The answer is that a) I'm here on my own, b) the Champions League final is on (Man U 0-0 Barcelona at the moment), and c) the Italian Paradox.

You are probably all familiar with the French Paradox (the French diet of substantial amounts of fat and red wine that generates a relatively low rate of heart disease. cf the Glasgow Paradox, where a diet consisting (shit, Barcelona have scored against the run of early play, still, better now than in the 89th minute) of fried food and beer strangely hasn't killed off the entire population.)

I have just experienced, not for the first time, the Italian paradox. Went to the restaurant nearest my hotel. The food was good. Extensive menu with all the usual things on it. The Italians get food. Big time. They get ingredients for sure. The basic rule of Italian cuisine (pasta/pizza notwithstanding) seems to be "take ingredient, serve". They don't mess around with stuff too much. And there's something to be said for that. But this "wham, bam, grazie mamma" approach to food means that mealtimes become quite perfunctory. I just had a very nice 3-course meal and coffee in less than an hour. The waiter was friendly, the food really was good (carpaccio di pulpo followed by spada al limone and then fregolas (which I think I wrongly rhymed with Legolas from Lord of the Rings when ordering)). It came astonishingly promptly although the restaurant was quite full. In fact I went there was partly due to its proximity and partly because I walked past the open door of the kitchen and it looked very professional and clean.

Previous visits to Italy (all to the northern climes, at least since being an adult) have revealed that Italians like to order a plate of one thing rather than complex taste combinations. On one side of me, a father had a plate of asparagus while his son had some spaghetti. On the other side, a guy had a bowl of dressed grated carrot. Patti di giorno do not come with frivolities such as vegetables. You order the veg separately. It can get expensive. Especially with the £/€ exchange rate right now. (Van der Sar was at fault for the goal by the way - but United still look the better side).

So, the paradox is this: for a country so proud (and rightly so) of its culinary heritage, why is the act of eating out such a nondescript affair. It's not as if it's supercheap unless, I suppose, you have a slice of pizza or a bowl of pasta in a café. But everyone I saw eating simply ate their food, fairly quickly, and then vamoosed. No lingering. No savouring every bite. And tonight is not the first time I've encountered this. It makes me feel pressured when ordering and deciding, not helped by my faltering and extremely basic phrasebook Italian.

I find it strange. I want to enjoy the experience of going out to a ristorante, even if it's fairly straightforward. I want to enjoy the nice ingredients rather than sitting with the slight feeling that I have to finish my food pronto. I could understand this if I was somewhere without a proud culinary tradition. But I'm in ITALY!!! Maybe I need to ditch the efficiency of the north with its factories and fashion and more northern European outlook. But the Turton paradox is that I don't want to take five hours over a meal either. Especially when there's a Champions League final to be watched. It's still 1-0 to Barcelona.

Jumping Jack Flash has no Gas Gas Gas

2008-09-24T13:29:00.002Z

Hello y'all from Asheville, North Carolina.

Asheville is a nice town near the Smoky Mountains (they're actually the Great Smoky Mountains, but as they're not that high that seems hyperbole). It's early fall, and soon the leaf chasers will be out in force to marvel at the astonishing sight of reds, oranges, auburns, ochres and other such colo(u)rs adorning the hillsides of this beautiful part of the country.

They won't be starting this weekend though. Why not? No-one has any petrol.

Coming between an American and his/her car is like coming between a bear and her cubs - which they know a bit about in these parts. In a society so spectacularly motor-dependent as the US, anything that affects their mobility is big news. All summer, it's been the price of gas that has been triggering fear and loathing. Four dollars a gallon is the psychological barrier that many stations have had to crash through already thanks to the general rise in a barrel of oil.

Then along came a couple of hurricanes and everything turned a little bit nasty. Hurricane Gustav that just missed New Orleans a few weeks ago had a minor impact, but Hurricane Ike that struck Galveston, Texas a couple of weeks later has had a huge effect. Galveston is where a lot of oil is refined and then distributed, especially - it so happens - to this part of the country.

Merrily oblivious to this I drove up to Asheville from Columbia, South Carolina on Sunday knowing that I'd have to fill up at some point en route. As my Ford Focus told me I had about 60 miles left in the tank I thought it would be a good time to do just that, so pulled off the interstate and into a Shell station. All the pumps were busy, so I just parked the car, bought a coffee and planned to swing round as soon as one was empty. Then I noticed a line was forming. Well, I wasn't too interested in waiting in line, so I drove on.

The next gas station was some local chain. They had no gas. None. Nada. Zip.

I drove on. I was down to about 20 miles in the tank and the number was falling much faster than the actual miles covered. I'd cut my speed a bit, but this was still the interstate. I came off at what was in fact my exit and headed for the BP station. There was a line of at least three cars at every pump, but this time I just joined it.

Replete with gas I made it to Asheville. That evening on CNN the headline news was about the gas shortages across the south-east of the country. By Monday evening that had become shortages predominantly in North Carolina. By Tuesday evening it seemed to be centred on Asheville. There's not much gas here now. People are panic buying. The lines at some gas stations are apparently two miles long! People are running out while they wait in line. Fights are breaking out at pumps.

There is but one topic of conversation in town. Not the price any more, but the sheer availability of the stuff. In a depressed economy, people are anxious to keep the jobs they have but if they can't get to work they might not get paid. The mayor is working to persuade the wholesale suppliers that do have gas to distribute to other gas stations. One local firm is planning to send a tanker all the way down to Charleston to come back with some - which can only mean prices go up even more. Asheville is a liberal little town but public transport here is limited to say the least. And then of course there's the SUV issue. While I waited in line at the BP station on Sunday I was one of the few vehicles that was not a pick-up or an SUV. No doubt some of those people needed a larger vehicle - in rural parts a pick-up may be a very sensible choice. But ALL of them? I think we know the point I'm trying to make.

It's buggering up my trip a bit. I hadn't reckoned on how slow the roads into the Smokies would be (Americans don't seem that great at driving round bends or up/down hills), and of course ups and downs and braking and air conditioning in the car (which you still need - I know, I turned mine off for a while and it wasn't pleasant) all consume more gas. I used about a third of a tank yesterday. Predictions vary as to when the crisis will ease, but it could be a few more days. I don't really want to get up at 2am in order to not wait 2 hours for enough gas to get me back to Atlanta.

If you don't want to invest in public transport - how about bigger incentives to buy fuel efficient cars, or scooters for those who are just popping around town during the day. If America wants to reduce its dependency on oil (and of course it's far from clear that it does), it needs to be more inventive in how it goes about trying to reduce its dependency on the car. Right now, another hurricane or a freak refinery explosion could more or less cripple a part of the world's richest country that is right now, just about staggering on.

Wanted

2008-08-04T10:26:00.002Z

Went to see Wanted yesterday. Angelina Jolie in Lara Croft mode again, Morgan Freeman playing Morgan Freeman and James McAvoy proving once again why he's the hot young thing of British acting. Will there be a sequel? Could McAvoy's Wesley Gibson be the successor to Damon's Jason Bourne? In a word, no.

