Ellen Wallace's blog

Try to guess the meaning

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 20:47:51 +0100

Try to guess the meaning
Originally uploaded by travalicando.

This is surely the most puzzling "road" sign I've ever seen. Be humble? Beware low-flying aircraft? Beware the bends; you're in a deep tunnel? Daily exercise is good for you? This is one of a series of great photos travelicando has done at Cern, where he is one of the hundreds of workers who come from abroad to contribute to the projects there. One of these appears in the GenevaLunch Flickr collection (check out the gallery).

She's been dead a week, but she still seems unlucky to me

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 14:19:56 +0100

Much as I love my children - I hope they are listening - there are some things you eventually want to be too old to do, and having children at age 100 is one of them. National Geographic just sent an e-mail with a photo of this old gal of a pregnant fish. They know that I and many other subscribers love to stack our copies of the magazine without actually reading it, so we probably all missed the death of this female shortraker rockfish last week. They seemed to think the startling fact was that she was 100 years old.

A time for hope

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 18:46:39 +0100

The hope of pushing yourself high into the sky: rewarded at last.

A couple days ago I noticed the visiting father of a neighbor who is from Northern Ireland. I had no idea what side of that political fence he was on, but I congratulated him on the breakthrough in Irish politics. I said I hoped this was really peace, at last. "Oh, I think it is. We think this time it really is," he said firmly.

This is that rare week in a year of news when all of a sudden hope seems to outweigh despair on the grand scale: pockets of despair are certainly easy enough to find if you're looking. I have to thank the Irish Times for reminding me that Easter is the season of hope and this is one year when the label seems to fit.

What the work conditions survey doesn't show

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 11:14:17 +0100

Switzerland has its head in the sand when it comes to work, and it is high time to look up and shake the sand out of our eyes. I have just published an article on GL about how well Switzerland comes out on a European survey of work conditions that includes 31 countries. Clearly, things could be worse, and for some people it is - the boss from hell or crazy hours. For the most part, though, the picture looks pretty good, with 91% of workers saying they are satisfied or very satisfied with work conditions. So far, so good, I think.

Who dyed Lake Geneva red?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 18:13:38 +0100

There is an old tradition in Switzerland that newspapers, radio and TV play April Fools jokes. Like most jokes, they're pretty funny if you're not in the firing line.

WRG ran a nice lineup this morning of the stories the local media did Sunday, for 1 April. Among them were a story on Swiss milk being turned to laitenol (milking the climate change trend, I'd say) and Swiss wives being invited to "Desperate Housewives," who would probably have to clean up their act (oh, that old Swiss cleanliness routine!).

I wasn't aware of this media trickery my first year in Switzerland and I was convinced by colleagues at Time magazine that a story in one of the top newspapers about the Saleve in Geneva being destroyed, or something similar, was true. I was a little fuzzy on what and where that cliff was anyway - I lived in Etoy, down the lake. They conned me into phoning the staid, humorless Swiss editor to ask for details and a local contact. He's still around and I've never had the nerve to speak to the man since - he clearly thought I was a fool. He's strongly anti-American, so I probably confirmed his prejudices.

The perfect business lunch

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 09:01:20 +0100

Yesterday I had a nearly perfect business lunch at L'Esplanade in Aubonne, Vaud (details at end). The auberge communale, or village restaurant, reopened in February after renovations by its award-winning young chef, Guillaume Trouillet. He won out over 25 other candidates 5 April 2006 when the commune awarded a new contract for the auberge.

The only flaw yesterday was eating at noon, which meant I had to return to my computer screen.

I've had a lot of business lunches over the years, in several cities and countries. Some were great and some were awful, and most were in between, which I suspect is par for the course. I've avoided them when I had too much to do, resisted prodding from a business development assistant who felt I should live my life in restaurants, loved them when I was doing travel writing and I could linger and call it part of the job.

Google rant: Ungeachtet der Höhe Ihres Budgets, huh?

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 15:36:27 +0100

Google finally got my goat. I'm tired, tired, tired of having things on my computer suddenly appear in German because someone at Google has not studied Google Earth, or any atlas, enough to know that German is not Switzerland's national language. Paypal, I hope you are listening because you have the same ridiculous problem: you insist I say where I live before I can continue with your forms but once I do, you decide I want to talk to you in German, which I don't.

Switzerland = German is an equation that doesn't work in nearly half of this country. I want my Google language to be English and I live in a French-speaking area.

It was a weathery kind of day

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:41:45 +0000

(Images can be seen larger on flickr)

Storms and sunshine fight over Lake Geneva. From Féchy's hills, looking down on Rolle, with Geneva in the distance.

Wednesday was a weathery kind of day, of the sort that changes completely every five minutes and reminds you that Lake Geneva is never boring. It was snowing in Founex while the sun beamed down on Féchy and Geneva. In the time it took to drive from the vineyards near Aubonne to St. Prex, 10 minutes, the skies turned black. The wind whipped up and the lake shifted from a startling green to dark, inky tones. Meanwhile, over in France, the Alps were toasting in the sunshine and Evian was shivering as it watched St. Prex.

Exasis

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 06:38:17 +0000

exasis
Originally uploaded by phitar. View it large in flickr

This shot from the Motor Show in Geneva last week must be my favourite - the photos from the company that makes it, Swiss Rinspeed, are nice, but this shot by Geneva's excellent Philippe Tarbouriech, whose work recently appeared on the cover of a major Unicef report, is special. Brightness, ingenuity, the appeal of mechanical parts and more: it's all there. If there is anything that will make me brave the crowds and go to the show next year, this is it.

Swiss chocolate or Swiss snow, a tough weekend choice

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:11:33 +0000

The sun pulls itself up above the dawn clouds that hover above the Rhone River at the head of the valley. A fine day in sight, Saturday 17 March.

A large sheet of Swiss chocolate

My fave: transparent Swiss car at Geneva Motor Show

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 09:22:06 +0000

Switzerland's own Rinspeed eXasis, introduced at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show.

This settles it: I have fallen in love with a [ar I haven't seen in real life (check it out larger) (oh, the dangers of the online life!) and I will now have to go meet it at the Geneva Motor Show. To be honest, I was under the impression that Switzerland does not make any cars. Clearly (ouf! the pun), this country does, and with what class!

Swiss women: stop cleaning!

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 09:56:12 +0000

This, in case you don't recognize it, is a dirty floor, and leaving it alone is apparently one of the best things I could do for myself. The news today has two unexpectedly related items in the run-up to the 8 March International Women's Day. The federal government has published a study on the state of inequality between men and women in Switzerland, which notes that 8 of 10 women living in a relationship with a partner do all the housecleaning. Meanwhile, the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention warns that one in five accidents occur while cleaning house, reports WRG-FM.

keeping warm

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:09:02 +0000

keeping warm
Originally uploaded by ellengwallace.

When the damp takes over, you just have to take cover.

Does this mean spring?

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 07:26:59 +0000

This snowdrop looks as uncertain as the rest of us feel about which season this is, winter or spring.

Why WRG's public radio status matters

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 05:31:18 +0000

A city loses a commercial radio station and gains a public one: so what? In most places we might shrug and get on with our daily commuting, homework, housecleaning or the other things we love to do with the radio on.

WRG going public is in fact a groundshift of major significance, not just in Geneva but in Switzerland.

Switzerland embraces English

This is Switzerland's long-coming public acknowledgement of the importance of English to this country. A DAB license will make World Radio Switzerland, the new WRS, available everywhere in Switzerland. Programming time will be increased and regional focuses can be developed for cities like Zurich and Basel which have large international populations. English is one of the ties that binds and WRS will strengthen it.