Just Plain Odd

First off, just want to say congrats to Captain America and his official photographer J who have just taken delivery of a beautiful baby daughter. Well done, good work.

Anyway, on the train into work this morning we were entertained by a group of travelling musicians made up of gay New Zealanders. I know they were gay New Zealanders because they had on T-shirts emblazoned with the legend "I am a gay New Zealander". What is the collective noun for a group of gay New Zealanders I wonder?. Kiwi fruits would be my guess.

Once at my place of work I was chatting with a Swiss colleague just back from vacation. "How was your holiday?" I asked. "Oh I have been to Hell and back" he replied. "Oh dear" says I. Twigging that I did not understand aforementioned Swiss colleague proceeded to tell me that Hell is actually a delightful little place just down the A3 and which boasts some fine tufaceaous limestone grottoes (me neither). Oh how we laughed at my ignorance. He stopped laughing when I asked if he had seen the England-Switzerland game last night and has been blanking me ever since. 3-1 to England in case you missed it.

Going slightly off theme for a moment; another colleague asked me this morning if I liked football. I said I did. "Isn`t that Wayne Rooney a pig. With his pregnant wife and prostitutes" she said with some venom. "Why did you ask me if I liked football?. What the hell has that got to do with football" I replied. She is also blanking me now. And, yes there is more, last night the wife was watching the game with me and suddenly made what I can only assume she thought was an incisive footie related comment. "Oh it`s rare to see two handsome goalkeepers isn`t it?". What!!!.I refused to dignify the comment with an answer but 5 minutes later I found myself considering the relative merits of both keepers as lovers and potential fathers. What the hell!!!! I had been enjoying a simple game of footie on the telly and now I had to avert my eyes from all further camera shots that involved the keepers in case I had unmanly thoughts. This meant I missed the last three goals. That’s another innocent pleasure down the swanny. I am starting to realise that women may approach the beautiful game from a totally different standpoint.

Ok, now back on track again. Living on a hill in Switzerland I often come across amusing things that foreign people say and do. There is the Blumen Eck, not a drinking club for ex-pat Yorkshire men but rather a fragrant flower emporium on the street corner. Likewise, Pfister is a Swiss furniture store and not a niche market sex club.

A local restaurant will invite you to sample the appetisingly named Tageshit (daily special) and when asking for your breakfast cereal never, ever confuse Müesli with Müüsli. Both sound pretty much identical to the untrained ear but former is the crunchy alpen-like cereal while the latter is a small mouse and, while also crunchy, is something of an acquired taste. If you are in a Swiss bar and some drunk turns to you and your mates and says "chuntsch!", do not take offence, he is not looking for a fight but rather enquiring if you want to come with him to a party?

Only yesterday I read a story about how a local Swiss village plans to use the heat generated from a crematorium to heat the next door old folks home. I bet you could cut the atmosphere with a knife in that old folks home at the moment as they eye each other up wondering who will be providing the hot water next week. It also throws up all sorts of questions, not the least of which is what will happen when they need to crank up the thermostat during the long winter months?. Will some of the old birds be "encouraged" on their way in order to meet demand? They must be living in fear of news of an increase in the winter fuel allowance. Aren`t foreigners funny.