Not that Wanted wasn't enjoyable. It was. But it was no Bourne movie. Not as clever, not as slick, not as hard-hitting, and a lot more violent. Nor was it as CGI-tastic as the Matrix, with which it shared some similiarities or as knowing as Fight Club. It was all-in-all very silly. Cartoonish even. So imagine my lack of surprise when it turned out it was adapted from a comic series.

(Look at me Lois: two posts in three days)

Hello Everybody

2008-08-02T20:36:00.003Z

It's been a long time. I realise this. I'm sorry. But then nobody reads this so it doesn't really matter.

I've had a cultural week or so and thought I'd pass on a few thoughts.

Last Sunday I trotted off to the Courtauld (never been before) with two of the History of Art gang to see the Cézanne exhibition there. Only a room. Bit steep for a fiver (this causes an argument later in the week), but I get in for free - thank you Art Fund membership. Good though. Those that know tend to rate Cézanne. Those that don't say "Nice fruit". I'm somewhere in between. I love Man With Pipe. I'm struggling to see how one of his landscapes could have been seen as revolutionary. Cézanne was somewhere between the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. It was an odd place to be. But the guy could paint. Seriously.

Whizzed round the permanent collection too - some good stuff in and among. Definitely worth checking out.

That was then, this is now.

Took Friday off and headed to the Hayward. Having been to an entertaining evening celebration of all thing Hayward a few weeks earlier (Antony Gormley special guesting), was even more keen to go to the Psycho Buildings exhibition that's been the cultural talk of the town of late. If you like buildings and you're a bit psycho you'll love Psycho Buildings. Apart from messing with your conceptions of what architecture is, it's fun and plays with the gallery space in interesting ways. The most famous thing is the boating lake, which generates big queues at the weekend, but as I was the first one in on a Friday morning was quiet. The couple who'd dashed straight there were already flailing around in the water - focusing more on how to move in any given direction rather than on the unusual perspective on the Eye and Westminster. I wandered onto the pontoon, but declined the boating opportunity. Felt a bit silly on my own. And it was really windy!

Sadly, the other "cool" thing was closed. There's a giant bubble that everyone can walk into but a select few can crawl onto half-way up. But the crawling bit was closed.

Two installations really caught me. The first is an exploded room - gives you a 3D version of a Matrix-style 360 degree freeze frame. Astonishingly well done. The second was Rachel Whiteread's village of dolls houses. I'm not a big Whiteread fan - at least not of her earlier stuff. But this was cool. Both eerie and comforting, Tim Burton and I Love Lucy. The blurb claimed she'd found/bought all these dolls houses. I'm struggling to believe this. Anyway. Go.

A 68 bus later and I'm at the British Museum. Last time I was here was for the Terracotta Warriors thing. Now it's for "American Scene". It's a take on American prints roughly from the first half of the 20th century. The marketing throws out the two famous names: Hopper and Pollock. But there's lots of other stuff to get excited about here. And it's free. Free! Some fantastic social commentary, some truly amazing etchings (fnarr), and some stuff that's downright weird. Whyohwhyohwhyohwhyoh do they never have postcards of the stuff I like? Definitely go.

Day two of my culturefest and I'm back at the British Museum for Hadrian - the next in the empire series. Can't say it was as good as the Terracotta Warriors. I mean, don't get me wrong, Hadrian was a pretty interesting guy but the exhibition is largely full of statues of the Hirsute one. The documentary I saw earlier in the week about him was more informative. Made me fancy a trip to Tivoli to see the ruins of his villa though - and I've never really seen the Wall either. But overall. Don't go.

Mooched over to the National Gallery to see what was on there. I'd not heard of "A Radical Light", which is the Sainsbury Wing exhibition. This is perhaps not surprising. It's an artists' art exhibition. The Divisionists were a bunch of disparate late 19th century artists in what was a rather shaky country called Italy. They were the precursor for the Futurists (Wikipedia is your friend), who are Well Known. But it's basically Seurat with a conscience. Uninspiring. And again, they didn't have a postcard of my favourite one. Don't go. Unless you can get in for free. And even then... Sorry National Gallery. But there's populist and then there's über-esoteric.

I zipped over to Tate Mod to see how the permanent collection was doing. I'd already seen Twombly (good - whether or not you think your 2-year-old could have done it (hint: s/he couldn't) and Street & Studio (disappointing, esp. compared to the outstanding Cruel & Tender photography exhibition of a few years' ago). Most of the main collection was much the same as it was when we were going round on our course. But a few things had moved and there was some good new stuff. I really liked Thirty Pieces of Silver, and a load of leather straps hung from meat hooks (no, not for that reason).

I can't escape the fact that I really like the minimalist room at Tate Mod. Now that I understand minimalism a bit more, I find it quite appealing aesthetically. Sure, it's not Rembrandt, or Monet, or Hockney, or Breughel... but it's good. No, really. One of my moments of artepiphany came during our course when we were looking at Donald Judd's Unitled (in this case the copper box that's untitled) and then David (our course leader), dashed back to the nearby room that we'd been in about four weeks earlier to a classic Mondrian and pointed out the similiarities. It all made sense.

Tate Mod is odd... if you skip the temporary exhibitions in a way it's not as big as you'd think. And because it's really modern art (there's only one Monet I think on display) and not as much explanation as I'd like, it's quite easy to skim through fairly fast. Or you can spend 2 hours in two rooms. Art eh? Tsk.

24: Europe

2007-06-25T12:20:00.000Z

"Are you sure you want to go the whole way?", I asked in German
"Yes, absolutely. I think it would be really interesting," she replied. "For our readers."

I was flattered, but slightly concerned. It wasn't what I'd had in mind at all, but then maybe it would be fun. After all sitting on trains for 24 hours all by my self with nothing for company except Alan Bennet's musings might get a bit tiring.

And you were all thinking...

Here was the plan: I was going to attempt to travel through all 26 of Switzerland's cantons (yes, I know there are technically 23 cantons and three of them have 2 half-cantons each, but lets just say 26 and be happy)... through all 26 cantons in 24 hours using only the train. It had taken some planning. On one hand, Switzerland has a remarkably dense, reliable and frequent train network; on the other there are 26 cantons spread across the country. The outline of the fastest route was relatively easy to determine; but the exact starting time and point and some of the intricacies were not so straightforward – and could it be done in 24 hours?

I'd finally nailed a schedule that would go from station to station in 23hrs and 11 minutes. This was as fast as possible unless I could make a simultaneous connection, which would save an hour but was unlikely to work out. I think that I may have found the only route/time on which this endeavour would succeed.

A few press releases fired out to the Swiss media generated some interest; in particular from the Tribune de Genève. I did a rather fractured telephone interview with one of the paper's journalists on my way from Italy to Switzerland by train through tunnels and thunderstorms. But now they wanted to send someone with me on the whole trip!

