En Suisse

Hello Campers. Just returned from 4 days visiting my Aussie (well actually English like me, but now Aussie, you know what I mean) mate Carolyn and her hubby Bruce (yes that really is his name and yes he's Aussie) in Basel, Switzerland.

I've decided that Switzerland is the Singapore of Europe or Singapore is the Switzerland of Asia - I'm not sure which, but there are amazing similarities between the two. Both are astonishingly clean with very law abiding citizens and fairly draconian levels of state intervention in everyday life. Both are very affluent nations/ countries. Both have very industrious populations. Both are places where silence is a virtue and making a noise or standing out is discouraged. Off course Singapore is multicultural, whereas the Swiss are begrudging of anyone that isn't Swiss and Singapore's achievement of 'controlling it's environment' is the more remarkable as 'it's environment' is Asia, where even the plants grow in an anarchical fashion.

Anyway, I digress. My friend was transferred to Basel 3 years ago and by Swiss standards, Basel is quite cosmopolitan, being at the crossroads between France, Germany and Italy. They unfortunately speak Swiss German which is a horrible hybrid of German, horrible only because it renders schoolkid German unintelligible, but no-one minds if you slip in and out of German, French and English (and Italian), so that's what most people do.

Carolyn is a wonderful girl and has a 'joie de vivre' which is remarkable in that it is completely unconstrained by normal social parameters, so I arrived keen to find out how she was surviving in a country where your next-door neighbour can (and will) call the police if they feel that the treads on your car tires are worn!!! And I was pleased to hear that neither Switzerland, nor the Swiss, with their tutting of disapproval have dampened her enthusiasm for life. It was no great surprise that when we travelled on the tram she knows every ticket inspector by sight (she is a very friendly girl), however it did surprise me that this is because she refuses to buy a ticket - very unSwiss - in recompense for being stared at by Swiss people everytime she's on it! Her version of tax avoidance. Nor was I surprised that when out for dinner she was greeted like a long lost buddy by the north African immigrant rose-seller in his hybrid French/ German/ English. On asking how she knew him, she regaled that one night he tried to peddle his wares to her, not realising that she'd had a couple of sherberts (nor that she isn't Swiss) and so he got the shock of his life when instead of paying for a rose she grabbed the bunch and ran off down the street with them! (dear reader she then spent the next day with a hang-over scouring the streets until she found him in order to give him due recompense). I also found her way of getting home quickly after a few hundred drinks very enterprising - put a traffic cone on your head and meander down the street until 2 mins later you get picked up by the police and driven home (after they have returned the cone to it's rightful spot). Are you building a picture here?

How she's survived in the land of rules I am uncertain - they're probably so shocked by her behaviour that they don't know what to do with her, but she's enjoying living there, and I'm sure in a weird sort of way the Swiss are enjoying having her!