On Friday two weeks ago, I left my bag in the train ( Read more... )

A friend asked me:
I'm wondering if I should move out of the UK over the surveillance stuff. Can you offer advice, what are Germany and Switzerland like for surveillance, and what's it like as a place to live and work as ex-pats?

Frankly, I'm almost hopelessly underqualified to give an answer to that: my grasp of German politics is almost ( Read more... )

Now here's some interesting news. A Swiss animal-rights charity, the "Foundation for the Animal in Law", has sued seven animal breeders under animal-protection law, on the grounds that the breeding selects for characteristics which are inherently cruel ( Read more... )

It is the season of safety-vest-clad leaf-blower men, filling the air with their monotonous drone like the crashing middle-aged bore at a Rotary Club reunion.

But not here. I'm not getting to listen to the Alphorn player practise, unfortunately, but I hear a strange switssh, switssh, switssh noise and look out of my window past the autumn-fulvous ( Read more... )

Switzerland's a funny place sometimes.

Walking home in the evening, I find that some fuckwit has put up a poster deriding evolution and promoting their own whackjobbery in its place. (Islamic in tone-a refreshing change from the monotonous fare provided by some who think they're Christians.) Am I just biased, or is there something about the ( Read more... )

Something momentous has occurred. Today I ate a sandwich without pickled gherkin in it ( Read more... )