Wednesday June 6th, 14:00
Eating an ice cream in Martigny, a mid-size town in Canton Valais in the French-speaking south-west of Switzerland. My phone rings. It's Nadine, the Lausanne-based journalist who's going to be coming with me. We're arranging where to meet (the train station, obviously) when she casually mentions that she's bringing a photographer with her. I assume just to take some pics as I get on the first train. "I presume the photographer isn't coming on the whole trip as well?" I ask. "Oh, yes, she is. We will both be coming with you."

Wed Jun 6, 16:59
I take a few photos of Martigny station myself and one of the train from Lausanne that is bearing my two travelling companions. They take ages to get off the train, which doesn't bode well given how many tight connections we have and, despite my exhortations to pack light, they seem to have quite a lot of luggage with them. We retire to a nearby bar to get acquainted.

Wed Jun 6, 17:35
We amble back over to the station. Both girls seem nice enough, but still hard to envisage 24 hours with them. Nadine - blonde and cigarette-toting, has explained that they're going to do a live blog commentary on the trip taking mobile phone pics as they go - if that's ok with me. I can't imagine who would want to read such a thing, but it's nice for my friends and family I guess so why not. Odile, the brunette photographer, is quieter and efficiently snaps away maneouvring me into various positions with the charm of someone who's used to doing this.

Wed Jun 6, 17:51
It begins. We board the 17:51 train destined for Geneva airport, although we're getting off in Geneva main station. The sun is shining between the scattered clouds and all three of us are in quite an excited mood. We have 24 hours to travel round the country and get to our final destination. Part of the deal with the newspaper is that I've refused to pre-announce the exact route so no-one apart from me knows exactly where we're going. The train is busy and the woman sitting opposite me looks a little bemused at being surrounded by cameras, phones and general hubbub; but she takes it all in her stride.

Wed Jun 6, 18:02
We're into canton #2 as we crossed over from the valleys of the Valais to the vineyards of the Vaud. Vaud is a pretty big canton with the large Lake Geneva towns of Montreux and Lausanne at its heart. This stretch of the train journey is particularly pleasant as we skirt the shores of Lake Geneva with vineyards producing some of the best of Swiss wine.

Wed Jun 6, 18:40
We pass through the girls' hometown, Lausanne, for the first time today. We'll be back but they're extolling the virtues of the city. They're already on about the ninth blog posting of the day. They'll never maintain that rate. Today we have some of the longer uninterrupted stretches of train travel, and this first 90 minute journey is a gentle introduction to the dashing about that will follow.

Wed Jun 6, 19:24
Geneva. The third canton (Geneva) actually has an isolated outpost that the train hurtled through about 10 minutes earlier as it passed through the village of Celigny. We have 20 minutes to wait here, so no pressure on the change. Nadine tries to find an image to represent the city, while Odile chats away to some guy down the platform who waves rather entertainingly as I take a photo of her.

Wed Jun 6, 19:45
Onto the second train. It's heading to Zurich, but we're going as far as the national capital, Bern (or Berne depending which language you want to use: Bern and Valais are the only two officially bilingual cantons). We head straight to the restaurant car to grab some food. We've still got more than five hours ahead of us today and nine more cantons.

Wed Jun 6, 20:40
We backtracked all the way to Lausanne before veering north away from the lake and into the hills. We've all tucked into some quite nice food and a half-bottle of Ticino red wine. Nadine points out some historical village, which I'm sure isn't what she's indicating (and confirm quietly to myself later that I'm right). We've passed into the canton of Fribourg, which I don't have much to comment on, and next up will be Bern, one of the large cantons that I had to try to spend as little time in as possible.

Someone sends us a blog message saying that he'd already done the trip... except he used the bus. Doesn't count. Switzerland's rather amazing postbus network would make the trip much easier but that takes the fun out of it. Maybe I'll try the absolute "public transport" record next.

Wed Jun 6, 21:26
We've arrived in the capital and it's dark outside now. A 12-minute change onto platform 13. An omen? I hope not. We're waiting for a local train now to Neuchatel. We've been going for three and a half hours and I'm a bit surprised that there's been almost no attempt to "interview" me. We haven't really chatted about anything of consequence despite the fact that Nadine generally reports on Swiss politics (rather than loony foreigners doing daft things), and that I am pretty well informed about things Swiss. She's got to write a full-page feature on this tomorrow evening for Friday's paper.

Wed Jun 6, 21:38
Onto the BLS local train.

Wed Jun 6, 21:42
Momentary panic. As the girls gabble away, I'm actually listening to the announcements and am a bit confused by the network map on the wall. Turns out this train splits in two later on and we're in the wrong half of the train. What a mistake that would be. We're thankfully in a carriage right behind the correct part of the train and we manage to scoot between the two at the next stop. Disaster averted.

Wed Jun 6, 22:20
Arrive in Neuchatel, we're in our sixth canton after just three trains. We have only four minutes for this change some there's some genuine scampering. This is a crucial train for us. If it is running too late (as of course late night trains can do) then the whole plan will be scuppered as we have to get to Basel in time to get the final train of the day over to Zurich.

Wed Jun 6, 22:24
We make the train. It's quiet and we spread out trying to stay awake. We'll cross off four cantons on this train, the most of any single journey.

Wed, Jun 6 23:00
We've crossed into Solothurn, not a canton I know much about. There's only one canton (actually one of the half cantons) that I've never been through - but we won't get there until tomorrow morning.

Wed, Jun 6, 23:15
We just clipped Solothurn and are now into Jura, the most recent addition to the Swiss cantonal map having joined in 1979 when it split from Canton Bern.

Wed, Jun 6, 23:26
The first of the six half-cantons is Basel Land, literally the countryside around Basel Stadt. We're entering the industrial heartland of Switzerland but it's dark outside and there's not much to see. Most importantly, the train is still on time but the buffet car is closed and we're all in need of a caffeine hit.

Wed, Jun 6, 23:53
Basel is a large station but easy to navigate. I'm conscious that I know most of these stations from previous visits so I'm quietly confident that we can make all our connections. We have 15 minutes here but all the coffee outlets are just closing so we're foiled again.

Thu, Jun 7, 00:08
Our train was already at the platform so we get on board. Odile takes some artistic photos while Nadine thinks about how to start her article. I'm still not sure how she's going to write anything interesting. I think her editor has already been on the phone saying the blog isn't interesting enough (although it's gettig quite a good following), and should be more about me and my views. I know how I'd write the piece, but I figure she should know her audience better.

Thu, Jun 7, 00:15
Aargau is the penultimate canton of day one, just Zurich to go. Aargau is part of what the Swiss refer to as the flatlands although having hiked across it I can testify that it's far from flat; it's a series of sharp wooded ridges that although not high combine to produce some quite tiring days' walks if you're cutting across a few of them. Odile is trying to catch a snooze; I'm determined to stay awake.

