My second impression of Geneva was much better than my first. When I was first there a good 20 years ago working for a while at the UN the place seemed almost too perfect and too good to be true. Everything worked like clock work (as you might expect in a land famous for it's clocks and watches) but so well it almost became a bit predictable and dare I say it boring too. The bus for the UN in the morning from the university campus always arrived at 8.47a.m. and deposited me at work at 9.07a.m where I'd see largely the same people walking into work and the process pretty much happened the same in reverse at 5.30p.m. each week day too. The Swiss bought their newspapers each day not from a corner shop or newsagent but from a stand which also contained an honesty box for the price of the paper which everyone I saw at least, seemed to use. The city was impressively clean and none of its inhabitants would dream of crossing even an empty street unless the green man indicated it was lawful to do so. After I left Geneva I remember returning to my flat in a rough old part of Glasgow. Early one morning (possibly at 8.47a.m. who knows) there was a knock at the door and I fell out of bed still in a sleepy haze to answer it. I was presented with the sight of a lady who had clearly seen better days. She looked in her 50s but she might well have been 35. She was holding a pair of jeans she had probably robbed from a neighbour's washing line that she hoped I would buy from her. As I went back to bed I wondered if such a thing had ever happened in Geneva and whether it ever would. As I hopped on the plane last night back to Northern Ireland I wondered if the Swiss obsession of running everything so perfectly was actually getting worse for we had managed to take off a full 20 minutes ahead of schedule. However, this head start was cancelled out the other end for when we arrived at Belfast International Airport there was no-one there to take us from the plane. We had to wait a full 20 minutes for someone to lead us the 100 metres from the aircraft to the the terminal building. "For each action there's an opposite and equal reaction" wasn't that what one famous Swiss mathematician once said?
Monday, 4 April 2011
Of Famous Swiss Ways and Sayings
My second impression of Geneva was much better than my first. When I was first there a good 20 years ago working for a while at the UN the place seemed almost too perfect and too good to be true. Everything worked like clock work (as you might expect in a land famous for it's clocks and watches) but so well it almost became a bit predictable and dare I say it boring too. The bus for the UN in the morning from the university campus always arrived at 8.47a.m. and deposited me at work at 9.07a.m where I'd see largely the same people walking into work and the process pretty much happened the same in reverse at 5.30p.m. each week day too. The Swiss bought their newspapers each day not from a corner shop or newsagent but from a stand which also contained an honesty box for the price of the paper which everyone I saw at least, seemed to use. The city was impressively clean and none of its inhabitants would dream of crossing even an empty street unless the green man indicated it was lawful to do so. After I left Geneva I remember returning to my flat in a rough old part of Glasgow. Early one morning (possibly at 8.47a.m. who knows) there was a knock at the door and I fell out of bed still in a sleepy haze to answer it. I was presented with the sight of a lady who had clearly seen better days. She looked in her 50s but she might well have been 35. She was holding a pair of jeans she had probably robbed from a neighbour's washing line that she hoped I would buy from her. As I went back to bed I wondered if such a thing had ever happened in Geneva and whether it ever would. As I hopped on the plane last night back to Northern Ireland I wondered if the Swiss obsession of running everything so perfectly was actually getting worse for we had managed to take off a full 20 minutes ahead of schedule. However, this head start was cancelled out the other end for when we arrived at Belfast International Airport there was no-one there to take us from the plane. We had to wait a full 20 minutes for someone to lead us the 100 metres from the aircraft to the the terminal building. "For each action there's an opposite and equal reaction" wasn't that what one famous Swiss mathematician once said?
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