Interstellar ** This hugely-hyped, so-called “intellectual” blockbuster is being touted as the space film of the year, or decade. It was even on the cover of Time magazine! Yet it is an extremely loud (Hans Zimmer’s music has never been so over-blown) mishmash of incomprehensible physicist lingo, post-ecological nightmare and soppy father/daughter melodrama. And it […]
Archives for 2014
Champagne, art gallery and fantasising
Last week I spent a happy hour or so strolling around the Montreux Art Gallery, fantasising about what it would be like to a) have enough money to buy whatever I liked and b) have a big enough house to hang it all in. On my second lap of the place, and a few complimentary […]
Swiss want yodelling on UNESCO heritage list
Argentina has Tango, Portugal has Fado, China has the Beijing Opera, and Austria has Viennese coffeehouse tradition recognized by UNESCO on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List. Switzerland announced last month that it wants the international body to give yodelling protective status as well. Yodelling started as a way of communicating from mountain to mountain, eventually […]
Payot’s best sellers of the week
The Edge of Eternity by Ken Follet has once again risen to the top of Payot’s best seller list. So, to avoid tedious repetition, we look instead at number 2 on the list, Michael Connelly’s The Burning Room published last week by Little, Brown and Company. Set in the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit, a man succumbs […]
Geneva ranked as best city in the world
While currently draped in November fog, Geneva might not seem to be the most liveable city in the world. When my wife first came here some years back in mid-winter, she did not even realise that Geneva was surrounded by mountains until one of those heavenly days suddenly lifted the grey from the end of […]
Surprising consensus on Ecopop’s destructively negative consequences
UBS, Switzerland’s leading bank, says that it is proving difficult to determine the precise impact anti-migration initiatives could have both on the economy and the country’s relations with the European Union. Nevertheless, the bank did not mince words by stating that not only was the 9 February vote to restrict mass immigration from the EU […]
Timeless value: The world’s most expensive and most complicated watch fetches CHF 23 million
The Henry Graves Supercomplication re-established its status as the most valuable timepiece in auction history, selling for CHF 23.2 million and beating expected sale price of CHF 15 million. The previous record price of $11 million was set by the same piece in 1999. Five bidders competed for this masterpiece of horology which went to […]
New Ebola vaccine trials begin in Geneva
Geneva University Hospital (HUG) is beginning clinical trials today (10 November 2014) of a new Ebola vaccine (VSV-ZEBOV) after receiving the green light from the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic) last Thursday. Ethics committees from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Canton of Geneva have also approved the trials. Two different doses of […]
Bitcoins: on the way out?
GENEVA As a crypto-currency bypassing banking regulations, bitcoin’s merit as an alternative to traditional transactions is compounded by a versatility second to none. By facilitating virtual payment for goods and services, bitcoins enable decentralized exchanges by avoiding third-party involvement. The 2007-08 financial crisis prompted bitcoin’s introduction in 2009. Though not illegal in Switzerland, the judicial […]
Where to commemorate Armistice Day in Suisse romande
Roughly 20 million Europeans perished between the years 1914 and 1918. Various commemoration services are being held throughout the region on Tuesday. A service of commemoration will be held on Tuesday, 11 November 2014 at 11:00 at the British & Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery, St. Martin’s Church in Vevey. And afterwards, HE the British Ambassador […]