Thu, Jun 7, 01:17
Zurich station is deserted and a bit eerie. We're a bit shattered and need to find our hotel. Originally I'd planned to sleep overnight in the station where allegedly guards lock you up in a waiting room; but sanity had prevailed and I'd booked into the Hotel Walhalla, which happens to be the nearest hotel to the station and mercifully is neither a brothel nor a horribly expensive luxury palace. The girls have booked the same place getting the final room.

Thu Jun 7, 01:25
Now I feel bad. Les deux filles are so trusting they just troop after me wherever I go, even though I've set off in the wrong direction for the hotel. Luckily I realise that we've gone wrong and turn back and we stagger into reception a few minutes later to check in. We agree to meet at 4.45am the next morning.

Thu Jun 7, 01:40
My head hits the pillow with multiple alarms set. Although there are far more trains on Day 2, I'm more confident. I was worried that the trains around Geneva and Bern would be our downfall and we've survived them intact. Time to sleep.

Thu Jun 7, 04:30
The phone rings to wake me up and I'm completely disoriented for a few moments. To the shower!

Thu Jun 7, 04:48
The girls are running a couple of minutes late and I'm just about to ask the night porter through the haze of cigarette smoke that encircles him whether he could give their room a call. But they arrive and off we go.

Thu Jun 7, 04:52
Our first train of the day leaves from one of the mysterious underground platforms at Zurich station and I've allowed a few minutes extra to find it as I've been caught out by this before. Not to worry - there is a subway entrance right by the hotel and it leads straight to our platform. Could have had 10 minutes more in bed! The platform is deserted as we wait for our local train service to trundle in.

Thu Jun 7, 05:04
We board the train to Schaffhausen, famous for the Rheinfalls (the largest waterfalls in Europe). We're all pretty hungry.

Thu Jun 7, 06:00
We're actually doing 26 cantons and two countries. The train route to Schaffhausen goes through Germany. The two stations on this track are Swiss-owned but we are definitely in Germany and I can see the border signs and a few police and customs officials even at this early hour. Our brief flirtation with the European Union is not the most striking thing about this trip though. The scenery is beautiful as the sun rises and the morning fog slowly lifts.

Thu Jun 7, 06:05
The Rheinfalls come up all of a sudden taking us by surprise. Odile doesn't manage to get a photo in time and I'm the wrong side of the train. I last came here in 1996 I think and in the morning light and uncluttered by tourists they really do look dramatic. Nadine wonders, not for the first time, what something is called in French. All I'm interested in is that we've made it to canton 13. Last time we hit a 13 (platform 13 in Bern) something almost went wrong.

Thu Jun 7, 06:10
We pull into Schaffhausen and I've already spotted the station cafe which is open. Within two minutes I predict we'll have coffee and probably a pain au chocolat in our hands.

Thu Jun 7, 06:15
I haven't told the girls but we have two options here. Either of the next two trains will get us to Winterthur on time. My preference is for the first train, which is slightly slower but still gets us in before the next one. Why take the risk! We have indeed got coffee and the station is already busy with early rush hour traffic.

Thu Jun 7, 06:21
All aboard the train to Winterthur. This is the first train that won't take us through any new cantons. Winterthur (famous for the eponymous insurance company and art collections) is in Canton Zurich so we'll be back where we were at 1am this morning.

Thu Jun 7, 06:54
We arrive in rush hour at Winterthur.

Thu Jun 7, 07:07
Having managed to stop Nadine from boarding the wrong train, we head off to Gossau in Canton St. Gallen, another large canton, via Thurgau - possibly one of the least pass-remarkable cantons in the federation.

Thu Jun 7, 07:15
Here's Thurgau (Thurgovie in French), and for the first time I have to show my passport with my rail pass. I'm still amazed at who buys these monster rail passes. Mine is a 4-day unlimited ticket and it cost £111. I costed up all the tickets I would have had to buy and although they were inevitably more expensive; they weren't THAT much more expensive - and I'm covering the entire country! Who finds these are good value for money? If you're a foreigner you are usually much better off buying a monthly half-fare card, which is just SFr 99 and means that you pay half-price for all trains and most cable cars as well.

Thu Jun 7, 07:43
We're in Gossau with a four minute change and it's busy so we'll have to fight our way through. This is the 15th canton and we still have over nine hours until we finish. We're heading towards Appenzell, the most rural part of Switzerland "Suisse profonde" if you will. I've only been through on the train once, and the girls have never been to this rather romanticised part of the country which is tucked away in the north-east.

Thu Jun 7, 07:47
We've made the change but the train is packed. A sudden increase in the number of older people is very noticeable.

Thu Jun 7, 07:55
We've entered the first of the two Appenzell half cantons: Appenzell Ausserrhoden. The scenery here is quite picture postcard with distinctive farmhouses: large square buildings with very steep gabled roofs; very different to what you see in the more famous Alpine valleys although almost every region has its own style.

Thu Jun 7 08:30
We've made it to Appenzell and it's confusing with no track numbers and all sorts of small red trains coming and going. As we wait for our train Nadine points out that we all look rather incongruous in our urban fashions, sunglasses, and lack of blue-rinse. It's true that we've brought a young (!) metropolitan air to this rural hideaway.

Thu Jun 7, 08:34
Onto the next train as we labour our way through the farmland and villages of Appenzell. This whole section is slow as the local trains trundle along with lots of stops being request stops only.

Thu Jun 7 08:50
At Gais, a town the girls have never heard of, we're once again unsure of what's going on, but I figure it has to be the train that's ahead of us, which will take us back down into the Rhine valley. We're the only ones making the connection.

Thu Jun 7, 09:00
This is a particularly idyllic journey - as the trains and stations have got smaller and smaller so our mood has relaxed. As Odile takes some dramatic shots from the train window, Nadine finally quizzes me on my views on Swiss politics, which I'm happy to share. She's not taking any notes and the editor in me finds myself thinking that I'd be wondering whether she was working or just enjoying herself on this trip.

Thu Jun 7, 09:30
We arrived in Altstaetten at 09:13, which it turns out is Nadine's family's hometown as her mother is Austrian and we're very close to the Austrian border now. We have a slight change of pace now because we've had to change not just trains, but stations. We have just under 30 minutes, and judging from the map we have loads of time but I hadn't initially reckoned on a) having two people accompanying me and b) market day. Partly out of chivalry and partly to speed us up I take one of Nadine's three bags and set my usual brisk pace. Odile runs ahead to get some shots of me walking through the street market although I've usually caught her up by the time she turns round. Alstaetten main station, which we've reached with time to spare, is being rebuilt and it's not clear exactly where we're supposed to be or how we reach the platform but we end up standing by some track that looks promising.

Thu Jun 7, 09:40
Turns out we're not quite in the right place and as the train comes into view round the corner a railway guard shouts at us to move down to where he is standing, so it's us versus the train as we zip across a narrow wooden planks. There would have been plenty of room for us and the train, but I can see that health & safety might have thought otherwise.

Thu Jun 7, 09:50
We're on the train and heading due south. The sun is beating through the window and for the first time I'm really struggling to stay awake. Nadine's eyes are closed and I'm reduced to reading the St Gallen newspaper that the woman in the seat opposite has left behind. It's typical of the uncontroversial brand of Swiss journalism. In an article about the rubbish collection in the city, several vox pops say "We love living here" in various ways.

Thu Jun 7, 10:20
We've crossed the Rhine and are now in Graubunden, the largest canton. It accounts for the south-eastern part of the country and is about a sixth of the total area. Obviously we want to spend as little time here as possible, but the trains don't work out that way. Graubunden is possibly the most beautiful canton. Bern and the Valais have the big mountains: the Eiger, the Matterhorn; but Graubunden has Switzerland's only national park and some stunning scenery. Tourism is a large part of the economy here. The canton is also home to the country's small Romansch-speaking population, who live in a few valleys in the Engadine.

The crossing into Graubunden is particularly interesting for me because I want to see whether there's a footbridge built into the rail bridge. There is. This could provide a way of shaving an hour off the total time. If you got off the train at Bad Ragaz, which is the St Gallen side of the river, then ran across the bridge into Graubunden and ran back again you ought to be able to pick up the train coming back the other way, which otherwise you just miss at the next station. It would be doable but tricky. I'm not going to attempt it anyway and Nadine is insistent that it would be against the spirit of the trip not to get a train into every canton.

Thu Jun 7, 10:26
We arrive in Landquart, and the train that was due to depart at the same time we arrived has already passed us, so we're stuck in Landquart for an hour. Luckily there is a station cafe.

Thu Jun 7, 11:10
We've been sitting out in the sun munching on a sandwich or two. Nadine's had another call from the editor about the blog. It's still not enough about me. For what it's worth, I think the blog (which I'm following on my mobile phone) is quite good. It's a bit stream-of-consciousness at times, but then it's a blog and it's funny. Nadine has at least told me now that her editor is telling her what he wants, and I sense she's a bit fed up about it. I decide to make more effort over the next hour or so to try and steer the overall article a bit more in the direction I want.

Thu Jun 7, 11:26
An hour after we got here and we're leaving Landquart for Lake Zurich. From here on in, I know the countryside pretty well and we're still on target.

Thu Jun 7, 11;54
Another small canton is crossed off the list. It won't take us long to whizz through Glarus, which has a distinctive flag with a monk (Saint Fridolin, since you ask). We'll then enter Schwyz, canton number 20, before returning once again to Canton Zurich.

Thu Jun 7, 12:05
I mention to Nadine that all I'm really looking for from this article she's writing is some reference to the book that I'm very slowly writing about Switzerland based on my long walk across the country back in 2003; and some vague point about being a well-informed source about the nation. She nods, but not sure that I'm going to get my wish - she's more concerned with comparing me to fictional characters. So far, we've had Jack Bauer, Mary Poppins, Phileas Fogg and Inspector Gadget!

Thu, Jun 7, 12:40
Panic. We are at Thalwil, an uninspiring town on the western bank of Lake Zurich. We're waiting for a train to Luzern, from where we have an ample 12 minutes to transfer onto a local train to pick off Obwalden and Nidwalden. But the train is running 5 minutes late. It's the first time a train has been late so far - and just after I was more or less reckoning that this was a done deal.

Thu, Jun 7, 12:42
Five minutes wasn't a problem; but now we're up to 8 minutes late, reducing our transfer time to just four minutes, and more worryingly of course if the train itself is running slow then we might lose more time between here and Luzern.

Thu Jun 7, 12:47
My phone rings. It's a Geneva-based TV station. "I believe you are going to be doing a trip across Switzerland by train soon?" "Yes, I'm doing it right now." "Ah, will you be passing through Geneva?" "Yes, about 17 hours ago." "Oh".

A train comes into our platform but it's not ours. More panic in case there's a platform change. But this is Switzerland and such things tend not to happen

Thu Jun 7, 12:56
Our train arrived 8 minutes late. As soon as we got on board I used my phone's web browser to check what happens if we miss our connection. In fact, all would not be lost as we have quite a lot of time to do this next stage. I don't tell the girls in order to heighten the dramatic tension.

Thu Jun 7, 13:30
We reach Luzern, having made up a couple of minutes and passed through Canton Zug. Hilariously the conductor apologises for the delay, blaming it squarely on the "ETS". He goes on to explain that ETS stands for "European Train System". In other words it's not the fault of the Swiss, it's those poxy Europeans. We have enough time to make the connection, onto another small local train.

Thu Jun 7, 13:37
This train will take us through Nidwalden and onto Obwalden at a community called Alpnachstad, which I've had to spell at least three times for Nadine. Alpnachstad is where one can catch the world's steepest funicular railway up to Mount Pilatus. We're not doing that.

Thu Jun 7, 13:47
We have only two trains after this one. As we run along the edge of the Alpnachersee, I reflect on this trip. Overall, I'm glad to have had the company of the girls. They've been entertaining and although I'm not sure whether it's been a good use of the paper's resources, I've certainly enjoyed having them along. Odile asks me whether there's any point to this at all. "No, not really," I reply... thinking that a half-decent insightful article would be one point.

Thu Jun 7, 14:00
We could have waited half an hour at Alpnachstad, but we've managed to make a two minute connection instead, which wasn't as easy as I had hoped and for the first time we've genuinely had to run. The advantage of this is that we have a long spell in Luzern before the final train, allowing us time for a coffee.

Thu Jun 7, 14:25
Back in Luzern, Nadine and I head over to the conference centre's outside cafe, while Odile disappears. We have almost an hour here before our final train. The weather is gorgeous, and the view of the lake's steamships is as pleasing as ever. Definitely one of the great views of Switzerland.

Thu Jun 7, 14:45
Odile appears. She's very generously bought me a tube of Cenovis, which is a Marmite-like spread that comes in a tube. They've also bought me pate in a tube, which I know as Tartex, but here is branded as le Parfait. It will be too big to take on the aircraft with the current regulations, so I suggest we eat it on the crackers they've also bought.

Thu Jun 7, 15:05
When I did my cross-Switzerland walk the final few days walking were an inevitable anti-climax. The real climax had been reaching Montreux at the end of one of the hardest day's walking of the whole trip - a day that I could never have managed six weeks earlier. Having reached Lake Geneva I found it hard to get inspired to actually walk the final miles especially as I hadn't planned the routes very well. I was having a similar feeling here in Luzern, albeit at a much lower level. Having made it to Luzern, with one train to go, it was like we'd already done it. I could very happily have stayed there drinking beer for the next few hours. In a way, the whole trip is unnecessary. You would just need someone to confirm that the particular trains had been on time, and assumed you would always make any connection. But that wasn't the spirit. We had one final train to take, and it was one of the most impressive stretches of track in western Europe. We were heading up to the Gotthard pass and would emerge from the Gotthard tunnel in Italian-speaking Ticino, our final canton. On the way we'd pass through Uri, one of the original cantons from 1291, and a canton with rather mystical and mythical connotations for the Swiss.

Thu, Jun 7, 15:21
Our final train departed on time. The weather was closing in.

Thu, Jun 7, 15:50
I was checking the responses to the blog and there was a postscript from the guy who'd done the same thing using the bus. He confessed that they'd also accidentally missed out a whole canton.

Thu Jun 7, 16:15
We were travelling alongside Lake Uri and the mountains were looming in a threatening manner. Nadine was particuarly excited about being in this part of the country and was very eager that I point out where the Ruetli meadow was. The Ruetli meadow is where the very first Swiss constitution was allegedly signed. It is on the opposite side of the lake and is rather hard to spot from the train but I was able to point it out. We've been tucking into crackers and pate as the rain started to lash against the windows at Fluelen at the end of the lake. From here we'd start climbing up the corkscrew track towards the Gotthard.

Thu Jun 7, 16:50
Goeschenen is the final station before the Gotthard. It's a slightly spooky place. This was it. Twenty three hours after we'd started we were heading into the tunnel and our final canton. This was where Nadine commented that she didn't like tunnels.

Thu Jun 7, 17:02
Airolo. We've done it. Falling off the train slightly unsure what to do next the first thing that strikes us is the cold. But then we are at 1100m above sea level, and we'd come up from about 400m down at Lake Luzern. Airolo has little to recommend it - it has the air of a town that the world has bypassed, quite literally as the Gotthard pass road now skips the town. The girls would be staying the night here, while I had to get down to Bellinzona to collect my luggage and make an early morning train to Milan and my flight home. However, I didn't want to just abandon them. "It's like The Shining," said Odile, nervously.

Thu Jun 7, 18:03
"Tre espresso?" "No, tre prosecco". I took the girls to the nearest bar, where they looked surprised to see us - to see anyone in fact - and we had a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate. Having spent the past 24 hours together it was all over. They joined me on the platform as I got my train down the valley. The next day Nadine was going to Zurich to meet a friend, Odile was going all the way back to Lausanne, a really long journey from where we were. We hugged and they waved me off. I promised to hunt out a copy of the paper the following morning.

Fri Jun 8, 08:48
At Chiasso, on the Swiss/Italian border, my bags were thoroughly searched by customs. "What is your job?" asked the customs official. "I'm a journalist," I answered semi-truthfully. I hoped he wouldn't pull out the copy of the paper folded open at the full-page article about the trip and splashed with photos of me. I'm not sure he'd have understood. I'm not entirely sure I understood. Had I learned anything about Switzerland? Not a great deal; I already knew quite a lot but seeing it all so quickly did give me a much clearer sense of the regional differences and travelling with two French-speaking Swiss also gave me more of an insight into how they - as a sizeable minority - feel about the country. Was it worth it? You bet.

In and out of Milan

2007-06-25T09:37:00.000Z

Hello boys and girls,

Since we last spoke I've had a blazing row with a taxi driver, been trailed by a professional photographer for 24 hours, and gone to a casino with no gaming tables...

It was back to Italy again a few weeks ago for a meeting – once again flying to Milan but this time destined for a resort town called Pallanza, which is just north of Stresa on Lake Maggiore. The last time I came this way I had a well-meaning taxi driver who used his sat-nav to get us here, this time the guy had no clue what he was doing or where he was going. He also had a sat-nav, but despite showing him the address of the hotel he proved completely unable to find even the town and we drove all over the place clearly lost. Unfortunately my Italian wasn't good enough to make him understand that he should stop and ask someone the way, and he didn't seem to have the rudiments of any other language. Eventually we got to the hotel and he had the cheek to ask for the full metered fare, which was well over £100. He was sheepish enough that I think he realised he had little chance of getting that, but was dismayed when I gave him what I thought was appropriate (I'd kept my eye on the meter and pretty much just deducted all the money incurred from driving round in circles). An argument ensued with him saying "poco poco" and me saying "but you got lost" and "we wasted 25 minutes"; none of which he understood. Eventually I just got out of the car and hoped the hotel staff would rescue me if he came after me with an axe, which he didn't.

The hotel added further evidence to the argument that Italian hotels are always rated 1-star over what they should be. The Hotel Pallanza was very friendly and perfectly comfortable, but wasn't a 4-star hotel. Pallanza itself is quite pleasant – much smaller than Stresa and less showy. It was pretty hot on the Sunday I arrived and I sought some shade where I could have a glass of wine and check some proofs. Dinner was at a large and very busy pizzeria place – what the French would call a brasserie I guess – and was excellent.

The next morning I took the boat out to Isola Madre, the largest of the Iles des Borromees. With less formal gardens than Isola Bella, it's also less touristy, although that didn't stop me running into rather too many German tour groups. Peacocks abound, as did frogs in a pond and overall it merited the detour. I then had to decamp to Pallanza's poshest hotel, the Grand Hotel Majestic, where I would be the next night. I think they'd given me the disabled room judging by the equipment in the bathroom and the lack of a chair by the desk. The view from the terrace was gorgeous, across the bay to Stresa and I could see the Grand Hotel Iles des Borromees imposing itself on the waterfront there. Dinner that evening was at the Milano restaurant, with the rest of the attendees. The restaurant had opened just for us and despite being asked to serve a simple three course meal, we ended up with 7 courses! But, they were all very good and much fun was had by all although sadly I had my back to the sea view.

The Tuesday meeting went well. The hotel's largest meeting rooms were rather dramatic and well suited for our purposes. Everyone seemed very impressed overall, and I suspect we may be back, possibly with clients next time. While everyone else scrambled into taxis for the trip back to Malpensa airport, I was headed in the opposite direction to Verbania station and the train to Switzerland.

Just as we reached the station, the heavens opened and large drops of rain, heavy with intent, plopped onto the car and then onto me as I scurried for the ticket office. A minute later and torrential rain was clattering onto the metal awning over the platform as thunder and lightning rolled around the hills. The tannoy announced that the train from Milan to Geneva was running about 10 minutes late.

This was not a good start for me. I was heading to Switzerland for a very specific reason. I was attempting to cross all 26 cantons (actually there are 23 cantons, but 3 are split into "half-cantons" making 26 in essence) in 24 hours using only the train. You can find out how I got on in my next blog post.

Since then I've been back once again to Milan – a sweltering, muggy, rather oppressive Milan as it turned out. Another nice hotel: Principe di Savoia. And this time I managed to hunt down the funky and fashionable 10 Corso Como, which is a designer clothing and "stuff" outlet with a rather beautiful café/bar, where I whiled away an hour or so thanks to the marvellous Italian tradition of plying drinkers with food. It's almost like they don't want people to get riotously drunk and throw up all over their Armani suits.

Sticking to an Italian theme, yesterday saw us at the Casino at Marino. This is allegedly the finest neo-classical architecture in Ireland. It's not a casino in the way we think of it today; it's actually a "garden ornament" built in the 18th century for Marino house, which has since gone. This is no garden gnome though, it's a 16-room house and for the bargain price of €2.90 you can get a guided tour (in fact the tour is obligatory).

Sign of the Times

2007-05-24T13:28:00.000Z

Twice recently I've been lucky – nay priveliged – to travel on a train from London Blackfriars to Gatwick Airport. Both times I've been sitting amid or near older teenage girls (the first time they were sisters, one doing A-levels, one GCSEs and both were hilariously funny), and both times these various girls have been dissecting in detail the pros and cons of specific models and network options of mobile phones. Geeky? I'd say so. But I'm sure they think they're very cool knowing precisely which features the Nokia 85164311ba comes with that the Samsung 65727437gs lacks.

Should I be surprised? Not according to a new report which suggests that it is women who are the true inhabitants of the internet and are even encroaching into the true male bastion of computer gaming.

Come one, come all I say. Not least if it encourages more girls (and people in general) to take up maths and science subjects at school. Of course this requires curriculum setters to make this leap and tie the "fun" of nerddom with the practical application of science & maths as academic subjects. I assume (although I fear "hope" might be more accurate) that already in primary school maths books there are problems such as "Indira is on the Pink network and pays 5p a minute to call landlines; Steven is on the H2O network and pays 17p a minute to call non H2O mobiles. If each of the friends calls... " etc. etc.. you get the point. I hope teachers and text book writers are getting it as well.

Sunshine in Stresa

2007-05-13T09:10:00.000Z

Have come to the fantastically Belle Epoque Grand Hotel des Iles Borromees in the tourist resort of Stresa on Lago Maggiore. Arrived Thursday morning in a taxi from Malpensa Airport. Was a bit worried that the taxi driver might baulk at taking me such a long way, but by contrast his eyes lit up at the prospect of such a juicy fare. He was very friendly, but clearly had no idea really where he was going beyond the vaguest of directions – still between his sat nav and a friend on the phone we got there in the end.

The hotel is one of the more spectactular I've had the fortune to stay in. Old world opulence with heavy drapes, window-boxes laden with geraniums, and stained glass in the unlikeliest of places. Not that I was here to enjoy myself of course – at least not yet.

The event went well by and large. I got to taste a '89 Barolo – one of the great vintages of one of Italy's greatest wines ("you can smell the truffles if you really concentrate", said our sommelier for the evening, and he was right). Technically it was a headache, with a very basic audio-visual setup that was far inferior to what we are used to, and a team of very willing but not "solution-oriented" techies. It took me some time to convince them that we couldn't run DVDs mid-presentation by simply putting them in the podium laptop and hadn't they noticed that a) there was a DVD player at the back of the room, and b) there were 3 inputs to the projector and the one we weren't using was a video input... Oh dear oh dear oh dear... How many Italians does it take to play a DVD? The answer dear reader(s) is 4. I shouldn't really complain as everything sort of worked in the end but it added unnecessarily to the stress of the occasion.

I stayed on at the hotel for the weekend. Hard to actively recommend the place just because the food and service were so disappointing for a very expensive 5* hotel. After our event I declined to eat in the hotel again other than for breakfast, and even that wasn't great.

Stresa itself is touristy but pleasant. It's very hard to find a restaurant that doesn't have a menu in unmpteen languages, and when I finally did (the appropriately named Il Clandestino), it was of course fully booked for dinner. Nevertheless I still ate well – the first night in a popular cheap and cheerful taverne and the second night in a wine bar. Both were far better than the hotel had dished up, and far far cheaper!

As I'm writing this the sunshine has disappeared. I made the most of it yesterday with a trip to one of the islands in the lake – Isola Bella in this case, although I think Isola Madre may be the better option – but i thought I'd save that for next time I'm here. Checkout time is fast approaching, so arrivederci from Piemonte.

PS – a quick "buongiorno" to Kiki, whose shop on via Roma provided an excellent gift opportunity and whose friendliness went beyond clinching the sale. If the Germans laugh at your name again (which she said they did regularly), then laugh back at their fashion sense.

PPS – talking of fashion. I have it on good authority (ahem!) that neon is back in this year (at least from Lanvin and Balenciaga).

Geneva: Omegamania

2007-04-16T08:23:00.000Z

"Your blog suggests you died in mid March...", said Rachel. Inevitably the initial desire to share my views with the world waned fairly fast – correlating closely with my workload going up. But I'm back.

I'm writing this from the Hotel des Tourelles in Geneva. This has to be the best value hotel in a city where hotel rooms are at a premium. I have a large room with a view over the river and only 5 minutes walk from the main station. It's the second time I've stayed here, usually it's full so book early!

I'm here partly for Omegamania – an auction of Omega watches organized by watch auction specialist Antiquorum. I'm not a great fan of Omega watches, if truth be told, and my presence here is really due to a combination of coincedences. Nevertheless, I was interested in bidding for a pocket watch in Saturday's session. My lot was 104 out of 110 (there were three sessions in total - I skipped Sunday morning's but went to the afternoon one). After just a few lots however, I realised that my chances of coming away victorious were slim. Everything was going for way over estimate, and my budget was within the estimate range. Eventually, the lot went for twice what I was prepared to pay.

Over the course of the (surprisingly informal) auction, only a handful of lots old within their estimate range, and some lots went for crazy money: an ugly Lalique clock estimated at CHF 8-10,000 went for 34,000, a watch estimated at CHF 4-6,000 went for 30,000, and one estimated at 7-10,000 went for 50,000! By the time we got to the "special" watches on Sunday afternoon, some bonkers amounts of money were changing hands, including CHF 225,000 for a watch owned by Swiss icon and Bond girl extraordinaire Ursula Andress. (Swiss exchange rate: £1=CHF2.41, $1=CHF1.21).

It was very noticeable that the Omega Museum, owned by the company, bought (or bid) for a very high number of lots – sometimes for obvious reasons, sometimes the rationale was less clear. This is the first ever auction dedicated to Omega watches, a brand that over recent years has lacked the cachet of its more illustrious rivals, such as Rolex, Audemars Piguet, and the grand-daddy of them all, Patek Philippe. Omega is still a mass market brand (owned by the ubiquitous Swatch Group), albeit an expenisve one. A cynical person might wonder whether by pushing up the prices of its lots, the company is artificially boosting the value of the brand. After all, if the company/museum was to release some of its purchases back onto the market in a year's time, then they could legitimately claim that each item sold at auction for x Swiss Francs. It is true that to push the price up you need more than one interested party; but not everyone buys for investment purposes, many people buy because they like the object, and the fact that it might grow in value is subsidiary. It also helps reinforce the brand as "important", which is a big deal in watchmaking circles, where the origin of innovations are contested over decades. One of the oddities of some Omega watches is that they containt Breguet balances. Breguet, a watchmaker in its own right, is up there in the exclusive brand category and its workmanship is considered among the best... so by buying a Breguet balance in an Omega watch you could be said to be getting a bargain.

Auctioneering is a good business to be in, if you're good at it. In the room in Geneva were probably around 100 people, there were telephone bidders, a satellite link to Baselworld (the world's biggest watch trade fair) where people could also bid, a link to eBay, and the auction house's own dedicated online auction site. Of course it's great that whether you live in Vermont of Vladivostock you can still participate – it's great for the auction house as the more people are interested, the higher the price will go. Of course there's also the enormous benefit of anonymity to internet bidding. Who knows who the individuals or organizations at the other end of the line are!

Expectation Management

2007-03-19T14:10:00.000Z

The Lonely Planet suggested that a trip to the Mercato Communale was a good idea. The thought of an Italian food market in a large city was too good to turn down. Equipped with images of vaulted ceilings, hordes of animated Milanese discussing the best way to cook veal, and appealing racks of salamis dangling from hooks we set off on the tram.

It took less than a minute to stroll round the Mercato Communale. True, the food looked fresh and good quality but not especially artisanale. Where were the vats of fresh olives? Where were the pastries? Where were the other shoppers!? We did see a lot of tripe. Suffice to say it was a disappointing tourist experience. But never mind, the market was near the Navigli district of canals. This is no Amsterdam, and Monday morning when absolutely nothing is open is not the best time to go. I'm prepared to believe it gets buzzy, but the stench at the start of the Navigli Grande is wretch-inducing.

At least going to the Mercato first meant that we were perhaps even more impressed by the scale of Milan's famous cathedral (where oddly the things prohibited include balloons), and the temple of commercialism that is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele with its amazing glass roofed interior.

Buongiorno

2007-03-17T18:06:00.000Z

Greetings all from the fashion capital of the world (no, not Düsseldorf, whatever it would have you believe). This week, I am mostly being in Milan. First impressions are favourable (helped by a hotel that exceeded expectations).

The Central Station is an astonishing edifice - I really feel the word "building" doesn't do it justice. From a few streets away it looks like a geometrically-minded child giant's construction. It dwarfs everything around it. On closer inspection it is suffering and there appears to be substantial restoration work going on. The platform part of the station is in the grand tradition of great European railway termini: enormous arching glass and metal roofs, stretching down the tracks that lead to Switzerland, Germany, France and of course the rest of Italy.

Final thought for the day: there's a fine line between looking stylish and looking ridiculous. Too many young(ish) men in this city trample over that line in their expensive leather shoes.

Heathrow

2007-03-14T08:31:00.000Z

Time for a good old-fashioned spleen vent.
Heathrow Express is frighteningly expensive. A return nowadays sets you back £29, which is almost £1 a minute. At peak times there's substantial demand for the service which whisks you from Heathrow into central London in 15 minutes every 15 minutes. The trouble is when that "whisking" is more like "lightly stirring" and the train is delayed. Last night we were stuck at Ealing Broadway for 4-5 minutes. Nothing in the grand scheme of things, but at the prices the HExp charges it suddenly seems like a lot.

Economics aside, it would seem to make sense to operate a more structured fare scale so that the business passengers who use it early morning and mid-evening get stung for the £29 (and charge it back) but "off-peak" it's noticeably cheaper so the poor unsuspecting tourists who don't realise quite how expensive it is don't have a horrible shock when they first experience "London prices".
Spleen vent over.

2007-03-07T09:06:00.000Z

I caught the latter part of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It last night on BBC3.
Nice idea – follow an animal from field to plate; but presenter Richard Johnson seemed hell bent on making this "controversial". The problem is that the average person who chooses to watch in the first place has probably already seen Gordon R on The F Word, and Hugh F-W on... well, almost every programme he makes, not to mention Saint Jamie O all undertake similar missions.

I guess as someone who agrees wholeheartedly with the programme's philosophy – which is that people should understand where their food comes from, whether it's a pack of supermarket value-brand mince, or a parsnip – I shouldn't complain about the gospel being spread further. But a shock and awe approach isn't necessarily the right way to go about it, especially if we want kids to understand what good food really is, and where it comes from and not put them all off from eating well-reared, ethically slaughtered, fresh, local meat.

Anyone interested in the topic could do far far worse than buy a copy of Hugh's outstanding Meat book. This is my favourite food/recipe book by a Dorset country mile; both for its writing and discussion of meat issues, as well as for its delicious recipes.

Eurostar, you're a star

2007-03-05T11:35:00.000Z

So much for the idea of letting the train take the strain, and missing out on those irksome flight delays. Still, better than schlepping out to the airport even if we were stuck traveling at a "vitesse reduit" for most of the journey and arrived about 45 minutes late.

Paris tip: don't think that no-one else will have thought of getting to the Musée D'Orsay early on the "free first Sunday of the month" day.

Click art

2007-03-03T11:31:00.000Z

Haussmann certainly knew a thing or two about boulevards. We'll forget the military undertones of rapid troop movements and easily barricadable side-streets, the man knew width and indeed length. Why, Baron, you are spoiling us with your enormous streets.

Why would someone - in fact a lot of people - walk round the Picasso Museum clutching their cameras (or their mobile phone cameras) and pretty much just walk up to each painting and snap it fairly hurriedly? In the case of one phone camera user, there was about as much interest in the art as Baron Haussmann up there had in bends in the roads. It's easy to criticize - oh so deliciously easy - but the young man in question may of course have already spent months poring over books and visiting galleries around the world and perhaps was working on a research thesis about the representation of fine art through the medium of a 1.3 megapixel lens. Or he was a twat.

One guy was poised to take a photo of one of the largest works in the collection (Femmes à leurs toilettes) only for a woman to have the audacity (or bare-faced cheek as PP himself might have depicted it) to sit down on the bench in front of the painting and acutally look at it. Cameraman looked quietly exasperated as he waited for her to move. She wasn't budging - it's an arresting work of art - so eventually he moved to a different position for the photo... only for a guy (I suspect deliberately - and if so I salute him) to sit at the other end of the bench. I left the salle at this point as I was about to start laughing in a manner unbefitting of an art gallery - although the Big P had a good sense of humour so maybe he'd have appreciated it.

Finally, had fantastic dinner at Petrelle last night. A blog-relevant story from the meal: a journalist was complaining that a colleague had recently blogged about a lunch the two of them had had, heaping praise on the risotto. So far, so good... except wait... the blogger hadn't ordered the risotto, she'd merely tasted some of the story's narrator's risotto and then failed to give her credit for her clearly superior ordering skills. The depths some people will sink to. Moral of the story: never trust a blogger. So, before I get intro trouble, credit to Rachel for choosing Petrelle, and thanks to the other Rachel for the story.

Paris in the the spring

2007-03-02T11:36:00.000Z

Well, early March. Drove through the centre at midday - everyone tucking into their plats du jour. This is the most productive country in Europe at the moment. Incroyable.

Jan Ullrich

2007-03-01T07:57:00.000Z

Is it depressing or reassuring that "most naturally talented [insert field of expertise] of his/her generation" usually equals "underachiever"?

Swiss fact of the day: Catching some Zs
Zurich (pop: 366,000) had 2.4m overnight stays in 2006. Zermatt (pop: 5,500) had 1.2 million.

2007-02-28T09:59:00.000Z

I've succumbed. I hate myself.